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Is This A Viable Playstyle?
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Caellan Traverse
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2012-03-21 22:53:07 UTC
Hey! I'm new to EVE. I started an account quite a long time ago, played for a few days, ran away with my tail between my legs (in large part due to the UI's never-ending menus), but now want to give this game a genuine chance. My first MMO was Lineage 2, and I loved the politics and open-approach to that game. Rather than the fixed factional warfare of other MMOs, L2 allowed players to form their own factions, control their own economy (to some extent), and plan their own battles. I want that experience again, and EVE seems to take it to the next level.

What I would love to do in this game is drug running. But I want to know if that's viable. After reading around on the forums a little bit it seems some professions are dying out, such as mining not providing as much of a return as mission running would. SO although I love the idea of piloting a fast ship full of illegal goods, I don't want to aim for that if it's not really viable - such as the demand isn't there, or it's far easier to turn a profit from legal goods and firearms.

Essentially, I have my head in the clouds and want a fun experience with this game. Drug running just sounds more enjoyable than trading antimatter rounds. Even if that enjoyment is largely in my head. Exploration also sounds interesting, and is something I'll be... exploring? I intend to finish all five tutorial agents before heading down a deliberate path, but thought I would ask here for feedback on a smuggling playstyle.

Many thanks for reading Big smile
gfldex
#2 - 2012-03-21 23:17:26 UTC
Caellan Traverse wrote:
Is This A Viable Playstyle?


no

If you take all the sand out of the box, only the cat poo will remain.
mxzf
Shovel Bros
#3 - 2012-03-21 23:32:06 UTC
Technically, drug running is possible. But it's nothing like the glamorous lifestyle you have envisioned. It involves lots of industrial back-end, hassle running POSes, and trying to actually get people to buy your products. It's a very small niche profession in industry.

But in Eve there's no black market you can sell to and make fast money. All get-rich-quick schemes are scams (weather you're the one scamming or being scammed).

Exploring is probably more like what you're looking for. It involves roaming around the universe checking each system hoping for that lucky find worth hundreds of millions (or more) of ISK. It's not easy, but it's not boring either and can be very rewarding if you have patience and dedication.
gfldex
#4 - 2012-03-22 11:59:12 UTC
To elaborate a little on the Why.

Some years ago there used to be plenty of goods that where quite illegal in empire space. Most of them could be acquired in bulk in 0.0 space. Cunning individuals found it to be most amusing to drop those items in cans right in front of the station in noob systems. The customs did their thing, ships where lost, whining ensued and petitions queues where filled.

There is nothing CCP hates more then filled petition queues. As a result your profession was petty much nerfed out of existence.

In EVE whining back fires.

If you take all the sand out of the box, only the cat poo will remain.
Caellan Traverse
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-03-22 12:55:07 UTC
Thanks for the replies.

I should clarify that I'm not after a get-rich-quick scheme, but a profession that's more interesting and exciting than others. Just so long as it's financially viable, and it wouldn't be significantly faster to just make cash from mission-running. Mining for example, sounds pretty dull and repetitive. I'd like something a bit more engaging than that, and assumed that drug-running might involve more route planning and evasion than standard trade does. Perhaps exploration would be best, since that seems to involve variety and a sense of luck. Never knowing when the next big find will present itself.

So the dev's solution to player exploits was just to nerf the drug industry into a profitless profession? Is that true, or an exaggeration?
Khanh'rhh
Sparkle Motion.
#6 - 2012-03-22 13:23:19 UTC
It's possible, but lacks the glamour you're thinking of (unless youre good at immersing yourself) and though the profit per item shipped is usually very good, the volume isn't there. There aren't enough people using boosters to make a significant market for them.

If you want to get into this your best bet is to keep it as something you do on the side and join a corp that is PVP focussed. You can then basically be the corp "go to guy" for getting boosters to where you need them.

Otherwise, stations in syndicate, curse and Molden Heath / Heimatar will get you some business on sell orders.

