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Cash and Cruisers for beginners?
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Lancourn Darmazaf
Darmazaf Enterprises
#1 - 2017-05-09 20:26:21 UTC
I was told to repost this in the new players forum, so here it goes: I started playing about two weeks ago, and I've gotten myself a coercer with some good fittings, and I've been running T1 missions and salvage. I've done all the tutorial missions, and after about 10 hours of work I have 3 million ISK, but I feel like there must be a more efficient way to make money. I really want to get a cruiser, or something bigger, and if I have to I am willing to keep grinding, but this seems extremely inefficient, and its getting frustrating. Any suggestions from more experienced players?
Devin Daye
Doomheim
#2 - 2017-05-09 20:38:43 UTC
Training social skills will help with the standings and isk gain. Using your agent finder you can find more and higher level agents to do missions for, the higher the level of the agent the more isk/LP you will earn.

Typically a L1 can be done in a frigate or corvette
L2s can be done with a frigate or Destroyer.
L3s are usually cruiser or battle-cruiser
L4s are often run in battleships.
L5s on the other hand are often run as a fleet.

Mission running is one of the slower ways to make isk early on, but once you start getting into level 3 and 4 missions it will start becoming more profitable.

I'm sure you have seen it before, but look into joining a player corporation with similar goals, it is often the difference between staying and quitting.
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#3 - 2017-05-09 21:32:16 UTC
Did you do the SoE epic arc and the career agents? I remember having about 20mil after doing those. Also I'd probably skip salvaging, it probably just slows you down these days. Check the salvage prices and compare to what it is worth compared to doing another mission instead. Also where are you selling the salvage? if it is in your mission system you are probably getting pretty bad prices, trade hubs typically have better prices. A destroyer should be able to crank through lv1s, sure the isk isn't all that great but you will build some standings and learn the generals of running missions. It will also give you some time to train the skills needed for a cruiser.

I'd bump those ships up a bit, for a new player. Sure older players can come back and downship pretty easily but the extra hp and firepower typically helps. And of course going too big too fast can also have very bad results. bigger weapons have worse application so be careful and make sure you have some way of dealing with smaller faster ships.

lv1s: frig or destroyer
lv2s: destroyer or cruiser
lv3s: BC
lv4s: BS

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
Do Little
Bluenose Trading
#4 - 2017-05-09 22:52:22 UTC
I agree that the SOE Epic Arc https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/The_Blood-Stained_Stars is a good source of cash for new players. You'll easily have enough to buy and fit a cruiser by the end of the Arc if you loot and salvage the missions.
CMDR-HerpyDerpy Hurishima
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#5 - 2017-05-09 23:52:05 UTC
My brother gave me a small loan of a billion isk (its all gone and now i need to pay him back **** XD)
Thora Unni
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#6 - 2017-05-10 00:03:34 UTC
I'm just coming back after a 12 year break.

In that time I can say... since I last played money earning without playing in groups as been limited.

I've looked at my options.

Ever single time I've gone into low sec or Wormholes for exploration I have been popped 3 out of 5 times.. which just doesn't make it worth it without heavier skills. But you can make a fair bit if you have better luck.

Missioning solo with a single account even in level 3 missions I'm picking up about 4-6mil isk an hour


Mining Ice 6-7mil/hr in highsec

Mining the right ore 6-7 mil/hr

Mining lowsec ore 6-7 mil/hr


Basically the market makes mining for profit alone no matter what you do just slightly more profitable than Lvl 3 missions.


So honestly if you want in a cruiser do the training for a venture go out to a belt in .7 space find the right ore and mine it out while training for a mining barge get in one and start training your combat skills back up for missioning.



The other option is find a Corp because solo play of EvE unless you are liking for a time sink is all but pointless.

Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#7 - 2017-05-10 00:47:10 UTC
Thora Unni wrote:
Missioning solo with a single account even in level 3 missions I'm picking up about 4-6mil isk an hour

you should be making at least double that. ~10m/hr is face roll drake money, an optimized max skill alpha gnoisis I'd guess 20-30 mil/hr. I was making roughly 10m isk in bounty/rewards and another 10k lp per hour and had room for more optimization.

