State of the Signal #15

Where has the time gone? We try to do these every six months, but it’s been a little bit longer coming this time around. Check out our last State of the Signal #14 if you missed it and are interested to see how we’ve come along. Since we just recently had our leadership transition and I posted our updated organizational chart with those thoughts as well, I won’t repeat myself here. For those reading this on our public blog, you’ll just have to wonder.

I will say just how proud Aldar and I are to be part of the Signal Cartel team and we can’t do this without each and everyone of you. It’s an honor to serve you and to represent Signal Cartel on your behalf. We’re all ambassadors and your success is the success for us all.

The following divisions are a reflection of our motto: “Be the content you wish to see.”

((See if you can figure out all the SciFi movie/show images 😉 ))

THE ANOIKIS DIVISION

Manager: Tamayo

General Information

As of 24 March 2021, I am pleased to report that the division is very active and operationally sound.

The Anoikis Division has a great core group of excellent and enthusiastic pilots. Many of which contribute to the success of the division, whether it be through donations, hauling, organizing events and activities, advice, and intel.

ENGINEERING

Managers: A Dead Parrot and Sky Diamond

Your Engineering Division (also known as the friendliest IT department on the planet [admittedly a low bar]) continues to function in the background quietly supporting all of our in-house IT needs including Corporate Buyback, our Member Management Application, the 911 service, the Eve Scout Rescue division, Thera Scanning, Allison in all of her forms, and generally trying to keep Xalyar from pinging people too often in Discord.

The division is run by myself, A Dead Parrot, and Sky Diamond.

Most recently, we created the tracking feature in Allison for the Katia Sae Anniversary Event. As a reminder, if you participated in that event and would like to download a record of all the systems you visited and when, you can do that here.

Since the last State of the Signal report we released a new application aimed at helping inexperienced 911 operators as they learn the ropes. The application was the brainchild of Jehan Dante and is an interactive flow-chart application that guides the proper handling of a 911 call to our rescue service.

And… Sky is always tweaking Allison on Discord with new and useful capabilities, and some just for fun. In case you don’t know, you can issue requests to Allison (note I used the word requests, and not commands) by starting your request with the exclamation point. So next time you are on our Discord with no one to talk to, try some of these commands out:

!info Astero
!coffee (or !tea)
!roles
!wiki
!time
!credo
or just try !dii

Volunteers? We are still looking to complete an application to support the Signal Cartel Academy’s (SCA) offer and acceptance program for live instruction. This is envisioned as a single location where members can request a live class on an Eve topic they would like to learn about, or advertise a class they are willing to teach and other members can sign up. The program would automate and organize the current system taking place manually in the forums now. The back-end REST API for this is already written and we would welcome any volunteers who feel they might have the time to help produce the front-end for the ever-helpful SCA.

(I would also like to mention that I have not forgotten about you Sir Fiddle Sticks )

Finally, if you ever have questions or suggestions about our projects, or you just think of something funny that Allison should be saying, and would like to see it become a part of her programming, look us up in the #developers channel on Discord. Don’t be shy. Remember, we are the friendliest IT department on the planet!

EVE SCOUT RESCUE

Manager: Igaze
Asst. Managers: Captain Crinkle and Xalyar

Over the last seven months, since the last SotS, the ESR program has shown its resilience. While there has been some fall off in participation we’ve still maintained strong numbers (rescues and caches) due the dedication of the team and the strength of the processes they’ve developed. 

The ESR Coordinator Team is relatively the same with one change as Triffton Ambraelle has won EVE so we brought the incredibly capable Tekufah in to fill the spot. The current team consists of  Xalyar, Sydney Selket, Dagmar Maulerant, miruxa, Catbriar Chelien, Angel Lafisques, Captain Crinkle, Ace Rimmer Midumulf, and Tekufah. 

The 911 program is now at 26 operators, down from 36 seven months ago but is still handling a substantial number of calls. In the period from July 1st, 2020 until March 26th, 2021 there were 1007 successful rescues, 780 from rescue caches, and 227 from SAR. One of our big successes this past year has been the addition of filaments to our caches as fully 60% of our cache rescues now use filaments. 

Our cache coverage has varied a bit over the last number of months ranging from a low of 86.7% coverage to a high of 96.8%. We’re currently at 92.9% coverage and trending up. 

Our stats since we started recording them four years ago are:

RESCUES:  2418 (ESRC:  1598, SAR:  820) (As of March 26th, 2021)

Medals of Note since the last State of the Signal

  • Master Dispatchers (over 100 pilots aided) – Xavec, Tekufah, Captain Crinkle, Vanessa Pacht Feng, Reynauld Lachapelle, Timea Aldeland, Sydney Selket
  • Heroic Cachers ( 3000 sows/tends) – Tekufah, Nac Audene, Palis Airuta
  • Insane Cacher (5000 sows/tends) – Aldar Roanaok, Troubled Watters
  • Crinkle Crown (10000 sows/tends) – Renek Dallocort and Tamayo
  • SAR Gold ( 50 rescues) – Tekufah, Catbriar Chelien
  • Beacon of Anoikis ( 100 rescues) – Xalyar, Captain Crinkle

And as always a huge thanks to A Dead Parrot and Allison. They are the linchpin to this division. Allison’s continued growth is incredibly important to the success of ESR!

FLEET OPS DIVISION

Managers: Katherine Skysong and Xavec

Since the last State of the Signal, there has been a change of management in the Fleet Operations Division (FOD). The FOD is now co-led by Katherine Skysong and Xavec. The focus of the FOD is to support Signaleers who wish to undertake [credo compliant] fleet flying, organizing their own fleets within Signal Cartel.  We both want to emphasize that FOD is here to both offer fleets as well as sponsoring fleets.  We did not corner the market on FCs and fleet ideas!

