Missions & Complexes

GP,

I dont know about FW, but I can tell you skilling up for a lvl 4 BS doesnt take that long.

Without running the numbers id say its manageable within 6 months.

A mostly T2 fit Raven with half decent support skills, namely drone interfacing 4 comes to mind, will steam roll 4's with no issue.

You may have to refit and read the guides provided to know the triggers and damage types .

After that your rolling, with a good Corp and support you could run them sooner, or leech the ISK but adding some DPS!

Maybe he's trying to convince you not to make a very common noob mistake of getting into a ship before you have the proper skills? I'm only guessing since I don't know your skills.

I've heard faction warfare can make you a ton of ISK but I haven't tried it myself.

You should train for what you like to fly. Don't fly what you can't fit properly and don't fly what you can't afford to lose. I know pilots that make more in an assault frigate than I make running missions in a battleship. I'm personally happy with running missions so this doesn't bother me.

I like all your ideas but he told me if i train for covert ops is fun and great profit cause sit in fw when i see someone i disappear and then appear again to activate the timer. (whatever that means)

Sitting cloaked in a plex while you wait for hunters to leave is ALMOST as boring as station camping. You are losing a LOT of isk just siting there doing nothing. If you wan to farm plexes, get into a stabbed frigate and run plexes. If someone drops into your plex you leave and hit another one. If you insist on having a cloaky alt sitting there doing nothing, plant him at an entry gate to a plex, cloak and watch. As soon as someone shows up, warp your FW alt out to a safe, set up your cloaky on another plex, repeat.

Honestly you don't need a covops to do nullsec exploration, you don't even need particularly good probing/analyzer skills. All that is required is a t1 probing frig with the appropriate t1 fit and some gameplay experience to stay safe and to not blow too many cans. It would take you a lot of sp, planning and friends to top the isk/hour/risk in any kind of application for a BS or any other ship type for that matter.

Considering that, train for whatever you want to fly on sundays, not something you have to fly on mondays.

It is definitely possible if you dedicate all your training to specific skills to get to a decent battleship in 1.5 months at most. You will only be making about 40 mil an hour including salvage (noctis takes like half a day to train), but its pretty fantastic money.

Train these skills in this order:

-Tech 2 tank (hardeners are most important)
-Tank support skills to 4
-Fitting support skills to 4 or 5
-Battleship weapon system of choice
-Weapon support skills
-Micro Jump Drive operation
-The Racial Battleship to 3
-Drones 5 and Drone Interfacing to 3 (for light drones vs frigates)

-----Starting here, you should be able to run most level 4s. If you get in over your head, Micro Jump Drive and warp out-----

-Other Navigation Skills
-Racial Battleship 4
-Tech 2 weapons
-Finish support skills to a comfortable level

This is the plan I followed, and I was in level fours (granted, with only 400 dps to start) at 5 weeks.

My character is 2 months, 1 day old, and I can now fly Stealth Bombers on top of my Battleship (because I chose missiles as my weapon system), and fly both at a pretty good level.

Keep in mind I can literally do only these things well:
Fly Caldari Missile Battleships
Fly Stealth Bombers
Salvage

Specialization is key to being effective in a good ship in a short time. Don't dilly dally with racial ship skills outside your specialization, or other weapon systems. You can get to those after you can fly a few ships really well. I plan to continue by training covert ops 5, caldari battleship 5, and some of my missile support skills to 5 before continuing on, because the performance improvements can be very significant.

Once you hit tech 2 weapons, you can be earning 60 mil an hour at around 1.5 months, which I think is pretty damn good. I was happy at least. I can die in a whole lot of stealth bombers before having to farm more

the quickest way to make ISK is to sell a PLEX on the market. don't let EVE become a second job, just spend some more RL money and save it on cigarettes or whatever.

that said, if you are set on making ISK ingame, there are several options, suited to different play styles. it is hard to make a buck by killing other players (necause that's what everyone wants to do), but if you like shooting things in general, training for a battleship and running lvl4 missions is a good option. if you prefer playing in a group, you can refine your skills, get a decent ship and start running incursions (they are a little like multiplayer missions).

if killing thousands of red crosses is not for you, there is still ISK to be made in other ways. as has been stated already, faction warfare can be profitable, but also somewhat boring, as you just have to hang out n space and not even shoot things. then there are less violent income sources like planetary interaction, industry, trade etc. they require different amounts of skill training as well as player experience and time investment.

as you can see, there are many different options for funding your PvP habit, you just have to choose the right one(s) for you.