User:Qwer Stoneghost/Old user page: Difference between revisions

While much basic gear is made available at stations by the game, most of the unusual, extra powerful, higher leve ships and gear are made by players. The game provides blueprints, some of which are very rare, that "Industrialist" characters use to manufacture items. These are then hauled to central locations, called "trade hubs", and offered via the Market service. Mining, missions and exploration provide the materials needed to manufacture items from blueprints, and Research allows Industrialists to improve the speed and efficiency of their manufacturing processes. Naturally, all of this requires a special set of skills.  

''Missions'' – much like "questing" in other RPGs. Missions pay in ISK and loyalty points with the corporation offering the mission. Note that the loyalty points can only be spent in that corporation's store. Mission go from level I to level V. I through IV are solo and get progressively harder while offering progressively better payoffs. Level V are for fleets. Also included in this category are Encounter Sites similar to "dungeons" in other RPGs, these pop up at random and offer loot if you can kill all the NPCs in the site.

''Mining'' – use a laser to chop asteroids into pieces and haul the resulting ore back to a base. The ore can be sold "as is", or reprocessed. It tends to be worth more "as is" until you train up your reprocessing skills. Mining is easy, consistant, and boring.  

''Industry'' – using minerals reprocessed from raw ore, and blueprints, manufacture items. Many higher level game items are produced this way. Industry requires high level skills and is very competitive.

''Trade'' – sell stuff. You can buy it, move it to a place where it's worth more, and sell it. Or you can produce it and sell it. Or you can loot it and sell it. Trade is interesting, but there are a lot of traders in EVE and the competition is cutthroat.

''Hauling'' – contract to move stuff from one place to another. Because long distance travel is boring and/or dangerous, many players hire other players to move their items around. This is done through the in-game contracting system. Hisec hauling is easy, competitive, and doesn't pay very much. Low and nulsec hauling is dangerous, but pays very well. To get into the lowsec hauling business, you need good navigation and cloaking skills.  

''Exploration'' – use your scanning, survey and decrypting skills to unlock potentially valuable archaeology sites. The best sites are in nullsec space and in wormholes. Such sites can be amazingly valuable. Criminal players may try to kill you and take your loot. Exploration is easy to train, but takes a lot of practice to get good enough to do the high value sites.  

 

'''BOTTOM LINE:''' Depending on what you enjoy doing, any of it can be fun. However, it is impossible to do all of these things at the same time at any kind of reasonable speed. So pick a career or two: combat pilot, explorer, miner, manufacturer, merchant, researcher, hauler – and focus on deepening your skills in one or two areas.