Using external tools to haul profitably

One way to earn InterStellar Kredits (ISK) is to haul goods from one location to another, buying low and selling high.

Establishing a Hauler Alt Character

Eve University students can make a good income as haulers, even during wartime, by setting up a hauler alt character outside of the corporation. The EVE University library includes a recorded lesson [1] on setting up an Amarr character with a Bestower freighter with the necessary skills in less than a day.

You can establish a hauler alt of any race. However, the Amarr use a very attractive industrial ship, the Bestower [2], that requires a low level of skills, as follows:

- Amarr Industrial 1

- Spaceship Command 3

- Amarr Frigate 3

With this base level of skills, the Bestower will carry 4,800 m3 of cargo, without any modifications. Eventually, with maxed out skills, 4 Expanded Cargohold II mods, and 3 Cargo Optimization rigs, the Bestower will carry a whopping 24,114.9 m3. In short, with an Amarr hauler alt, you can get started quickly, and eventually end up with a very well equipped industrial ship.

Discover the Value of EVE-Central

The hauler's most vaulable resource for finding profitable trade routes is EVE-Central Market Aggregator site [3]. Register your hauler character there and download the free market data uploader. [4] There are currently two versions of this program: one that requires a manual upload (v1.3.1), and a new alpha version that automatically uploads market data from your memory buffer (v2.0). (As of December 2009, v2.0 was not a consistently performing program, and so the remainder of this guide assumes use of the more reliable v1.3.1.)

Using this tool, any hauler can routinely earn 300K ISK or more per trade run in high-sec space with virtually no risk, even with a minimum of capital or experience. Here is the process :

1. Base your hauler alt in a system in high-sec with lots of stations - this does not have to be in a trade hub [5] like Jita, Hek or Rens.

2. Make sure your hauler alt has enough capital to buy trade goods in sufficient quantity. For hauling consumer and industrial goods, you'll need about 10M ISK to start carrying near-full loads. If you don't have that amount on hand, don't worry - you can carry partial loads and you can earn the necessary capital over time.

3. Start the EVE-Central market uploader program, and use the browser to open the EVE-Central site. Sign into EVE-Central.

4. Open the EVE market window from the NeoCom interface, setting the search to Region.

5. Click on items that have high volumes. You want to select items that people trade in bulk which will fill your freighter hold -- in general, this will be anything that trades with volumes over 10,000 units. Some items are smaller than 1 m3, though, so for these you'll have to look for even bigger volumes. A good list of market items to review includes: standard hybrid charges, mineral ores, all of the Consumer Goods, all of the Industrial Goods, and Livestock (found under Passengers). After you click on each item to get the detailed market report, then click the "Export to File" button, found at the bottom of the market window. This produces a file that the EVE-Central Market Uploader can use to send current data to the aggregated database. (Yes, this takes a little time, as it's about 30 items, but it's worth it.)

6. Alt-TAB (if you are using a PC) to the EVE-Central Market Uploader program. Force a scan of your system for market data files - this will upload the most current data to EVE-Central. Eventually, the uploader program does this automatically, but you want to make sure you have added all the latest data, so it's good practice to do this.

7. Alt-TAB back to EVE, and view the browser to see the EVE-Central website. Select the trade route finder, then select a System to Region search. Enter the name of your current system plus your current region. Confirm the search.

8. You'll then get a list of all available trade routes from your current system to anything in your region. It's a good idea after your first search to enter your cargo capacity and to click the "filter for security" options - you want to find routes that will fill your ship and which stay in high-sec. Look for trade runs that generate more than 300K of ISK per trip, and which are short duration. In systems with lots of stations, you will likely discover some good trade runs with 0 jumps! NOTE: be sure to check the volumes of both the seller AND the buyer before you purchase them - EVE-Central will tell you this. You don't want to buy 100,000 of an item only to find that your buyer only wants 20,000.

9. THIS STEP IS IMPORTANT: Most of the time, EVE-Central provides good trade run suggestions, it's always a good idea to double-check. Verify that the EVE market window data is the same as the EVE-Central recommended route information. This is why you want to start in a system that is NOT a trade hub. The market in a busy trade hub, such as Jita, can be so volitile that between uploading market data and doing the route search, it can change significantly. Better to do this from relatively quiet systems with more market stability.

10. If your trade route checks out, buy the items from the station that you will haul. Warp to that station, open Items, and drag them into your ship's cargo hold. Undock, warp to the buyer destination, dock there, unload back into Items, then right-click and select "SELL THIS ITEM". Check one last time that the buying price is the same as what you expected from the EVE-Central data - if it does, execute the sale. (If it doesn't, you may want to sell it anyway if it's still profitable. Use the Wallet/Transaction tab to find the price that you bought the item, if you forget.)

11. The market window for the item you just bought and sold will now change. Click on that item, export a new file, and upload it again to EVE-Central, so that it has the most current information.

12. Go to step 7 and repeat for the next few trade runs. Every half-dozen or so trade runs, go back to step 5 to upload refreshed market data on all your target trade items.

Using this process, haulers can easily make 1 million ISK about every 20 minutes - sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Not a bad return for something that is almost risk free. You do have to watch out for suicide gankers, of course. To minimize this risk, don't autopilot, warp to 0 between gates, and jump manually. And: insure your ship - always.

Fly safe! o7