EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi, I'm new so please excuse any inaccuracies or misconceptions.

I've been playing for a little over a week and am curious to know if anyone actually makes a respectable profit from scanning in high security or low security space. I'm feeling a little lost, but I'm drawn towards exploration particularly.

I've looked at the market and other posts regarding this and there seems to be a conflict of opinion. Essentially all I'd be doing in the first instance is collecting data cores and decryptors until my combat skills are sufficiently high to attempt combat complexes.

In the short term the end game for me would be to gather enough isk to pay for my account and make some profit on top each month, which I guess everyone wants to do unless they're happy to pay - which I am, but it would be nice not to have to :)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Thanks Mara,

I'm waiting for some skills to finish training before I venture out and commit at least short term to it as a career path. There's a wealth of information out there but a lot of it is contradictory. I guess I'll just see how I get on.

Thanks.

I would say that the best way to make isk by scanning is to probe down people running level 4 missions and steal their loot. With a little practice and a little help from a friend with remote repairs, you can often get the mission runner to shoot at you, then blow him up or hold his ship for ransom.

On the subject of paying with PLEX, I'd say just don't until you've been around awhile. Play in a way that seems fun to you, and as time goes by you may find yourself spacerich enough to buy PLEX. Don't play EVE like its a job with PLEX as a goal - that will get very old very fast.

I also think that trying to plex your account via high-sec exploration is going to be a lot of work -- and may take the fun out of exploration.

Low sec is more profitable, until you end up losing your ship. You end up losing a lot of time hiding. And the mini-game for the best sites in low-sec really benefit from T2 scanners to keep from blowing up.

The payout from exploration is also greatly affected by how much local competition you have in your time zone. If you aren't finding many data/relic sites, or they only have a couple of low value cans left, then you might try moving to another region to try your luck there.

After a few months when you have all your skills trained and gained experience you may be ready to explore in Null, then you may be able to plex your account + profit.

Once you get into a cloaky covops, all hisec->low sec entries are safe, and the only thing you need to watch out for is smart bombs on the exit gate.

What this means for new players:

When you enter a system through a gate, you will be 15km from the gate. Unless you are very unlucky, you will be safe in a cloaky frigate because it will be very hard to catch you.

When you exit a system, you have to be 2.5km from the gate before you can activate it. Since a battleship (or larger) with smart bombs has a significant radius of effect, they can destroy your ship before you've even finished getting out of warp, much less have time to activate the gate.

One way to avoid this, when flying covops in low sec, is to warp to 100km from the gate. Once you can see that the gate is safe, move further than 150km from the gate and then you can warp to it. As you do this, make plenty of bookmarks for "perches" from which you can watch the gate and make sure that nobody is going to be smart bombing you back to your medical clone.

Low sec exploration is actually safer than hi sec exploration: you will have fewer people in local competing with you, so you can be more alert to the presence of other people. After a while you will get to the point where flying around in hi sec makes you nervous, and that is when you will know that low sec is the life for you :)

/salute to someone that teaches themself everything they need to know.

Keep doing what you are doing, and in a couple of weeks, I'll be scared enough of you to dock up when you enter local :)