EVE General Discussion

Seems like you are trying to play the game as a single player. EVE is about the multi-player experience.

Dear OP,

Let's see... starting character flies frigates & destroyers, L1 missions, hisec. Then moves on to L2 missions with destroyers and cruisers. Then L3 missions with good cruisers and battlecruisers. L4 missions with battlecruisers and battleships. Your typical L4 mission will grant a million ISK or more just in payout. The rats themselves will pay bounties from around 250,000 to 1,250,000 each. On a good L4 mission an experienced pilot can walk away with ten million in bounties, and that's before divvying up the loot & salvage. This can all be done without ever leaving hi-sec.

In fact, it's not until one reaches the L5 mission point that they've hit the "hi-sec ceiling" as far as missions go. And even then the truly skilled & daring can always just do Incursions - again, all possible in hi-sec space.

With this in mind I am trying to understand the logic in taking a tech 1 cruiser out into low-security space just to hunt down a few random belt rats. As you said so yourself, the "risk vs reward" ratio simply not worth it. Especially when, due to reasons only CCP understands (I hope), they've set the game up in such a way that PvE and PvP are two completely different worlds as far as ship fittings go, thus further making your situation needlessly difficult (if not utterly impossible) by making sure that you're going to have to fit your ship to do both tasks (PvE vs rats, PvP vs players) at the same time.

In summary, yes there is a ceiling to how much ISK you can make in hi-sec, but you are far indeed from having hit that point yet. There are six and seven year old characters out there in faction-fit battleships who do L4 hi-sec missions almost exclusively to this day. Six million skill points is just the beginning.

Not to sound patronizing, for no offense is meant, but it seems like you're trying to bite off more than you can chew. It seems as if you are in a bit too much of a hurry to enter the shark infested waters before you are truly ready for it. There are ways around that, of course, for as others have said you can always join up with a larger & more experienced group for your low-sec & PvP needs. Barring that, however, I see little other option for you. Everything is time dependent in EvE and you can't really change that. There is no such thing as "power leveling" here and attempting to do so will only... well, you've already experienced it. It becomes a waste of perfectly good ships and costs more than you gain.

So the only solid advice I can give is to be patient. Even if you get in good with a group of professional low-sec PvPers you're still going to need to train up your skills - see "time" above. But you can learn combat tactics from them, so that much is player (rather than character) dependent. You say you're using a Caldari cruiser? Excellent, but what are your frigate skills like? Do you have Caldari frigate level 5 already? How about Destroyers? Have you already maxed all your small hybrid and missile skills? Shield, power and armor core skills? Is there absolutely no room left for improvement in your abilities to fly anything less than a cruiser? Because if there is still room for improvement there then you haven't really hit the ceiling yet, now have you?

I've seen people try to fast-track their way into battleships... and lose them not even a week later because they weren't really ready for it. Everything in EvE needs a solid foundation. Fast-tracking never pays. A pilot with maxed skills in a battlecruiser can mop the floor with someone who's blitzed their way to "racial battleship 1" and hopped into a big boat that they can only just barely fly.

Release the ego from obsessing over size and instead replace it with obsessing over skill. Become the pilot who can knock out 50,000 ISK mission rats in a frigate and when the day comes for you to go back to low-sec for PvP you'll be someone to be feared & respected - even if you're still just a Caracal, because you'll be the Caracal pilot from hell. That's something to be proud of, is it not?

Could always role a combat alt and join RvB , This would let you get some hands on experience while still making money on the indy toon . We Run a noobfleet program where you can ask as many questions as you like

Recruitment plug over.


The mental skill set for PVP is completely different to PVP , you might want to spend some time reading up some guides on how to survive.


Eve Uni will teach you a lot, if you have the time to wait to get in and do the class;s.

Agony is great , RvB recently had a class with them was a interesting experience for our newer members.