EVE New Citizens Q&A

Just curious as a new noob, how did you make your first billion isk?

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=331515&find=unread

Good Ole Uncle Shah started a similar thread a few years back and it got stickied so it might be worth reading through.

By first Billion I'm not sure if you just mean the first Billion isk that I earned total or first time that a made a Billion isk in one happening.

For me I've never had a big payday. It's more been steady isk coming in over time. However there was twice that I've looted a Nightmare BPC once from a belt rat and once from an Anom faction spawn. Each of those was worth close to 800 Million at the time. So that was the closest that I ever came to one big pay day.

Other than that it's just been the steady isk that comes from a wide variety of stuff: Minning, Missions, Anoms, Sleeper loot etc...

My first billion was a bottom feeder order. I put a bunch of region wide orders for production chemicals at 1 isk each and someone dumped several hundred thousand units in a ls system. I was pretty excited and spent the next few days full of paranoid while I shipped that stuff out.

My first bil happened really late, I had already been playing for 3+ years and mostly been either a newbie or a covert op scout, first in low sec and then in several 0.0 alliances. I did make some money there trading goods from Jita to our 0.0 station using my covert, back then T2 was really expensive (covert cloak was 95 mil, for instance) so you could make some really good profits using a cargo expanded Helios (rip). Still, I did it mostly to stay afloat so never really actually had money to spare.

Then I made my first piracy character and started doing can flipping, after some time to get the hang of it the money started rolling in. Ransoming Hulks for 100-150 mil a pop, with a decent payout rate, started to work out for me. Then I moved on to being able to handle the ships they'd come back in (like the inevitable shitfit CNR) and actively pursuing ships like that by doing mission busting. Apart from the money I made with that I also got a ton of loot over time, lots of CN BCS and invuls, and at some point I decided to have a peek at how much that pile was actually worth. Turned out to be 22 bil which back then was quite a bit.

Lots and lots of 3/10's, faction rat spawns and relic sites

My first billion came fairly quickly. I had 2 sources and both are available to new players.

First, I manufactured small rigs. Profitability was good once I understood the markets but learning the markets was the most important benefit I got there. You won't get rich selling to buy orders!

Second, I ran distribution missions. Once I had standing to run level 4 distribution missions for Sisters of Eve it didn't take long. http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/Gicodel It usually took 2-3 hours to earn the 30000 LP I needed for an Astero blueprint and, in those days, the ships were selling in the 80-90 million range. If SOE sent me to lowsec, I ran distribution missions for Gallente and did quite well building faction modules like navy co-processors and EANM. Negotiation and Distribution Connections are important skills - get them to level 4. I also looked for bargains on salvage and tags while running my missions - on average, I probably paid half what they would have cost me in Jita.

The hardest part is getting the standing to run level 4 missions. I did all 3 sets of Gallente career missions, the Minmater career missions and the SOE epic arc. That got me to level 3 and, from there it's pretty quick to get level 4 - especially if you can run the security storylines - get a friend to help. Kidnapper/Gurista Strike level 3 storyline gives a massive standing boost and it isn't difficult if you blitz the last room.

The industrial you get free with the career missions can easily run the missions - fit enough cargo rigs/mods for 8K M3. You'll need to make a few trips for one of the storylines.

The first time I made a billion in one day was the Ascension launch. I anticipated the demand for mining drones and drone augmentation rigs. I put a lot of them on the market in the morning at outrageous prices and they sold out before I got home from work.

Belt ratting in Stain

Someone gave it to me so I would kill somebody else.

How to say...it was semilegally liberated from someone.

When lvl4 missions where added to highsec the NPCs stayed on the player that warped in first. Any following wave did also stay on target and all waves spawned at the same spot. They did hurt tho and there where no rigs. Tanking them wasn't easy. A mate of mine was tanking and I was sitting with a gank fitted mega (that was before the stacking nerf on dmg mods) blastering with 4kdps left right and center. We build a whole fleet of BS from the loot (that wasn't nerfed back then either). I have fond memories of missions where you can't get stuck on a gate because there was not gate to start with. IIRC it took us a little over a week to make 1B just in bounty each.