User:Hirmuolio Pine/sandbox2

A mission is a job offered by an non-playing character to a player which requires the player to accomplish a set of objectives in exchange for a set of rewards.

Rewards

Completing missions will reward you with isk, loyalty points and standings.

Being paid with isk is clear for everyone but new missioneers often forget about the Loyalty points that they gain whilst running missions. Loyalty Points are a currency that you receive from the Corporation whose agent gives you a mission. These points can be used to buy things at the Corporation's store. These points (plus a small amount of ISK or items) can be exchanged for valuable items in the Loyalty Points store of the mission agent's corporation. For some players it is more profitable to accumulate Loyalty Points in order to exchange them for goods which can then be sold than it is to kill, loot and salvage in security missions. See Loyalty Points for more details on what to do with LP.

The mission isk and LP rewards also scale with the system security of the agent by extra 10% reward per 0.1 decrease in security rating. This means that an agent in 0.5 security system pays 50% more than an agent in 1.00 security system. (confirm? All sources from before agent update. Some say that standing gain scales too). The rewards are also dynamically adjusted based on past completion data. This dynamic calculation affects isk payout, LP payout, bonus reward and bonus time.

Gaining improved standings with agent, corporation or faction can also be lucrative. With higher standings you will be able to take higher lvel missions, pay less broker fees in NPC stations and get cheaper refining in NPC stations. See NPC standings for all advantages of standings.

You will also receive isk from bounties while killing NPC in combat missions. You will often get mroe isk from bounties than from mission reward. You will also be able to loot and salvage the wrecks though it is often more profitable to skip this.

Mission Levels

Mission levels go from low to high: 1 to 5. As you go up in level, the missions generally require that you have more skills and access to bigger ships, but they also provide better rewards. The level of a Mission Agent tells you the level of missions that the agent will offer. Each agent offers only one level of missions.

• Level 1 is where most new players start. Most, if not all, level 1 missions can be done in a basic frigate, Only the most basic piloting skills are required.
• Level 2 mining missions stepping up from a frigate. These missions generally expect that you are continually improving your piloting skills and learning how to fit out new ships.
• Level 3 missions require a battlecruiser, a mining barge, or a medium-sized industrial ship. These missions go faster if you have trained for better ships and at least some Tech 2 fittings.
• Level 4 missions require a Battleship, an Exhumer, or a large industrial ship. These missions can be time-consuming, but they offer large rewards.
• Level 5 missions are designed for groups of players or capital ships and are exclusively located in Low Security space.

Three Common Mission Types

There are three standard types of missions: Security (sometimes also called "Encounter"), Mining, and Distribution (sometimes called "Courier").

Security missions are given out by Security Agents and they always require you to go to a location somewhere in space and complete an objective of some kind. The objective is usually to kill a ship or a set of ships, but other goals can be included. Security missions have the highest payout in ISK and Loyalty Points, and they offer the possibility of loot - but they also usually involve the possibility of death.

Mining missions are given out by Mining agents and require you to mine an asteroid or set of asteroids and bring the ore back to the agent's station. Level 1 missions will require mining up to 2000  m³ of ore; level 2s up to 6000  m³ of ore. There is a risk of combat in mining missions, though the "belt pirate" NPC hostiles that show up are usually rather weak. Note that Mining missions pay off in ISK and Loyalty points, you do not get ore from Mining missions.

Distribution missions require the movement of a cargo from one station to another. Cargo size for Level 1 and 2 missions can be up to 450  m³ in size. Distribution missions never require combat, though, of course, you may encounter PvP combat on the way to your destination.

Agents

All common mission agents have a name, a Level, and a Division. "Level" describes the general difficulty level of the mission that the agent can offer you and can range from 1 to 5; it also affects the standings you need to reach in order for this agent to give you missions. "Division" determines what type of mission - security (combat), distribution (hauling), or mining - you will be offered.

