EVE New Citizens Q&A

As the title suggests, I can't make enough from my current missions (Level 3) to pay for the recommended ships for L4.

Are missions supposed to generate enough cash to pay for a next-level-capable ship in say 20 hours of missions?

Neither L2's nor L3's have come close to that for me. L2 -> L3 I covered with Venture mining. The step from L3 to L4 looks impossible.

How much did you spend on your L3 ship? A ship capable of running L3s easily, even with poor skills can be had for under 75 million easily. It can take a while to earn that much running L2s, but not that long really.

Similarly, you're probably looking at around 250 million for an entry-level L4 ship (actually, some can be much cheaper), which is something you can totally earn in a reasonable number of L3 missions.

So yes, missions generate enough ISK for you to move your way up, just maybe not as quickly as you like (or into as blingy of ships as you like).

I think there are two main things you need to consider:

1. Just because you have the standings to run L4 missions doesn't mean you're ready to move up to them. You need to let your skills develop a bit more first, and continuing to run L3s while building a bankroll is a good way to do it. In fact, my understanding is that blitzing L3s (completing them as fas as possible without looting or salvaging) can be equally as profitable as running L4s.

2. Maybe you should try doing something else for ISK for a little while. If you are so impatient to be done with L3s, I can pretty much guarantee you're not going to find L4s any better.

There are several different types of "pay" when running missions:
- the ISK and LP reward offered by the agent
- bounties for killing pirate NPC's
- loot and salvage

You can improve the agent rewards by training the negotiation and security connections skills.
LP and tags (if you accept missions against empire factions) are used to buy faction gear at the loyalty store.

The most valuable LP available in highsec is Sisters of Eve - they have a level 3 agent for security missions in Simela (Genesis) (that I know of - there may be others). If you have decent standing with Gallente you should also have good standing with SOE.

The level 3 missions are primarily intended to increase standing - which used to be a lot more important.

You can make a pretty good living running level 4 missions for SOE in highsec. There are 3 agents I know of: Lanngisi (Metropolis), Apanake (Genesis) and Osmon (Forge). A lot of the value is LP - their loyalty store has unique items including Sisters probe launchers and their ships - Astero, Stratios and Nestor.

The main rewards from missions are loot/salvage and loyalty points (which turn into items you can sell). The actual ISK mission rewards are negligible.

Are you utilizing all these? If so, it shouldn't be much trouble at all to afford a battleship relatively quickly.

Agreed that varying your PvE is a better 'progression' than just clicking off mission levels.

Train up your scanning skills and fly around looking for sigs and farmable anoms. It's a change from missions and good drops like implants or faction modules are not that uncommon. You can sell these for good chunks of isk at a time, or use them to bling your ship.

This way you can extend your time in a smaller hull rather than rush up to another ship class with minimal skills.


I run around in a Confessor with a probe launcher and rarely ever need to enter defense mode to handle whatever I have scanned down in high sec or expeditions in low sec. If you don't have great skills, re-purposing an L3 running battle cruiser would be fine. Even just casually playing, my Confessor has more than paid for itself and gotten some bling for itself to boot.
If anything, I would do missions for LP to get faction ammo for running sigs. Not run sigs to pay for a mission runner. Just my .02 though.

A ship capable of L4 missions isn't expensive. Remember you don't really need the blinged out gank magnet fitting just to do the missions. A basic T1 battleship with T1 guns will do them. A T2 tank is really suggested, as is fitting for specific rat damage types (L1 to L3 I never even bothered). But L4's aren't that difficult to begin with given a ship appropriate for the incoming damage (usually a BS, but you can bling smaller ships to accomplish the same thing- HACs, T3's, etc)

Definitely check out some of the other 'combat' PvE. It's hit and miss, but the hits are pretty sweet and the misses at least aren't saving the Damsel yet again.

I get what you're trying to say but it's not a question of "bad in cruiser vs bad in BS". If you're bad in a cruiser you're going to be absolutely horrible in a battleship. Add to that the sheer number of new players who rage quit after losing a battleship they had the skills to sit in only and spent ALL their isk on and you end up with some fairly suspect advice.

I'd suggest that when you take INEVITABLE new player losses into account, being bad in a cruiser will leave you "further ahead" than being bad in a battleship. Not to mention being unable to hit anything, outrun anything or in fact tank as well as a cruiser (sig!) with early skills.

If you have 20 hours of lvl3 under your belt you might have skills to sit in a BS & maybe even fit a large turret or two, but you almost certainly don't have the skills to survive the average LvL4 in a BS (some maybe, but the bad ones will eat your shiny BS).

