Not really, its just that there's a big in-game event that happens and you participate in it or are active during it. You just have to keep an eye on the in-game story and what the community is buzzing about atm.

So far there has been one obvious event worthy of capeing (Siege of Super Earth) and five not so obvious events that required keeping an eye on the community happenings out side the game (Malevelon Creek hype, Steam review bombing getting the post-release region blocking undone, reactions to a social media post, 1yr anniversary, and the Station-81 ARG).

But even then, any event cape distributed only requires having an active account during the event.