An agent will offer you missions only when your standings reach a certain amount, depending on the agent's level:

• Level 1: Any standings
• Level 2: 1.0 or higher
• Level 3: 3.0 or higher
• Level 4: 5.0 or higher
• Level 5: 7.0 or higher

You must meet this requirement for either the agent's personal standing towards you, their corporation's standing towards you, or their faction's standing towards you; any one of the three will suffice. For example, Eveynel Daerne is a Level 3 agent in Orduin IX - Moon 4 - Transstellar Shipping Storage. This agent is part of the Transstellar Shipping corporation, which is part of the Gallente Federation faction. The standings requirement is therefore 3.0, so at least one of the following 3 conditions must be true to get missions from Eveynel Daerne:

• Eveynel Daerne's personal standing towards you is 3.0 or higher.
• Transstellar Shipping's standing towards you is 3.0 or higher.
• The Gallente Federation's standing towards you is 3.0 or higher.

The fact that Eveynel Daerne is located in the Orduin solar system, which is the sovereign territory of the Minmatar Republic, is completely irrelevant. High Minmatar Republic standings will not give you access to missions from Eveynel Daerne. This concept applies as a rule to all agents of a faction who are located in a different faction's sovereign space.

Standings

Standings are a measure of how much one entity in EVE likes or dislikes another. These feelings are measured on a scale from -10 to +10 where negative is hatred and positive is love. Completing missions changes your standing with the agent, the agent's corporation, in some cases the agent's faction and, in security missions, the faction of the entities that you kill.

The standings of NPC entities toward a player are important for a couple reasons. Firstly, because higher standings make more profitable missions available. And secondly, because several perks become available when an individuals or player-run corporations standings are higher with a specific entity.

Be aware: security missions can make your standings go up with one faction and simultaneously down with another.

An agent will offer you missions only when your standings reach a certain amount, depending on the agent's level:

• Level 1: Any standings
• Level 2: 1.00 or higher
• Level 3: 3.00 or higher
• Level 4: 5.00 or higher
• Level 5: 7.00 or higher

Agents' standings are determined in part by your standing with their parent corporations. Because of this, there is an advantage to running your missions with the same agent. Each completed mission will raise your standing with that agent and the agent's corporation and move you more quickly towards the next level. In addition, because Loyalty Point stores are run by corporations, you will be able to buy more items faster if you stick with one corporation.

When you complete a regular mission for an agent, you get increased standings with the agent and the corporation, but not the faction. It is worth noting that if the mission involves destroying ships or structures of a different faction, then your standings with the target faction go down due to "Combat - Ship Kill". Those who wish to be able to fly in all High Security space are advised to decline all anti-Empire missions (that is, anti-Amarr, anti-Ammatar, anti-Caldari, anti-Gallente, anti-CONCORD and anti-Minmatar). Some exceptions or workarounds exist; for example, a Minmatar agent might give you the mission Friendly Spies, where if you destroy the mission objective but none of the hostile ships, then you don't lose Gallente Federation standings. In other cases, the standing losses due to "Combat - Ship Kill" are almost insignificant, such as Amarrian Tyrants, Level 3. Some missions, though, will incur -2.4% standing losses for ship kills and might require one or more completed storyline missions for the opposing side to repair the standings losses.

Storyline Missions

As you continue to complete missions, you will occasionally get a Storyline Mission offer from a special Storyline agent. This agent will suddenly appear in various stations, however, you may need to travel to the agent's station in order to accept the mission. Once you are in touch with the Storyline Agent, you accept and complete the mission in the usual way.

Storyline missions are usually simple, often requiring you to buy units of ore for delivery to the agent, and they seldom require combat.

Completing a Storyline Mission substantially increases your standings with the agent's corporation and faction.

The game tracks how many missions you've completed for each level and each faction. For every 16 missions of the same level and faction (but not necessarily the same corporation) that you complete, you will get a new Storyline Mission offer from a Storyline Agent of the same Faction. This will always be the Storyline Agent closest to the regular agent who gave you your 16th mission (in terms of number of jumps) with two exceptions.

• First, if the closest Storyline Agent has already made you an offer that you haven't accepted or declined, then it will be the second-closest Storyline Agent that you get the offer from.
• Second, if the agent who gave you the 16th regular mission that you completed was in High Security, then the Storyline offer will always come from a Storyline Agent in High Security.