The only way for mining to take over is in low/nullsec on the high end ores with a high end ship. Mining is just a bad choice imo.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
Thora Unni
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2017-05-10 23:06:31 UTC
Chainsaw Plankton wrote:
Thora Unni wrote:
Missioning solo with a single account even in level 3 missions I'm picking up about 4-6mil isk an hour

you should be making at least double that. ~10m/hr is face roll drake money, an optimized max skill alpha gnoisis I'd guess 20-30 mil/hr. I was making roughly 10m isk in bounty/rewards and another 10k lp per hour and had room for more optimization.

The only way for mining to take over is in low/nullsec on the high end ores with a high end ship. Mining is just a bad choice imo.


In a Drake. Where you start the game with the intention and 10 years of knowledge or a fair bit of research to min max.

I am Minmatar Why would I do that if I want to fly a Drake. I'm in a Hurricane and it takes a bit more time, particularly as I just game back after 12 years and for some reason I deleted my main at some point so I am using a alt that was clearly intended to be something that I forgot as I logged in with Industry 5 trained and 1.7million in unallocated skill points (likely Learning and a few other things not in the game anymore.

So with effectively 2.5 million skill points I was in a decently outfitted barge making 2.5 million skill points with out much work.

Combat took a little time to get used to again and I quickly reverted to old habits and was distance tanking. With Medium Turrets sitting out at 40km. Right now I'm limited because I need to get my Drones and single missile launcher to work at that distance. So I'm limited to just 250dps. End of next week I should be tipping 380 which will speed things up a lot. Still that take a significant amount of training.

The Drake is Easy Mode most likely. I couldn't say.

I'll take your word or it though that a person that logs in knowing exactly what to do and custom trains their account to perfectly min max might be able to pull of 10 million. If you want to do nothing else and you are blitzing.

Then sure...

Still I still think Mining with a window open research all the technical data that helps make combat better, and understanding the politics and how to do things in even, while making the same funds (as boring as mining can be) is the way to go early one if you want to bank roll to level 3 missions. Heck even mining in a venture will make more isk than lvl 2 missions.



Alasdan Helminthauge
AirHogs
Hogs Collective
#9 - 2017-05-11 00:57:15 UTC
If you're Minmatar, maybe try a Machariel instead.
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#10 - 2017-05-11 02:03:59 UTC
I think the hurricane has a higher ceiling than the drake I think in general turrets are more powerful than missiles. Of course with very low skills and game knowledge the drake will probably be better, low skills and little knowledge of turret mechanics will lead to a lot of missed shots with turrets where the drake just needs to lock and shoot. Also it is very easy to over tank a drake, which can be important with low damage. As skills go up and use of turrets becomes natural the cane can pick things off and should be able to kill npcs faster than the drake. The cane works well with a double damage bonus and the BC range bonus, compared to the gnosis with only a single damage bonus, and minmatar alphas have awful drone skills so they can't take great advantage of the gnosis drone bonus.

My main point is that mission running will eventually make far more isk than mining. Also don't forget LP, each LP point is worth 1000-2000 isk.

and of course splitting 2.5m sp among mission running and mining is going to have great results in either. Like you say a few more skills and a nice dps bump should help out.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#11 - 2017-05-11 02:17:32 UTC
Alasdan Helminthauge wrote:
If you're Minmatar, maybe try a Machariel instead.

if we really want to get into min/maxing then yes, but I don't know that I'd recommend that in a thread with beginners in the title.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
Sara Starbuck
Adamantine Creations
#12 - 2017-05-11 03:18:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Sara Starbuck
When i was using cane to do l3 missions i had no problems, didnt feel so slow either. If i remember right my distance was something like 20-25km instead 40, i was using the 650 arties (720s didnt fit easy with my bad skills) and the shortrange ammo. The cases where you want to use the longer range ammos are very limited as far as im concerned. My worst enemies were usually the elite frigates if i couldnt burn them down before they got to orbit, i had bad droneskills at start and tracking was issue.