"Do not touch anything unnecessarily. Beware of pretty girls in dance halls and parks who may be spies, as well as bicycles, revolvers, uniforms, arms, dead horses, and men lying on roads -- they are not there accidentally." -Soviet infantry manual,

Herping yourDerp
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2012-03-25 03:51:03 UTC
no real money in it, it would be better to kill frigates in highsec in mining belts.
if you want to be somewhat techincal about it though, you could try to run things like ammo and ships TOO lowsec or nullsec stations, its not drug running but decent profit, though things aren't illegal you get to evade players instead of police.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2012-03-25 05:13:10 UTC
Caellan Traverse wrote:
Thanks for the replies.

I should clarify that I'm not after a get-rich-quick scheme, but a profession that's more interesting and exciting than others. Just so long as it's financially viable, and it wouldn't be significantly faster to just make cash from mission-running. Mining for example, sounds pretty dull and repetitive. I'd like something a bit more engaging than that, and assumed that drug-running might involve more route planning and evasion than standard trade does. Perhaps exploration would be best, since that seems to involve variety and a sense of luck. Never knowing when the next big find will present itself.

So the dev's solution to player exploits was just to nerf the drug industry into a profitless profession? Is that true, or an exaggeration?


I wasn't there that early in the game, but it sounds from his description that CONCORD was destroying ships that were carrying contraband. It is not normally CCPs methodology to cater to (or even lift a finger for) the whiners, but in this case it was probably justified. As much fun as it would be to watch new players lose their ships that way, it just doesn't make sense for the police to shoot those who carry fairly harmless substances like drugs. But there are lots of other ways to harass new players that CCP isn't nerfing out of existence--you just have to not be a whiner yourself and put some effort into your attacks. Anyone who thinks that EVE favors the griefer is straight wrong. However, in 99% of grief cases, the griefer knew plenty well what they were doing and how to do it, while the griefee had no idea they were in danger in the first place.

As for a profession you might like, you could try running cargo shipments between highsec and nullsec. It takes a lot of time to get into that profession, but there's a high demand for it. You might start by training for a blockade runner transport and running goods for corporations in lowsec. And eventually you can get a jump freighter to transport goods to and from nullsec.
To train for Blockade-runner Transports:
  • Train your racial industrial skill to 5.
  • Buy the Transport Ships skill (around 75 million ISK IIRC).
  • Train Cloaking skill to 4.
  • Buy a blockade-runner transport (Prorator, Crane, Viator, Prowler), hopefully by then you'll know how to fit a blockade runner. These ships run about 250 mil IIRC.
    • If you're looking for something to do with your industrial in the mean time (while you're training the industrial skill to 5), you can join mining ops with mining corps or anyone else who mines. A low skill player can make an effective transporter of goods within highsec or any zone guarded by friendly pilots.

    Choosing a race industrial to train for:
  • Amarr: At skill level 1, you can fly both the Bestower and the Sigil. They are by far the largest industrials you can fly so early, but there are no other standard industrials from the Amarr, so they fall behind a bit later on.
  • Caldari: At skill 1 you can fly the Badger, which is pretty nice for starters. The Badger Mark II (skill 3) has high powergrid and is good at loading up with defenses, though it has the smallest cargo of any of the races' largest industrials. On the upside, the Caldari freighters are the largest freighters, though they have the slowest align time.
  • Gallente: Gallente have 5 Iteron-class industrials, one for each skill level. The first 4 are a bit worse than anything you get from any other race at the same skill level, but it pays off at skill 5, because the Iteron Mark V is by a good margin the largest industrial. In fact, its maximum cargohold size beats all of the deep space transports I believe.
  • Minmatar: There are three Minmatar industrials: the Wreathe (skill 1), Hoarder (skill 2), and Mammoth (skill 4). The Mammoth is the second largest tech 1 industrial, and is a good thing to have while you wait several days for the skill to slowly train to level 5. On the other hand, Minmatar freighters are the smallest freighters, but they have the shortest align time.

