How to earn ISK

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Welcome to EVE: Now get a job!

So, you've joined the wonderful world of EVE Online - congratulations! It doesn't take long for new players to realize that EVE does not present you with the keys to survival on a silver platter. After giving them a noob ship, a short tutorial, and some helpful starter missions, EVE kicks players into the harsh environment of space to fend for themselves. This is one of the aspects of the EVE sandbox that is both thrilling and frightening, at the same time.

One of the first lessons that every EVE pilot learns is: InterStellar Kredits (ISK) run the universe. Without money, you cannot buy ships, equipment, trade goods, and just about everything else one needs to thrive - or survive. In EVE, perhaps more than any other online multiplayer game, TANSTAAFL [1] ("There ain't no such thing as a free lunch").

So, one of the first questions that every new EVE player asks is: how do I make ISK? After some experience and education, that question generally becomes: how do I make the most ISK with the least effort in the shortest time?

Fortunately, there are many ways to earn ISK in EVE. This brief guide intends to describe some of the typical options that many EVE players pursue, and to provide some helpful guidance about which ISK-earning careers might be the best fit for your personality and playing style.

Starting Character Skills and Attributes

Few new EVE players consider the potential career implications of their racial, bloodline and ancestry selections when establishing their first character. Generally, they select what sounds like the most interesting or fun character background to play. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, as no in-game career choice is blocked to any racial faction(Amarr, Gallente, Minmatar or Caldari) or bloodline. Any character can learn any skill in the game.

Starting Skills

All new characters start with the same essential skill set:

• Frigate II (starting racial faction dependent)
• Electronics III
• Engineering III
• Gunnery II
• Mechanic II
• Mining II
• Navigation III
• Science III
• Shield Operation II
• Small Energy Turret III
• Small Hybrid Turret III
• Small Projectile Turret III
• Spaceship Command III

Starting Attributes

However, starting attributes (Charisma, Intelligence, Memory, Willpower and Perception) are slightly different, based on racial faction, bloodline and ancestry choices, and this will affect the rate at which skills are learned. But even attributes can be remapped [2], so even this does not present a significant obstacle to optimizing your character for different careers.

Race	Bloodline	Ancestry		Charisma	Intelligence	Memory	Perception	Willpower
Caldari	Deteis	Merchandisers		7	8	12	6	6
Caldari	Deteis	Scientists		7	11	8	7	6
Caldari	Deteis	Tube Child		7	8	8	6	10
Caldari	Civire	Entrepreneurs		7	6	9	10	7
Caldari	Civire	Mercs		7	6	5	10	11
Caldari	Civire	Dissenters		9	6	5	10	9
Caldari	Achura	Inventors		4	13	7	8	7
Caldari	Achura	Monks		4	9	7	10	9
Caldari	Achura	Stargazers		4	9	10	9	7
Minmitar	Sebiestor	Tinkerers		7	12	7	6	7
Minmitar	Sebiestor	Traders		11	8	7	6	7
Minmitar	Sebiestor	Rebels		7	8	7	9	8
Minmitar	Brutor	Workers		7	5	9	10	8
Minmitar	Brutor	Tribal Traditionalists		8	5	5	10	11
Minmitar	Brutor	Slave Child		7	5	5	12	10
Minmitar	Vherokior	Drifters		9	10	9	7	4
Minmitar	Vherokior	Mystics		9	9	9	5	7
Minmitar	Vherokior	Retailers		10	8	12	5	4
Amarr	Amarr	Liberal Holders		7	8	7	5	12
Amarr	Amarr	Wealthy Commoners		5	8	10	5	11
Amarr	Amarr	Religious Reclaimers		4	8	7	5	15
Amarr	Ni-Kunni	Free Merchants		13	6	7	8	5
Amarr	Ni-Kunni	Border Runners		9	7	7	11	5
Amarr	Ni-Kunni	Navy Veterans		9	6	7	8	9
Amarr	Khanid	Cyber Knights		6	7	5	12	9
Amarr	Khanid	Unionists		8	8	5	9	9
Amarr	Khanid	Zealots		6	6	7	9	11
Gallente	Gallente	Activists		13	7	5	9	5
Gallente	Gallente	Miners		9	7	9	9	5
Gallente	Gallente	Immigrants		9	7	5	11	7
Gallente	Intaki	Artists		9	9	8	6	7
Gallente	Intaki	Diplomats		11	9	8	4	7
Gallente	Intaki	Reborn		7	9	12	4	7
Gallente	Jim-Mei	Sang Do Caste		9	6	6	7	11
Gallente	Jim-Mei	Saan Go Caste		8	8	8	7	8
Gallente	Jim-Mei	Jing Ko Caste		8	6	6	11	8

Optimizing Skill and Attribute Development

After playing EVE for a while, many players establish an alternative character (generally known as an "alt" in game parlance), either as one of the three available characters for any account, or as a new account. There are many advantages to having an alt character, or several alts, which we will explore further later.

A great utility for experimenting with different starting character races and bloodlines is EVEHQ [3], which contains a very useful Character Creation Tool. With EVEHQ, you can model your starting character, and then develop optimal skill training and/or attribute remapping plans, thus enabling your character to use the equipment or perform the tasks needed for your desired ISK-making activities in the shortest time.

