MERCENARY DEN

What a Mercenary Den is

A Mercenary Den is a Deathless Circle deployable that anchors within 10 km of the Orbital Skyhook of a temperate planet in sovereignty nullsec. It slowly fills with Infomorph Decryption Keys, which are sold on the market or traded with the Deathless in Zarzakh.

Each level of the Mercenary Den Management skill lets a pilot run one den, up to five. A den has two values that move over time: development, which raises the key output, and anarchy, which at level 2 starts draining workforce from the skyhook it sits on.

Who kills dens, and why it matters

Every den kill is sorted into one of three classes, comparing the attackers with the den owner's alliance and with the alliance that holds the system today:

• Raid: neither the owner's alliance nor the system holder took part
• Landlord: the alliance holding the system cleared its own skyhook
• Own alliance: the owner or their own alliance removed it

Choosing a planet to anchor on

The planner lists every temperate planet with workforce in nullsec, about 2,400 of them, with the alliance that holds the system, the workforce of the planet and a risk measured on real kills: dens destroyed in the same system and one jump away in the last 30 days, where those in the system count three times.

A planet where a den has already died is proof that a skyhook was there. Skyhooks themselves are not public, so for any other planet ask the system holder before you bring a den.

Keeping your dens alive

With the Mercenary Den service enabled on your characters, the page reads every den you own and puts what needs you first: a den in reinforcement with the time it comes out, anarchy at level 2, an MTO about to expire, a den stopped because its pilot lost the skill.

A completed MTO adds 10 development, removes 20 anarchy and adds 350 keys.

When a den dies, roughly half of the keys inside are left in the wreck for whoever killed it, so emptying it often is the cheapest protection.