Blitzing
Introduction
"Blitzing" missions is an alternative way of doing missions that can be highly profitable - you do not completely clear the room(s) and kill every rat. Instead, you enter the mission, kill only the ships that absolutely need to get killed for mission completion, and then leave instantly to turn the mission in.
If you fly this way, most of the money that comes from missions does not come from loot/salvage/bounties, but from the LP.
Principles
LP as main source of income
While "conventional" mission running relies on mainly loot/salvage/bounties with mission rewards (LP+ISK) added on top, blitzing goes mainly for the LP that are awarded for mission completion. Those LP need to be "cashed in" in the loyalty stores, requiring purchasing and selling of items from those stores.
Mission choice
Not all missions can be blitzed. When missioning, you should continuously reject missions that are unblitzable, waiting for missions such as the Minmatar version of "Worlds Collide", "Blockade", "Recon" or "Pirate Invasion" that can be completed quickly within minutes for a high LP reward.
Obviously, doing only L4 missions is the way to get the best effect, although many lower level missions can be "blitzed" as well - but the rewards don't compare well to the potential of L4s.
Mission handling
Picking the right missions
"Blitzing missions" is solely about combat missions ("security missions"). Not all missions can be blitzed. When missioning, you should continuously reject missions that are unblitzable, waiting for missions such as the Minmatar version of "Worlds Collide", "Blockade", "Recon" or "Pirate Invasion" that can be completed quickly within minutes for a high LP reward.
A blitzable mission per definition is a mission that doesn't require you to kill all (or even most) of the AI enemies - it rather focusses on either reaching a location, picking up an item from a container or kill a few key enemies for mission completion.
You would need to do some research (e.g. on http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=MissionReports) to get an actual list of what missions are blitzable, but one will finally "know" what missions can be blitzed.
Obviously, doing only L4 missions is the way to get the best effect, although many lower level missions can be "blitzed" as well - but the rewards don't compare well to the potential of L4s.
Standing requirements and managment
As indicated above, picking only blitzable missions requires you to decline offers for, well, non-blitzable missions :)
TL;DR version: You want a faction standing of at least 5.0 with the faction you're running missions for.
Longer:
You can reject multiple missions in a row if you have good faction standings. You can get a lot of faction standings by completing storyline missions, and faction standing drops rather slowly when rejecting missions. As long as you keep your Faction standings above 5.0 (rather easy to do) and your corp standings above -2.0 (don't reject too many missions in a row), your agent will keep talking to you and you can keep declining, only waiting for blitzable missions.
Before you have faction standings, you will not be able to reject as many missions continuously. To build it up, keep doing all your missions normally and do the storyline missions that you get every now and then.
To elaborate the math behind the standings losses and how one can keep declining missions:
Declining a mission more than once every four hours, three things happen:
a) your faction standings take an almost insignificant hit, b) your corporation standings take a sizable hit c) your agent standings take a sizable hit
Your level 4 agent will talk to you if your agent, corporation, or faction standings are above 5.0 *and* if your agent or corporation standings don't drop to -2.0 or less. Skills that may help you stay above these numbers include Connections and Diplomacy.
With high faction standings and because of the minimal faction hit for declining a mission, this means it is possible to cherry pick just the quick blitzable missions as long as your corporation standings don't drop below -2.0.
For example, declining Smash the Supplier costs:
- -0.0112% faction hit
- -3.06% corporation hit
- -6.12% agent hit
Completing the Patient Zero storyline mission got as a result:
- 9.0% faction increase
In overly simplistic terms, 9.0% / .0112% = ~800 declined missions. That means I could decline hundreds of missions and make up for the faction standings hit with a single storyline mission. Even the "worse" storylines would easily compensate for quite a few declined mission offers.
LP cashing in
Because most of the money comes from the mission rewarded Loyalty Points (LP), you need to do some research before you start missioning for just any random corp. You need to find a corp (and an item they offer) with a high isk/LP rate, then find the agent in the lowest possible sec space (still hisec of course).
This will require some research for you - finding a good ISK/hr rate requires looking up various items in the reward store and comparing how much you can sell them for to their LP cost, always factoring in the other items/ISK you need to pay in order to obtain an item from the LP store.
"Good" items can be pretty situational or temporary only, an average value of 1k ISK/LP will result in income similar to what you get from "regular" missioning, but will not make Blitzing a superior choice (ISK/hr wise).
Blitzing in a Drake
Most people blitz L4 missions in battleships (or even faction BS, equipped with lots of gear helping them to achieve their objective as quickly as possible - the Machariel comes to mind, combining cruiser like speeds with high DPS, making it a strong choice for mission blitzing).
But while the Drake is generally too weak (DPS wise) to do L4 mission, it is possible to actually do blitzing of L4s in a Drake, thus allowing earlier access to L4s than usually recommended due to the training time for a battleship. The strength of the Drake for blitzing, though, comes from its (relatively, compared to battleships) high mobility together with the still beefy tank, allowing it to enter L4 missions.
[Drake, L4 Blitzing]
Ballistic Control Unit II Ballistic Control Unit II Shield Power Relay II Shield Power Relay II
Large Shield Extender II Large Shield Extender II Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I Invulnerability Field II Invulnerability Field II Specific Active Hardener (depending on the mission)
Heavy Missile Launcher II Heavy Missile Launcher II Heavy Missile Launcher II Heavy Missile Launcher II Heavy Missile Launcher II Heavy Missile Launcher II Heavy Missile Launcher II
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I Medium Core Defence Field Purger I Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Hobgoblin II x5
In many missions you would just burn away from your enemies, towards the mission (blitzing) objective, thus reducing all the damage from the rest of the rats while you pick off the relevant targets from range (using the Drake's long range as a strength as well).
It is strongly recommended to get all your support skills (capacitor, shield, navigation and missile skills) to III or even IV before even considering using a Drake this way, as you will need those skills to make up for your lack in DPS compared to battleships. Obviously having full T2 is also recommended.
Personal example
This video shows the original author blitzing a L4 mission ("Pirate Invasion") in a Machariel.
His rather rough numbers for ISK/hr:
Time taken for the mission: about 7 minutes.
LP gained from mission: about 5k.
At 2k isk/LP, that is 10m isk in 7 minutes.
That is almost 100m isk in an hour, with mission rewards and bounties.
