EVE New Citizens Q&A

There are a few types of "playing the market"

1. Station trading - Set up buy orders in a market hub and wait for them to be filled. Then put up sell orders at a higher price to make a profit.

2. Hauling - This can be buying low / selling high in different systems, or simply running courier contracts for other players.

3. Filling demand - Specialized knowledge of fleet doctrines and region ship/module needs can provide a niche for you to fill.

There are surely others as well. As far as I know corp shares are used for political purposes rather than economical (corporate votes, locking/unlocking blueprints etc).

Thank you both for your help on this.

Sounds like it could be an interesting way to make some isk.

Sometimes, when veterans refer to 'playing the market,' they're talking about speculation. For example, we've just received a developer update on the future status of pirate frigates, and their impending re-balance, come summer. This makes it likely that down the road, a large number of the previously-unused pirate frigates will see a demand hike, and a resultant price increase. Rich and patient players might choose to quickly buy up stacks of these pirate frigates, speculating that their price will rise. This form of speculative investment is another form of playing the market, and takes place in all manner of items.

Don't forget that you don't have to watch yourself mine! Pick up a procurer, swap the mining drones for Hobgoblins, find a belt in hi-sec and go afk.

If your computer can handle it, minimize and play another game while you mine. Makes it go by a lot quicker.

J'Poll thanks for the advice consider the mining stopped. I like the idea of trading and exploration.

I have decided to try out the trade for awhile. Sounds interesting and I might get to see some sights!

Does anyone have advice for a small time, in face lets say tiny time start up trader, I don't have an incredible fortune, I guess I need something with a little more cargo space.

Thanks again all!

^^
that.

I fly from region to region and stop at each trading hub to review prices. (Because the market only lets you see what's for sale in your region.) Yes, I know there's http://eve-central.com/ and others, but if I'm there, I can buy a ship load of whatever.

You can use your star map to display how many pilots are in a given system, and the more populated stations near null may just be a good place to sell stuff.

IMHO, sell stuff that is used: munitions, shields, armor, etc. The trade goods, like seeds, don't have a useful purpose and there may not be a demand for them.

One critical element of trade in Eve revolves around your ability to providing a service for other human players, to do something others are not able/willing to do. Generally, if something is easy and accessible or entertaining, then many are doing it, and driving supply up reducing the reward to something incredibly small. For this reason, when you're doing trade, you need to consider what you're doing that will set you apart. For newbies who lack experience, assets, and SP, usually it means doing extra work. The stuff no one wants to do.

This could include: spreadsheeting stuff to find out hidden metrics, buying in low-population areas, consolidating scattered goods, finding out the reprocessed mineral value of goods, spreading your sell-items across many stations.... The things that take time, don't seem as profitable, require doing homework, require patience. You might get lucky and find an empty market niche, but in populous areas, it becomes rather uncommon.

For specifics, here's one possibility: place buy orders for frequently used modules in a wide radius, or in a handful of systems that lack significant competition. As you eventually gain items through those buy orders, you eventually go on a consolidation run, get all the goods in stacks, and make sell orders in systems that seem favorable. It requires balancing your anticipation of patronage versus competition, but experimenting wont hurt.

This is essentially what I do to pay for my accounts and grow my wallet while I'm offline. I monitoring 300 buy and sell orders in my alliance's nullsec region, dealing with minerals, rat drops, salvage, and tech2 modules.

Sometimes it's best to get startup funds first - Dealing in salvage is a good route, both trading and generating it. Salvage work got me my first billion.

So that's one way of going about it.

Not really. For hauling in highsec you want to either keep the value of your cargo under what it's worth to gank you or not be seen at all (cloaky). There's no 'defending yourself' against a suicide gank, if you get hit, it's all over in around 30 seconds (concord's response time in 0.5)

Great advice,

I guess my goals are as unlikely as anyone else's but they are goals, or should I call them dreams?

One day in the far future I'd like to set up a nice orbiting station around a planet that is in turn orbiting a star and be a friendly spark in an otherwise harsh null sec section in space.

These things cost money and then of course there is having enough following your dream so the station is protected 24/7.

SO for now i'll make the isk I can and it does sound like fun flitting into null sec to trade and hoping I come out alive./

hm, proviblock may actually let you set up your own station. and it' not even that expensive by today's standards.