    • To train for Jump Freighters:
  • Buy and train Advanced Spaceship Command skill to 4.
  • Buy the appropriate racial freighter skill (I think it costs around 125 mil).
  • Train Navigation skill to 5.
  • Buy and train Jump Drive Operation skill to 5 (this skill isn't very expensive).
  • Buy Jump Drive Calibration skill.
  • Buy a jump freighter (Ark, Rhea, Anshar, Nomad). These ships cost upwards of 2 billion ISK.
    • Once you have Advanced Spaceship Command and the racial freighter skill trained to at least 1, you can fly a standard freighter (Providence, Charon, Obelisk, Fenrir). With this gargantuan cargo ship, you can trade goods between different market hubs and transport tremendous amounts of goods at a time. If you use it right, it can make you a lot of ISK.

    Why you shouldn't fly a blockade-runner in nullsec:
    In null-security space, players can anchor warp disruptor bubbles wherever they please. It is common practice to cover a stargate completely in these bubbles. Once you come through the gate, a fleet waiting on the other side may not be able to target you before you cloak, but they'll have seen you for a brief moment and so they know where you are. Since you can't warp away, they'll simply have a fast tackler zoom over next to you, and that will cause you to decloak. In low-security space, players cannot anchor these bubbles. Thus if you fly properly, and barring a bombing run (not seen so often in lowsec), it is virtually impossible for you to lose your blockade runner.

    In nullsec, there are very large corporations and alliances that handle very large amounts of goods at a time. Jump freighters are an ideal way to transport these goods because they can jump across several lightyears of space to a cynosural field generated by a friendly player, and skip that much hostile territory. That keeps the goods safe.

    FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

    Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
    Reaver Glitterstim
    The Scope
    Gallente Federation
    #9 - 2012-03-25 05:55:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
    However, I know for a fact that running goods around is far from a fulfilling career in EVE. You'll want to branch out in the meantime and experience other things. Don't limit yourself. Get yourself into a battlecruiser, there's more you can do with one of those than just about anything else you'll have access to early on. Here's some tips to choose you a race:

    Amarr:
  • Lasers - Laser weapons use capacitor instead of ammo. They do EM and Thermal damage, and you have little choice of damage type. Lasers hit pretty hard despite having a pretty nice range.
  • Armor Tank - Amarr ships almost exclusively prefer armor tanking over shield tanking. Many Amarr ships have a bonus to armor resistances, and that coupled with their high armor HP means they can fit a very strong buffer tank and outlast other ships on the field in a straight firefight. Also, Amarr ships tend to have a lot more low power slots than medium power slots, a setup that is ideal for armor tanking.

    • Caldari:
  • Missiles - All race ships can have missile launchers, but Caldari have several ships that actually specialize in them. Missiles aren't subject to the tracking and hit chance mechanics of turrets but instead always hit, and use explosion radius and explosion velocity to determine damage dealt. Every type of missile has 4 varieties, one for each damage type, making damage choosing easy.
  • Shield Tank - Caldari ships almost exclusively prefer shield tanking over armor tanking. Many Caldari ships have a bonus to shield resistances, and that coupled with their high shield HP means they can fit a very strong buffer or passive regen tank. While their effective shield HP (after resistances) may be less than Amarr armor HP, the shields regenerate naturally, and the improved resistances make that natural regeneration even more beneficial. Sometimes these ships are fit to maximize the rate of shield regeneration, and provide a self-regenerating tank that doesn't require capacitor to function (though having it may decrease your capacitor anyway). Also, Caldari ships tend to have a lot more medium power slots than low power slots, a setup that is ideal for shield tanking.

    • Gallente:
  • Drones - Almost all ships can field drones (except most frigates), but Gallente ships are generally the only ships to specialize in them. Most Gallente ships have larger drone bays than similar ships from other races, and some Gallente ships have particularly large drone bays as well as bonuses to drone HP and damage. Drones are small craft that fly outside your craft, which you can control to attack or perform a handful of other duties. They are nifty in combat as they are hard to hit, though they suffer from a few drawbacks as well. They don't have very many HP, and they are cumbersome to use. A drone ship with no drones left is pretty much gimped.
  • Armor Tank - Gallente ships tend to favor armor tanking, but are not completely biased in that area. Several Gallente ships have a bonus to the amount of armor repair from armor repairers. Gallente ships tend to have more low power slots than medium power slots, though the actual numbers are similar in most cases.

