EVE New Citizens Q&A

So Im about 2 weeks into eve and I love the game. I love that i can play for 2 hours and log off while having a whole slew of skills training. So right now I'm trying to figure out what to do. I am looking at the main goal of the game is to make money so I have been training mining and refining and salvaging skils. I also what to get into ratting/bounty hunting. Now i know the latter will take time to acheive but i want to make sure im not trying to do too many things with one character. In the end my main goal is to PVP and go after pirates and bounties. I figure mining and refining and salvaging would be a good way to fund my self. any words to teh wise for a new player?

There is no reason to not train for multiple thing many people with tell you to focus on only one job until you get there but you don't have to, I will tell you if you don't like Ming don't train for it, but that doesn't mean early it isn't a steady income stream but later it won't hold a candle to other income sources.

What are some other sources i should be looking to prepare for?

Only mine if you actually enjoy mining otherwise you are wasting possible fun time by doing something you don't enjoy.

If you enjoy mining - awesome, get out there and mine away but if you are only doing it because you think it's a good way to make ISK then don't bother. You can make ISK doing the stuff that you enjoy doing.

If you like to salvage you can make a lot of ISK by salvaging for other people. That's how I started in EVE - I was in 0.0 by the end of my second week of play and couldn't kill the rats (npc ships) in the belts alone. So, instead, I salvaged for other people in my corp and split the profits. I made a lot of ISK, the person I salvaged for made a lot of extra ISK and everyone was happy. I happen to love salvaging even to this day.

What I did was this: I paid out looted items at market prices as if I was selling directly to the market. Then what I did was listed the items on the market directly and made more ISK that way. This extra ISK covered my time for flying the goods to market and selling them. Typically I made anywhere between 5% more to 20% more by listing the items direct.

Plus, this way the person I was sharing the profits with did not have to wait for their ISK. And, because of that, they were more than eager to have me salvage for them all the time that they were online. It quickly got to the point that when I logged in I was invited to salvage for multiple people and this was really good plus fun for me.

Now, if you do NOT enjoy stuff like that then DO NOT do it. There will be someone out there who does enjoy it and you can team up with them.

If you really enjoy the combat stuff then you should focus on that since that is where you are having the most fun. If you want to try out PvP then go for it in a cheap ship. It doesn't cost much to get into PvP - under a million ISK for a PvP fit frigate. Plus, if you fly that ship out into potentially dangerous regions (low sec, wormhole space, 0.0) you will often find wrecks that will contain stuff worth way more than your ship. So, you can get experience with flying in potentially dangerous regions WHILE making ISK by looting stuff that you find. Win win for you.

If you're REALLY good at PvP, you might make money on it. Most people don't. The total loss for a combat vessel will generally greatly exceed the total drop value, even after insurance. You might get a little extra from a bounty, if they had one, and from salvage (if it was a T2 ship).

Ratting: NPC pirates have CONCORD bounties. Blow them up and get paid. Pretty simple. You can also collect their loot and salvage for additional income.

Player bounties: If a player has a bounty and you blow some of their stuff up, you will get paid 20% of the value of what was destroyed, or the total of the bounty on their head - whichever value is less.

This did make me laugh. Luckily my RL goal isn't PVP lol. I think I am ready to try and jump into the PVP arena. I just want to find a style that fits me. Ideally I would like a Heavy hit burst style that gives me the option to run if things don't work out. I expect to be weaker in teh armor dept as a trade off for high dps and speed.

Gizz, what if my goal in EVE is to PvP...what should I do in Real Life

Other then that...great post.

Many PvPers have a sort of "second job" to support their PvP habits. That can be mining, missioning, or exploration - or it can be scamming people or ninja looting, if you are inclined to piracy. I have known new players who made a very substantial income early in the game by AWOXing corps (joining a corporation and killing your fellow corp mates for loot and ransoms). Or you can play the markets, or do planetary interaction. There are a lot of options, really limited only by your imagination and sense of e-honor (or lack therof). Just pick something you find fun - don't do it if it feels like a grind

As for a starter PvP ship, based on what you said, I'd start with a Merlin or an Incursus, then perhaps move to a destroyer like the Catalyst, Cormorant, or Thrasher.

Salvaging, definitely. Theres very good money in salvaging - comparing it to mining, right now the best ore, Arkanor, found in deep 0.0 and wormholes, is being bought for 4k for 16m3.

Burned logic circuits are selling for 26k each, and are dropped by most anything.

For a noob, salvaging is where the money is.

When I run missions, I usually dont loot. If someone asked me to salvage my site, I'd tell them they could loot it as well - as long as they stayed out of point range of me, of course.

If you can learn to use combat probes, you can probe out mission runners, and then you can warp in on them and their wrecks, whether they want to tell you where they are or not. Note that those same skills in probing will also let you sniff out pirates in their safespots, and create warpins against sniper ships. Oh, and find radar sites that might have hundreds of millions of loot in them :)

Skill time is cheap in the beginning. You can train A LOT of skills to 3 or 4 in a very short time, enough to enable you to try everything during your first two or three months. I highly suggest looking at everything before you spezialise too much and one day find yourself with a couple of level V skills that you trained months for but are never going to use again. If you feel like trainign something further up to V, then only do that for things that you can use in multiple professions. Stuff like fitting skills, navigation, scanning are always useful (unless you end up stationtrading...). On the other hand, if you pick up something narrow like Mining for example and later want to do something else, those SP that you put into Mining Barge, Mining Upgrades, etc are pretty much "wasted". Feel free to try those skillpaths that are narrow, but don't commit too much before looking at your other options.