EVE New Citizens Q&A

While there is truth here I would not say that this is entirely true as a blanket statement. From my experience when you barely have the skill points to run level 4's you can finish them more than twice as fast with 2 as you can solo assuming that you focus fire accordingly. If you have a highly skilled character and know how to run level 4's then yes you will be better off running them solo as far as isk / hour is concerned.

The first note that I would like to make is something that I discovered after the fact, or maybe was too proud to admit at the time, which is that unless you have fairly high skill points for a typical level 4 mission boat then you are most likely better off running level 3 missions as far as isk per hour is concerned. The level 3s are significantly less isk per mission but can be completed much faster so you wind up making more per time frame. My experience in this category is prior to burner missions being introduced which could tilt the scale I will admit however IMHO it just points more towards group efforts.

My second note on this is about the burner missions themselves. I know that burner missions can be soloed however due to the expensive frigates needed to run them and the fact that you come so close to loosing your ship on each one when you do try to solo I think that you would be much better off doing them in groups. I'll admit I don't have much experience in this not enough to give experienced commentary as far as isk per hour but with that qualification out of the way my guess is that now-a-days you might be better off running normal level 4's in groups only to get the burners and thus already have a group ready.

One thing that I want to point out here is that many mission rats have active reppers. So let's say for example a mission rat is repping 100 HP / sec and you are doing 110 DPS. If you were to increase your DPS by 10% and be doing 120 DPS you would effectively cut in half the amount of time needed to kill that NPC. For this reason I say that low skill point players are much better off doing level 4s in groups.

Early on in my game play when I had low skill points and was doing level 4's in a drake while skilling up for a Battleship some missions would take me 4 hours to complete. I could not figure out how anyone could make isk in this game. Then as my skills went up and I moved into battleships then had more breathing room to fit more tank and less gank and eventually get into Marauders I got those missions down under a half hour. So if you are running level 4s and watching NPCs rep most of the damage that you applied back up only to have to use the majority of your next volley to get you back to where you were then you are probably better off either running level 3s solo or running level 4s in groups. However like others have said isk per hour isn't the only factor in this game and not even the main factor for most players. It is a game after all and what should be more important in a game than having fun?