Back then i dont think there was the extra range bonus though.
Thora Unni
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#13 - 2017-05-11 14:34:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Thora Unni
Chainsaw Plankton wrote:
I think the hurricane has a higher ceiling than the drake I think in general turrets are more powerful than missiles. Of course with very low skills and game knowledge the drake will probably be better, low skills and little knowledge of turret mechanics will lead to a lot of missed shots with turrets where the drake just needs to lock and shoot. Also it is very easy to over tank a drake, which can be important with low damage. As skills go up and use of turrets becomes natural the cane can pick things off and should be able to kill npcs faster than the drake. The cane works well with a double damage bonus and the BC range bonus, compared to the gnosis with only a single damage bonus, and minmatar alphas have awful drone skills so they can't take great advantage of the gnosis drone bonus.

My main point is that mission running will eventually make far more isk than mining. Also don't forget LP, each LP point is worth 1000-2000 isk.

and of course splitting 2.5m sp among mission running and mining is going to have great results in either. Like you say a few more skills and a nice dps bump should help out.


I run Level 3 with two Limited Invulnerability Fields and 10mn afterburner and a full compliment of 720 scouts with a heavy missile Launcher right now most of my gunnery skills are level 4 I'm pulling up my Medium turrets to level 5. battlecruiser (which I never thought to check) to level 4 and I have a 5% implant that will go in shortly. (didn't want to put it in while playing around with exploration a bit.. which was a good call)

So I'm running ehp of 47k cap stable and a DPS high of 323 (with drones and missiles) and 250 with just guns. 2-3 pocket mission with 2-4 groups in each takes me about 30-40 minutes to run because I distance tank and my shields never drop below half and so long as I warp in at range I won't drop below 66%. If I have a whole group of frigates on top of me at 2-6km I take a pounding.

I've been back about a month and 2.5mil sp when I logged in and 1.7mil unallocated I'm sitting at 5 million now. There is a split between mining and Combat as I actually prefer mining and industry to be honest but it is a little boring at times so I like to be slow in my training. I'll train up a bit until I can whip through the Lvl 3s faster. Keep building a pile of money and work on a few agents. Before I start looking at a battleship for level 4s.

As for the other peoples suggestions of training for a faction battleship.

I honestly don't remember all the details of why I left the second time in 2005. When I logged in a month ago I had 10mil isk, a Thrasher, Rifter, Scythe and Mammoth and a bunch of ammo and drone BPOs I have no idea why I am in the system I am in.. I know I left when having a cyclone ganked and not being able to jump bouncing off the gate for a while before popping. I was moving to the system I am in but I don't know why. I don't mind it is nice a quiet and plenty of agents. So I stayed.

That means I had to start from scratch. Spending 300mil on a battleship I don't have the skills to fly, fitting it and then using it for level 3 missions seems excessive as I have 350mil isk in total right now and the hurricane is cheaper to fit fly, and replace if I do something stupid. When I start level 4s I'll likely use a Maelstrom and once I have more cash the Machariel may very well be in the cards. However that is a ship for someone with the skills to fly it.

I realize I'm an odd ball. I have a single account, I haven't bought plex to pad my wallet (though I have thought about it) and until I am a little more familiar with the game again I'm staying away from Corporations as in every single MMO I've ever played I leave them when they start demanding I do things that are counter productive. Right now EvE is a nice little time sink so I am doing things slow for my enjoyment.

However I really think that people that say 10mil ISK an hour are inflating that number. LP is a potential isk but it isn't actual isk. Not right away. I don't think a New Player can hit that. Real isk numbers that increase your wallet so you can buy new ships is 6mil/hr for nearly everything I've done... So far. Missile are certainly easier early on, a Drake if your earlier enough in your Training does seem logical. Caldari Missile boats have always been "easy mode"

Doing a Lvl 3 with a Alpha is nearly impossible Cruisers is biggest ship you can fly and no pirate faction ships.
Murkalael Arbinger
Nullvoid Tech
#14 - 2017-05-12 13:23:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Murkalael Arbinger
I believe is more like play style and find your way into the isk. I'm a 6 month old player and have all the ships my faction (Gallente) can have as alpha and even a few from other factions. How to do it? Simple:

-you must train the required skills to pilot that ship
-stick to one npc corp for missions for a while, doesn't matter if you're doing security, distribution or mining, as long any npc you choose will be the same corp as the others, this will make your standings towards that corp increase faster giving you higher level missions, consequently, more isk
-once you have the required isk, buy yourself a BPO from the ship you want, sometimes buying also the ship you're using also means profit. This way, in case you're blown up (and you will), you can simply craft your own ship. Little tip here, you can research your BPOs to use less material and less time to make.
-once you have ships BPO, you can also craft to sell on market. Ships are often destroyed, so they will be always on demmand, you just need to find a spot where to sell well.
-from there you can make your own path, there are several things you can do to profit, like running anomalies, scanning, hacking, ratting in low / null sec, you can also buy in one place cheaper and sell in other place for bigger prices and profit.
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#15 - 2017-05-12 20:59:10 UTC
Thora Unni wrote:
I run Level 3 with two Limited Invulnerability Fields and 10mn afterburner and a full compliment of 720 scouts with a heavy missile Launcher right now most of my gunnery skills are level 4 I'm pulling up my Medium turrets to level 5. battlecruiser (which I never thought to check) to level 4 and I have a 5% implant that will go in shortly. (didn't want to put it in while playing around with exploration a bit.. which was a good call)

So I'm running ehp of 47k cap stable and a DPS high of 323 (with drones and missiles) and 250 with just guns. 2-3 pocket mission with 2-4 groups in each takes me about 30-40 minutes to run because I distance tank and my shields never drop below half and so long as I warp in at range I won't drop below 66%. If I have a whole group of frigates on top of me at 2-6km I take a pounding.

I've been back about a month and 2.5mil sp when I logged in and 1.7mil unallocated I'm sitting at 5 million now. There is a split between mining and Combat as I actually prefer mining and industry to be honest but it is a little boring at times so I like to be slow in my training. I'll train up a bit until I can whip through the Lvl 3s faster. Keep building a pile of money and work on a few agents. Before I start looking at a battleship for level 4s.

As for the other peoples suggestions of training for a faction battleship.

I honestly don't remember all the details of why I left the second time in 2005. When I logged in a month ago I had 10mil isk, a Thrasher, Rifter, Scythe and Mammoth and a bunch of ammo and drone BPOs I have no idea why I am in the system I am in.. I know I left when having a cyclone ganked and not being able to jump bouncing off the gate for a while before popping. I was moving to the system I am in but I don't know why. I don't mind it is nice a quiet and plenty of agents. So I stayed.

That means I had to start from scratch. Spending 300mil on a battleship I don't have the skills to fly, fitting it and then using it for level 3 missions seems excessive as I have 350mil isk in total right now and the hurricane is cheaper to fit fly, and replace if I do something stupid. When I start level 4s I'll likely use a Maelstrom and once I have more cash the Machariel may very well be in the cards. However that is a ship for someone with the skills to fly it.

I realize I'm an odd ball. I have a single account, I haven't bought plex to pad my wallet (though I have thought about it) and until I am a little more familiar with the game again I'm staying away from Corporations as in every single MMO I've ever played I leave them when they start demanding I do things that are counter productive. Right now EvE is a nice little time sink so I am doing things slow for my enjoyment.

However I really think that people that say 10mil ISK an hour are inflating that number. LP is a potential isk but it isn't actual isk. Not right away. I don't think a New Player can hit that. Real isk numbers that increase your wallet so you can buy new ships is 6mil/hr for nearly everything I've done... So far. Missile are certainly easier early on, a Drake if your earlier enough in your Training does seem logical. Caldari Missile boats have always been "easy mode"

Doing a Lvl 3 with a Alpha is nearly impossible Cruisers is biggest ship you can fly and no pirate faction ships.

your turret damage sounds low, with lv4 skills 3 gyros, 720 scouts, and faction close range ammo I'm seeing 366 dps in eft. of course that involves getting in a little closer, I'd suggest around 30km, but sounds like you have some extra tank you aren't using. It also might make sense to skip the passive tank and try active tanking I haven't min/maxed the hurricane enough to know what's best. Your longer term plan sounds right, I just think you could probably improve a few things now.

