EVE New Citizens Q&A

Anything is possible just not likely probable. Thing that alot of people forget is that EVE is a game. If you spend all your time trying to make the next plex the game turns into a job.

I was talking about the making isk to buy a plex not the part about not able to buy it with real money .......

i live in venezuela, i just don't like to mention it very much.

anyway, i'm just starting to do mining, but feels it'll take me forever to buy a plex this way

I think gas mining might be the best bet as a miner. Or ninja moon mining. Something like that.

You don't have to buy a PLEX you can subscribe with a credit card.

However if you want to sub as an alpha it does not have to be an all or nothing scenario. Just make isk and when you have enough to buy a PLEX then do so. You will be able to train for a month and build up skills. Maybe you can only PLEX one out of every four months in the beginning.

As you get better at the game and your character gains more skills eventually that will go down and at some point you will be able to PLEX every month.

In theory you could PLEX every month as an alpha but if you run the numbers on what you are making per hour it would be like a full time job.

I will pick a quick example that is not an ideal situation but a very realistic situation... I don't know exactly what an alpha can make mining in a venture so I'll pick belt ratting as an example because if you get into a decent sized null sec alliance you should be able to belt rat regularly and get steady income from it. I have heard of players making 200 Million isk per hour running missions in high sec but I think that takes more player experience and is not an alpha account activity.

So belt ratting in low or null sec you should be able to make 6-8 Million isk bounty ticks which is every 20 minutes so that is 18-24 Million isk per hour. Occasionally you will get a decent faction drop in there from time to time but it is hard to calculate that so I will stick with just bounty ticks. So lets say 20 Million isk per hour for easy math. So 1 Billion isk for a PLEX divided by 20 Million isk per hour is 50 hours of belt ratting per month to buy a PLEX. That does not include any faction drops which you will see doing that much ratting.

I would think that an alpha account should be able to null sec belt rat in a navy cruiser fairly well. So this is realistic. Probably something like exploration would be better income but it's more hit or miss so hard for me to calculate. Also I have much less experience in exploration, but at least this is an idea.

And again if you are omega for a month and then can't quite make the Billion isk and have to go alpha for a week or two and then go back to omega that is totally doable

Fair enough.
My apologies.

Let's assume it would be easy for an alpha to earn the ISK for a PLEX every 30 days. Given where you are from you should know what can happen to prices if supply and demand don't have a chance to match anymore. Even if there was a reasonable method to earn sufficient ISK to plex an alpha, talking about it on a public forum would defy the purpose of asking about it.

You may want to read between my lines.

Mining is litterally one of the worst ways to make isk as an alpha. That includes gas mining. I went gas mining on an omega with better skills than you could get as an alpha and only included the time i was actively mining. I was making 5-6 mil an hour. Gas mining use to pay good, but it really doesnt anymore. I was mining gas that pays 10xxx a unit which is the best ive found living in a WH.


Lets assume a plex is 1.2 bil isk. Playing:

* 10 hours a week you will need to make 30 mil an hour
* 20 hours a week you will need to make 15 mil an hour.
* 40 hour a week you will need to make 7.5 mil an hour.

This doesnt include isk you will need for ships, ammo, skills, etc.


The fastest way to make isk is to learn to scan and hack. You can make 100 mil or more an hour doing this however its very hit and miss. You may have good days and you may have days where you make almost nothing. You need to get fast at scanning and hacking. Practice in high sec. Research scanning and hacking videos and guides.


You will want all skills related to scanning and hacking trained up as high as you can as well as frigates to high as level as possible. You will also want some cash in reserve. At least 5 mil but 20 plus mil is better.


What your going to do is take your racial exploration frigate and your going to fit it with a data and relic analyzers. A 5mn microwarp drive, a core probe launcher and 8 or 16 scan probes(16 makes life a bit easier but more investment), and finally put interial stablizers in your low slots. This will allow you enter warp faster which is important. Jita is probably going to be the cheapest hub to buy all this. You want to keep your investment under 1 mil isk or as close to 1 mil isk as possible.