Developing a career plan: What will you be when you grow up?

Do the starter career mission tracks

Once you've established your character or alt, you should play all five of the starter career mission tracks offered: industry, military, exploration, business, and advanced military. These career introduction missions dish out numerous additional skills for free, and each is nicely explained in practice - sometimes with special "civilian" versions of the necessary module so you can try out the mechanic before training the skill needed for the real version of the module in question.

To access these career mission tracks, press the F12 key, then select "Show Career Agents". These introductory missions are entirely optional, but highly recommended because they provide essential skillbooks, ships, and some initial capital, with a relatively minor investment in time. The starter missions also teach you the basics of the principal career options for making money in EVE.

• Industry missions cover the basics of mining, refining and manufacturing of goods. Industrial tycoons can create enormous wealth in the EVE universe, but not without a lot of strong competition. Mining is a popular way to make money, too. But manufacturing tends not to generate any real profits until you have learned some highly advanced skills and invested heavily in blueprints.

• Business missions introduce players to EVE's open and comprehensive market system. With good trading skills, EVE players can earn substantial ISK without ever undocking from a station. You can also earn a good income from hauling goods between trade hubs, buying low in one location and then selling high in another. The business missions reward you with a basic industrial ship for free, and the starter systems offer a potential market opportunity for many goods that are in demand for new characters.

• Military missions cover the most obvious way of playing EVE - shooting stuff for loot and salvage. Initially, you have the skills to fly a frigate of your race.

• Exploration missions cover the discovery of valuable sites in EVE space - wormholes, deadspace pockets, and undiscovered archeology sites, among others. These missions show you how to use the scanner and probes, and how to identify and exploit the sites you discover.

• Advanced Military missions will introduce you to the finer details of EVE combat. These missions are more difficult than those of in the Military career track, and as a result, these should be taken after the other track is completed. This more advanced track will teach you how to assist others in order to overcome a threat, as well as the effects of the various weapon damage types. Once finished, you will have all the basic knowledge required to dive head first into the ever raging war between the factions of EVE Online.

After the five career introductions, each consisting of ten missions, you will be pointed towards the first epic mission arc of EVE, "The Blood-Stained Stars". While a definite challenge for a new player, this 50-mission arc provides some substantial rewards, and is worth finishing. The arc takes you all over the safe empire space and you can freely branch off to do other things, returning to the arc later as you choose. If you decide to pursue this arc, you should read the handy mission guide from Keith Neilson [4].

Develop a career plan

Once you've been introduced to some of the basics of EVE, and have sampled the starter career mission tracks, you now know enough to begin optimizing your character for one or more ISK-making specialties. It's generally best, at least initially, to get very good at one kind of ISK-generating activity, rather than be not-so-great at a lot of different money-earning ventures. The essential steps for developing your ISK-earning career plan are as follows:

1. Create a concept in your mind of what you want to do in EVE. Don't limit yourself. Make this anything you can imagine, no matter how unlikely or outlandish.

2. Do some Level 1 (and later, more advanced level) missions until you have enough resources to begin doing what you thought of in Step 1.

3. Begin to execute your idea from Step 1.

4. If the idea isn't profitable enough by itself to sustain itself initially, supplement with occasional mission running.

5. Keep developing your idea, evolve it, and figure out ways to make it self-sustaining.

6. If your idea is ultimately not self-sustaining, think of a different concept, and go to Step 2.

Though this approach seems obvious, very few EVE players actually plan their character's career development in this way. Instead, they try everything that comes by, as it becomes available to them, which provides a lot of variety but not any development of expertise (except in a very long run). Or, they get in a rut and start doing the same thing over and over, and eventually lose interest. If mining isn't your thing, don't do it just to earn ISK - try something else. But first, think, develop a plan, start executing the plan, refine the plan as necessary, and then either build on the plan or start over. This approach will produce the best results - in EVE, or in real life!

Picking an ISK-earning specialty (or a few)

So, what are some ideas for making ISK in EVE? The huge sandbox of EVE provides many, many options here. In summary, some of the most common career options include:

Industrial Careers

• Miner/Refiner – perhaps the easiest and lowest risk way to make an honest wage in EVE, mining is simply extracting and selling ore or refined minerals. To be a miner, you only need some basic ship piloting skills, mining skills, refining skills, a suitable ship, and some mining lasers. Travel to one of the many asteroid belts in a system, point your lasers at a 'roid, gather ore, bring it to a station, refine it, sell it - then repeat. The upside to mining is that it produces a fairly predictable income stream, with little (but not zero) risk, especially in high security (0.5 and above) space. The main disadvantage is that mining can be highly repetitive and boring, as asteroids generally do not fight back! You also have to be on guard for can flippers and gankers - players that prey on miners, especially those that have gone "AFK" (away from keyboard). But

• Hauler – buying low in one location, selling high in another / courier contracts (look for courier contracts, also can do courier missions in between jobs, also can buy low in far systems and haul them to sell. NPC trading IE buy livestock where it sells for low, transport it to where it sells for high, both the buyer and seller are NPC's.)

