Guide to AIR Career Programme

Main article: AIR Career Program

The AIR Career Program is divided into four Careers, Enforcer, Explorer, Industrialist and Soldier of Fortune. This Step-By-Step guide will take you through a quick way to finish all of those, providing you with tips and guidance whether you are a newer players, a veteran player or multiboxer (player with multiple  Omega clones).

Introduction

Each of the Careers is divided into 10 [Sections] and each section has individual tasks. Each completed task provides Career Points. To get the 750.000 Skill Points, you do not have to complete every available task.

As you go through the guide you will get Skill Points:

4x 100,000 Skill Points for graduating from each Career

50,000 Skill Points for reaching 750 Career Points overall

75,000 Skill Points for reaching 1,500 Career Points overall

100,000 Skill Points for reaching 2,250 Career Points overall

125,000 Skill Point for reaching 3,000 Career Points overall

Total: 750,000 Skill Points

It is possible to finish the AIR Career Programme quite comfortably in about 12 hours of game-play. A hyper-optimised approach, utilising Ships with high Skill Points requirements, could probably finish the Programme in as little as 8-9 hours.

Considering the current price of Large Skill Injectors, even a brand-new player can get more than 100M ISK/h worth of Skill Points, whereas 80M+ Skill Points characters can calculate with 360M ISK/h worth of Skill Points per character (considering using Large Skill Injectors instead of accelerators).

Multiboxing: Large parts of the AIR Career Programme are easily multiboxable. But some tasks will increase the time it takes for completion slightly.

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Note: there are details about multiboxing in this guide, not because you have to multibox to enjoy EVE, but because the AIR Career Programme is also valuable to veteran players. In ISK value (as Skill Points) it can easily compete with other common multibox activities like Moon Mining, Ishtar ratting, etc. as you can see in the napkin-math above.

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Even if you don't care about the Skill Points, it is recommended to all veteran players to run the AIR Career Programme at least once for multiple reasons:

• New Career Agents - worth seeing the gorgeous new environment and dialogues, as well as how new players are being guided into playing EVE.
• Faction Standing Boost through the Career Agents and the Sisters of EVE Epic Arc - if you don't know which one to choose - Caldari standing helps reduce Broker Fees in Jita - that's always nice to have.
• The AIR Career Programme also serves as a reminder of the beautiful complexity of EVE Online and how many things new players can and should experience.

For newer players, it is a great catch-up mechanics and introduces you to many more factettes of the game than the Career Agents. It will surely help you figure out which activities you like to focus on.

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Tip: You can repeat the AIR Career Programme for all three characters per account. As the rewards are redeemed through redemption window, you can decide which character to apply them to. This means if you have a 'main' and create two more characters and run them all three through the AIR Programme, you will have up to 2.25M Skill Points to apply to your 'main'.

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Step-by-step Guide

Example Ship Fittings and explanations will be provided via EVE Workbench. All fits are minimum Skill Points requirement fits and Alpha-friendly and you can gladly upgrade them. For cheaper options, there are some alternative fits for the Soldier of Fortune career. By searching in the ingame fitting window for "AIR" you will find a range of viable frigate fits provided by Career Points for most of the combat/exploration part of the Programme.

Step 1 - Career Agents

Main article: Career Agents

Get started by moving to one of the 12 Career Agent Systems. If you have previously finished the career agents in a particular system, simply move to one of the others and the agents should be available to you. The Career Agents can be done in about 3h and I recommend using the AIR Sunesis as it has all needed modules already in cargo. See Considerations for Mission Order for tips on how to complete it efficiently.

During the Industrial Career Agent, you can mine Veldspar and Kernite. Doing so will allow you to save upwards of ISK 5M but also means the AIR Career Programme will take a little longer. To complete two tasks in the AIR Career Industry tasks [Resource Harvesting] and [Refining], you need to mine one Venture of the respective ore (Veldspar and Kernite). Alternatively, you will buy the resources later on in a trade hub and do the quicker Distribution missions and salvaging tasks instead.

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Tip: should you decide to take the slightly longer route, you will find the ore in the following missions: Kernite: Industrialist (Producer) - Making Mountains of Molehills (9 of 10) You can ignore the prompt to fit a weapon if you have drones. Just right click in space to find the site. Veldspar: Industrialist (Producer) - MMoM (1 of 10) and MMoM (4 of 10), as well as Industrialist (Entrepreneur) - Balancing the Books (3 of 10)

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As part of the Industrialist (Producer) Career Agent, you will receive Blueprint Copies for the following two items:

• Civilian Shuttle
• (Racial) Frigate

Build those instead of just buying them from the market to start finishing tasks in the [Manufacturing] section of the Industry Career.

