My second week in EVE, I was ratting in an Omist station system in a newly bought Raven when a roaming BoB gang jumped into the system, warped to my belt, warp scrambled me and owned the !@#$%^&* out of me, all in under 20 seconds. Nearly broke and pissed off, I decided that ratting was for wage slave suckers and that there has to be an easier, better way of making money that doesn’t involve the risk of being blown apart in 0.0 space. I recruitment scammed my way up to 500 million ISK, but then the fat overlord banned recruitment scamming.
Then I discovered trading. Now don’t get me wrong. Trading does NOT mean space trucking NPC-bought goods across lowsec space for a couple million ISK profit only to be blown up by some pirates who just got home from school. The trading I’m referring to deals in player-built ships and modules, moon minerals, etc etc. It also does not require you to leave the station you are trading out of, assuming you are in a trade hub. Perhaps the best thing about it is that you MAKE MONEY WHILE YOU SLEEP. There’s nothing better than waking up and seeing your wallet 200 million ISK fatter than it was than when you laid down to take a nap a few hours ago.
I operated primarily out of Jita with an alt in Rens. If I put in the work, I can make over a billion ISK in a single day. If I weren’t quitting EVE and decided to get really hardcore about trading and buy 4-5 accounts (one for each hub), I could easily see myself pulling in 2 billion ISK a day. Here’s how:
For EVERY item in EVE that is actively traded on the market, there is a spread between the buy orders and the sell orders. You can calculate the percentage size of this spread by dividing the price of the lowest realistic sell order by the price of the highest realistic buy order. For example:
In this case, I would calculate the spread of the covert ops cloaking device IIs as follows:
10998/10000 = 1.0998 or 9.98%. If I put up a buy order at 10 million, have that buy order filled and put up a sell order at 10.998 million, I would make about a 10% return on the ISK invested. HOWEVER, you have to take broker fees and the sales tax into account. With no skill in broker relations or accounting, this shaves 3% off your profit. With broker relations 5 and accounting 5, you shave 2% off the profit. With great standings, broker relations 5, accounting 5, take 1% off the profit. The difference between 3% and 1% is HUGE when you’re dealing with high-volume goods over a long period of time. Thus, on my accounting 5 broker relations 5 character with 0 standings, our 10% profit becomes an 8% profit. With a billion ISK invested in the trade, that’s an 80 million ISK profit. Not too shabby.
“But… how can I find good stuff to trade?”
Quite easy. Go into the price history screen and look at the table. Make sure it is sorted by date with the latest date is at the top. Multiply the AVERAGE PRICE PER DAY by the AVERAGE VOLUME PER DAY. A good rule of thumb is that if there isn’t at least cheap 1 billion ISK going through the item every day, it’s not worth seriously trading. Also, make sure there is a sufficient amount of order volume. If there aren’t at least 20 orders per day of the item, it might still be worth trading, but it won’t be your bread and butter. The funny thing is, you don’t even have to know what the item does. I don’t know what half the !@#$%^&* I trade does. All you have to know is the spread and the volume.
Or if you’re lazy, trade the stuff on the quickbar. Most of it fits my criteria for trading. A key thing to remember is that the markets are ALWAYS CHANGING, so you always have to watch them. An item with !@#$%^&* volume and a 4% spread today might have great volume and a 20% spread tomorrow.
It is CRUCIAL CRUCIAL CRUCIAL that you use your wallet for order management and the quickbar of the market screen to move between items. This will save you ridiculous amounts of time moving between items and modifying orders. To add an item to the quickbar, right click it on the market screen and click ‘add item to quickbar’. Now you can browse to it quickly without having to scroll through numerous laggy windows.
My most profitable items are POS fuels (hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, helium isotopes and liquid ozone), covert ops cloaking device IIs, +5 implants, and advanced materials.
