EVE New Citizens Q&A

Pretty sure you cannot convert a trial account into a full account using plex.

At low reprocessing skills, just sell ore. But you won't be able to afford a plex via mining within 14 days on low SP.

Hello Judge Lazar o7

I started with EVE last month and I don't have much real money either. I can tell you that mining won't be good ISK until you mine with freinds in Null-Sec or Wormholes - support ships and haulers give a huge boost to ISK per hour. If you are on your own and have to operate from highsec stations other things are better ISK per hour. I found relic sites and ninja gas mining the best way to earn ISK with very few skillpoints. Relic sites works best when you don't play at peak hours (like right now with less than 15k players online) because a lot of players are looking for relic sites. What I do is to scan for relic sites and wormholes in higsec systems and nearby lowsec systems with few jumps and no recent kills. When the relic sites in known space are done I go into low class wormholes (high class WHs are to dagerous and hardly spawn pirate sites.)

When I see any sign on the scanners that the wormhole has active players inside I get out to known space again and keep scanning until I find an empty low class wormhole. I scan everything inside while cloaked and bookmark eveything but combat sites. When the hole is still quite I run the pirate relic sites (and sometimes the data sites too). If I found gas of C50 or better I come back in a venture after all relic/data sites are done. That way you always scan for two things at the same time: Relic sites and good Wormholes while in known space and Relic/Data sites and gas sites while in Whs. Drop of you loot everytime you come past a station and collect it later in something that doesn't look like a loot-piniata (like a heron full of WH salvage certainly does.)

I use a cheap exploration frigs for the scanning and hacking and a "throw away" venture for the ninja gas huffing. I make 50 to 150 million ISK per hour that way. (Others say they get 200+ but I don't think that's likely with low skillpoints and new in game...)

Even if you only get 25 Mil ISK an hour because you keep losing ships you can PLEX in 40 hours playtime. I got the 6 month plan because it is easier for me to earn 15 $ than playing all day and I want to spend the ISK on ships. I want to try them all.. the subcaps at least :) But it is totaly possible to play and plex from the start, it's just to boring for most players I would guess.

Have fun and fly save.
Greg

Gregorius Goldstein's advice is top notch, give it a go. You will certainly enjoy the game far more playing like that as well.

Don't worry about losing ships, it's fun.



I assumed the buddy/mail trials are 21 days or longer than the standard trial, so answered for the standard model.

Yeap, but it won't work for ya. It's impossible to collect enough ISK to buy PLEX on new pilot's skills. You may just borrow or steal 'em.


On low reprocessing skills it's better to sell it. Or you'll need someone to reprocess it for ya.

There's a way to get full-paid pilot's license without first subcription payment, but it requires two things:

1. To find a veteran pilot friend, who's about to use one of his PLEXes.

2. To prove that you'll be usefull and worth his time.

Dat friend may create a new referral account for ya and upgrade it with PLEX: he'll get his 30 days license extension, you'll get your new full 51 days paid account. As far as i know CCP is ok with such things.

OK, sry - long version: As far as I got it you can use a plex to make any account a full account, the 14 days standard trail and the 21 days buddy trail. The rewards will just be different: The 14 days will get nothing but 30 days more playtime and on the 21 day trail the buddy won't get a PLEX but a non convertible playtime bonus.

By the way: Loosing the trial account status has its downsides too. A lot of good offers are only for trail accounts and will vanish when you steam/plex/redeem time codes etc... When my account was still in trial I bought the starter pack (20 more days, that faster learning thing and 750 aurum for 5 bucks, good deal) and after that I bought the dissount sub at 8,30€ a month that is trail only AFAIK.

Fly save and have fun.

I personnally purchase yearly subscriptions which cost £89.99 (UK). This works out at £7.50 per month (10.95 dollars or euros), I probably spend at least 50 hours a month in game, that works out at 15 pence an hour, best value for money ever. I never understand the desire to fund the game by earning Isk to purchase plex, cut out a takeaway once a month.

Most people exaggerate how much isk a particular activity will net you. They reveal the calculated high end amount while running at peak efficiency. But ignore the time in setting up your ships and equipment; travelling to the required location; hauling and selling of any goods; breaks or waiting time. Also they ignore the expenses of the initial setup or any 'mishaps', repairs, ammunition, charges, lost drones etc. A lost pod or ship for example could cost you a small fortune, but is never calculated into the isk efficiency of an activity.

For example the most lucrative PvE activity I ever found was Faction Warfare missions in 2012 (before they nerfed them), using a Stealth bomber. I could earn a million LP in 4 hours. Which could easily be converted to 1 Billion Isk. So 250M per hour right?

Well not quite. Sometimes I could get camped into a mission pickup station (grrrr trigger99) or denied access to one of my mission plexes, delaying me for an hour or more. It takes time and risk to actually convert the LP to goods, move them to market and then sell them. I lost several Purifiers in missions at 50M a pop and once a hauler to a gank with 250M cargo. But none of these factors feature in the isk efficiency of the activity. It was simply 250M per hour, sometimes more! More recently I've been running high end Incursions (HQs) and while good money, after all things considered it is less than 180M an hour.

So in short it is going to take you several nights of grinding to earn a plex ingame, unless you do something a bit dodgy. In the same time you could earn six months subscription stacking shelves at Tescos. It simply isn't worth it IMO. If you are going to grind, grind to buy ships and equipment that is going to make the game fun.

If you can afford the RL money, pay the the sub at least for a couple of months ... yes, it's possible to grind for PLEX with low skills, but not fun. Your best bet maybe is to find a sponsor ...

It's theoretically possible.

It wouldn't be fun at all mining. You'd be looking at 18-hour days every day.

You might be able to do it salvaging L4 missions with a Magnate.
You might be able to do it diving wormholes/exploring null and hacking. Expect to lose a lot of ships doing this, and fly cheap. If you do go out into null, the best way back might be the wormhole express (scan down wormholes until you get one to high)-you get a lot fewer gatecamps that way. Don't get greedy or you will never get anything home.

an old saying is 'if you play to plex you doing it wrong, if you plex to play you doing it right'

Yes, IWI is able to fund huge, incredibly expensive war and their higher ups can do things like buy enough skill injectors to max out every skill in the game just for the novelty of doing so because they are giving away so much money to all. It's a sure thing. Want to be space rich quickly? Act now!