While doing the Career Agents or later on the Sisters of EVE Epic arc, you will have plenty of idle time, even when multiboxing. Use the downtime to do following tasks:

• [Project Discovery - Submit 50 samples] - these can be fails as well.
• Social
  • [Send a Message in Chat] - wish someone random a nice day.
  • [Join a Fleet] - with yourself is ok, you won't be judged!
  • [Send EVE mail] - to yourself - it's ok.
  • [Add a new Contact] - anyone random and remove them again.
• [Salvage] - If you always have a Salvager equipped, you can salvage while still fighting with rats in most of the combat-related missions. This should not be a priority though.
• [Scanning] - Again not a priority but if you have a Core Probe Launcher equipped, firing 8AU scans regularly while running the Career Agents will get you a few successful scans without any down-time.

Step 2 - Sisters of EVE Epic Arc: The Blood-Stained Stars - 52 missions to greatness

Main article: The Blood-Stained Stars

You can run the Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc every 3 months and there are plenty of guides out there. Using the AIR Sunesis will allow you to comfortably finish it within 4 hours. For new characters or Alts, use the FREE AIR Enforcer Expert System you received in your Redeem Queue for finishing the Career Agent earlier.

Do not stop after 20 Epic Arc missions but do complete it, as it will contribute to the completion of many AIR tasks, including [Enforcer - Epic Arc - Complete an Epic Arc]

If you don't know which Standing to choose in mission 49 of the Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc, Caldari is a solid choice as it will decrease the Broker Fee in Jita.

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Tip: if you are NOT using the provided Sunesis fit but a cheaper Frigate/Destroyer fit e.g. the ones provided through the ingame fittings by Career Points, you might struggle with Kristan Parthus (high DPS) in Chasing Shadows (Mission 48) and Dagan (high self-repair requiring more than 100 DPS) in Our Man Dagan (Mission 50). Get a friend to help you or upgrade your ship accordingly.

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Step 3 - AIR Career Programme Careers

Main article: AIR Career Program

Now focus on the four careers of the AIR Career Programme, one at a time. There is a lot of flexibility in how to approach completing the Programme and plenty of space to optimise the time it takes to complete tasks. For each of the careers, here are some of the quickest ways to mix different tasks and take advantage of game mechanics for a quick completion. This assumes you are starting from zero and you won't do any of the activities in our regular EVE life with the particular character(s) you are using. If you use an industrial character, you can skip obvious tasks. If you use a PvP character, you can skip blowing yourself up 20 times etc. Using the expert systems received through the Career agents for each of the sections is recommended to speed things up and give you access to most fits and mechanics required to complete the Programme.

Industry

The Industry career doesn't have obvious "cheese" mechanics but you can still optimise the time it takes to complete tasks and choose the ones that are the quickest. Find the tasks in order of priority here and take suggestions on which ones to skip. Use the FREE Industry Expert System you received as a redeemable reward from finishing the Career Agents.

[Research - Copy/ME/TE] Buy and use a Blueprint Original that is quick to research and cheap - if in Jita/Perimeter, get (Mjolnir/Scourge/…) Rocket Blueprint or similar from an NPC order. If you are doing it in a different trade hub, get the respective small ammo of the Empire (e.g. Amarr - Multifrequency S, etc.). The four research tasks should take less than 10 minutes to complete.

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Tip: use the Facilities Tab in the Industry Window to quickly find a station that allows you to research your Blueprint Original.

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[Build a Cruiser/Destroyer/Frigate/Shuttle]

[Build a Cruiser/Destroyer/Frigate/Shuttle] You should have completed the Shuttle and Frigate during the Career Agents. For the Cruiser and Destroyer, you can utilise the Blueprint Copy that you will receive in your Redeem Queue for reprocessing 16k Pyroxes and 14k Plagioclase (tasks of the [Refining] section.

Catalyst Blueprint Copy contracts

Alternatively, simply buy a Blueprint Copy from the Contract Market and buy the material required right from the market. (See screenshots). You can then sell those ships at a slight loss to the market and complete the next section.