• Trader – playing the market, station trading, (rough business to get into unless you use the "Convenience Store" concept, that is go somewhere fairly populated that doesn't have a good market, and either haul or produce EVERYTHING they might need in small quantities, basically like a trade hub except its mostly your stuff for sale.)

Business Careers

• Corporate Executive – managing a corporation funded by taxes and fees; Operate a POS, join an alliance that lets you put up your own moon mining POS. Also gas cloud harvesting tho I have no experience with this aspect of the game.

• Recruiter (I've successfully made a living as a 1-man recruiting agency.)

• Work up standings to a faction and sell your services as a "standings pusher."

• Manufacturer – building items and charging for the value-add

• Researcher/Inventor – building advanced tech items or blueprints for sale, using research agents, Scientist(work up R&D agents and farm datacores.), Scientist II (Buy BPO's, either research and sell them, or research and sell copies.)

Exploration Careers

• Explorer/Hacker– searching wormhole and hidden space, selling relics and information

• Salvager – finding, collecting and selling items from wrecks [5]; ninja salvaging

• Mission Runner – executing assigned missions, solo or in groups, deadspace complexes

• Ratter – hunting and killing NPC pirates

Military Careers

• Mercenary – gun for hire

• Bounty Hunter – executing contracts on player characters for pay

Outlaw Careers

• Pirate – attack and pillage players (mostly haulers) in lo-sec, or ransom them for money

• Scammer/Thief – tricking players into giving you ISK or luring them into traps; corporate raider

• Can Flipper

• Assassin/Suicide Ganker (You have good concord standings from whoring agents all day, you can suicide gank people for money. Not sure if this is possible anymore as they have buffed concord alot.)

• Drug Dealer - Make boosters (drugs, yes you can be a drug dealer.)

Combat

There are two main ways to start of a combat character. As this is a skill based game you don't want to jump into pvp right away. Best way to start is with some ratting or mission running. There are more extensive guides on this site into these areas but here we will just get you started with the basics, links are provided to the more advanced aspects of these paths along with charts, maps, and NPC (non player characters) stats.

-Ratting-

Ratting is what is referred to when talking about killing NPC pirates in belts. To start off on this career you are suggested to stay in high security space (.5-1.0) while you get the hang of your ship and how to kill the rats. In this space you will not be able to be engaged by enemy players without concord coming in and killing them. The rats in this space are also relatively weak here, never the less they have the chance of dropping some decent isk items (into the multiple mil range. All rats in belts also have a isk bounty on their head, which will appear in your wallet about every 10 minutes or so adding all the bounties you got in the last 10 minutes.

- Missions -

Missions are one of the most common things done on eve to earn isk. There are many different types of agents that offer different types of missions here is the LIST of them. For now we are going to stick to kill missions. You simply find an available agent inside a station on the agents tab. (use www.eve-agents.com if you need help locating one). Best types would be Command, Security, Internal Security, and Surveillance these all offer over 90% kill missions. You talk to the agent they will offer you a mission you can look it over see what you have to do, then accept. When you reach the system the mission is in rightclick in space and you will have a way point to warp to. Warp to it complete mission objectives and return home talk to the agent and collect your reward, rinse and repeat. Read the full article for a more in depth look into missioning and how to get your full isk potential out of it.

Industry

-Mining-

Mining is by far the easiest way to get some isk, it is also very mundane. All you have to do is hop in a ship throw some mining lasers in the highs and head out to a belt. Target an asteroid, get within range and hit your lasers. To make the process go faster its best to jet a can into space and throw your ore into it then go get a hauler ship to come back and scoop it up. This will cut down on time as you will be making less trips back and forth. Sense most everything in eve is player made there is ALWAYS a market for minerals this is a guaranteed way to make some isk with little risk in highsec space.

-Production-

Most items in eve are player produced so this is a good way to make some isk however at low skills you will not be able to turn a very high profit on t1 items. It is suggested if you want to enter into this field make some isk mining and or hauling first while your skills go up and you gain some net worth for the good blueprints.

Marketing

-Hauling-

Many would consider hauling a industry task, really though you are trading your time to move stuff, there is no real construction going on so it has been placed here. This is a easy career to get into as all you need is a cargo ship. You can find courier missions Archives, Distribution, Manufacturing, Storage, agents all give courier 90%+ of the time. You can also check the player courier contracts in the contracts tab. These most often require a collateral that at start you will not be able to afford most the time. This is a good place to start making some isk if you want to get into trade or production as you will make allot of contacts.

-Trading-

Trading itself is pretty easy concept buy low sell high. You can easily train up a good amount of buy/sell orders in a short time. At the start of the game you wont have much isk to play around with but if you familiarise with the items different regions you will notice some items will have sell orders but no buy orders. Throw up a regional buy order for these items at 1 isk buy 100 of them, over time anyone selling them will get your buy order some people will just hit sell. Easy way to make some passive money. Wont get allot with only 1 isk but anything given is worth way more because it can always be refined even if its of no use. See the long term marketing guides for more info on this.