Missions & Complexes

sniping with a dread in siege mode in sanctums

Damn, how the hell did I forget those two, haha. I will edit the original post then, thank you.

And I am aware that fun = more hours in the isk/hour equation and thus more isk. But I wanted to hear WHY people thought what they were doing was the best thing to do. At least for them

I feel that COSMOS, while relatively underdeveloped storywise and in theory single-shot missions, should be included here.

There are a lot of COSMOS missions, and most COSMOS complexes are farmable for nicely resellable loot (just take a look at contracts for COSMOS stuff). They also offer some diverse gameplay elements compared to L4 snore, with the fun of lowsec gambit running sprinkled in.

So a oneshot of a COSMOS arc sohuld take at least a week, and COSMOS farming is a nice endpoint with some relatively challenging plexes sprinkled in.

I've always enjoyed daytripping into wormholes for PVE. They're quite profitable, the exploration aspect means it's less repetitive than missions or incursions, and it carries the risk of being in nullsec that makes it somewhat exciting.

I am going to assume that by solo, you mean without alts. Because many of these are pretty much impossible to do with just 1 character. Namely, incursions, nullsec exploration, higher level wormholes, and most lvl 5 missions. About the only one that doesn't benefit from having alts is lvl 4 missions. I have also tried all of these types of PvE at one point or another in my career, though having 2 alts of my own and rather high skillpoints does make it easier. I am also assuming that for each of these, you are putting in approximately the same isk investment... running a full passive tank drake in a C2 is going to pay ALOT less then running a vindicator/nightmare in highsec incursions.

My order for most profitable:

Nullsec/Lowsec Incursions
living in wormhole
Highsec incursions
Nullsec Exploration (might be higher... but its a bit inconsistant)
0.0 ratting
Lowsec exploration
level 5 farmer
level 4 farmer
highsec exploration
mining
trading (+variants) (i put this at the bottom because I suck at it)

A few notes for the most entertaining - highsec incursions were awsome. It lost a lot of the fun though when we started farming them (despite becoming much better for isk income), and I really do miss the times when occasionally an entire fleet would get whelped. But I definately ran them WAY too much for me to consider them fun again. Also, some of these I consider more entertaining less for the actual PvE content and more for the enviornment in the area... 0.0 ratting isn't really all that entertaining, but breaking it up with baiting cloakies and then dropping your fleet on them is VERY entertaining . Of course, if I was being honest, at this point none of the PvE content is really all that entertaining, but I have been playing this game an awfully long time.

Most entertaining:

living in wormhole - high level WH's (C5's especially) are very challenging with small numbers, especially when you are trying to get the full escalation. Lower level WH's... not so much. But they also tend to get smaller PvP groups, which can be more fun.

Nullsec Exploration - its random, and there is always the chance to get epic loot... the best part

Lowsec exploration - its random, the loot isn't quite as epic... but its the next best thing

Nullsec/Lowsec Incursions - A proper nullsec/lowsec incursion fleet fits a point on all the ships... and its so much more exciting to compete for sites by actually blowing up the other fleet instead of worrying about the NPC's.

0.0 ratting - You warp to the same type of site, and it is actually different... there are only a few variations, but even a little bit of randomness is nice as opposed to always seeing the exact same thing over and over again

Highsec incursions - comms can be great fun with a good fleet, and an occasional DC can really spice things up... but there is almost no randomness in any site, which is what puts it much lower on the list

highsec exploration - the competition and low payouts somewhat killed this for me

level 5 farmer - lvl 5's require somewhat specilized fits... and are like giant pirate beacons in the dark - I don't like being a piniata waiting for someone to find me, and the locations that lvl 5's are available at are generally fairly well travelled, making it very difficult to get nice quiet mission running. And of course the agent ALWAYS sends you at least 2 jumps out...

level 4 farmer - lvl 4's are always fun when you first get into them. After running them for a while, the entertainment then becomes seeing how fast you can run them. Then you are sitting in a 1300dps mach blazing through the same mission 10x a day (and about 20 other missions besides), you know them all like the back of your hand, and the only entertainment comes if you are running it drunk and hit all the triggers first... and even then it isn't always fun.

mining - you sit, and stare at rocks... great for when working on HW at the same time... not so much for actual engaging gameplay

trading (+variants) - while I occasionally play excel online, I prefer to avoid it as much as possible

Lastly, for strategies that make it more fun and efficient... I am an obsessive min/maxer, which is something I'm trying to kinda hold off on in my current adventures in 0.0. This means that I inevitably try to figure out the most optimal setup with my current skills, then run it and see if it works. Then I look at that and see how I can optimize that, train the skills, and keep doing it. It becomes very boring once I can't figure out any way to further optimize a form of PvE... and having a character that can literally fly any subcap ship in the game makes the whole anticipation while training for something kinda moot too. Now I'm getting into capital ships, both for PvE and for PvP (and of course to haul all my crap from one location to another... which is getting harder and harder to do) which may spice things up for a while. Of course, seeing carrier 5 taking over a month and a half also adds to that anticipation as well - and fighters 5 is supposed to be around 50 days too.

-Arazel

Remember to consult St Mio's chart of things to do in EVE Online!

As far as profitability goes: the order has to start with scamming & trading, with all the hisec PvE combat coming a distant second.