Careers
Once players have completed the Tutorial, they need to find their own way in New Eden. EVE is a sandbox, and players will soon find they need to make their own entertainment and income. This guide briefly describes some typical options that many players pursue, together with likely incomes from them where estimates are possible.
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Combat occupations
Combat is a core part of EVE Online. Many players thrive on honing their combat skills, either against other players or against NPCs.
Mission running
- Main article: Missions
Missions are one-time jobs offered to players by NPC agents. There are various types of basic missions, including combat, mining, and courier tasks. There are also more advanced missions called COSMOS missions, Epic Arc missions, and Anomic missions.
Completing a mission is rewarded with ISK, Loyalty Points and standings with the agent and NPC corporation involved. Some missions also give a time bonus and some give items (particularly the Career Agents missions).
There are various levels of mission, which are increasingly more difficult to complete. Level 1 missions are easy for Alpha Clones or very new players to complete, but the rewards are low. In contrast, Level 5 missions only appear in low security space, and can normally only be done as part of a fleet. Players will need high standing with agents to be able to request higher level missions.
Average Income:
Ratting
As well as other players, New Eden is full of hostile NPCs which are nicknamed "rats" by players. These spawn at asteroid belts, in cosmic anomalies and at stargates. Destroying rats earns direct ISK payments as bounty, as well as loot and salvage from their wrecks. Some rats drop items known as Security tags which can be valuable. Blowing rats up is called "ratting".
The rewards vary depending on the security level of the system. In lowsec and even more so in highsec, the income is normally not high enough to justify ratting as a primary way to earn ISK. Efficient ratting in nullsec systems can be lucrative, if monotonous. Wormholes contain challenging rats who yield valuable loot, and offer a chance to combine exploration and combat skills.
Incursions
- Main article: Incursions
Incursions are high-end PvE content, in which fleets of players repell NPC invaders. Incursions appear in various systems around New Eden, so incursion runners tend to be nomadic, moving from system to system following incursion areas. Incursions are rewarded with ISK and Loyalty Points, though payouts are only made to a limited number of people on grid at the same time. For this reason, it is particularly important that each member of the fleet is effective in their role, and so they tend to fly battleships and T2 logistics ships.
PvP
PvP is a fundamental part of EVE Online. Players can attack or be attacked by anyone at any time. Many players make PvP their main profession, and spend their time preparing and hunting for fights.
PVP can be done in large fleets, in small gangs, or solo. It encompasses everything from frigate brawls to apocalyptic clashes between Supercarriers and Titans. Depending on a fleet's composition and purpose, players can fill many roles, including tackler, damage dealer, scout, bait, stealth bomber, EWAR, repairing other ships, and fleet command. To thrive in PvP, players benefit from a good tactical mind and a solid knowledge of game mechanics, but it is cheap and easy to make first steps in PvP; given the right tools and tactics, Alpha Clones and very new players can fight successfully.
The act of fighting itself tends to cost more ISK than it generates in loot. However, money can be made via PvP indirectly. Rank-and-file pilots flying with large, organised sovereign alliances in player-owned nullsec space often have their losses and costs covered by their alliance. Some players fight for pay as mercenaries: mercenary groups in New Eden range in type from small teams of pilots specialized in disrupting target corporations and settling small scores in highsec, to larger groups hired to add their weight to nullsec wars.
Some players choose to become pirates, and hunt down their victims to either pillage their goods or demand a ransom for their ship or pod. Hunting nullsec ratters who use expensively-fitted ships and "gatecamping" chokepoints on trade routes can be particularly lucrative
Faction Warfare
- Main article: Faction Warfare
In EVE lore there are four factions: Amarr, Caldari, Gallente and Minmatar. These factions are perpetually engaged in a struggle for power, and fight for control over certain areas of low security space. Players can join one of the factions and fight players from opposing factions in order to earn Loyalty Points and standings with their faction.
Participating in faction warfare means that players can be attacked by members of their opposing faction anywhere, so it is a dedicated profession. Players are not restricted on which faction they join and can even join a different faction to their character's race, provided they have sufficient standings with that faction. There are many dedicated faction warfare corporations.
Some aspects of faction warfare involve complexes which are limited to specific small ships, making it a slightly more approachable way to experiment with PvP for new players.
Exploration
New Eden is vast and contains many secret sites with hidden valuables, as well as wormholes. Explorers probe out such sites and wormholes and hunt through them for valuables.
Scanning
- Main article: Exploration
Players can use their onboard scanner together with a probe launcher to scan down cosmic anomalies and signatures. These will contain either groups of pirate NPCs, resources such as gas clouds or asteroid belts which can be mined, secure containers or ruins with loot in them, or wormholes.
Ruins and secure containers can be opened using archaeology and hacking skills in a hacking minigame. Lower-security areas tend to yield the most valuable loot and resources.