Such help can come in the form of:

  • Hulls and fits for doctrine fleets
  • SRP for doctrine fleets
  • Advice & Troubleshooting
  • Event promotion
  • Fleet ideas
  • Expertise eg FCs
  • Skill plans and skillbooks as usual
  • Education alongside the SCA
  • Asking ALLISON nicely to find the right wormhole for your fleet type

Current SC Doctrines include: 

  • A-BC: Armor Battle Cruiser – for running combat sites in wormholes.
  • S-BC: Shield Battle Cruiser – not taken out for a spin in over 18 months.
  • Hugs: Funs ways to die lobbing fireworks at folk in all kinds of situations.
  • Abyssal: We have a few abyssal doctrine fits and can facilitate entry level mini fleets.

Current Financials:

  • Roughly 10B ISK in operating capital.
  • Roughly 10 each of the various A-BC and S-BC ships, mainly Alpha fit, some Omega (T2) fit.
  • SRP for doctrine fleets sponsored by FOD.

You have a fleet idea, it falls within a supported doctrine, ask and we can sponsor so you can have more pilots.

For fighting/logi ships that we can loan – Destroyers, Cruisers, Battle Cruisers, Logi: Harbinger, Hurricane, Brutix, Augoror, Caracal, Corax, Drake, Ferox, Moa, Osprey, a handful of others.

We have a few ideas for fleets coming up which include challenges and competitions as well as good old fashioned kabooming wormhole rats.

When Xavec finally starts his new job properly there will be some SCA sessions on Wormholes in general, fleet flying, how to fly logistics (“logi”) FC’ing, and much more.

We are also keen to help and advise any capsuleers who wish to undertake other forms of PvE fleet flying with other groups such as Vulfpeck. 

Please feel free to ping @Fod-Admin or Xavec/Katherine personally with your questions or suggestions. We will answer when able and are only too happy to help. We look forward to seeing you in the #fod-general discord channel.

SIGNAL CARTEL ACADEMY

Division Manager: Xalyar
Admin Team: Dagmar Maulerant and Sloopy Noopers

I would like to welcome you  all to the Signal Cartel Academy section of this year’s State Of the Signal. This is the second I have had to write since the SCA became a thing following the announcement of its creation on the 23rd of November Y121 (2019), and while a lot of things have changed since then, a lot have luckily stayed the same.

The will to share knowledge within the Corporation, and to help each other learn the game, has been one of those immutated things we still carry with us within the ranks of Signal Cartel and of the SCA. It is good to see that this driving force has not faltered.

Compared to last year, I will not come to you with hard numbers.

Our weekly class average is just hovering around 1 per week, and while we saw a resurgence of offerings during the first six months of the year, mostly due to a lot of availability due to various forms of lockdown we were all subject to, we have now stabilized around what could be called the “SCA holding pattern”.

Sessions covering the basics of the game pop up on the semi-regular, in response to a new influx of people joining, or a particular request. So do SCA session covering all things EvE-Scout Rescue Cache Program and Search and Rescue.

Just recently we came back to the Singularity Test server for some more advanced HAT (Hunter Avoidance Training), and for some deep dives into the amazing world of the “EvE Overview”. 

In general, the SCA is functioning on cruise control and quite able to respond to request made on the Forums, directly picked up from DISCORD, or picked up from a direct interaction with someone asking for help.

Like I have highlighted last year, there seems to be a stable need for certain topics to be covered with a somewhat regular schedule, but in general, we have managed to avoid creating a rigid curriculum/class plan and we are still widely enjoying free-flowing and offering knowledge on a per-need basis.

Once again, I will send out my usual call. Both for you all to offer your help, while also not being shy in asking for help when needed.

While the game is still as unforgiving as it always has been (perhaps, even more so), our wealth of knowledge does nothing but grow, and it would surely be a waste to let that go untapped.

“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” – Mister Fred Rogers (well, his mother, really 😉 )

SPLUNKWORKS

Manager: Null Flare

Splunkworks… Where to begin? It’s been what? Over a year from when I was handed (thrown) division head and have to say, I’m enjoying it a lot! Was always interested in Fitting, but never in my early days figured I’d be in one of the servers top corps, fitting for a whole corp. 

I don’t have any fancy numbers and stats like my fellow colleagues (that’s not how I work to be honest) but I will say, on average I help out at least once a day (sometimes a lot more) with fits and/or fitting questions on our discord. It’s a massive subject (fitting) and even I get stumped sometimes. But that’s also what makes it fun for me.

On a side note, as everyone knows, always here to help, whether it’s a forum post asking about a Stratios fitting, a discord chat about fitting festival launchers on a stealth bomber (DO IT!) or a fitting 101 class, we are here to help! “`

RECRUITERS

Manager: Aldar Roanaok

A lot has happened since the last State of the Signal: Wanderlust led Quinn Valerii to step down as head of recruitment and dive into EVE with the Anoikis Division. I stepped up to try to fill the role with the great support of Tamayo, Sky Diamond, and Quinn Valerii in their advisory capacity.

Recruitment had a particularly busy year with the pandemic leading many old and new pilots to New Eden. The huge wave of applications kept the team busy checking applicants’ understanding of our playstyle, expectations, and Credo. Our recruiters tend to be online daily, and the shop is running well though we may be considering trying to broaden our time zone coverage.

So again, many thanks to the recruiting team! And thanks to all of those friendly Signal Cartel pilots in our public channels that direct people to our Joining FAQ and online application when the recruiting team is unavailable. 

CENTRAL SERVICES

Manager: Asa Kansene

Station Quartermasters

StationQuartermaster
Thera XII – The Sanctuary Institute of Paleocyberneticsmiruxa
Zoohen III – Theology Council TribunalAsa Kansene; Billie Idol (QM Helper
Saisio VIII – Moon 4 – Perkone FactoryAsa Kansene
Gelhan V – Moon 10 – DED Logistic SupportSuperTomy

Following earlier trends, the Quartermasters provide free supplies mostly in the form of corporation contracts related mainly to our main activity, which is exploring. Starter exploration frigates, fireworks (or “hugs”), ESRC caches are the items that have usually greater demand. There are also regularly available shuttles, anchoring skill books and station containers.