And my last, most important piece of advice to any trader… STAY ON TOP OF YOUR ORDERS. If you ‘go away’ for a few weeks, you may come back to a nasty surprise as the item you bought at 200 is now trading at 73 and you’ve lost billions of ISK. This has happened to me more times than I care to admit.
There is a lot more to trading than what I’ve written here, I could probably write 30 pages about it. But these are the basics.
Ever scouted a gate and got bumped out due to session change then get podded out suddenly? Still missing those 100m+ isk interceptor disintegrated in few seconds? Here’s the solution
When uncloaking and micowarping back to a gate at certain velocities you may bounce off the gate and get a session change in progress.
Even though you can buy cheap isk, This is the tip to avoid it.
1. You have thirty seconds till you uncloak, so if you are in a camp and need a gaurantee not to bounce the gate ,the best way is to hit the map browser and set destination back to the system you just jumped from. Then approach gate thus breaking the cloak hit microwarp drive and hit the auto pilot. You will then auto jump when in range.
2.Now another thing that was mentioned to me is if you wait out the thirty second timer and then approach micro warp that you will never get the session change. This i will confirm ASAP in a 10 000 m/s ship. this was also confirmed and works aswellP)P)
Only use this trick with cruiser and frigate class ships that go fast enough to bump off the gate when approaching at full speed.
Scenario:
Your in your awesome speed tanking ship. you jump into a system. oh crap its a gate camp and there are more than you can run from. your best chance is to get back to the gate or losing more hard earned isk buying a shiny new ship.
set destination for system you just came from
wait at least 20sec after you jumping into the system
hit autopilot
wait for it to uncloak you to approach Stargate
hit the mwd immediately
for good measure hold your mouse button on the stargate so you can click jump as soon as your in rage. this will increase your chances of success.
once you jump into the next system your autopilot will have a 15sec session change so you cant jump though any star gates or doc at stations. But you can still fly around and warp places.
Would you like to possibly double or triple the amount of eve isk that you make in your kill missions? Now, looting wrecks is no longer the primary source of supplementary mission-income for players and corps alike.
Take advantage of the salvaging skill to make a great deal more of isk, no matter the kill mission. ESPECIALLY low level missions which pay relatively little, a 100,000 isk reward can easily turn into 1.5-2.0 million isk depending on the amount of enemies you face and how much salvagable materials you get to sell or use.
Not just for the single player, but also for corporations. With the new boost pack, the potential to have open fleets in corp can allow people to join in that may not want to fight, but can clean up the deadspace complexes for loot and money. And the rig industry in EVE, for which salvaged materials are used, is vastly profitable and lucrative at this time. For fleet based looting, whether or not you are all in a corp, have a dedicated pilot use, preferably, a destroyer. All destroyers are set up well with numerous high-slots for one or two tractor beams, and the rest salvagers. Fit some cargo expanders and an afterburner or micro-warp drive, and you have a fast little ship that can salvage more quickly and efficiently than larger cruisers, battlecruisers, or battleships.
Have the destroyer pilot wait for all of, or most of, the fighting to be over, and then allow him to warp in to clean up the wrecks. As long as he gets to the location, you can turn in your mission for the next one etc. Make sure that you are fleeted with the salvaging person, because he will be unable to tractor beam wrecks that you’ve destroyed if he is not in your group, therefore making his job much more difficult.
If you are a solo pilot, consider Gallente or other ships with high drone bays and drone bandwidth. If you rely heavily on drones and tank your shields or armor, you can use your high slots for the above-mentioned salvager/tractor beam combination. Consider, too, a drone link augmentor to increase substantially your range of your drones, so that you can wipe the floor with the mission targets and clean up once within 20km (the range of non-capital ship tractor beams). This extra range also helps to keep the npc enemies from being able to effectively hit your ship, or extra time in which to kill them while they approach thereby rendering them harmless.
I cannot stress how important it is for mission runners in EVE to level up their salvaging skills to take advantage of the system. Consider that every wreck that you leave unclaimed is money that you have essentially lost. Basically, you may pay 100,000+ isk per wreck just to leave it floating in space.
