Missions & Complexes

Stop throwing around this number. If you talk about getting carebears to shoot at you - that happens too rarely to put up an ISK/h figure. Unless real noobs shoot you which usually drop crap.
If you talk about brute force ganking - that will not happen solo, especially now with the insurance change.

OP, are you willing to shoot things? Retaliation can provide a nice, if rather rare, income boost. One faction kill (which will eventually happen if you do it enough) can set you up for a long time. One 3B ISK deadspace-fit active-tanked mission drake is worth a lot of time just looting.

Otherwise...I'm not up on salvage and loot prices, but it largely depends on your scanning skills, your ninjaing skills, and your...luck. Good missions with lots of battleship wrecks (think Blockade) can make you a reasonable amount of ISK in a short amount of time. If you keep running into **** missions your income will suffer.

I'd say ninjalooting is a very reasonable, but not ridiculous, way of earning ISK. I couldn't give a precise figure on it, though I certainly don't agree with one of the original replies that you'd make more running L3s in a drake.

If I had to give a number....30-15-21 for high/low/mean, not counting potential space-pinata kills (which are too random for me to factor into an average figure). Do note I haven't been actively ninjaing in awhile, these prices are highly dependent on the value of Caldari-space pirate loot/salvage value. Way back when I started it was complete **** but as far as i know it has increased since then. Salvage-wise, you'll be looking for circuits and ward consoles. Loot-wise, 'arbalest' launchers (specifically torp launchers) and perhaps ECM (which may be found on small wrecks you would normally ignore).


Personally, during my ninja career I only ended up with a small handful of high-value kills, though I don't exactly play to maximize the chance of being shot at by dumb pilots with too much money. Ninjalooting in a fleet stabber doesn't exactly scream "I'm a dumb newbie who can't defend himself", after all. I know people who specifically fit and fly their ships to maximize the chances of a missioner thinking they're an easy target. This vastly increases the chance of high-value kills (and thus big rewards) but, outside of ganks, it also decreases the efficiency of the actual looting and salvaging. The numbers I gave above were for my style of looting. If you did this, that would likely be lower (but you might happen upon a multi-bil ISK kill. Or, you might not and it ends up being a waste of your time. Random is random, etc).

It is worth noting that while I have not personally been heavy into ninjasalvaging in a fair amount of time. You may wish to talk to some people in Suddenly Ninjas, they may be a bit more...current. There's an ingame public channel, "Ninja Dojo". However, most of these people do it less for the ISK return and more for the killmails/tears.

Confirming Kahega's summary. Most of us continue to ninja because it's fun and we like the ISK from the shiny kills. I will say that most of the guys in SN who hunt mission bears for any length of time make superb ISK from piñata Mission Bear kills and frequent ransoms. The loot and salvage are just extras.