Then your going to go out scanning somewhere away from busy systems. Ideally you want systems with less than 10 people in them. While the amount of people in system doesnt really matter. It indicates how busy the system is and how likely you are to get people that find the same Wormhole as you.

Scan down all signatures in the system. Run the relic and data sites. Warp to all wormholes and see where they go and how long they have left( this information is available in show info on the wormhole). You will have to learn what the info in show info means and you will have to learn wormhole mechanics and learn the basics about wormhole space, null space and low space, so you understand what your getting into.

What you want to do is find wormholes that go to low, null, or low class wspace. Then you want to jump through scan relic and data sites, then jump out without getting caught with your loot. Then sell it in jita.


You will lose ships doing this. However 1 low relic or data site should earn enough isk to replace your ship 5 times or more. 1 null or w space site should make enough to replace your ship 10 times or more. Sites can pay 5 - 100 mil each. It takes about 5-15 minutes to run the site and however long to scan it. This is the fast method to make isk with alpha skills.


The second best way to make isk would be to join a null alliance and rat in their space. It will pay better than mining or killing NPCs in high sec.

Mining and Missioning wont give you enoug isk to fund your plex as an alpha clone. The options you got are ratting in null, wormoles and FW.

I believe you can do station trading as well.

Ok, so high-sec has very poor rewards, and this is an issue for everyone not just Alphas.

Low-sec has slightly better asteroid ores and exploration sites, but borderline not enough to justify the HUGE increase in risk from PVP. Faction Warfare PVP can be grinded for the Loyalty Points (LP coins) which you can use to buy items and sell on the market, allowing for some income.

Null-sec can be very profitable if you're part of an alliance, because they defend their space and thus you can do exploration or mining or whatever in relative safety, and take advantage of the rich resources.

Wormhole space, once you learn the game and how wormholes work, can be profitable because you typically do ninja-work, sneak in, grab a bunch of stuff, and run away before anyone catches you. And if they do, you're in a cheap Venture or other cheap frigate. You'll have to train some of the Alpha skills to 3 - 4 to maximize your chances of success.

Otherwise, to give you an idea of the options, there are several methods for making ISK in EVE:

0. For newbies: Career Missions give you approx 10 million in ships and cash for a few hours of work. Repeatable if you go to the other starting school locations and talk to the agents there. Sisters of EVE story arc gives you approx 15 million in a few hours, repeatable every 3 months.

1. Slow, steady grind: mining, running agent missions, exploration sites, Planet Management, some manufacturing. This is a very predictable income that depends on the sec. rating of the system, the lower the better. This allows you to get some ISK by just spending some time in-game.

2. %-return on investment: trading speculation. Once you have a few millions, you can daytrade in Jita, buying stuff when the price is down and selling it when the price goes up. You kinda need to know what's what, so that you can predict from the various announcements about game and item changes, what the prices will do. The more ISK you have, the more you can make with this method.

3. Do you feel lucky? methods: scamming, corp asset theft, suicide ganking transports. Can be very profitable if you get lucky or are good at tricking people, but it's not reliable from month to month or day to day.

4. Spend RL money. Very simple, 20 euro gets you 1 billion ISK via a PLEX purchase online and selling in Jita in-game. Not what you're looking for, but recommended for most newbies to take their mind off worrying about ISK and let them relax and learn the game.

5. Who needs ISK? If you join one of the large newbie-oriented 0.0 groups, they'll probably give you free frigates for life and possibly tens, hundreds of millions of ISK; the alliances have organized SRP (ship replacement programs) and other newbie programs that they can pay from taxes, veteran contributions, or other 0.0 income sources.

In any case, training your skills to 3-4 means you'll fly your ships better, which means you increase the profits because you mine more or are able to survive in dangerous space a bit better, or you have lower taxes and more orders available due to trading skills. So just be patient and don't give up; EVE is a long term game.