Plugging in that implant sounds like a good idea, and you might want to set up some jump clones to protect your implants. Just need to train the infomorph psychology skill to install jump clones they got rid of the standings requirements a while back.

Alphas can do level 3s in a gnosis. Gallente alphas can break 600 dps in a gnosis with railguns and medium drones, amarr is a little behind that with beam lasers and drones. caldari (~470) and minmatar (~370) take a big dps hit since they can't use medium drones, and their light drones are severely handicapped by alpha skills. caldari at least get to okay damage with rails, minmatar gets shafted with arty as the gnosis only has one damage bonus, an AC fit doesn't even get into competitive damage levels. At least they are capless and having some damage selection might be helpful?

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
Thora Unni
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#16 - 2017-05-12 22:09:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Thora Unni
Chainsaw Plankton wrote:

your turret damage sounds low, with lv4 skills 3 gyros, 720 scouts, and faction close range ammo I'm seeing 366 dps in eft. of course that involves getting in a little closer, I'd suggest around 30km, but sounds like you have some extra tank you aren't using. It also might make sense to skip the passive tank and try active tanking I haven't min/maxed the hurricane enough to know what's best. Your longer term plan sounds right, I just think you could probably improve a few things now.

Plugging in that implant sounds like a good idea, and you might want to set up some jump clones to protect your implants. Just need to train the infomorph psychology skill to install jump clones they got rid of the standings requirements a while back.

Alphas can do level 3s in a gnosis. Gallente alphas can break 600 dps in a gnosis with railguns and medium drones, amarr is a little behind that with beam lasers and drones. caldari (~470) and minmatar (~370) take a big dps hit since they can't use medium drones, and their light drones are severely handicapped by alpha skills. caldari at least get to okay damage with rails, minmatar gets shafted with arty as the gnosis only has one damage bonus, an AC fit doesn't even get into competitive damage levels. At least they are capless and having some damage selection might be helpful?


Oh neat I didn't realize it was Alpha ready everything else over Cruisers seemed to require omega.

With Republic Phased Plasma it is only 283 I am using regular Phased and Fusion Though I'm only using 2 gyros and a Signal Amp mostly for the extra target. Though really I could switch it out that would jump it up. I'm using the Standard Phased Plasma as I can make them and I'm in Gallente space (like I say I have no idea why and when I played last I don't recall faction ammo being a thing) And paying 945isk a round is excessive. Even at their cheapest according to eve market they are 680isk. 10-15x the retail cost for 40DPS doesn't seem worth it for PvE (PvP most certainly) Particularly as I make them for under 35isk. full set of ammo is 113,400k I generally refill my turrets 3 times. Even at 2.5 to account to the DPS increase I'd be looking at 283k isk a mission opposed to 12,000isk. That means if I were able to blitz and do the 10 million you are taking about, thats 4 missions an hour. Losing 1 million in ammo. I figure the extra time it takes with the lower ammo would work out to be the same really. (figure 60-65dps (340vs400 once I get my skills where they need to be)) Though I may keep some around for PvP purposes should it be required.

But the Third Gyro I think I will experiment with. Even with my cheaper ammo it would be a 27dps increase right now. That is good to think about thanks.

I generally used an Active Shield Tank but the Passive works well and I'm cap stable with an afterburner. If I actually got in closer I would actually lose a little more of my shields more regularly. Most things don't hit me at 40km+ in lvl 3 missions. Having the extra shields are nice in case I do something silly, like shoot the wrong target and aggro everything :) I'm a bit of nub some times.

The Gyro suggestion could actually be a big help.