In case any activity is planned that requires que access to other ships or materials, Quartermasters try to provide those supplies too.

With the change of leadership, Asa Kansene became the central services manager.

Big thanks for the work of Billie Idol that keeps the most important headquarters, Zoohen, working no matter what. Also, miruxa, who has the ability to keep Thera supplied, with the obvious difficulties that it presents.

Signal Cartel Group Blog

Katia Sae

Our 2020 post have been indexed which you can check out here. We had 26 post in the following categories: Announcements (3), 1420 Life (4), Art (4), EvE-Scout Rescue (5), In Character Roleplay (5), Science & Exploration (1), Signaleers (3), and State of the Signal (1)

We’re evaluating what to do with the blog going forward. Content has been difficult to drum up over the last six months or so. Blogs in general had their peak many years ago and have been on the decline for a while now. We may just continue to use it for public Corp oriented announcements.

TripTiks

Mynxee

Stay tuned for upcoming changes to our TripTik service as Mynxee takes over the position of our Historian!

SCRUBS and SCRAMS

Xavec

Continue to go from strength to strength.

Since the last State of the signal figures at the end of June last year SCRUBS has paid out a whopping *REDACTED* to Signaleers for their blueprints I had to check those numbers twice. SCRUBS continues to break-even when taking into account costs of manufacture, haulage, sales, and donations of hulls for FOD. 

We have completed 25 SCRAMS contracts – relocating new members from their old homes to their new ones in SC offices. The average number of jumps per contract is 12 jumps and the average value of each shipment is around *REDACTED*.  

We have opened a new channel on the Signal Cartel Discord – #SC-Support-Services to help with all queries relating to central services including Quartermasters, SCRUBS, and SCRAMS. 

THERA SCANNING

Manager: Johnny Splunk
Thera Liaison: Captain Crinkle

Since the formation of Eve-Scout more than five years ago, our Thera scanning service has provided up-to-date details of connections across the cluster. This is done in accordance with our Credo; that is open to all pilots equally regardless of playstyle or affiliation. The service is headed by Johnny Splunk, our head of alliance, and I serve as a liaison for Signal Cartel.

Since the last State of the Signal, we have made a significant change in how our scouts will be paid for their contributions for Thera scanning. As discussed at our most recent fireside chat, contributors will now be paid weekly on Mondays, with these payments made on the basis of activity taken between the previous Monday and Sunday. The formula for these payments has not changed, only their frequency, to ensure our pilots are rewarded for the efforts as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions drop me a line. I’m easily contacted through Discord or Eve mail. Our forums have a dedicated section for Thera scanning which should answer most common questions.

State of the Signal #14

Thrice Hapus, CEO

Believe it or not, it has been nearly a year since our last State of the Signal. While we are a little smaller than we were this time a year ago, we are busier than ever and our pilots today are more universally active within the corp. In fact, I have worked consistently over the past several months to ensure that our membership roster reflects active and engaged pilots. I want for every capsuleer who joins our ranks to get a true sense right away of just how active we are as a group — and lately, that has been quite a lot! 😀

You’ll notice a few new names in the divisional reports that follow, and even a new or renamed division or two. While many details have changed over the course of Signal Cartel’s existence, the core of who we are has not. We remain one of EVE Online’s preeminent service corporations and a true counter-culture to the “gung ho” PVP traditions that are so commonplace. While we respect and applaud these valid playstyles, I am happy that New Eden is big enough and the sandbox deep enough to accommodate our unique approach to life amongst the stars, as well.

I celebrated my fourth year in Signal Cartel this past May. I can still say confidently and without hesitation that there is no other group in New Eden I would rather belong to. Signaleers are a rare breed: dedicated, consistent, passionate about their areas of expertise, always willing to share info and help our newer members — and they do it all with kindness, friendliness, and little expectation of acclaim. Our division managers are excellent examples of this ethos, and it is my hope that their reports which follow will encourage each of our members to step out boldly and, in the time-honored phrase of Mynxee, one of our founders, to “be the content they wish to see in New Eden and in Signal Cartel!”

Thanks to each of you for being part of the fun. Fly sharp!


Tamayo

THE ANOIKIS DIVISION
Manager: Tamayo
Assistant Manager: Maxwell Kurvora

As the manager of the Anoikis Division since the Spring of 2019, I, Tamayo, am pleased to report that the division is very active and in great shape. Currently, the division has 37 members. Our two structures in the C3 have been improved and now are fully rigged and module equipped.

Due to the implementation of the new shared bookmark mechanics, we now have a shared AD bookmarks folder for our wormhole connections and other signatures.

A new medal was created for division members, the “Anoikis Advocate.” It is awarded to those who embody the frontier spirit by actively living and working out of our wormhole. The medal has been awarded, so far, to:

  • Mia Rosseb
  • Sir Fiddle Sticks
  • Sanja Burus
  • Palis Airuta
  • Ano Nimus
  • Maxwell Kurvora
Maxwell Kurvora

Maxwell Kurvora has been promoted to Assistant Manager of the division. I was the only person who had the roles to change modules and a few other of the day-to-day operations. Maxwell was an excellent choice to promote to address these issues and represent the division.

The division is financially sound. Between our wormhole Planetary Production (PI) and Null-Sec Ice mining, we are supplying our own fuel for the stations. We have back-up structures available in case we are ever evicted.

Members are active in PI, PVE mining, manufacturing/research/invention, reactions, and ESRC/SAR. We’ve had our first official mining fleet operation and have now started official AD PVE combat fleets. Our AARs will be posted in the forums for the corp to view.

