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.

One Reply to “State of the Signal #13”

Leave a Reply to Veskin Sentinel Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *