User:Koris the Second

Personal notebook. Nothing to see here, move along.

How to make ISK as a new player?

This question gets asked quite often so I created a nice little overview of the activities that can be done to make ISK relatively early in a player's career. So, what can people do?

Exploration gets recommended quite often.

Pros

• Can be done from the first day with only minimal training. Complete the Short Skill Plan and you're set.
• Very good learning experience - the big payouts are in Wormholes, so you will need to learn about traversing them safely and creating your own bookmarks. To survive hostile space you will need to get used to using D-Scan.
• Minimal investment required - a cheap Tech 1 frigate with an Exploration fit only costs a couple million ISK, which is quickly affordable for new players and doesn't hurt too much if lost.

Cons:

• The payouts for Exploration are based on luck. One day you dive into a wormhole and come home with 15 times the worth of your ship, the next day you spend an hour scanning only to get killed by a cloaked hunter.
• As an explorer you're never the hunter, always the hunted. Forget about fighting back, the best you can do is escape.
• The skills you train for Exploration are, with very few exceptions, only used in Exploration. You will specialise in a very particular set of ships and skills.

If you're more into shooting things instead of being shot at, there's several things you can do. Let's start with missions.

Pros:

• Steady payouts. You always get the Loyalty Points, you always get the ISK rewards.
• Possibility to optimise your earnings (in higher level missions) through smart looting and salvaging.
• No preparation time required, you can instantly run missions whenever you want.
• Missions for non-pirate factions give you Security Status, so if you enjoy PvP in lowsec they can be used to fix it.
• Teaches you how to fit ships for PvE combat and fight against NPCs.

Cons:

• Low-level missions are, compared to other activities you could do, very low ISK/h. If you're looking to make the most ISK quickly, missions may not be the right choice for you.
• To realise the full earning potential of missions you need to optimise your looting/salvaging and convert Loyalty Points into items, then sell those items on the market.
• Missions handed out are random - you may get several missions against Empire factions in a row, which you (usually) don't want to run. In that case, you simply can't use that agent for four hours unless you take a massive standings loss.
• To get access to higher level missions you will need to grind corporation standings and think ahead for which L2/L3/L4 agent you want to run.

Missions are too boring for you and you want something more dynamic? In this case, Combat sites might be more of your thing.

Pros:

• High earning potential. Easy anomalies in high security space can escalate to DED 2/10 or 3/10 sites which can have very good module drops.
• Low skill requirements. Completing the Cruiser DD Basic skill plan allows you to put together a fit that can handle sites up to DED 3/10.
• Teaches you how to fit ships for PvE combat and fight against NPCs.

Cons:

• Combat anomalies and signatures are often contested. Especially in high activity systems/time zones you can expect to have your site contested and stolen.
• The earning potential is high, but also very random. Drop values can vary from 70M ISK (or more) to 7M ISK for a DED 3/10.
• Escalations from combat signatures in high security space can send you into low security space, putting you in danger.

Combat sites are too random for you and you'd like something more steady? You're not afraid to risk your ship and pod? In that case take a look at Abyssal Deadspace.

Pros:

• High and steady payouts with huge upward spikes. Even the lowest level filaments earn very respectable amounts of ISK.
• Teaches you many valuable skills like manual piloting, fitting optimisation and keeping cool under pressure.
• Instanced PvE, you will never get contested by other players (you can still be ganked after exiting the filament!).
• A journey into the Abyss is always over after 20 minutes as that's the time limit to complete a run.
• Entry-level ships are cheap and can be flown after a couple days of training.

Cons:

• The Abyss punishes mistakes immediately and harshly. You make too many, you lose your ship and pod.
• Even if you're well-prepared and know what you are doing, it is still possible (even though unlikely) to get a "death room" which almost certainly kills you.
• Due to the factors mentioned above, if you get interrupted often while playing or have an unstable Internet connection - you will die. You will need to set aside 15-20 minutes of uninterrupted time.
• The ships and fits you need to move up the Abyssal tiers become exponentially expensive. If you want to run Abyssals as your main income source, be prepared to reinvest huge amounts and risk it every time you do a run.