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? I'll stick to E-UNI compliant ways of making ISK here, so yes, some activites are missing and won't be added or mentioned.

Exploration gets recommended quite often.

Initial investment: A Tech 1 Exploration frigate can be fit for about 2-6M ISK, depending on if you want your ship to be able to cloak or not.

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 in high-sec space.

Initial investment: A Destroyer for running L1 missions can be fit for 2-3M ISK. A Cruiser fit capable of handling L2 missions will cost you around 20-25M ISK.

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.

Initial investment: A Destroyer capable of handling DED 2/10 can be fit for around 10-15M ISK, a cruiser capable of handling DED 3/10 can be fit for around 20-25M ISK.

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.

Initial investment: About 5M for a Frigate, about 10-15M for a Destroyer, about 20-25M for a Cruiser.

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.

Missions aren't for you and you don't like instanced PvE in EVE? Well, feel free to go ratting at our Null Security Campus!

Initial investment: About 20-25M ISK for a Newbro Ratting Vexor NSC edition.

Pros:

• Steady payouts due to each NPC giving you a direct bounty.
• Reward optimisation possible with smart looting/salvaging.
• The Cruiser DD Basic skill plan is enough to start it off.
• Ratting in 0.0 space will teach you about sharing/looking out for intel, watching Local and staying safe in a semi-hostile environment.
• Sometimes, faction NPCs with valuable loot will spawn, further increasing your ISK/h.

Cons:

• As mentioned, NSC is semi-friendly. Neutrals sometimes roam the pocket looking for targets, you're always at risk.
• The NPCs hit harder and are more numerous compared to high-/lowsec and missions. If you don't pay attention as a new player, it's entirely possible to lose your ship to them.

Combat is not your thing? How about some mining then?

Initial investment: 2-3M for a Venture, 50M for a Mining Barge.

Pros:

• When done in highsec it can be done semi-afk. As long as you look at Local and your screen every minute or two and don't mine in a populated system, you should be safe.
• Constant, predictable amount of ISK/h. If you mine X units of ore Y and refine it, it will sell for a set amount.
• Mining in lowsec or in nullsec is, compared to mining in highsec, a decent amount of ISK/h - if you can get out alive.
• Moon mining can also be done in highsec, for a solo miner it is more profitable than highsec ores.
• Ice mining can also be very profitable, however it requires ships fit for ice mining and other skills, also competition is quite high and ice belts aren't always there.
• Industrialists in E-UNI buy ore regularly, so even if you don't want to use the Market you can sell your product.
• E-UNI features many "perfect refiners", so you can focus on investing skill points into getting the most ore out of the rocks and have others refine it for you.

Cons:

• Solo ore mining in highsec, especially if done in a Venture, is one of the lowest ISK/h activities in the game.
• Not suited for Alpha clones as they can only fly Ventures.
• Mining skills only apply to mining, so unless you really enjoy grinding rocks it may feel like wasted skill points after a while.
• High-value ores and ice are

Still not interested in combat, but also not interested in ore? How about Gas?

Initial investment: 30M for the skillbook when bought from NPCs, 6-7M for a Venture fit for gas.

Pros:

• Compared to gas mining much better ISK/h. One Venture full of good gas will pay for your gas mining skillbook.
• Gas clouds need to be scanned and found, usually in low security space and wormholes, so you will learn a lot doing that.
• Also similar to exploration, you will be hunted - not only by players, but also by hostile NPCs. Keeping track of how long you have been where will become important for you.

Cons:

• The initial investment for a new player is pretty high. Even though the skillbook and the ship pay themselves in one to three good runs, you still need to have the ISK to spend.
• Just as with Exploration, finding gas clouds isn't guaranteed. They spawn very rarely in highsec, so you will have to go to lowsec, nullsec or into wormholes - and even then it's entirely possible to look for an hour and find nothing.
• The mining skill training caveat applies here as well. If you train into gas huffing, you will be good at gas huffing only.

So getting resources yourself is not for you, but how about hauling things for others and making ISK that way?

Pros:

• You can combine small-ish hauling contracts with your own travels and make some ISK on the side.
• Many people need stuff transported, so public courier contracts should be well-populated in active regions of space.

Cons:

• Tech 1 Industrial ships aren't well-suited for commercial hauling. They are flimsy and therefore unsuited for any sort of valuable cargo.
• Public contracts will require high sums of collateral to be paid if you lose the cargo. You need to be able to have that amound liquid.
• Inexperienced haulers are very easy to scam - people will take advantage of that.