For all the security missions it would take you a really long time to make enough isk to support the next level missions. I wouldn't even bother running level 4's unless you have a marauder and you've figured out which missions to do/avoid to maximize isk/hr. If you're running security missions in high sec for isk then I highly recommend you get in touch with Incursion communities like TVP and CIA (there are others, but those are the two I'd recommend). It's way more worth the time and effort to get a good ship and learn to be an effective incursion pilot since you can expect a minimum of 110mil isk/hr in those two communities. If this might be something you're interested in feel free to message me in game and I'll give you more information.

To be honest, when I started I just bought a plex to sell for isk for a battleship. If I was going to be running level 3's all month then it would be more efficient with my time to go that route.

And I made more money that way.

Really if you are going to pay for your sub might as well save a month grinding and buy the plex.

There are a few issues with your chosen money-making activity:

1. High-sec is a crowded newbie area that lacks real rewards. 10 mil / hr sounds about standard for the grindy activity that is "repeatable combat missions in high-sec."

2. CCP really tries to get players to move out of high-sec, and "really tries" means that the rewards are crap, the missions are bland / stock missions, and CCP doesn't put a lot of effort into flair, making them interesting, or providing continuous updates to them. The game is the way it is, and I'm not sure where you detected "snark" but there is nothing we can do to make any improvements; it's all in CCP's court.

3. Ship costs depend on manufacturing costs which depends on mineral costs which depend on mining output, which is about to change. Ship costs are quite variable, and are controlled by the playerbase. On the other hand, mission rewards are completely controlled by CCP. Last economic report charts indicate that there's a surplus of ISK coming into the game from all the missions and NPC rats, trillions more ISK than the amounts that get taxed, spent, confiscated, or otherwise lost. So it's unlikely that CCP will want to increase mission rewards. They've increased taxes already.

4. This game does not guarantee that you will succeed / become the hero / reach level 80 / get enough money to afford your ships, just because you're paying a subscription. Making money in this game is entirely dependent on taking it / stealing it / tricking it / trading it from other players; missions are just the basic activity that's there to get you started, but if you want to make REAL money, you'll likely have to take it from others, who will remain poor as a result and maybe even leave the game because of it.

So, completely objectively, and without any feeling towards the matter, there are better / easier / non-grindy ways to make money and you should consider searching them out. And you'll have to be smart and inventive, and also will have to prey on others, to make it.


Regarding battleships: If you don't have the higher support skills required, the real threat in high-sec is actually the mission NPCs themselves. Not players.

Ships that are cruiser-sized or bigger have some tank, and require somewhat serious DPS to take out before Concord arrives. It's one thing to pop paper-thin mining ships and industrials, and quite another to pop a battleship, even a somewhat poorly-defended one, within the 10-30 seconds that Concord usually takes.

The risk is that you go into an Angel Extravaganza or Ships Collide mission, get surrounded by 8+ NPC battleships + 12 escort cruisers + 15 escort frigates with warp scramblers and webifiers, and die, because your tank can't handle it and your ship is slow to align and can't hit the scram frigates with its big guns.

Don't spend all your isk on a mission ship. Even without player risk, there is still risk as a newbie of messing up something and getting blown up. I lost a BC in a mission because I started ramming an asteroid when trying to warp out in Worlds Collide. Little things like not using Eve Survival to know the triggers and shooting them all in a row, and then taking more DPS than I can handle.

BTW, if you ever try to warp out and start ramming an asteroid or other structure, ctrl-space to stop warping and clear the obstruction, don't sit there wringing your hands hoping you'll clear it.

In HS rewards suck, because theoretically, you should never need to replace a mission ship. People told me this when I was new, and I got blown up anyway, see above, but for the most part it is true, missions are such slow risk, that even at 10m Isk/hr is considered "good" because it's not really paying to replace the ship you're flying.

We also tend to recommend people to buy a plex if time is a factor. Better to spend 1 hour of your life getting enough money to buy a plex and spend a month blowing stuff up, than spend a month of your real life grinding missions, to buy a ship that gets blown up as soon as you undock. Earning isk in eve should only be done if you find the activity enjoyable because it takes time to work up to a high level income no matter what activity you choose. Eve does reward players that stick with a given income stream. So your income per hour will go up over time. But starting out, don't expect a level 3 or 4 mission to pay off replacement ships quickly, especially with HS missions. As a newbie you should be flying frigates or cruisers around for pvp anyway.

You could also give other income streams a try, the payouts will suck at first for them too, but they grow over time as your character skills and player skills improve.

Trade specifically is an income stream that doesn't take away from other streams. You can remotely set up trade orders while flying around doing missions. So when you're ready to improve your income, Trade is generally a good secondary income that is compatible with all primary incomes. Trade also is a great primary income stream, but it takes a while to generate your seed corn (money you never spend)