Exploration is easy to begin, requiring little ISK investment and only basic skills. There is an element of random chance in the contents of each site, but exploration sites can be a good source of income, especially for a new player. Exploring in dangerous systems or in wormholes teaches useful situational awareness skills, and the probing techniques used to scan sites down are transferable into combat probing for PvP. Seasoned explorers might want to try living permanently in wormhole space.
Salvaging
- Main article: Salvaging
Each time a player or NPC ship explodes, it leaves a wreck. The wreck sometimes contains loot, but the wreck itself can also be salvaged for useful parts. Salvaging enable a player to collect those parts, with a view to either selling them or processing them into rigs for ships.
Salvaging can be a profitable early side career, normally alongside either mission running and/or PvP (to create wrecks) and/or industry (to use the salvaged parts). New players can also tag along with mission fleets to help with salvaging. The salvage is normally split between the fleet members, so it can be a good income for relatively little effort, with low character skill requirements.
Players can use tractor beams to pull wrecks towards them for faster salvaging, and there a is even a specialised salvaging ship, the Noctis. Alternatively, players can use a Mobile Tractor Unit which collects the wrecks in one place.
Industry
Industrial careers are focused on gathering resources and creating ships and items (in some other MMORPGs equivalent activities are called "crafting"). As almost all of New Eden's economy is player-driven, many of the ships, items of equipment, and space stations used by players have to be made by someone.
Industrial careers can be pursued alongside many other activities, but they can synergize well with trading.
Manufacturing
- Main article: Manufacturing
Blueprints can be used to produce items from minerals, which can either be refined or bought from the market. Manufacturers may create items for personal use, or to sell on the market for a profit. Although the basic skills required to manufacture items can be trained quickly, increased skills will greatly improve efficiency.
Players need a base to start manufacturing, which could be an NPC station or a friendly player-owned structure such as an Engineering Complex. Manufacturing can yield a good income, but some items cost more to manufacture than they are worth, so it is possible to make a loss too: industrialists must stay alert to the market. Industry can also be highly competitive, driving down profits in high traffic areas.
In addition to manufacturing, players can carry out invention to create more valuable T2 items, and conduct research to improve the efficiency of blueprints, making them more valuable. Players can work with dedicated research agents to obtain datacores, which can then be used in invention.
Mining and refining
- Main article: Mining
Asteroid belts spawn throughout New Eden, and they must be mined to feed Eve's player economy. In addition to asteroids, players can use specialised equipment to mine ice from ice belts and harvest gas from gas clouds.
The mined ore, ice and gas can either be sold in its raw form, or refined into minerals. In general, rarer and more valuable resources are found in lower security space, with very valuable mining possible in nullsec and wormholes. Miners exploiting resources in low- or null-security space and in wormholes can use cunning to avoid detection (sometimes called "ninja-mining"), or they can join the player groups who own most of nullsec and who live in some wormholes.
Mining has a low entry barrier, but mining efficiency can be substantially improved by training the right skills and implants, and using more advanced equipment and ships. Alpha clones can mine, although the only specialized mining ship they can use is the Venture. Players can mine either alone or as part of a mining fleet, and can produce a stable income stream doing an undemanding activity which is usually calm. However, miners are always vulnerable to attacks by other players as well as, in high-sec space, can flippers, so it can be a risky profession.
Planetary Industry
- Main article: Planetary Industry
New Eden has thousands of planets, and players can establish a colony on a planet in order to produce resources. The resources (or 'commodities') which are produced can either be sold in their raw form, or combined with other commodities to make more complex products. Ultimately these can be used to make fuel and parts for structures, boosters and components.
Planets in lower-security areas tend to yield more valuable commodities. Planetary Industry has a low entry barrier, although through training skills players can increase the number of planets and the efficiency of their colony. Planetary Industry does not normally require much active management once the colony is established, though it might require some hauling, and most players will use it as a passive supplement to their other income.
Business
Business careers focus on moving and/or selling goods to make a profit. They make use of New Eden's player-to-player economy, which is large and complex enough that it has been studied by academic economists.
Hauling
- Main article: Hauling
Almost every ship and item in EVE Online must be physically moved around New Eden in a cargohold: individual pilots cannot magic their assets around at will. This creates a reliable demand for haulers to move items from point A to point B. Other players will often pay well for the service of moving their items through courier contracts. Hauling is an activity which can synergize well with trading.
The skills required to fly a basic industrial ship are low, but the amount of cargo it can carry is fairly small and it is vulnerable to attack, particularly in lower security areas. Haulers usually begin their careers running courier contracts in high security space. In the medium and long term, players can train to fly a range of specialised hauling ships to carry bigger loads, or to haul in lower security space. The most advanced hauling ships can carry titanic loads, or travel while stealth-cloaked, or teleport across vast distances from one region to another rather than using the usual network of stargates.
