EVE New Citizens Q&A

So I finished the Agent tutorial missions and I really enjoyed the business missions of just taking stuff to and fro with the occasional crafting and light combat/salvaging. The business Agent doesn't seem to have any other missions beyond the tutorial.

When I went looking for courier contracts with my brand new Wreathe, all the player contracts had like 50+ million isk collateral for less than 1 mil payouts and most were around the 80mil mark....which is well beyond my alpha clone bank account.

So my question: Is there a way to do cheaper courier type hauling PVE missions for NPCs or are all the missions combat? If so, where are they likely found or is it RNG as you hop station to station?

Or am I stuck with exploration/mining/speculative trading to build up enough capital to do player courier missions? Or should I be looking for a player corp that does this activity?

There is absolutely an element of 'it takes money to make money' in hauling. I'd suggest the distribution missions to build up the collateral you need and your hauling skills improve.

You can also build up your clientèle through your connections, undercutting larger corps and proving your speed/reliability. I live in w-space, for example, and often need to dump PI product from whatever wormhole is available. If you were willing to offer me reduced rates (to reflect the lower load size due to the lower collateral), I'd happily save myself the trips to Jita. I wouldn't even need it done particularly quickly.

Edit: Put your rates and conditions (ie, high sec only, max load size, turn around time, etc) in your bio so that anyone can easily check them and decide whether to give you a contract or not.

I guess I just haven't found any distribution missions then.

Thanks for the replies. I know its not the most profitable activity, but I like it. Just looking for a low key money maker that isn't mining.

I did build a Burst and am slowly outfitting it for logistics since I like the "healer" role in other MMO's and will start doing more combat (with other players) once I get it up and running with all the modules needed.

I never offered hauling services to other people, so I don't know how profitable it might be. However, I do know that there are some dangers you should be aware of.

Taking a courier contract means you’ll pay the collateral up front and will get it back if you complete the job. But if you can’t complete the job, for example because your ship was ganked and your cargo stolen, then you’ll lose the money.

Some of the available contracts out there are traps. The conditions are often attractive to lure the prey into the trap. When you accept such a contract the issuer and his friends will be waiting for you. To make it easier for them such a contract sometimes requires a route that goes through a bottleneck or into a deadend system with a relative low security status (because the security status affects Concord response time). Some people use contract alts because of this (accept contract with contract alt, move stuff with hauler alt).

Even if the contract is legit you might still be ganked. One of the main trading routes connects Jita and Amarr. If you take this route you’ll go through Niarja (which has a security rating of 0.5) and Madirmilire (0.6). Both systems are frequented by gankers who might kill you, if you seem to be a worthwhile target. Of course you might also just be ganked on Jita undock by someone.

There are some things you can do to lessen the risk of becoming a target. First and most important of all is fly smart, don’t afk, don’t auto pilot. Keep your eyes open. If you notice that someone is scanning you (which is easy to miss if they do it right) they are already checking how hard it is to kill you and how much they could gain. Don’t fly expensive stuff when intoxicated or very tired (which is much easier said than done). Plan ahead. Use a scout if possible. Use off-grid insta-undock bookmarks (at least in Jita and Amarr, and change them now and then if you use them frequently) and consider insta-dock bookmarks (at least in Jita). If there’s something fishy, expect the worst. On second thought, always expect the worst. And try to prepare for it.

Make sure the ISK value of your cargo is matched by your abilities to escape a gank (for example by tank, cloak or speed/agility). Putting cargo worth a billion ISK into your Wreathe is not a good idea if someone can one-shot you in a 78m ISK ship (guesstimated Tornado plus fittings, didn’t check actual costs). Use the right ship for the task. For example certain DSTs (Deep Space Transports) can be tanked to make them insanely hard to gank, which makes it less likely to get killed even when carrying valuable goods. Or you could use an insta-warp Interceptor if you want to move something small but very expensive. Such an Interceptor is hard (although not impossible) to catch. Unfortunately your options with an Alpha are limited here.

Also I’d recommend checking Red Frog Freight. They are probably the largest organization specialized in hauling in EVE. Even if you are not eligible to join them as an Alpha, you still might learn from them. And if hauling is your thing, you might consider upgrading to Omega one day and joining them. Or upgrade anyway and do whatever is fun for you.

http://red-frog.org/jumps.php
https://sites.google.com/site/redfrogrecruiting/home

OP, maybe check the "agent type" filter in your agent finder?

There are also third-party out-of-game trade tools you can use to haul for yourself and make a bit.

https://eve-central.com/ trade finder section will find you trades for any size cargohold you set. ...just be quick, don't try for the most profitable trades that many are competing for - rather choose the medium-profit trades, and make sure the buy order on the other end is still open before you buy the trade gooods to reduce your chances of being left holding them.
o7

Don't have any mail from you yet..

If you do a "show info" from the right click menu of any NPC corp there will be an "agent finder" button at the bottom of the UI. Expand the filter options so that you can sort by "Agent Type" and choose "Distribution". Keep in mind where the level slider is at and you might want to uncheck "Show Only Available" if you want to look for agents that you'd like to grind standing with to gain access to.