The Anoikis Division has a great core group of excellent and enthusiastic pilots who contribute to the success of the division, whether it be through donations, organizing events and activities, advice, intel, Tripwire mapping, just chatting in our channel, or the Fedos.

Come and join the fun!


ENGINEERING
Managers: A Dead Parrot & Sky Diamond

A Dead Parrot

The Engineering Division has been very busy pushing many buttons this past year. In case you were wondering, the Engineering Division (never to be referred to by our acronym, E.D.) supports all of our in-house programming projects such as Corporate Buyback, our Member Management Application, the 911 service, the Eve Scout Rescue division, Fleet Ops Division, Thera Scanning, the in-character OPSEC story lines, and Allison in all of her forms (note the Oxford comma).

The division is run by the “Odd Couple” of myself, A Dead Parrot, and Sky Diamond. Sometimes we let Thrice code a little bit, but only on small projects that aren’t flammable.

We are currently working on a new application aimed at helping inexperienced 911 operators as they learn the ropes. The application was the brainchild of Jehan Dante and we should have a beta version to show to the Rescue Division shortly.

A fairly medium project we are looking to complete this year is an application for supporting the Signal Cartel Academy’s (SCA) class offer and acceptance program, a single location where members can advertise a class they are willing to teach and other members can sign up. The program would automate and organize the current system taking place manually in the forums now. The back-end REST API for this is already written and we would welcome any volunteers who feel they might have the time to help produce the front-end for the ever-helpful SCA.

I would also like to mention the Thera Scan application , a project written in 2019 by Mzsbi Haev, which is a brilliant tool to manage the bookmarks and signatures for our Thera scanning volunteers. Though the application was not originally developed under the Engineering Division, we are now getting in position to support it in the future, should Mzsbi decide to win Eve or something dreadful like that.

And one last special mention to Arturon Megumi, who has been contributing to the Allison Discord bot as well as keeping Sky on the JavaScript straight and narrow. Arturon also recently brought us the automated #ccp-news channel on our Discord server. Thank you, Arturon, for “being the content you want to see.” Incidentally, Arturon is the same Signaleer that brought us this amazing animated visualization early this year which shows every one of the 46,672 sows and tends done by the Rescue Division in 2019… in just over 2 minutes!

So if you ever have questions or suggestions about our projects, or you just find yourself in need of advice on asynchronous recursive functions (or cats), look us up in the #developers channel on Discord.

Sky Diamond

Buyback
Buyback Business Report for 2020-07
The buyback program, currently run by Captain Crinkle, Katia Sae, and Sky Diamond, is now in business for more than 18 months and during that time:

  • 4,071 appraisals were created
  • 2,365 of these appraisals got approved by our customers
  • 1,847 contracts got delivered to our offices
  • We bought goods worth more than 250b ISK
  • 300 courier contracts to Jita were created
  • 6b ISK got payed on courier contract rewards
  • 290b ISK collateral were on the courier contracts we created
  • The profits of up to 20b ISK are reinvested within the corporation as working capital
  • When profits exceed 20b ISK, the surplus will be donated to Signal Cartel

Igaze

EVE-SCOUT RESCUE
Manager: Igaze
Asst. Managers: Captain Crinkle, Xalyar

Since last time EvE-Scout Rescue has continued to grow thanks to the contributions of many, many, many enthusiastic rescue pilots!

Our coordinator team has grown a little more and now is comprised of Xalyar, Sydney Selket, Dagmar Maulerant, Miruxa, Catbriar Chelien, Angel Lafisques, Captain Crinkle, Triffton Ambraelle, and our newest coordinator, Ace Rimmer Midumulf! We now have pretty solid coverage around the world’s time zones. Their skill and dedication are crucial to ESR, so much so that Xalyar and Captain Crinkle are now Assistant ESR Managers and will be helping me with various tasks that have grown with the program.

Our 911 Operator program has also continued to grow. So much so, in fact, that our developers had to come up with a way to deal with too many operators responding to single calls. Allison now has a 45-second lottery program that randomly selects from requesting operators who gets to respond. Thanks to Arturon Megumi and Sky Diamond for this addition to Allison. We also introduced dispatcher medals for this team: 36 pilots now have over 5 dispatches, 18 over 50 dispatches, and five master dispatchers have over 100: pris Naari, Triffton Ambraelle, Xalyar, Catbriar Chelien, and Ace Rimmer Midumulf.

An amazing thing has happened with our rescue caches! Over the last three months our cache numbers have stabilized at over 2500 caches, around 97% of Anoikis. There are a couple of factors at play here, one being the changes to bookmarks that allows us to share bookmarks to cache locations. While long discussed, it took a CCP revamp to the bookmark system to make it possible. We then had some long discussions about how to implement this and the formal system went into place on December 10th, 2019. Cache numbers started rising immediately and eventually climbed to a record high of 2554 or 98.1% of Anoikis. This was helped along in no small part thanks to Jehan Dante’s Tender Games which created a huge spike in activity.

This increase has also led to an increase in our medals, with 12 Signaleers reaching UltraCacher status (over 1000 caches) in the last year. Aldar Roanaok and Troubled Watters both exceeded 3000 caches, while Tamayo, Mako Koskanaiken, and Renek Dallocort broke through the 5000-cache mark. They were all left in the dust by Captain Crinkle, who earned The Crinkle Crown with over 10,000 caches.

The increase in the number of our operators and the increase in the number of our caches has led to a massive increase in the number of rescues we are able to accomplish. Kudos to our team of 911 Operators!

April 1, 2019 – July 1, 2019
ESRC: 44
SAR: 44

April 1, 2020 – July, 2020
ESRC: 202
SAR: 103

Since formal tracking began, we have completed 1421 rescues (ESRC: 825, SAR: 596). Our total a year ago was 733.