There are entire corporations dedicated to fulfilling courier contracts for a price and able to link members up with profitable work. Any large-scale alliance will also need specialized freighter pilots. Hauling is much more than clicking "warp to gate at 0" repeatedly: experienced haulers understand safe and dangerous routes, can judge profitability precisely, and maintain tight secrecy around their favoured staging systems to keep their precious cargo secure.
Trading
- Main article: Trading
EVE Online has a complex player-driven market. By investing their ISK correctly, players can make a profit from buying and selling goods. This requires nothing more than a little starting capital, a head for figures, and a grasp of supply and demand,
Many players dabble in trade, if only to sell manufactured goods or loot from PvE and PvP combat more profitably, but some make it their profession. Some traders focus on buying and selling goods in the same station; in extreme cases, a character might make significant profits without ever undocking. Other traders will buy items with a view to selling them elsewhere for a higher price, combining the work with hauling.
Trading can be very competitive, especially in high traffic areas such as trade hubs, which can drive down profits. However, if a player identifies a suitable niche, it can yield a high income. Experienced traders are alert to the changing political and industrial currents which affect New Eden's economy, and manage hundreds of buy and sell orders. A specialized sub-group of traders sustain markets in parts of New Eden remote from normal trade hubs, earning significant profit margins in the process.
Skill Farming
- Main article: Skill Farming
Skill farming is a career in EVE Online that uses a character to train skills solely to extract and sell their skill points, creating a passive income stream.
Deception and Grifting
Theft, trickery, and scamming can be a viable career option in EVE Online, and are not against the EULA. Away from the higher-profile combat exploits of mercenaries and pirates, the game has a vibrant underbelly of scammers. Note that harassment and real-life threats are forbidden, and players should remember the difference.
Can Flipping
- Main article: Can flipping
Players can jettison items into space, creating a jetcan which can be opened not just by the player who created it, but by anyone. A common reason for players to do this is when they are mining, to store their ore for later retrieval. Some players use this as an opportunity to steal the ore inside the jetcan, which is known as "can flipping".
Sometimes this is done purely for the goods inside, but it is often done to provoke the miner into trying to attack the person stealing their ore. This will set off a combat timer, allowing the 'can flipper' to switch into another ship and shoot the miner with no retaliation from CONCORD (since they are technically acting in self-defense from CONCORD's point of view).
Scamming and theft
Scamming others out of their ISK or luring them into traps can be an exciting way for some people to play the game. Such deception can take many forms, and the wiki maintains a list of the most common. These include misleading contracts, selling goods for much more than they are worth, "ISK doubling" scams, enticing players into ambushes, requesting ISK in return for entry to a corporation, and infiltrating a corporation for the purposes of stealing their corporate resources.
Such work can require few character skills, but does need confidence and strong persuasive abilities. The income can potentially be huge: there have been some very high-profile corporate thefts with earnings running to many billions of ISK. The same skills can be used for inter-corporate or inter-alliance espionage, and some players, especially in nullsec, work as spies, infiltrating opposing organisations not for profit but to further the strategic interests of their real employers.
Administrative and Meta Careers
These careers involve either organising players or providing services for other players to assist them in playing the game. They tend to require few character skills, but significant personal skills from players themselves, alongside time and energy. Sometimes such work can be profitable in ISK terms, but often the real benefits are intangibles: friendship, experience, and connections throughout New Eden to allies and respected opponents.
Corporate Executive
- Main article: Forming a Corporation
Corporations often need a lot of manpower to run successfully. People are needed to advertise the corporation, recruit members, set policies, conduct diplomacy with other corporations, arrange logistics, and ensure that everything runs smoothly. Available roles will depend on your corporation and their needs.
Players can even start their own corporation, although this is often suited to more experienced players who can use their knowledge of the game to build a successful corporation. Starting a corporation often requires a large amount of starting capital, especially if the corporation will own structures like Citadels or Engineering Complexes.
CSM member
EVE Online has a player-elected council known as the Council of Stellar Management (CSM), who provide feedback to CCP about the game and raises any concerns players have. New CSM members are elected once per year and attend meetings with CCP in Iceland as well as participating in online discussions about the direction of the game.
CSM membership raises a player's profile and might set up high-level connections with other influential players, but the role is primarily a service to the community, CSM members are required to sign a legal "Non Disclosure Agreement" before they start their term.
EVE journalist
There are many third-party sites and podcasts dedicated to EVE Online. Many of them accept submissions and guest content from players. Such activity particularly suits players with good communication skills and unique perspectives on the game. CCP also sometimes needs players to act as presenters for official events such as the Alliance Tournament and Fanfest.
See also
Eve University's CORE class on careers and the associated slide deck.