When I finish training my current group in two weeks (Medium Projectile 5, Cybernetics 4, Battlecruiser 4, Gunnery 5) I'll be interested to see my timing for the lvl 3 missions.
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#17 - 2017-05-13 01:38:05 UTC
Faction ammo really became readily available when they reworked the LP rewards and added the LP stores to the game back in 2007. I pretty much haven't used t1 ammo since. +15% dps is a huge boost and very much worth it. If you go from 6->10m and spend an extra mil on ammo it is still a +3m gain. 3mil is more than what a hurricane can expend firing its guns for a whole hour.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
CaseyLP
Full Broadside
Deepwater Hooligans
#18 - 2017-05-13 02:18:57 UTC
If you ever are interested in checking it out, Exploration is a very good way to get money as a beginner.

I recently created an alt, and as soon as I did the career missions I went exploring. In the course of 2 hours I already made close to 50 mil.

Exploration is great because you can start doing it the moment you start the game, and if you are smart about it, it can be low risk for a very large reward.

My ship I used for exploring probably costs no more than 3 mil, which means I paid my ship over 16 times in the course of just 2 hours.
Thora Unni
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#19 - 2017-05-13 03:33:52 UTC
CaseyLP wrote:
If you ever are interested in checking it out, Exploration is a very good way to get money as a beginner.

I recently created an alt, and as soon as I did the career missions I went exploring. In the course of 2 hours I already made close to 50 mil.

Exploration is great because you can start doing it the moment you start the game, and if you are smart about it, it can be low risk for a very large reward.

My ship I used for exploring probably costs no more than 3 mil, which means I paid my ship over 16 times in the course of just 2 hours.


The issue with Exploration is it seems to require you to go to low sec or into wormholes. I've done both. First time into a .4 system to kill rats and work out manual flying.. ganked. First time hacking in a wormhole... ganked and podded for lulz apparently. The ship I didn't much care about.. but the podding was a annoying as I had to replace implants.

So basically I tried exploration and I'm 15 million in the hole with it.. not really keen to try it again until I can spend the time and money to out fit a ship that is more comparable to what I'd meet and maybe learn some better techniques to have a chance of getting away.
Thora Unni
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#20 - 2017-05-13 03:55:32 UTC
Chainsaw Plankton wrote:
Faction ammo really became readily available when they reworked the LP rewards and added the LP stores to the game back in 2007. I pretty much haven't used t1 ammo since. +15% dps is a huge boost and very much worth it. If you go from 6->10m and spend an extra mil on ammo it is still a +3m gain. 3mil is more than what a hurricane can expend firing its guns for a whole hour.


Well based on the calculation and running it through the simulator right now it doesn't seem to have a big enough impact on DPS to knock off enough time in doing the mission to justify the cost. Because I make my own ammo it is 980isk more a round then I'm spending now. So until the DPS variance is large enough to justify that. Take about 39 minutes to do a mission that pays out 2.4 million in bounties, and 1.4 million in mission rewards. And it costs me nothing to run it. That is 5.8mil ISK and hour. (Not all mission pay that that was one of the highest pay outs I've seen so far and doesn't include salvage (in that case 20 minutes and I sold the high value stuff at 80%of their value (I won't sell less than that) for another 2.2 million)

So if 5.8mil isk is what I get from missions like that. And the increase is about 40dps.. that is a 14% increase. If we assume that DPS has a direct correlation to time (and it isn't the only factor of course) that is 5:30 seconds saved off missions. 33.5 minutes to make the same 5.8mil isk. If I assume it takes 3 full reloads with my current ammo that is 6 guns with 20 rounds so 360 rounds that cost me nothing now (as I mine when I don't have a desire to run missions) the DPS increase should also lower Ammo usage to 310 rounds but will cost my 980isk each. That is 303k ISK. ... The Per Hour isk take at 33.5 would increase to 6.8mil isk.. minus the cost of the ammo is 6.5miilion isk over 5.8 million isk.

Well in that case you are right. I did the math as I was typing this out do I had no idea the outcome it is harder for my ego to try to spin it to make me right that way :)

I will have to give Faction Ammo a Try. At the very least assuming other factors I'd break even, and as my skills go up the difference between regular and faction increases too. Just wish I had a Republic corps that I could work on..

This has been educational. Thanks for taking the time with this.



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