Igaze, Xalyar, and Sydney Selket all earned SAR Golds for over 50 rescues, while Chaim Achasse became the first to earn the Beacon of Anoikis medal for over 100 rescues. There are a couple of other pilots very close to earning that medal now, too.

And a huge thanks to A Dead Parrot and Allison. They are the linchpin to this division. Allison’s continued growth is incredibly important to the success of ESR!

The last year has been a great one for ESR, and I am constantly amazed at the quality of our pilots and all the work they put into the program!


FLEET OPS DIVISION
Manager: Reynauld Lachapelle

Reynauld Lachapelle

Hello everyone! A lot has happened since the last State of the Signal! I will try to keep down to a few key elements, don’t worry.

Back in November last year, a new team comprised of Null Flare, Xalyar, Katherine Skysong, Aldar Roanaok, and myself, Reynauld Lachapelle, took over the management of what was then the Signal Cartel Fleet School (SCFS). We very recently rebranded the division as the Fleet Ops Division (FOD), which more accurately represents what it is that we have been up to since then: running and supporting fleets of all kinds. Jehan Dante and Vanessa Pacht Feng also joined the team on the occasion of our rebranding.

As far as content goes, here is a breakdown of our most popular activities:

  • We have continued expanding on the staple wormhole fleets you have come to know and love. We are now firmly with one foot in C5+ territory, which brings a whole new host of danger, frights, and excitement. These fleets are for the most part spearheaded by Null Flare and Katherine Skysong.
  • We have introduced new Abyssal Deadspace fleets to our roster of group content. These have been a lot of fun, and we are slowly but surely climbing up the difficulty ladder as we collectively get better at it! Vanessa Pacht Feng and myself are working hard on making these happen!
  • We have brought the Hugs fleet back to life with incredible vigor thanks to Jehan Dante‘s tireless drive to end all wars and spread the love!
  • We also have the pleasure of flying with our friends over at ARC or Vulfpeck (VP) every now and then and maintain great diplomatic relationship with them. If you ever want to get in touch with either of these entities but don’t know how, come have a chat with me, and I’ll introduce you. All the content they have provided so far has been Credo-compliant, and they make it a point that it remain so.

And now for some stats because you nerds love numbers:

  • Since November 23rd 2019 we have ran 18 fleets, with a total of 219 pilots.
  • Our most popular fleets are our wormhole fleets with an average of 20 pilots in each of them.
  • We have lost a total of 14 ships in the course of our regular PvE activities and 66 ships during Hugs operations.
  • Our total ISK earned is ~7 billion and the average payout is ~63 million.
  • Our current loaner fleet contains 149 ships, excluding Hug ships, for an estimated value of ~6.5 billion, without fittings.
  • We also have ~650 Hug ships spread around our various headquarters, as well as ~2,000,000 m^3 of fireworks ready to be fired.

SIGNAL CARTEL ACADEMY
Division Manager: Xalyar
Admin Team: Maxwell Kurvora, Dagmar Maulerant, Sloopy Noopers

This is the first State of the Signal contribution I am privileged enough to have to write, and the first one for the Signal Cartel Academy (SCA) altogether.

Since its inception and announcement on the 23rd of November, Y121 (2019), the Academy has started its wild run across the lands of the Corporation, spanning far and wide in topics and offerings.

It did not take long for the first class to be requested: just 4 days, with the first [NEED] request being posted on the 27th of November, by Emy Noxx.
Since then, in the two hundred and twenty-plus days that have passed from the creation of the Division, we have offered more than 52 total classes, spanning many topics and addressing many needs.

The SCA is just 32 weeks old, and some simple maths mean we have offered to the Corporation an average of 1.625 classes per week so far. That, quite frankly, blows my mind.

We have, with the passing of time, found ourselves with a consistent set of topics requested with regularity, but also with the flexibility to be able to respond to specific requests and to address specific topics on a per-need basis.

Many of you have taken advantage of the SCA offerings, and many have volunteered their time and energy to respond to a request and set up a class. I express my gratitude to both sides of this equation equally. Hopefully myself, and the rest of the SCA Admin Team, will be able to continue to provide the Corporation with an easy way to help each other and to share the vast amount of knowledge we like to call EVE Online.

The Discord Direct Messages inbox of myself and all the team are always there for you all.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” – Albert Einstein

Keep being willing to learn: I can promise you the SCA will be willing to teach you.


SPLUNKWORKS:
Manager: Null Flare

Null Flare

Splunkworks handles day-to-day running of ship fits and related questions in the Signal Cartel Corp. I’d like to say “we,” but as of this moment in time, there is only one member: Null Flare. That was the biggest change the Division saw, with the departure of the old admin crew: I got promoted and left to my own devices…

I’d be interested in accepting some new candidates if interested, but that’s for a later time! We, Splunkworks, and myself personally get a lot of day-to-day questions about fits and mechanics, and I love helping you all out! But rather than just fit a ship and leave it, I’d like to help YOU understand the fitting! So in my work with the SCA, I have run a few Fitting 101 Classes, to help both newbro and veteran alike be able to fit some basics and stop bombarding me with…

Um, I mean stop the need for asking me. I also monitor the forums for any fitting related questions but these don’t come in as often as they used to. There usually isn’t a lot of work involved, unless some big patches hit (Surgical Strike was fun!), but I’m always around if you need something helped with, be it fitting or just general ship advice. It’s a hobby! Pyfa as well is an important part, but I just scratch the surface where all these graphs and maths are concerned. As you all know, any questions regarding ships/fits/hulls/ammo/drones/prop mods, etc., I’m here if you need me! And if I’m not around, there’s usually someone to help on Discord or in Alliance chat.


RECRUITERS
Manager: Quinn Valerii

Quinn Valerii

A lot has happened since the last State of the Signal: Mynxee stepped down as head of recruitment and has won Eve, I stepped up to try to fill the role she managed so effortlessly, and there have been other changes within our recruitment team.

