EVE New Citizens Q&A

Don't try to rush things.

When I was in my second month I hadn't even skilled into cruisers yet and was still flying frigs and destroyers. (Okay, I am a bit slow in that respect, after 3 years I still have not skilled into BS yet.) if you fly a BS without having trained core skills you will not be flying it well. Eve is a game for the patient.

If you stick to the smaller ships you will find your ISK needs are a lot lower as well. You are however correct that mining doesn't work, it's low ISK, and the skills you train for mining do not transfer to other activities. There are however plenty of other options. A popular choice for beginning pilots is exploration. You scan down data, relic or combat sites, and hack them or kill the rats there. If you go the hacking route you will have to head into low/null/WH sec to earn much. Combat sites can be quite profitable in high sec and most high sec sites can be cleared in a t1 cruiser.

It took me about 2 months (and lots of selling, scraping, and help from my then corporation) to save about 50 million ISK. I bought my first battlecruiser with it and promptly lost it not 1 week later in low-sec (I was attempting to save a friend!).

You are doing "okay" OP. Take your time and understand that sometimes you need to spend some money to make money.

I'll add more stuff later tonight if I am not too busy.

The easiest way to fill up your ISK is to buy a PLEX or two and sell them inside the game to other players.

Tip: Inside the game a plex is an item that can be carried as cargo, but it's generally not a good idea for a new player to fly around with plex in their ship. Log in to the game, fly to a station where you want to sell the plex and dock your ship there. Press ESC to get the options menu and there will be an option to redeem the plex you paid for. The plex will appear in your station inventory. Sell the plex while you are docked.

The point is, don't try to fly around with plex in your ship, fly to the place where you want to sell the plex, dock up to be safe, then claim the plex you paid for and sell it while you are docked inside the station. You can't be shot at and blown up while carrying the plex this way. You can buy plex direct from CCP on their official web site, and there are some 3rd party web sites that are authorised by CCP to sell plex as well. Some of these 3rd party sites give you some bonus items, such as buy 3 plex at the same time and you get a free ship or some other bonus items.

Another way to make ISK is from missions. First, you are given rewards in ISK. Second, if you take the time to salvage wrecks from "security" missions you can sell the items you salvaged. Some people say salvaging isn't worth it, but if you're new, for the time being it can be useful to salvage. Once you're more experienced and have more ISK you could skip salvaging and concentrate on completing more missions per hour.

There's a third source of ISK from missions that isn't very obvious to a new player. When you complete missions you are given "Loyalty Points" as part of the reward. You can use the loyalty points to buy items from NPC corporation loyalty stores and sell those items to other players. This is where you need to do some research. Some loyalty store items don't sell for very much, some items can earn you substantial profits, depending on what items you buy and where you sell them. Buy the right items and sell them in the right place and you can earn a steady income. This is where skipping salvaging in missions can become important. The more missions you complete per hour of game time, the more loyalty points you will earn per hour. Salvaging wrecks during security missions slows you down, you complete fewer missions per hour and earn fewer loyalty points per hour.

Some details to be aware of when you spend your loyalty points. Each NPC corporation has their own loyalty points and their own separate loyalty store. If you complete missions for Corp A, you can only spend the loyalty points from Corp A in the Corp A loyalty store. You cannot buy items from Corp B using loyalty points from Corp A, and you cannot convert Corp A points into Corp B points. Do some research on which loyalty store items sell for a good profit, then do missions for a corp that sells those items. Player owned/run corps do not have loyalty stores, only NPC corps have loyalty stores.

If you buy the right items and sell them in the right places, you can earn profits of over 1000 ISK for every 1 loyalty point you spend. You could spend 1000 loyalty points on a single item and sell that item for over 1 million ISK. Not every loyalty store item will sell with that much profit, some items will sell for even higher profits, you'll need to do some research.

The catch is, since you are a new player, you'll start with "level 1 missions" which are the lowest level missions and offer the smallest rewards. It will take time to unlock higher level missions that offer bigger rewards, plus missions get very repetitive after a while, which can become very boring. This means you are not going to earn lots of loyalty points straight away. When you have worked your way up to level 3 and then level 4 missions, you'll be earning loyalty points a lot faster, but you will need to work your way up through level 1 and level 2 missions first. There are some skills in the "Social" category which increase the size of the rewards you get from completed missions.

Some useful web sites:
http://www.ellatha.com/eve/LPIndex-1 A searchable list of every NPC corp loyalty store and every item sold in each store.
https://eve-central.com/ A searchable database of the eve market, updated frequently. Type in the name of an item and it will show you how much that items sells for on the market, and the locations where that item is bought/sold in quantity.
http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage A list of walkthroughs for security missions. Other types of missions don't really need walkthroughs.

Investigate getting a planet or two making P2. It will not earn a lot in hisec but its a passive activity that will top up your income when you are having a bad week.

You only ever need to run one level 1 mission if you train Connections 3.

Level 2 combat missions are mostly frigates, with the occasional cruiser per group, so a destroyer works well. An exception is the mission "Mission of Mercy", which really requires a cruiser to complete, as 6 cruisers faced in one group.

Of course one could grind courier missions. A cargo expanded Amarr Magnate frigate is ideal for most of these, even level 3. Some people only grind level 3 courier missions, as they are fast to complete when using a fast ship.

Level 3 combat missions are easiest completed in a battlecruier. Personally I use an Assault Frigate for most of them, except the one mission that has a stasis webifier tower AND a capacitor neutralizer tower (forget the name).

One can also complete level 4 missions in a battlecruiser. It is a great way to learn missions before jumping into a battleship.

I lost my first battleship within 24 hours of getting it, because battleships operate differently than battlecruisers!