You cannot work for a Storyline Agent unless you've received an offer from that Agent.

Completing a Storyline Mission substantially increases your standings with the agent's corporation and faction. When your faction standings are increased in this way it affects the standings of friends and enemies of the faction in question toward you. The amount that the other factions standings change toward you is directly related to their affinity for or dislike of the faction that you are involved with. For example if you are increasing standings with the Gallente Federation, your standings toward the Minmatar Republic will increase by 80% of what the Gallente standing increase because the Minmatar have an 8.0 standing toward the Gallente. Note that your standing with factions which dislike the faction you just ran a mission with will decrease (by the same proportion as above), so if you don't want to alienate too many factions make sure to run missions for each of them.

When trying to increase standings with a particular NPC corporation, it is possible to plan your missioning such that when you hand in your 16th mission, you get your offer from the Storyline Agent of the corporation that you are focusing on. See Mission Hubs for examples.

Declining Missions

The "decline mission" timer tells you how long you have to wait until you can decline another mission from this agent without losing standing.

Declining a mission for a particular agent more than once every four hours will also cause a standings loss with the agent, corporation, and faction. Also running out of time on a mission you have accepted will usually cause a standings loss with the agent, corporation, and faction (confirm?).

If an agent you recently declined a mission from offers you another undesirable mission, you can click DELAY, wait out the four hour timer while you go do something else, and then click DECLINE.

To see a history of how your standings have changed, you can go to NeoCom > Character Sheet > Standings, scroll through the list of NPC entities and select the entity you are interested in to see how much your standings went up or down for what actions and by how much.

Finding Agents

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These two web-based tools offer the same data as the in-game Agent Finder, but in an easier format. (Easier once you get the hang of it!)

• Agent Rangefinder
• Itemdrop

Special missions

These mission types are not as widely available as the basic three.

Research missions are a part of the Industry career path. Instead of 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 knowledge to the level required by an agent before he or she will offer you the mission. Datacores can be sold in the Market, and some players run these missions to make ISK from trading. Most players, however, have not trained the science skills that these missions require.

See Research missions for more details.

Epic arcs are long series of missions. Throughout the arc, you will be offered choices which will branch the arc in 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 typically carries a handsome reward.

There are seven Epic Mission Arcs. Most players begin with The Blood-Stained Stars, an arc that can be completed in a T1 frigate and gives a boost in standings withe Sisters of Eve. Seasoned L4 runners will be doing the four empire epic arcs while the fearless pilots can do the two pirate epic arcs.

See epic arcs for more details.

Anomic missions (also known as "burner" missions) are optional security missions that are given out by level 4 agents. They can always be declined without penalty. Anomic missions present a different and higher 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 overheating.

See Anomic missions for more details.

Career missions, also know as Tutorial missions, are missions that are supposed to help new players learn how to play EVE Online. It is a good idea to do these tutorials when you first start playing EVE, as they give valuable ships and equipment, and the increase your standings with the faction offering the missions.

Each player character can only do each Tutorial Mission from a given Tutorial Agent once ever, but the tutorial mission chains do count as Storylines in increasing corporation and faction standings.

COSMOS missions 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 standing to accept.

See COSMOS for more details.

Data Center missions involve handing in tags to the agent for standing gain. This effectively allows you to buy faction standings. note though that each data center mission can be done only once

Advice For New Mission Runners

If you're new to mission running and your goal is to gain loot, or pile up loyalty points to buy things, or to increase your standing with a faction, then you may want to lay out a plan to help you run your missions with a minimum of down time. Here are some suggestions.

1. Pick An Area In Which To Work

The last thing you want is to be running missions in the middle of a contested low sec region where combatants will shoot at you, or in systems that lie on a busy trade route where pirates will gank you. Use the map and look for a group of fairly high security systems set off from the major trade routes. It's also nice to have multiple star gates nearby, just in case you need to run for it. It is also best to not be alone so pick your location near your friends.

