EVE New Citizens Q&A

I don't recommend locking yourself onto any path for income. All income streams get boring after a while, in other words, they can easily become a second job. Always keep in mind "Why" you are creating income. And follow the fun, or at least, the most interesting. Many of us like to change it up now and again.

That said, every income stream should be "enough" eventually, what matters most is compatibility with your play style. PvP is generally compatible with any exploration or combat style of income. Missions, incursions, etc.

To keep everything fresh, I never make any hard plans more than a month or two ahead. Also, you never know when something might come along and change your plans, and if you are committed too deeply, then you'll feel forced to turn down other opportunities that arise. Joining null sec might seem a no-go if you are a dedicated mission runner. For example.

For now, I suggest deciding what kind of pvp ship you want to fly. If that is a frigate, and it should be if you haven't played pvp before, then it is very easy to finance frigates.

To actually answer your question for lvl 4s and Ratting:

Caldari T1 BS - Raven (Cruise)
Amarr T1 BS - Apocalypse (Beams)
Gallente T1 BS - Dominix/Hyperion (Drones/Hybrids)
Minmatar T1 BS - Maelstrom (Autocannons)
Choose a ship based on the weapon type you want to use.

From there, any of four faction's battleships work.

Lastly, top it off with a pirate BS.
Rattlesnake - One of the best ratters and lvl 4 mission runners. Selectable damage types.
Machariel - Great for blitzing level 4 missions (only killing what you need to kill)
Barghest - Decent for missile speed buff.
Nightmare - Only against Sansha missions and rats. Does a great job against those.

I have left out the marauders. Even though they are the optimal level 4 full-clear mission runners, you wouldnt really want to run one to rat in nullsec under most circumstances.

Thank you all for the help. I'll definitely look into the more cost effective options starting out and work my way to the more fancy ships as I grow my bank account and experience in the game.

For nullsec belt ratting (which is a respectable income), the Attack Battlecruisers (Tornado, etc.) are more than sufficient. Sure, you can get more isk per hour with fancier ships, but to start out, they're fast to train into and not too expensive when you lose one.

Rattlesnake is great but don't get ahead of yourself. Rattlesnakes are around 4-500 million isk fit and you'll lose it pretty fast if you try to get into one too quickly.

A goal of flying a tech I Dominix is probably more than plenty toward the beginnings of EvE for you.

Train your core engineering skills useful for all ships first.

Train drone skills. (useful for many ships in EvE, actually, but especially Gallente ships)

Train missile skills and Caldari ships up through battleship 3 as well but not priority unless you discover you like missiles and squid...er...sorry...Caldari ships.

Rattlesnake uses cruise missiles and drones. It needs Gallente and Caldari battleship skills trained to fly it.

For droneboats (such as algos, vexor, myrmidon, and dominix gallente ships) keep in mind that your drones are your main weapons, not your guns. Omnidirectional tracking link with tracking speed script, drone navigation computer, 1-2 drone link augmenter, 1-3 drone damage augmenter. Perhaps sentry drones you might like but personally I prefer the regular ones that fly around.

Importantly, please keep in mind that in EvE a bigger ship is not always the best depending on what job you want it to do. Missions, yes, ship size need is somewhat true. Many long-term EvE players prefer to fly smaller ships almost always because of what they want to do.

Have fun first.

to me having more options open to be able to more easily match the need damage and tank types is better than specializing. So that typically means training up more races rather than focusing.

Also for new players I usually advise that they stay general in their training and try all different types of ships and piloting styles. You will figure out what works best for you.

But like others have said you would be foolish to think that you are going to know what you want to do even only a week down the road much less a month or more out. So try not to commit to any one thing. Your tastes will change often.

Most high sec systems are so cluttered with well everything that D-Scan becomes almost useless.
Are those combat probes looking for mission runners or are they simply there because some explorer is looking for expensive T2 drones that were left behind.
Of the dozen or so ships that may show up which might be the ones who could cause you trouble, and which ones are there because they are running missions or sites.
I could go on for days with this but I will cut it off and simply say that D-Scan is a useful tool no matter where you are and you need to develop the D-Scan habit. Just do not expect it to have the same usefulness in high sec that is does in other areas of space simply because of the crazy amount of returns you will get.

You can practice ratting in highsec with a frigate and very low skill. Look for cosmic anomalies in your system, http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Cosmic_Anomalies. Start by running Burrows and work your way up. It will take a while before you're ready for Havens or Sanctums (and the big paychecks they provide) but they also come with high risk - not from the PVE rats but from other players in nullsec.