Wormholes

When it comes to scouting the phrase "many hands make light work" applies here. The more people you have out there scanning, jumping through wormholes the faster the "picture" of your chain becomes. When you and your scouting partners are on fire and just tearing a chain up we refer to it as burning down a chain. 5-6 guys burning down a chain can end up with, and where I live often do end up with 15-20 different wormholes in our chain, some days we can stretch that number into the 30's. If we are not satisfied with where they go or are heading or with the available things in them for people to do, we cycle our static and start again. Or if we are happy with it we leave it up and abuse it until we are tired of it and then we cycle it and repeat. Doing it by yourself, scanning 15-20+ wormholes a day would be a nightmare, with a group however it does not really take that long. From what you are saying you are not seeing what other people here are telling you because you are seeing 15-20+ times LESS space than they are per chain per day.

As for farming, you can do the caps in home thing, but mag and radar farming with a battlecruiser or two is comparable money, if Bob the Almighty and Benevolent smiles on you, for less time, less investment, less of everything really. I will leave you to figure out what sites in what holes with what fits/ships ect you need to pull this off since you said you like challenges. With all the ways to make isk in c5+ space the common multiboxing tengu ball in a normal anom carebears cream themselves over is something of a source of amusement to me. Hell, even gas mining while you take a dump can be more profitable up here than tenguball sites for hours. Finding these sites to run however often takes time, and can require a fair number of holes to visit before you find one or some to run. Some are not soloable at all and require a group of skilled and knowledgeable pilots to accomplish. Again the ability of the large organized group to have these pilots and to tear through large swaths of space to find these sites comes into play here. For a soloist this would be pretty much impossible and you would spend all your time scanning before getting a chance at the random number generator for your chance at 500 mill/30 minutes of in site work. Sometimes you get squat, but you still have a large chain to go back to when you are done, or if you have a good chain with null/lowsecs with activity something else entirely to do. And even at getting squat you only spent 30 minutes on it while you were eating a sandwich, not 5 stinking hours.

Then you have the pvp, with groups yea some people may come and go, but if you have large open chains for people to move around in you don't really need anyone to have something to do. If nothing strikes your fancy in the existing chain, keep scanning and scouting, you may stumble upon something interesting. If there is already something there you like or want to do, then just do it. Nullsec and lowsec are great places for solo/small gang fun. You are almost always at a disadvantage when you step out and you always have to work and think to both get kills and stay alive. Wh pvp isn't really pvp, its slow motion ganking if that, you can multibox slow motion ganks because its not really all that hard. If you scouted right its pretty much going to happen. If you screwed up or got unlucky you can probably just move on since the other guy will probably pos up and log off after a while. Or you die in a fire... either or.

I've been in decent corps, and good situations, and I'm not at all saying there isn't good reasons for being in a larger entity. There are negatives that you guys likely won't care to notice or comment on, and which are opinions and debatable. I honestly don't think I can explain to you why it is appealing to be solo. It's not entirely logical, and revolves around an identity and sense of challenge and adventure that you either care about or you don't.

There are negatives to being in large groups that makes it difficult to emulate that identity within them. But the sense of freedom, flexibility, and challenge that I get from accomplishing things on my own, within my corp, that I own, is rewarding beyond isk gained and kills gotten. And makes me require less to be as content. Within in a group my standards and expectations of both myself and of the group go up, and it requires more for me to be able to say, I'm better off here than on my own.

But yes, I've had difficulty finding a corp that I am truly at peace with, and mesh with. My personality is slightly unique, and that is also a major factor in why I am on my own at the moment. The way I view things, and my sense of humor, and ambition are in a combination that I have rarely encountered in others. That's not to say I'm any better or worse, but it has always been difficult to find other people who share it. I'm easy to get along with, but it's hard for me to find a group that I really connect with on all levels. I'm a quality over quantity person that loves planning, patience, giving great effort, but being positive and friendly. An elitist, that values effort over skill, friendship over swagger, and sets lofty goals to pursue. To join a group, I have historically had to give up on some part of those values to fit their identity.

Lol it was never about isk, its about challenge. When I started my first solo space op I was 5 months old. For me everything added to the fun. Sure it was a grind, but that was back in the early days of space when it was still the wild west. I enjoyed it, and the challenge of pushing myself to do better. There are still people out there who solo class 4 sites. Obviously their ships are expensive and the risk high, but that's the fun.

Still, I'll be honest, if/when I return to wspace I'll be applying for a c5/c6 corp. I don't have patience for the solo grind anymore. But for a new player whose never done anything that risky before, I cannot think of a play style that is more rewarding. Just not in cash.

I still so solo exploration in lowsec these days to keep that feeling of "one against many". So yeah, not knocking your c6 play style. Both are rewarding and both are fun. And you can still find solo kills in wspace. You just need to look to the lower classes.