2. Know What You Need; And Check Out What The Various Agents Offer

Successful mission runs give you ISK and Security missions can give you loot. They also give you standing with the agent that gave you the mission and the agent's corporation, and the agent's faction. And, they give you loyalty points that can be redeemed for items in the corporation's store. (For example, Roden Shipyards' missions give standings with the agent, the corporation and the Gallente Federation. And each mission gives loyalty points that can only be used in Roden's stores.)

Most corporation stores sell the same sets of augmentation implants. However, different corporations offer different sets of skill upgrade implants, and different factions offer different weapons and ammunition. Roden Shipyards, for example, sells warp drive and astrometric skill upgrades, while Astral Mining offers mining upgrades. Weapons and ammunition offers correspond to the faction's spaceship preferences - Minmitar offer projectile weapons and ammo, while Ammar offer laser weapons and crystals, and so on.

3. Pick A Corporation With Agents In The Region

Nearly every station has at least one agent, and there are many duplications in terms of standings and items offered for sale. So if you want to improve your standing with the Gallente, for example, and you want to buy some mining skill upgrades, then Astral Mining is one of the corporations you would want to consider. Since there are many Astral agents in Gallente space, choosing this corporation will not restrict your choice of star systems all that much.

Once you have a goal in mind, use the Agent Finder to narrow your choices of star system. Keep in mind that when you finish running level 1, you will almost certainly have to move to a new system to find a level 2 agent, and again for level 3. So try to find a group of level 1-2-3 agents that are fairly close together.

In the example below note that the box at the bottom left of the window is UNchecked - because you want to see all agents, not just ones that you can currently talk to. There are many level 1 agents, fewer level 2 and even fewer level 3. But it turns out that there are level 1 AND level 3 agents in Jufvitte. This is convenient. Even better, there is a level 2 agent in Gisleres - only two jumps from Jufvitte. This means that you can run the first three levels of missions at Roden Shipyards from a station in this area of space.

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4. Pick A Base Station And Start Running

Here is the map for that area:

You need a base because as you go along, you will buy ships, ammunition and other gear, and you will pick up loot and junk from completed missions. It's easiest to keep all this stuff in one place, so plan to go to your agent's base to run missions, and fly back to your base when you need to refit. Missions often send you to other systems, usually in the range of 1-4 jumps from the agent's home base. This means that you will be jumping around a lot, and so there is no particular advantage to putting your base in the agent's system.

There are differing opinions on how to pick a good base station. I tend to put mine in a place where it's easy to buy ammo and ship equipment. This makes for minimum hassle if I need to upgrade equipment (because I've gained new skills), or fit out a new ship (because I've gone up a level). But the location is not terribly important ... if you're not sure where to put your base, don't worry about it. Just find an Agent and get started. The rest will work itself out as you go along.

Two hints for being sure your mission is complete

• Look for a green check mark next to the mission

• If you think the mission is finished, but you don't see the green checkmark, or if you're not sure what you need to do to finish, click on the little down-pointing arrow beside the mission name and select "details" from the menu. This will show you the mission statement and you can see what you still have to do to complete it.

Note though that some missions may not get this completion mark.

Mission Preparation and Walkthroughs

The first rule is to never fly what you cannot afford to lose. Even distribution missions can fail if you get ganked. So fly the cheapest ship that will do the job.

Know also that NPCs in missions tend to be very predictable in their setups. For example, Gallente and Serpentis use only Kinetic and Thermal damage against you, but are also most susceptible to Kinetic and Thermal damage themselves; when they use any form of Electronic Warfare (EWAR), it's always sensor dampening. It helps quite a bit if you set up your ship to deliver damage that the NPCs don't like and defend against what they will throw at you. Check out this page for a full description of NPC damage types and a handy chart that you can keep in your Neocon Notebook.

Missioning with a Fleet

Main article: Mission Fleets

Members of a fleet who run missions can share some or all of the standings, LP, ISK, loot, and/or salvage offered by the missions. This is especially good for newer players, as they generally gain more standings than they share. There are two main kinds of mission fleet: Spider, where everyone runs their own missions, but shares standings, etc. at the end; and Locust, where the fleet members all work on the same mission together. Read the article on Mission Fleets for more details.