Missions: Difference between revisions

'''Trade missions''' The agent wants a specific item to "trade" for the reward. Trade missions have no inherent combat of itself. Trade missions do not occur as basic missions but show up as Storyline and COSMOS missions. The item(s) to trade can often be bought of the market or in contracts but you can also acquire them yourself which might require mining or combat.

'''Talk to Agent missions''' (also referred to as travel). The agent sends you to report to another agent. Initiating communication with that agent completes the mission. These missions occur as part of Epic Arcs.

'''Agent Interaction missions''' (also referred to as branch). The agent offers you the choice of 2 or more missions. Conforming your choice completes the interaction mission and accepts the mission of your choice. These missions occur as part of Epic Arcs.

'''[[Security missions|Encounter missions]]''' are all other missions. Mostly combat-focused. The job is usually to kill pirates, retrieve stolen goods, or destroy strategic targets. But sometimes it is doing a recon (i.e. go to the target area, look and leave) or transporting items from or to a structure (<em>not a station</em>) somewhere in space. Unlike "true" courier missions encounter transport missions will <em>not</em> warn you when you try to leave the pick-up location without the cargo in your hold. These missions have the highest rewards but they are also slower and involve a risk of dying.

Also known as "Tutorial missions", are missions that are supposed to help teach players how to play EVE Online. It is a good idea to do these when you first start playing EVE, as they give you starter ships and equipment. They also increase your standings with the faction offering the missions. Each player character can only do each tutorial mission from a given [[Career Agents|Career Agent]] once, but the Career agent mission chains do count as Storyline missions and thus increase faction standings after completing a full set.

Are a part of the [[Industry]] career path. Instead of ISK and Loyalty Points, these missions award Research Points that can be used to buy [[datacores]] from the agent who gives the missions. You will need to have trained various Science skills to the level required by an agent before they will offer you a mission. Datacores can be sold at the Market, and some players run these missions to make ISK from trading - do keep in mind that the income is quite low. Most players, however, have not trained the Science skills that these missions require. Research missions do count for the storyline mission tally.

Are long series of missions. Throughout the arc, you will be offered choices that will branch the arc into one or more directions, and thus the arcs have different outcomes depending on your choices. The missions that make up these arcs typically have very good ISK rewards and the last mission of the arc carries a handsome reward. There are seven Epic Arcs. Most players begin with [[The Blood-Stained Stars]], an arc that can be completed in a T1 destroyer and gives a boost in standings with the [[Sisters of EVE]] and one empire faction of your choice. Seasoned L4 runners will be doing the four empire epic arcs while the fearless pilots can do the two pirate epic arcs. Epic arcs can be repeated once every three months. Epic arcs missions do not give Loyalty points <ref group=Note>At least [[The Blood-Stained Stars]] does not.</ref>. Epic arc missions do count for the storyline mission tally.

Also known as "burner" missions, are optional Security missions that are offered by level 4 agents. They can always be declined without penalty. Anomic missions present a more difficult challenge compared to other Security missions. You will encounter a small number of very powerful adversaries and you are restricted in ship size. These missions require specialized and expensive ship fits and high skills to solo. They also require piloting skills that are otherwise rarely used in PvE such as [[overheat]]ing.

Are special missions found in certain regions of space. These missions vary wildly in difficulty from easy L1 to harder-than-usual L4. Unlike normal missions these missions require '''faction''' standings to accept. The COSMOS missions are offered only once and can not be repeated. If you let them expire or fail them they will not be offered to you again and the following missions will not be offered to you. COSMOS missions do not reward loyalty points.