  • Hybrids - Hybrid weapons are used by both Gallente and Caldari ships. Any Gallente ship that doesn't focus on drones, or any Caldari ship that doesn't focus on missiles, usually focuses on hybrids. Hybrid weapons deal thermal and kinetic damage, similar to lasers in that you have almost no control over your damage type. Hybrid weapons use both ammo and capacitor to fire, though they use much less capacitor than lasers.

    • Minmatar:
  • Projectile Weapons - Projectile weapons come in two very different flavors: autocannons and artillery. While the short-range and long-range variants of other weapons are fairly similar, autocannons and artillery are a world apart. Autocannons have excellent tracking and can hit targets very easily, though they are the least powerful short-range weapon. They have a lot more falloff than optimal range, meaning the range modifier on their ammo doesn't mean much (except with Tech 2 ammo). However, mid range projectile ammo gets a nice tracking speed bonus. Artillery, on the other hand, fire very slowly but hit very hard. They have the lowest sustained damage rate of any weapon type, but can often destroy a target in one hit, so in many cases, artillery really save a lot of time rather than waste it. Autocannons are very easy on powergrid cost, while projectile weapons cost a lot of powergrid. All projectile weapons use ammo, but do not cost capacitor to fire. In this way they are similar to missiles. Finally, projectile ammo deals multiple types of damage, depending on the ammo. You can never deal all one damage type, but the number of choices gives you pretty good control over the type of damage you deal just the same.
  • Shield Tank - Minmatar ships tend to favor shield tanking, but are not completely biased in that area. Several Minmatar ships have a bonus to the amount of shield restoration from shield boosters. Minmatar ships tend to have more medium power slots than low power slots, though the actual numbers are similar in most cases.
  • Small ships - Minmatar have an odd technique of making their ships smaller, faster, and more agile than the ships of other races. This comes at the cost of these ships having lower damage output and being more fragile. Many players consider it to be more than a fair trade, however. Minmatar ships are very popular in PvP. Some minmatar ships, however, are rather large and slow. These are the ships designed for artillery. They have lots of powergrid for those large turrets, but if you fit them with autocannons instead, you have lots of powergrid left over for a tremendous buffer tank. The drawback though is that the slow ship will have trouble getting into range.
    • [*]

    FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

    Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
    Toshiro GreyHawk
    #10 - 2012-03-25 07:09:47 UTC


    One comment.

    The stuff like drugs that is "Illegal" in the game - will cause you to have to deal with NPC's. It's not really going to be that exciting. Like most computer opponents - it takes a while to figure out what you have to do to beat the computer - but once you do - it's helpless before you and immediately becomes boring.

    Try running things past characters controled by real human beings ... you want excitement ... that will get you plenty ...


    .
    Caellan Traverse
    Federal Navy Academy
    Gallente Federation
    #11 - 2012-03-25 11:38:11 UTC
    Wow, some awesome information here, thanks so much for the replies everyone.

    First of all, like I said I come from a Lineage 2 background, and although the last few years have been spent playing WoW since L2 went into decline, I've always hated how much hand-holding and whining there is in WoW. I guess I'm lucky that I played L2 first. Devs hated you complaining there, and always insisted that the players band together to solve issues. Even when bots spiralled out of control, it was up to the players to sort it out. There was a group of players called 'Forever Red' that devoted themselves to clearing areas of bots, and even though they had red names (similar to having bounties on their heads in EVE) we knew never to attack them since they were putting themselves on the line for the benefit of the server. It's great to be getting into a game that has a strong community spirit again.

    As for what I'll be doing in this game, smuggling seems out the window now. But I have always been interested in trade, and if low-sec (and perhaps one day null-sec) are really this lucrative... I may just be tempted to follow that path! Right now it's a toss up between moving into low sec trade (hauling) or Archaeology/Salvaging. Does it matter how long I take to decide? As in, do skills take longer to train if you have more of them? I'm not sure how detrimental it can be to invest in exploration skills first and then change my mind and decide to train for trade instead.