[Market] Earning 1M ISK on the market can be done in multiple ways. Usually when you sell all your loot/rewards you receive from Career Agents, Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc etc. this completes quickly. If you haven't managed so far, simply redeem all rewards you have gotten so far (in your Redeem queue) and sell those + the ships you've built in the previous task at a trade hub.

[Resource Harvesting] While a time-consuming task (around 2h for everything), this can help you save ISK 5M or more, if you use the resources harvested for the following [Refining] task. It can pretty much be done afk in a belt in High-Sec. Each mining task will require approximately one Venture's hold worth of minerals.

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Tip: find belts with the respective Ore in the Agency -> Resource Gathering -> Asteroid Belts

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[Refining] The easiest way here is to simply buy all the resources and refine them. The ore will cost around 10M and lose half its value when reprocessed on a character without refining skills. If you have done the [Resource Harvesting] task, you can also use those resources.

[Salvage] or [Distribution Mission] to wrap up the 750 Career Points required.

[Salvage] Salvaging 50 wrecks can be done very quickly with a salvaging Destroyer like the AIR Catalyst Salvage. However, one needs to find 50 wrecks. You can either:

• (a) find a friend that runs missions and provides you with bookmarks to their wrecks,
• (b) bookmark your own missions you will run in the Enforcer career and return with your salvager later (wrecks stay for 2 hour) or
• (c) Always have your salvager equipped on your AIR Sunesis and salvage while running Career Agents, Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc, Security Missions or while blowing yourself up in 20 shuttles per character as part of the Solider of Fortune career.
• (d) use salvage drones while running the Career Agents, Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arcs and Security Missions - this requires you to train the Salvage Drone Operation skill and is thus not the optimal solution.

[Distribution Mission] These can be done quicker than the [Resource Harvesting] tasks and should be preferred if you skipped mining and finished [Refining] by buying the resources from the market.

Skip: [Mining Mission] These take an unnecessary amount of time and should definitely be skipped.

Enforcer

After completing the Career Agents and the SoE as described in the first part of the guide, you will have made great progress towards completing the Enforcer Career. You should have following sections complete [Career Agent Missions], [Security Agents], [Combat Sites], [Epic Arc] and [Standings]

The [Market] task requires you to spend 1M ISK. There are multiple moments in this guide where you will probably buy something. Just complete it if it isn't yet.

To wrap up the 750 Career Points needed, use the AIR Sunesis or any other DPS ship you used so far to run Security Missions. You can speed up the Soldier of Fortune career [Combat] section by using a different ship type for running Security Missions than what you used up to now. I.e. If you used a Destroyer, now use a Frigate or Cruiser to run the missions and kill 75 ships.

Run Security Missions until enough tasks in sections [Loyalty Points], [Combat], [Bounties] are completed. Once you get 350 Loyalty Points with a corporation, spend them to wrap up [Loyalty points].

Skip: [Abyssal Deadspace]. While it's viable, low-level Abyssals do not contribute to [Loyalty] points, don't give [Bounties] and have generally very few ships, making [Combat] take much longer.

Soldier of Fortune

This Career can be done with Alts or with a friend pretty quickly but might be challenging for newer players - go get a Corporation and some friends quickly. It's what EVE is all about really!

Use your FREE Soldier of Fortune Expert system. Note that you will have to train Capacitor Emission Systems I & Weapon Disruption I as it is not provided through the Expert system but required for an entire section + an individual task under the [EWAR] section.

Simply start by making yourself a bookmark in your favourite Trade hub (ideally close to the Hub). Using two of the provided AIR - Gnosis fits (40M ISK) with your Alt(s) or a friend. This will allow you to do the following sections/tasks in less than 20 minutes. The cheaper version will utilise two fits with the AIR Griffin and AIR Bantam but will take a bit longer.

[Capacitor Warfare] Use an Energy Neutraliser and a Nosferatu on each other and wait till this section is complete.

[Support] Use drones to damage each other and use Shield Booster and Armor Repairs to finish this section. If you can upgrade your Gnosis to T2 Light drones or even better Medium/Heavy Drones, this will go even quicker.

[EWAR] Use each EWAR (web, paint, point, scram, weapon disrupt) for 300 seconds on your Alt/Buddy. This should take exactly 5 minutes.

After that's done, there are multiple options on how to complete the Soldier of Fortune career. The quickest way depends a lot on the availability of a friend or an Alt.

[Social] You should have completed most tasks here. I skipped the [Join Corporation] task here, as you can easily complete the Soldier of Fortune career without it.

