Making Money with Hauling - Level 4 Cargo Missions
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Introduction
There are two good ways to make easy ISK if you are new to the game. One of these ways is to progress with running missions with a specific corporation to open up Level 4 cargo missions.
Find an agent
Firstly you need to find a corporation having Level 4 agents within the division you need. There are 3 Divisions with Courier missions at 90% or above:
Accounting: 91.23%
Archives: 92.47%
Production: 90.83%
You can find the mission types in table-form at: http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Missions_guide
and the agent of your choice at : http://agents.eve-commander.com/
Pick one of the divisions, select 'Level 4' and maybe search in a specific jump range of your current mission system. Avoid choosing agents which are highlighted in red, as they will send you into low sec systems. A good agent should be in high sec, and best in a lower security system (0.5 or 0.6) with high sec systems around him, as well as possessing a good quality level. If you are not sure about the systems around an agent, either use the in-game map or check the 2D maps available at http://www.ombeve.co.uk/.
For instance, if Aldrat were our system of choice and we wanted an agent in close proximity, our choice would be limited to Sakold Ortmur from Six Kin Development, a quality 0 agent in Lustrevik. This means you would need a standing of at least 6.0 with this corporation to run his/her missions.
Raise your corporation standing to the required level
Once a target corporation has been determined, you may have to increase your standing. You can either run Level 1/2/3 missions to raise your standing, or alternatively find a Unista already running missions for this corp. Level 4 combat pilots will get you up very quickly and you could offer the pilot in question to salvage his missions for him until your standing goals are achieved.
Suggested ships for Level 4 cargo missions
Normally, there are two types of missions available under the cargo mission heading:
Small cargo hauling:
The cargo in these missions measures usually between 0.1 and 5 m³. You should be able to complete these in a shuttle or rookie ship, best in a Frigate with warp speed increasing rigs. You will definetly want to avoid using industrial or larger-sized ships in general for this type of missions, as their alignment time, speed etc. sucks and will slow down your missioning and significantly lower your ISK/hour.
Large cargo hauling:
The cargo volume in these missions measures between 2000 and 6000 m³ in normal missions, but can be a whopping 9600m³ or 40.000m³ in storyline missions. An Industrial with some cargo rigs and cargo expanders can easily fit up to 20.000 m³, in case of the Gallente Iteron V even more. This will enable you to run the 40.000m³ storyline in 2 runs.
The skills necessary to run the missions are pretty low. As soon as you can fly a reasonably-sized industrial, you're good to go, within your first week of your EVE time even. And it's cheap, too!
Storyline missions
There appear to be 3 types of storyline missions:
The implant mission - You have to get 8000 Kernite to your agent to finish it and you get a +4 implant (20 mil) as reward. Most of the time you can buy the Kernite straight from the agent's station.
The 40.000m³ cargo mission - Usually the cargo is split into several sealed containers. Perform about 4 Jumps and you get a 5 mil time reward.
The combat mission - Fairly rare to occur. Should you be unable to perform it yourself, you may want to consider asking another unista for assistance as the loot and salvage from these missions is very profitable. If not, you can always decline it.
Profit and rewards
With Negotiations IV trained, the average reward is 250.000 ISK per mission. This may not sound very profitable at first glance, but some of these missions take literally one minute to finish as all you have to do is fly to another station in the same system.
As you run your missions, you will pile up LPs. These average about 250 to 300 per mission, but this can be increased via skills by up to 50%. 10 hours of missioning results in roughly 30.000 LP. Most stores contain some very profitable LP items, possibly giving you 1 Mil ISK per 1000 LP, and sometimes more. It's up to you to determine the most profitable item or blueprint.
If you are fast enough, you easily bag a storyline per hour. And should luck be with you, these will be an implant mission. This means 20 mil from the implant + rewards + LP which should be yet another 25 mil an hour. Of course, the better the agent (with higher quality) and the better the system (sec status at .6 or .5), you can get even more. Not at all bad for new players!
Additional interesting points
To get the most out of running these missions, you should increase the related Social skills increasing your rewards and LP gain. There are at least 2 Skillbooks for each division to increase the LP gain. They may be expensive (+/- 40 mil for both) but they will give a good return after some time.
Always be aware the destination system's security status! It may happen that your destination system falls into low sec once in a while. You may want to risk running the mission if you are equipped for it, however under normal circumstances it would be safer to decline it (once every 4 hours).
Of course there are no 100% Cargo agents in space, so sometimes you may be faced with a combat mission. If you are not equipped to handle it, you can either chose to decline it, or attempt to get some help from a fellow unista.
You can safely decline a mission every 4 hours without negative consequences; however sometimes you may be faced with 2 unsuitable missions in quick succession. You then have to sit out the countdown, run some hauling contracts as an alternative or use an alternative agent if available. Your choice.
As a final comment, always be aware of elemental safety rules during your hauling missions; such as no autopilot, no Industrial if you don't have. Shuttles/frigates are much faster and difficult to point.
References
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