    Something else that's been on my mind for a while: how much longer would I have to invest to pilot Amarr ships (jump freighters, blockade runners etc) instead of Gallente (my race)? Not looking for an exact time frame of course. I've always thought the Amarr ships look stunning and would love to pilot them, but if it's going to take me months of extra work to get to that point...
    mxzf
    Shovel Bros
    #12 - 2012-03-25 12:41:05 UTC
    Nope. Training time is only affected by your attributes (which, in turn, can be affected slightly by your implants). The only 'risk' of training skills is that you'll decide later that you didn't really need those skills and your time could have been invested better elsewhere if you'd known what you wanted to do. But then the skills are still there if you ever do go back to that profession the skills are waiting for you.

    So, no, it doesn't matter how long you take to decide, the only 'detriment' is that you weren't training for that profession while you were deciding (which isn't that big a deal overall really). There are no set 'skill trees' or anything like that in Eve, there's no limit to the skills you can have in different areas.

    And how much longer it will take you to train Amarr ships vs Gallente will depend on how far you've trained up Gallente. If you have Gallente Indy 4, then it will take you Amarr Industrial 1-4 longer to train Amarr ships to the same place as Gallente ones. All racial ships have the exact same training times, everyone can train any ship just as well as any other, no matter what (for instance, I can fly all four races of ships relatively equally well).
    Caellan Traverse
    Federal Navy Academy
    Gallente Federation
    #13 - 2012-03-25 18:10:49 UTC
    Thanks for clearing that up. So because of how the ship skills are laid out, I could quite easily train for a Gallente cruiser like the Vexor and work on moving all the way up to larger ships like the Megathron, while focusing on Amarr ships for Industry and Freighters? The only downside to that is focusing on two career paths instead of one.

    I think I might start by getting a Vexor for exploration, and the Amarr equivalent of an Iteron, play around with both careers for a while, and then decide which one to take further.
    mxzf
    Shovel Bros
    #14 - 2012-03-25 20:31:46 UTC
    Yep, that's perfectly viable. Though if you like Amarr ships, you might want to check out the Arbitrator for a newbie exploring ship. It's a drone boat like the Vexor, but it's an Amarr ship (if you prefer the way they look).
    Reaver Glitterstim
    The Scope
    Gallente Federation
    #15 - 2012-03-25 21:45:52 UTC
    The Amarr Industrial skill's only prerequisite is Amarr Frigate 3, which is pretty easy to get. So you can train Gallente Cruiser and Amarr Industrial without having to fuss with an excess of differing prerequisites. And you likely know this by now, but skills take several times as long to train each higher level. A 1x skill will likely take you several hours to train to level 3, over a day to train to level 4, and most of a week to train to level 5. So work on getting as many skills at level 1 and 2 for now, and don't worry too much about level 5 skills for a while.

    In fact, I suggest you try to get all race frigate skills to 3 within your first month or so, and then you can get a feel for what it's like to fly those race's ships. You should probably train all races' cruiser skills to 3 before you pick a path to train for any tech 2 combat ship, because you won't really know which race's ships you like until you've flown a battlecruiser from each race. Battlecruisers are the meat of all tech 1 combat ships in EVE, they're more than 50% of what people fly.

    The Arbitrator is similar to the Vexor, though a bit weaker. But your skills early on will make a much bigger difference to how effective the ship is. Cruisers are good for level 2 missions, and that's mostly about it. They're probably due for a buff but who knows when that'll happen.

    FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

    Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
    Toshiro GreyHawk
    #16 - 2012-03-26 07:06:17 UTC


    On the subject of faction industrials - no two factions handle them the same way.

    With the Gallente - each level of the skill you train helps you with the ship you've got (like everyone else) - but it also qualifies you for a better ship - one for each level - thus Iteron V's. Iteronn V's have the largest cargo capaicity - with rigs & ECH II - 38,000m3.

    With the Amarr - you only have two ships - the Sigil and the Bestower - and you can fly them both with Amarr Industrial I. Each level trained improves the ships characteristics. Bestower is easy to get into and the best Level III ship.