I am happy to say that, supported by Tamayo and Sky Diamond and with the recent great addition of Aldar Roanaok to the team, recruitment continues to run well. Continuous improvement and development work by Sky Diamond and others has helped improve our day to day work and, thanks to Aldar Roanaok, who has become an invaluable addition to our team, our timezone coverage is now in a very good place.

My thanks go out to our entire recruitment team who work tirelessly behind the scenes and to those Signaleers who regularly step up in the absence of a recruiter in our public chat to signpost prospective recruits to our Joining FAQ and online application system and who answer basic questions.


CENTRAL SERVICES
Manager: Katia Sae

Station Quartermasters

  • Gelhan V – Moon 10 – DED Logistic Support – Vanessa Pacht Feng
  • Saisio VIII – Moon 4 – Perkone Factory – Asa Kansene
  • Zoohen III – Theology Council Tribunal – Void Raven
  • Thera XII – The Sanctuary Institute of Paleocybernetics – miruxa
  • QMs Helper – Billie Idol
Katia Sae

Since we are The Exploration Corp, we try to keep in stock those ships and items that support that endeavor, such as free T1 starter exploration frigates, ESRC supplies, fireworks, and more. We do our best to keep the stocks up, but if you see something that’s not on-hand, please let your local QM know. And thanks to Jehan Dante being the content you wish to see, you should start seeing Hug Destroyers and Hugs Fleet packs.

Huge shoutout to Asa Kansene, for serving over a year now as our Saisio Quartermaster. Thanks so much for your efforts!

Also, special thanks to Void Raven, miruxa, and Vanessa Pacht Feng for stepping up and filling our QM vacancies when the call went out during our time of need. Can’t forget our very own Billie Idol either, rock on! We can’t provide these services without you!

Signal Cartel Group Blog
Since our last State of the Signal, our SC Group blog has been doing very well. We’ve had 33 blog posts, broken out as follows: 2 1420. Life, 2 Announcements, 4 Art, 5 EvE-Scout Rescue (ESR), 6 In Character – Roleplay, 1 Poem, 5 SC Fiction Competition, 7 Signaleers,
1 State of the Signal (not this one 😉 ),

The posts for 2019 have been indexed and you can check them out here.

Also, if you’ve ever thought you’d like to try blogging or enjoy writing and wanted to post your work publicly, then be sure to check out this post on how to get started and submit your work. If you’d like to participate in our Signaleers series then check out this post.

TripTiks 2.0
We’ve had a great response to our rebooted Expedition TripTiks. With the reboot we’ve already added 10 new TripTiks, which has doubled our content! We have another 6 in the works. To see all our current TripTiks you can check them out here.

New Services!
Here’s just one of the many things I love about Signal Cartel and that is our motto of “Be the content you wish to see.” Most, if not all other corps, have the mentality that leadership is responsible and must provide the content for its members. Not so here. We are not only a service corp to all of New Eden, we are also a service corp to each other. If you see a need or content you’d like, then step up. It can be a rewarding experience for you, and I’ve no doubt others will appreciate it.

With that in mind, along with Jehan Dante mentioned above for the hugs ships, we had Xavec step up and offer the following two new services. Great stuff and thanks to you both!

Xavec

SCRAMS
New member and want to relocate to one of our corp stations? Then be sure to check out our Signal Cartel Relocation and Moving Service – For New Signaleer Recruits!

Since the program launched, Xavec has averaged 1 contract per week. Seeing how many new members we get, that seems low, so if you’re new and have stuff you’d liked moved, reach out to Xavec !

  • Period 1: 6 contracts for 305,000m3 and 40 jumps
  • Period 2: 2 contracts for 120,812m3 and 32 jumps
  • Period 3: 3 contracts for 964,621m3 and 53 jumps
  • Period 4: 2 contracts for 119,590m3 and 43 jumps
  • Period 5: 2 contracts for 134,894m3 and 28 jumps
  • Period: 6 2 contracts for 520,729m3 and 39 jumps
  • Totals: 17 contracts for 2,165,646m3 and 235 jumps

SCRUBS
BPC buyback Service for Signal Cartel
To date, the program has paid out 2.5+ billion to 25 contracts plus 125+ million in donations to Signal Cartel.

There have been 7 Punisher and 5 heron hulls donated to Signal Cartel as well, with another 33 more Punishers on the way. Currently the service has broken even, with the possibility of a small profit which will be used to cover time and expenses associated with running the program.

Observatory
The EvE Scout Observatory has for the most part found a permanent home on our Discord server’s #eve-observatory channel, after having moved away from Flickr and the limitations imposed there for free photo storage. Please visit, share, and like your favorites!


Johnny Splunk

THERA SCANNING
Manager: Johnny Splunk
Asst. Manager: Captain Crinkle

Eve-Scout’s Thera Scan service was formed before Signal Cartel itself, and this year we have set about increasing the profile of this service across the corporation, and the number of our members who take part, for the aid of all pilots across Eve.

Beginning in March this year, we began to send out weekly summaries of Thera activity in the recent week, including relevant links to forum topics, and latest developments. Additionally, some basic information on Thera activity was added to the corporate Co-Pilot tool. Our latest development has been the announcement of new corporate medals for contributions to Eve-Scout Thera Scan. These medals are designed to recognise consistent contributions over an extended period of time, and we look forward to awarding the first.

Captain Crinkle

To aid with promotion of the service amongst our newer members, Tekufah has made a giveaway offer for a free Covert Ops frigate to qualifying pilots. This has proved popular, with twenty-eight new pilots already claiming their prize.

To aid with the process of scanning Thera, Mzsbi Haev has created a webtool , including full instructions and integration with Tripwire through bookmarklet integration. To help our pilots learn how to use this tool, Maxwell Kurvova has held training classes as part of work at Signal Cartel Academy.

