EVE New Citizens Q&A

They can take down battleships and battlecruisers with ease, and of course you can always warp off and cloak with hostiles in the system.

You can't run anomalies or missions with them though, and faction spawns can be hard to take down. You don't tank very well unless you're under the guns of your target. I think they got buffed since I last used one to rat, but I remember it being impossible to fit a full PvE fit (an empty mid slot always happened) with the CPU constraints (no CPU rigs back then either.)

But if you're going to belt rat in Nullsec, they'll do the job just fine.

Assuming you are talking about PVE they can easily belt rat in low and null sec, forget trying to kill any frigates and if possible fit a target painter.
Range and speed are your tank as they are paper thin hulls.
Keep an eye on local, stay paranoid and enjoy yourself.

Peace xxx

I really wish that I had a more specific answer for you than this but all that I can say is that a long time ago in a galaxy far far away ( I think it might have been on the recruitment forums) I recall seeing an advert from a corp that ran level 5 missions in low sec with small fleets of SBs. I think that they used about 5 of them iirc. I can not tell you if they still are around nor can I shed an light on the tactics involved but if you were looking for things to try it might be worth looking into.

There are two reasonable ways of making isk with them. One - you can still rat with them in either lowsec or null. Now ratting with an sb is not optimal but it is safe and easy. Two - you can fit them with small weapons and gank exploration ships as they hack their cans. SB have no uncloak delay and near insta lock so if you fit two scrams you should be able to catch most of those pesky covert op exploration ships with their tasty sister probe launchers. Ofc you will have to probe out and bm the exploration sites in advance so you can camp them and lie in wait for your prey, but that is relatively easy to do.

Gl

Just a small edit - whether you make isk in pvp depends solely on how you pvp. I rarely lose ships - but that is not because I am particularly skilled but rather its because of target selection. If you camp a lowsec entry pipe system and kill all the haulers you can, you will likely make more then you lose. But ofc you cant do that in a sb.

FW missions is probably the widest application for SB based ISK making.

That said, I used to run Null and Low sec escalations in a manticore when I had to run gate camps or other baddies. Just stay away from the gurista rats and be at a good range ( and a good ways off of the warp in ).

Outside of FW, there are way better tools to use than the SB, but like everything else in Eve, you can set up the bombers to do much more than they were originally designed for :)

Shoot SMAs

Never said it would be easy But considering the potential payout especially those WH SMAs seems worth the consideration.

It is quite possible. I used to do a lot of wormhole diving in a bomber (no local!) and killed many ratting ships and industrials with decent drops. People do silly things like carry around 200 mil worth of site loot while they visit POCOs. Unfortunately the bomber is somewhat limited in cargo space (grr PI materials). This style of playing is also IMO the hands-down best way to learn how to use your dscan properly. You have to be very quick at finding targets and you become very comfortable with cloaking mechanics and intel logging which are all essential skills for a good scout.

That said, you are unlikely to make more than you spend right away. You need time to learn your limits and figure out how to identify bad situations. One day you'll find an Iteron carrying 300 mil in "blue loot". The next day you'll lose your mind and attack an Orca even though it's escorted by a Vagabond. Eventually you'll calm down and probably make more than you lose, if you even bother to pick it up. I used to blow up the wrecks pretty routinely just so I could cloak/warp out quicker. That made me facepalm when I checked an Iteron killmail and saw 200mil worth of low-volume blue loot had dropped. But for me, the real fun is finding and engaging targets, predicting other player's behaviors, and screaming in frustration when someone logs out after ship swapping in the POS for 3 hours.

Bombers are a ton of fun but they are also very niche and must be treated as such. They have huge strengths but also have huge weaknesses. If you exploit the strengths you can cause tons of carnage. If you are not mindful of the weaknesses you will likely be sent home the express route. If you are interested I can send you some fits I use and point you toward some resources on wormhole space.

You can belt rat in 0.0 space, or fit guns and run the PvE portions of FW.

That's about it for PvE, the more typical option is find someone doing something that's generating isk (e.g. a site runner in w-space), kill them when they've done all the work, and take their stuff.

SB in Eve fills the role of the rogue in D&D. If your isk is coming in fairly and not at the expense of anyone else you're probably way below optimal income.