[Duels] & [PvP] & [Destruction] The quickest way to get those done is to have a friend/Alt and use either the Trade hub bookmark from earlier, or kill yourself right outside the station:

• Get in a Shuttle and warp to your friend/Alt who sits in a DPS ship like the AIR Sunesis.
• Start a Duel and get yourself blown up until you died 20 times to get [Destruction] completed for you.
• This will get [PvP] done for your friend/Alt.
• Every Duel has a 5 minute cooldown - if you want to get [Duels] done at the same time, simply wait 5 minutes for each time you kill the shuttle of your friend/Alt.
• You can speed up this process by not waiting out the 5 minutes and instead do Duel requests whenever you have a friend/Alt in the same system throughout running the AIR Career Programme.

NOTE: You are perfectly safe to initiate a Duel with someone - no one else will be able to take advantage of your Duel timer.

Change DPS/victim roles with your friend/Alt and repeat.
With up to 20 destroyed Shuttles, the DPS ship you use for this could have a Salvager which would contribute to the [Salvaging] section of the Industry career.

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Tip: you can duel someone as long as they are in the same system. Simply click their name (from watchlist, chat window, fleet, etc.) and request a duel.

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Skip: [Faction Warfare] The current Faction Warfare system is not ideal, as it's not easily available to everyone or all your Alt characters. I therefore recommend skipping it. Skip: [Combat] Following the steps above, you will not require finalising the [Combat] section (killing 75 ships with a Frigate, Destroyer and Cruiser respectively)

Exploration

The EVE Scout // Thera bookmark folder

Systems you did not already visit

Once again, use your FREE Exploration Expert System before starting this career.

The Exploration task will take advantage of Thera and the fantastic work of EVE Scout, an initiative by Signal Cartel.

Join the ingame channel: EvE-Scout and load the EVE-SCOUT \\ Thera bookmark folder provided in the MOTD.

[Project Discovery] This should be done while travelling, waiting for scans etc. Failed attempts count. [Gas Sites] and [Combat Sites] should be completed right after the career agents. If not done yet, go back to a Career Agent System at the end of the Exploration section.

[Scanning] & [Wormholes] & [Navigation] & [Advanced Navigation] Get in a T1 scanning ship or switch to your Core Probe Launcher on your AIR Sunesis. Find any Wormhole and repeatedly scan it down till you have all your [Scanning] and [Wormholes] tasks complete (logging off and on again will allow you to scan the same signature(s)).

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Tip: the systems containing the Career Agents have lots of easy to scan signatures if you wish to quickly complete the scanning task.

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Head over to Thera - in the Bookmark folder simply look for the quickest way to get there. If you don't feel comfortable with going through Low/Null, simply look for the quickest route through High-Sec iE

Once in Thera, use the EVE Scout website and sort by Regions. Fly into regions you haven't been to yet to finish [Advanced Navigation].

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Tip: you can take advantage of the ingame map -> Personal -> Systems visited to see which regions you have yet to visit.

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[Combat sites] Fly in between the green anomalies marked as combat sites until you completed 25 combat sites - entering the site will count as "completing" it. You will want to immediately warp off once you enter the site. You will usually have a few seconds before NPCs aggro you. Warping back and forth to a combat site which has a warp gate entrance is a great way to avoid rats and will tag the task as complete.

[Exploration - Gas Sites] Fly in between two gas sites up to 15 times till complete. Wormhole space is the most likely space to have multiple gas sites. If you are afraid to lose your ship, you can always warp in between sites in a capsule, as NPCs do not aggro capsules. Alternatively if you have found a single gas site, just warp off grid and back again repeatedly to complete this task.

[Exploration - Hacking] This is probably the most time-intense task, as you will have to find several sites to complete 25 hacks. Please be aware that data/relic sites in high-class wormholes will have NPCs in them. Find more information about which data/relic sites in wormholes are safe to warp to here: Relic and data sites § Is this site "safe" to warp to?

If you don’t feel comfortable with Wormholes/Low-Sec/Null-Sec yet, you can of course stay in High-Sec but it will probably take you longer to complete these sections. If you feel comfortable with WHs/Low/Null, you can probably find plenty of Data/Relic sites to finish a task in [Advanced Hacking] as well.

Skip: No task is really skipped here, with the caveat that [Advanced Hacking] isn't necessary to complete and will take more time if you multibox.

Congratulations! You have finished the AIR Career Programme, gained 750k Skill Points and hopefully learned something on the way.