EVE General Discussion

You can currently make decent ISK in FW that is very predictable and steady.

Decent isk can be made ganking auto-piloting haulers but it will be feast or famine; i.e. not predictable and not reliable.

Sadly, neither of those activities are really "pvp" in my opinion. Haulers don't shoot back. FW has mostly devolved into non-conflict.

There are many other things to try, however.

Back in the days of Olde, before the killboard became a fixation with the min/maxer/OCD crowd, "pirates" honored ransoms and so it was possible to get some sustainment from ransoming.

But eventually it turned into a ransom- then "BOOM HEADSHOT HA HA go back to WoW phag" so people stopped paying ransoms. Because paying a ransom simply became another avenue to get bonked over the head with the pail and shovel in the "sandbox" and then pointed and laughed at by people who could care less about sand and more about their meta-jollies.

The "pirates" - true pirates they were - were out of a job at this point as they found that fewer and fewer players were paying ransoms. It used to be that if you were tackled in lowsec and under attack the people doing it would be waiting for a signal from their wallet, or they would tackle first then demand a ransom. I have seen a lot of Crime & Punishment threads with pirates lamenting how hard it was to get someone to even respond to a ransom demand let alone pay one.

(you see even "talking" to other players becomes a "ooooh loooook! TEARS!!! WE HAVE TEARS!!! Weer so leet!!!" )

So as the players degenerated and the more mature ones moved on, the situation regarding sustaining oneself in PVP got worse. For this reason a lot of PVPers are forced to have a highsec mission/incursion alt to fund their PVP which is more reliable than ransoming players who are afraid to communicate with you because they expect their words will be posted to a blog somewhere and ridiculed.

People who have to grind missions/incursions to fund their PVP habit are quite bitter about the whole thing too.

As for loot in PVP - I used to hear about people sustaining on loot but as time passed and production continued to make Tech 2 more available and drive the cost down, this seemed less effective. Bling ships don't leave highsec much and those found in nullsec are seldom found alone.


And finally, as previously pointed out, Factional Warfare is more lucrative PVP than random PVP with unknown outcomes.

Absolutely. It's the best way to make profit.

I would actually describe FW as "ridiculously lucrative, with PvP as an option."

Until they disable stabs and cloaks in plexes, people will be able to get away with riskless farming. Massively boring though.

FW missions are where the LP is really at, and they are PvE with risk added from the locals.

You can only make ISK from PVP if you're good at it!

...or run in fleets and have "Ninja Looting" trained to lvl 5!

No.

Hasn't been that way for best part of a decade & I speak as one of the people who was in Space Invaders (original pirate ransom corp way back in 2003). CCP made it unprofitable to do so & hence most neg-sec people will just pop you and see what drops.

You can make money out of ganks but not enough to keep you going IMHO. Always chasing the "big one" is the problem there.

General PvP roaming - no way, you might cover your ammo/repair/upkeep costs but that's about it.

FW (excluding missions/orbit the button) is unlikely to cover your bills either.

Sad but true.

Edit - if you don't require skillbooks/implants/JCs/more expensive ships then you could probably break even, maybe even make a little.

So.. Rustle League has come to Eve.

Everybody hide your jimmies.

Cloaky sabre etc can make decent isk

Agree. It's not the pvp that is profitable. It's the PvE aspects of FW that make it lucrative.

PvP wise, it's falrly harsh on the wallet. A Corp like Justified Chaos for example in their recruitment thread highlight the need for pilots to be able to sustain about 500 million - 1 billion per month in losses if they want to join their Corp.

That seems to be the reason there are so many LP Farmers. All of the active FW Corps are plexing to sustain their losses. Fight for one side, plex for the other.

You have to be an idiot to pay a ransom. Most people are asking for ransoms just to see how big a sucker you are. Plus paying a ransom will definitely get you added to the watch list of them and all their buddies,

It's a similar logic to running empty clones for non-suicide PvP. No one really cares about the cost of replacing cheap implants, even +4s are only 100 mill, but getting killed with a "shiney pod" gets you watch listed and that can be annoying.