To conclude, we would like to thank all who have contributed to the service in the past, and encourage the curious to try it out. Our work to improve the profile continues, but significant progress has already been made in a short period of time. In May of this year, we had 42 different pilots contribute to Thera scanning, the most we have had in a single month for over four years.

State of the Signal #13

Editor’s Note: Following is our Corp State of the Signal, usually an internal status report written up by our CEO. This time around Thrice Hapus thought posting it publicly could provide some insight to those interested in Signal Cartel and what we do. So, please enjoy Thrice’s inaugural edition as our new CEO of the State of the Signal.

Thrice Hapus, CEO

Since assuming the CEO role in late April, I have spent some time getting familiar with my new duties and becoming more acclimated to the role. It turns out that the CEO chair is the perfect spot from which to look into all the things going on in our very busy corporation. In my inaugural State of the Signal newsletter, what better way to do this than by highlighting our corporate divisions and a few key services in the words of those divisional leaders themselves?

At 500 members strong and with a very high level of engagement, it is nearly impossible to keep up with everything going on in Signal Cartel, and no one person would be able to effectively manage all of it. While I am involved in Credo issues and the management of the corp as a whole, it is the individuals reporting below who do the actual heavy lifting day after day, keeping our corp programs and services running for all of us to enjoy and by which we are able to fulfill our core mandate as a service corp to New Eden.

After more than three years in Signal Cartel, I can honestly say that there is still no other group in New Eden I would rather belong to. It is men and women like our division heads who demonstrate what it means to be a Signaleer: They are dedicated, consistent, passionate about their areas of expertise, always willing to share info and help our newer members — and they do it all with kindness, friendliness, and little expectation of acclaim. It is my hope that this, our 13th State of the Signal, will shine a light on all of their hard work over the last six months or so, and encourage each of our members to step out boldly and, in Mynxee’s well-known phrase, “be the content they wish to see in New Eden and in Signal Cartel!”

Anoikis Division

Manager: John Young
John Young

For those who missed our re-launch in May: Anoikis Division is back! Now operating independently out of a C3 wormhole, Anoikis Division is the perfect place to get your feet wet in the basics of wormhole living. But more than the wormhole itself, AD takes immense pride in the amazing group of pilots counted among our ranks. With boundless initiative, AD pilots such as Nemo Amarodan and Xxasha have expertly developed a standardized bookmarking procedure to keep track of sigs, and enormous material generosity by HeavyDealer has even allowed us to begin industry in the wormhole! I’d also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the stellar behind-the-scenes work done by Tamayo and Angel Lafisques, who, among others, have kept the gears turning smoothly on this fledgling division when I was unable to do so myself. Things are only looking up! So come join the team, and partake in this exciting adventure in wormhole space alongside your fellow corpmates!

Engineering and BuyBack

Managers: A Dead Parrot & Sky Diamond
Engineering
AD Parrot

In early February, Engineering started to work on a new Member Management Application (MMA), which aimed for a streamlined process for recruiters and leadership to handle the daily work of processing pending applications to join the corp and managing current member statuses. Right from the beginning, Auds Lennelluc joined the endeavor and took the responsibility for the UI, while Sky Diamond wrote the code.

While the new application process was being reimplemented, the idea popped up to replace the old and outdated map showing the locations where our Signal Cartel members are currently living. However, the team lacked the skills to map the locations to a world map. After asking around in #developers, HIromoto San quickly stepped up and started working on the world map, which after a few iterations led to the final new map.

On April 28th, MMA went live. Since then, our recruitment team has a pretty streamlined tool at hand to get the daily applications processed quickly.

Buyback
Sky Diamond

The corp buyback program, which is operated by the service corporation [redacted], started business on January 1st this year and is operated by Auds Lennelluc, Chaim Achasse, and Sky Diamond.

In case you have not heard of it yet, the service is provided at [redacted] and buys any of your loot or other stuff you want to get rid of in all the official Signal Cartel offices.

So far, the service has handled roughly 700 contracts from 150 different pilots. We have pushed more than 150 public courier contracts to our hauler mailing list, which amounted to around 150b ISK passing through our books so far this year.

EvE-Scout Rescue

Manager: Igaze
Igaze

Around the beginning of this year Thrice handed the keys to the EvE-Scout Rescue Division over to me. When I was offered the position a big reason I decided to accept was the strength the ESR team of Coordinators and 911 Operators. A strong team means light work for the director, and the ESR team has amply proved this. Mostly I get the fun of doing the paperwork and handing out ISK, while the operators and coordinators handle the rescuing.

One of the first things I needlessly worried about was topping up the ESR Fund that is used to payout our cachers, dispatchers, and rescuers every week. Early in the year we ran a fund drive with the aim to collect 50b ISK in donations. I expected this could take a few weeks but we blew past the goal in two days with the bulk of the funding coming from our own members. It was very humbling for me to realize how much support the program has.

There have been a few changes in the coordinator group in the last six months, with the current team now consisting of Triffton Ambraelle, Angel Lafisques, Captain Crinkle, Chaim Achasse, Xalyar, and our newest Coordinators: Sydney Selket and Dagmar Maulerant. They handle our rescues expertly. When Allison lets you know you’ve found a SAR system, you can expect one of them to be helping you out within minutes. This year we’ve had 105 successful SAR rescues, including everything from pods to carriers! There are a number of great AARs in the forums and on our blog to check out.

Our 911 Operators are our front line, responding to rescue requests and guiding pilots to safety. We currently have 28 active 911 Operators working hard for New Eden. They and the coordinators have helped 108 pilots access rescue caches since January 1st this year. In that time Xalyar and I have run seven 911 training sessions with over 40 attendees.

Since we started tracking we have completed 733 rescues. 43% of those are within 24 hours, and our average wait time is four days.