    The Caldari have the Badger (@ level I) and the Badger II (@ Level III) - they have large basic holds but fewer low slots so can't carry as much. They're the worst Industrials for cargo capaicity - but I've certainly gotten some good use out of them.

    The Minmatar have the Wraithe, Horder and Mammoth - with Level IV required for the last. The Mammoth has the second largest hold - with rigs and ECH II's - 27,000m3 or so.


    Mostly - you want to fill the mid slots with Medium Shield Externders and an Invulnerability Module. AB's are only for moving around belts and such - but you can mostly just warp from place to place like the miners do.


    If you put some extra Bulkheads, shield rigs and a DCU II on a Bestower - you can get like 18,000 hit poits ... not bad for a cheap T1 Industrial.


    .
    Kata Amentis
    Sebiestor Tribe
    Minmatar Republic
    #17 - 2012-03-26 11:49:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Kata Amentis
    The devs have mentioned the smuggling thing a couple of times in the fanfest feeds; "we've got a spaceship game but you can't be han solo or guido(sp?)" was the line they used to refer to smugglers and bounty hunters.... but it's not something that is going to get any love this year. So you might get to do it at some point in the future, but not right now. I think it was part of the "crimewatch" presentation if you want to look for it.

    It's a feature that comes up fairly regularly on the Feature and Ideas boards too, so i don't think it'll lose visibility.


    And yes, the original contraband mechanic had two possible thresholds, one where you get fined, and one where you get shot... but that was exploited, so the getting shot bit was taken out. Not everything had the getting shot part either, it was only on the "heinous" stuff. Ie spirits in amarran space would get you fined in 0.5 space up to 0.8 and shot in 0.9/1.0, but carrying slaves in matari space just got you shot in 0.5 and up...

    Curiosity killed the Kata... ... but being immortal he wasn't too worried about keeping a count.
    Sasha Khaine
    Ministry of War
    Amarr Empire
    #18 - 2012-03-26 12:12:44 UTC
    Arms dealers make a lot more than drug dealers... just saying. ;)

    [center]"The entire British empire was built on cups of tea... and if you think I'm going to war without one mate. You're mistaken."[/center]
    Caellan Traverse
    Federal Navy Academy
    Gallente Federation
    #19 - 2012-03-26 12:37:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Caellan Traverse
    mxzf wrote:
    Yep, that's perfectly viable. Though if you like Amarr ships, you might want to check out the Arbitrator for a newbie exploring ship. It's a drone boat like the Vexor, but it's an Amarr ship (if you prefer the way they look).

    The main reason I created a Gallente character was because I love the idea of drone combat. That's also why the Vexor appeals to me. I also think they have the second best looking ships overall, with the Megathron being one of the best in the game (purely my own opinion of course). When it comes down to Industrial ships though, obviously I won't be engaging in combat so drone-love is irrelevant and it's purely down to aesthetics. And despite the Iteron varieties and the Obelisk/Anshar being great for cargo capacity... I think they look pretty dull. So that's why I'd rather go for the curvy Amarr ships where trade/hauling is concerned. The Arbitrator does look rather stunning though, and it IS a drone boat. I think I'll take your advice and Reaver's and invest in getting at least the Amarr frigate skills trained (if not all race's frigate skills) and play around a bit.

    @Toshiro - Thanks for outlining the different Indies for me! I'm assuming all faction's Indie ships are viable in some way, but I've heard often that the Iteron V makes the Gallente a clear winner. Is it a clear advantage to pilot an Iteron V over a Bestower? Or is that only from a min/maxing perspective? I'd like to hope that it largely comes down to fitting and pilot skill rather than ship stats, so that even though you could potentially get more out of an Iteron V, it doesn't really make much of a difference.

    Thanks for all the feedback everyone, I really appreciate it! This game would be overwhelming without the help you're providing =)
    Craobuhr
    Deep Core Mining Inc.
    Caldari State
    #20 - 2012-03-26 13:04:24 UTC
    try running ammo/fuel/drones and other consumables to low sec. (fw areas is nice for this)
    then run PI materials back to high.
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