Missions & Complexes

If you work from home and would like to be making isk while you're doing something that isn't babysitting your client(s) at all times, mining is actually a great way to semi-passively make isk. As an example for the point, I have to process photos and gather info for the content of said photos, both of which I do at my computer and which can take a lot of time. So, while doing this I'm able to see my client(s) on another screen and hear things like "the asteroid is depleted".

At around 1,000m3 a minute and 0.1m3 per unit of veldspar, which currently goes for around 13.40 a unit, you're looking at roughly 6.7mil minimum if you manage an average of 50min out of an hour mining. Multiply that by a minimum of an 8 hour work day and you're already sitting at 53.6mil, which is far better than nothing while you were otherwise unable to play. Do that for twelve days of a month, or 12/20 working weekdays and your account is paid for. Another 8 days' worth and you've a minimum of another 429mil extra. That may be just a few hours of really efficient lvl4 missions, but it's a few hours of 'active' playtime that have been freed up to do other things, or a large chunk of next month's plex costs already ground out.

Mining+industry+science+trade running passively in the background are all great ways to coin it, and 3/4 of those activities don't need you to be around at all to make you some isk.

If you are producing, you should be buying the resources to build at buy order prices and only for items that make you money. You would make more selling your loot at sell order price and buying the same items needed at buy order price then you are free to make whatever you want. This goes for mning too. If you spend all day mining to make something, your isk per hour is only equal to buy order price of minerals not sell order price of minerals. Since this is the case, you might as well sell your minerals at sell order price and buy all needed mins at buy order price.

Even better though is to do anything else besides mining for isk and manage buy orders on production needs. The more patient you are too and larger capital you have to start with makes it easier to set a price and wait for orders to be filled.

In the EULA it states,
"You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play.

Now you can interpret this different ways and we can argue back and forth who's interpretation is correct. Both of our interpretations are meaningless since it's CCP that will determine if what someone does violates the EULA. I don't think CCP has made a public comment as to this.

In reality will CCP hunt you down in game if you're AFK mining?... Probably not. My reference is just to people saying they AFK mine in the forms that CCP occasionally reads. It's like the police aren't going to break down your door for a minor law infraction but if you openly post about it they just might.

And once you can afford it --> Golem

More like "when you have the skills to fly it". If you don't have the ISK by the time you can fly one you did something seriously wrong.