Many thanks to the 281 pilots who sowed and tended caches this year! In total you have sowed/tended 25,598 times! Your hard work has kept our cache count around or over 2000 for much of the year so far. That is amazing considering this time last year we had dropped down to 1500 caches. This is in no small part to the participants of CrinkleQuest, our June caching event. Expect a similar event in the Fall. Keeping the caches tended is a huge part of our rescue success: caches are more than half our rescues, and the caches that are accessed have often been kept alive by many tends.

I’d also like to mention a few of our cachers who have gone above and beyond. Auds Lennelluc, Aldar Roanaok, Bliss Dwellerya, Pod Person, Tekufah, and Palis Airuta became UltraCachers, sowing and tending over 1000 caches each. Tamayo and Mako Koskanaiken both achieved HeroicCacher status, breaking 3000 caches! Captain Crinkle became our first InsaneCacher, surpassing 5000 caches sowed or tended!!

On the Search and Rescue side, Sydney Selket completed more than 10 rescues to earn her Silver Lifesaver medal, while Chaim Achasse and Captain Crinkle became Gold Lifesavers with over 50 rescues apiece!

Lastly, I’d like to thank A Dead Parrot and Allison. They are the linchpin to this division. Allison’s continued growth is incredibly important to the success of ESR!

It’s been a busy and rewarding first seven months on the job for me. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this program and its continued success.

OPSEC

Manager: [redacted]

[redacted]

Recruiters and 1420.Expeditionary

Manager: Mynxee
Recruiters
Mynxee

Our Recruiters continue to do an excellent and important job. Bob N Weave recently joined the Recruitment team, which adds Recruiter coverage to a time zone that needed it. A well-deserved shout-out to Sky Diamond and Auds Lennelluc for their wizardly work on MMA (more detail in Engineering section above). MMA automates formerly tedious tasks and has made life for leadership and the recruitment team a whole lot easier!

We appreciate all of you who respond to questions posted by prospective members in our public channel or elsewhere. To be sure that interested folks are getting accurate, up-to-date info, please always link them to our Joining FAQ. Current members who have questions about bringing their alts into Signal Cartel should review our Corp Policies document. Both the Joining FAQ and Corp Policies docs are linked in the DII.

1420.Expeditionary Division

The 1420.Expeditionary Division (as linked in the DII) is a relatively inactive division under which TripTik development is managed and I conduct my own in-space field research into exploration matters (such as how long before a relic/data site despawns when cherry-picked).

I would like to see our TripTik library grow and enjoy more regular use by individual pilots and sightseeing fleets. There is a lot of interesting and esoteric stuff to see in New Eden, especially when you start digging into the lore. TripTiks are a great way to learn more about the lore and make lore information accessible in small bites, both for our own members and every other pilot as well. For more info on how to contribute to or use the TripTik library, please review the post linked above. Even the newest of pilots can research and develop a TripTik, and you can earn medals for contributing quality work!

Signal Cartel Fleet School

Manager: Andrew Chikatilo
Andrew Chikatilo

Thanks to Théana Gaterau for a great first year of the Fleet School. She has started something great here in Signal Cartel. To date, 185 unique pilots have participated in SCFS Fleets. It is her sincere hope that number continues to grow as the Division moves into its next phase under Andrew’s leadership.

(prepared by Théana Gaterau)

Splunkworks

Manager: Scarsan Stripes
Scarsan Stripes

Splunkworks is a division that strives to teach fitting skills, rather than simply hand out fittings. The team currently consists of four players: Scarsan Stripes, Snyypa Voltron, Fonsui, and Aliza Kootz. We tend to spend most of our efforts developing and honing Fleet concepts for SCFS. We also monitor the Splunkworks category of the forums and try to help anyone who posts there. On top of that, we are charged with maintaining the Corporate fittings and staying on top of the ever changing minds of CCP with regards to ship layouts. The main tool we use for this is called Pyfa. If you are not familiar with Pyfa, you should be!

Corp Services

Manager: Katia Sae
Observatory
Katia Sae

You may or may not be aware that our Observatory is a bit on the blink. There a couple of reasons for that. Last year, Flickr placed a limitation of 1,000 Free Photo Storage, followed by a move away from the Yahoo login to a new login system. The storage limitation was a nuisance, but the login change caused us some issues and we lost access. Since that time, we’ve been looking into hosting our own Observatory, but of course that takes funds, so we’re still looking at those options. For now, you can still enjoy the photos that had been submitted to Flickr as well as submit and enjoy photos in our Discord channel EvE-Scout Enclave #eve-observatory.

Signal Cartel Group Blog

I’m thrilled with the response to our Signal Cartel Group Blog relaunch. Since May of this year, we’ve had a total of 3 poems, 5 short stories, 2 rescue reports, and launched a new series highlighting 3 of our fellow Signaleers with more to come! Be sure to check them out.

Also, if you’ve ever thought you’d like to try blogging or enjoy writing and wanted to post your work publicly, then be sure to check on our forums on how to get started and submit your work. If you’d like to participate in our Signaleers series then check out our forums as well.

It’s my hope to be able to continue to post a new entry weekly or at least twice a month, so please, I’d love to hear from you!

Quartermasters

Who are our Quartermasters (QMs)? Well, they’re the ones working quietly behind the scenes making sure supplies you may need are on hand in our offices. They are posted by location:

  • Gelhan: Auds Lennelluc & Orsel Solette
  • Saisio: Asa Kansene & Katia Sae
  • Thera: Trnt
  • Zoohen: Zooey Lebowski

Since we are The Exploration corp, we try to keep stocked those ships and items that support that endeavor, such as free T1 starter exploration frigates, skill books, ESRC supplies, fireworks, and more. We do our best to keep the stocks up but if you see something that’s not on-hand, please let your local QMs know.

Also, we’re hopeful that our Engineering Division will be looking into the development of some tools that will help us manage our stations, so I only see things improving in the future to keep your exploration needs stocked.