EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi i'm a trial player nearly a week into my trial.

I'm enjoying the scope of the game but i have a few questions that i couldn't find the answer to via google.

I know about the different career choices such as mining, missioning, haul trading, station trading etc but can anybody give me average estimate of how much isk u can earn per hour with some facts.

for example, you could say lvl 4 agent missions earn about 5 million isk per hour etc

also, i'd like to know how easy the trades are to skill up for each profession.


ideally, i'd like some estimates on how much isk u can earn per hour within a timeframe with estimates ranging from average earning potential to maximum earning potential.

thanks a lot

i need to buy a good ship so whatever advice u can give me is much appreciated

I'm just going by my experience with various alts, etc. I'll give you an avergae of what you would make per month, since hourly rates are somewhat mythical as they rarely take into account travel time and other assorted activities that eat into your time.

On a per hour basis, trading will be your best option and once you get it figured out, it's not that hard to make about 1-2 bil per month though I personally find it exceedingly tedious. The skills are quite easy to train and you can have very adequate skills to do so inside of a week. A successful trader needs to have solid knowledge of the game to determine demand, etc.

Incursions are still very good ISK and will hit that 2 bil per month total pretty easily, but sadly, this isn't an area where a new player can simply jump in. It is an option to shoot for after you've either outgrown (or grown bored) with either Exploration or Missions.

Mission Running or more appropriately, Loyalty Point grinding would be next and will make you about 1 bil or so per month pretty easily. It takes some skill and game knowledge, but it's not hard to do. It will take you a nice 150 mil nest egg to get started, but that will pay for itself pretty quickly.

Exploration is quite random and can meet or exceed LP grinding though sometimes you will get unlucky and miss the good loot. It's a lot of fun though and can lead into a lot of different areas of play.

Mission Running with Salvage/Loot recovery is less profitable than LP grinding (barring a Noctis Alt), but can still get you over 1 bil per month. Hourly rates of more than 50 mil get kicked around, but I'd wager 15-20 mil per hour is more reasonable.

Mining is quite a bit lower than these until you get into higher end play w/ Orca support. I mine in a very different fashion though, so maybe someone with more experience can give you better totals.

Hauling is pretty bad actually, unless you can start off with a nice 1 bil or more bankroll which will allow you to fail the occasional mission for profit.

A good ship huh? Well, what sort of ship? If you can be more specific about what you wish to do with said ship, why, my answer might be more helpful.

My goal is to get enough isk to buy big fat ships like cronos with good weapons so I can go bounty hunting. Cronos prolly is too expensive for bounty hunting but I don't know better

Yep, let's go and recruit newbies on their own forum. What can go wrong with that?

Well, good thing I was suggesting a profession and not recruiting for any corporation or alliance. :)

Too bad that your link goes to recruitment thread = recruitment.

Highsec Mining: 2-15m / hr. Potentially more, but only if you are highly skilled, role with a fleet, and maximize your mining.
Highsec LvL 4 Missioning: 15-50m / hr. Potentially more, but only if you're very serious about it & maximize your efficiency.
Highsec Incursions: 20-80m / hr. Potentially more, but this is highly dependent on the fleet you role with, the sites you run, etc...

Other means of Income aren't necessarily best measured in isk/hr.

For example,
Hauling (not NPC missions) often pays 250k isk per jump. Sometimes more, sometimes less, and only counts for one direction.

Trading depends on your ability to find cheap goods and resell them. There is a huge variation in profitability, depending on whether you treat this as passive income with your buy/sell orders, or whether you actively partake in the 0.01isk market PvP game.

Scamming depends on the ingenuity of the scam, and the number of marks you can find.

Plexing isk/hr depends on how lucky you are in loot drops, and the ability to find plexes.

There are also passive-ish sorts of income:
Manfucturing typically earns 10-200k isk / hour
PI often earns 0.5 (highsec) - 4 mil (nullsec) per day per planet....
Datacores don't earn all that much anymore (50k / day)...
S&I varies significantly in isk/hour. (sometimes you lose money doing it).

Go read the isk guide.... and that will give you a lot of other ideas. or invent your own... right now, extorting miners for isk by bumping them away from ice roids unless they pay you not to do so seems like a fun and interesting way to make money....

Fun is relative... and it really depends on what you enjoy doing.... and more probably, who you are doing it with...

That's what she said but she's a lying *****

Missioning at level 4 - 5m/h is not unreasonable
Hauling requires a lot of relationship cultivation and has low margins, depends how good at it you are
Station trading - short hauls help, has high margins, but requires a large initial capital investment and can also run a loss
Mining - is boring, don't do it!

The larger point here, though, is that it's not about making more isk than the other guy, it's about making more isk than the expenses associated with what you're doing. If you want to stick to frigates, you're probably sticking to level 1 and 2 missions for income, but the balance is that if you mostly fly frigates, you don't need more income than that.



L4 missioning requires a good quantity of sp investment along a general int/perception map, it can take some time but it's not, if you'll pardon the phrasing, rocket science.

Hauling requires an _enormous_ sp investment, you won't be able to make any money to speak of without a capital hauler, just because of the sheer volume of crap you have to move to profit substantially. For low/null stuff you'll likely want an alt and the ability to cyno jump as well.

Mining isn't terribly hard to 'level up', there are plenty of intermediate tiers of ships which are all viable, on any of which you can stop when you are lasering enough rocks for your satisfaction. Or you can take it all the way up to flying a hulk with six months or so of investment.

Trading requires almost no SP investment, but a fairly substantial ISK investment.



Generally speaking, you can make enough money to pay off the activity itself pretty easily from mining, missioning, exploration, and trading. Possibly manufacturing. Going beyond "paying for itself" requires that you practice enough to get moderately good at whatever you're doing, or control the costs of any other activities you're doing that don't make you isk (usually PvP). specific numbers tend to be pretty meaningless since it's generally a matter of whether you can pay for the stuff you want or not, not achieving some sort of score.

As for good ships, pick a focus and stick with it and whatever you end up in will be good. For instance, if you like the look of Amarr ships and train ship skills, armor, and laser skills then there will be ships available at any size category that are good.

The best career for newbies: ninja looting. Only required skills are salvaging level 1 and astrometrics, although MWD usage, a ship with a large cargo hold (eg. Kestrel) and a bit more probing skills are useful. Initial outlay is a T1 frigate, some salvagers and a probe launcher (preferably a separate probing ship)... around a mil should do it. Income is around 5-20 mil per hour, depending on luck (which missions you bust, how the mission runner reacts, etc).