This is a plan for those who already have some EVE Online ISK but want to make a lot more and are prepared to take a risk. People often forget that the EVE market is like the real world market. If in the real world, I bought all the Coca Cola in England then I would have a monopoly and be able to charge what I liked, so instead of 50p a can I could charge 75p a can, people would have to pay 75p as no-one else is able to sell them, as I have them all.
Now transfer this thinking to buy EVE isk. If we take a system that’s is not a central trade hub ( so NOT Jita or Rens) then we look at what is low compared to it’s price history average. I see that in this system DCU I’s are selling for 150,000 ± 5,000 and there are about 1500 for sale within a 5 jump radius. So I now buy up ALL the DCU’s in that 5 jump radius. This will cost me 150,000 ± 5,000, so between 217,500,000 and 232,500,000 ISK.
Now you have just spent 230,000,000 isk price and you will want at LEAST a 10% profit on those, so you are looking to make 255,000,000 after all taxes and sale charges. This meant you have to sell your DCU’s for 175,000 each as a minimum. As you are the sole trader people will have to pay. This strategy takes time to perfect and is potentially risky but I have seen people buy up all of a mod and double the price and put them back on the market.
I’d imagine that most players young and old have seen/ been caught up in a Gate Camp, especially in 0.0 space.
Most people fear the approach to the gate in question and this is understandable, however, a fast ship will usually see you through. However, the real danger comes from those gankers who jump through the gate to wait for you on the other side, especially those pesky indies.
Just for the record, get bm’s for your journey. Someone will have them that either you know or can buy eve online ISK from.
Ideally, strap a cloak on and remain over 2.5km from the camping parties ships will see you uncloak just as you hit jump distance (2.5km from the gate). On the other side, chose your warp desitination and as you begin to decloak from the gate, hit your cloak. Gone. Rinse and repeat.
Of course, thats the ideal situation. Usually things are different. You’re preparing for your journey and you’re about to stick on warp core stabs. STOP!!! Depending on your ship, you could fit wcs but be too slow hitting warp velocity and be ganked by a fastlocking hard hitter, or 7.
In these situations nanofibers are a pod-pilots best friend. We’re not after the high speed a nanofiber can provide, just the inertia decrease. At present the best nanofiber will provide -15% inertia, so fill the lo’s with these. The lower the speed increase as well means you have less speed to gain to hit your warp velocity if 75% of max speed. A prime EVE Online example of this is in the
Rupture. With a rack of wcs, this beast is slow to warp, but fit 5 local hull conversion nano’s and you’ll be aligned and at speed before you’ve finished uncloaking, therefore as soon as you’re targettable you’ve already entered warp and thus untouchable.
Now, this won’t work so well on some ships. Believe it or not a Stabber, the Ruptures smaller faster brother (with only 3 lo’s) can take longer to warp with 3 nano’s than a rupture with 5.
The moral of the story? Choose your ship wisely and fill it with nano’s
Something I found out just recently that can help some weaker players defeat those Serpentis guys that sometimes hang around asteroid belts. If they’re too tough for you, what you could do, is first send a drone to attack them, and that means they will target it and not you, while they’re fighting the drone(s) you just keep shooting at almost point blank range. This works especially well with slower bigger ships, since their slow turret speed doesn’t allow them to hit the drone(s) so, even if you’re in a weak ship, you could still kill a Serpentis Wing Leader with relative ease, although it might take some bullets (but those give you 120k Cheap ISK bounty and some OK stuff to sell for a beginner).
Note that it’s easier to do if they’re all distracted or if you’re one on one because there is no risk of anybody shooting back all of a sudden.
Basically this is a guide on how to farm NPC haulers that spawn at just about every station in eve. These haulers contain valuable POS Fuels (NPC) as well as some tech 2 building components. Which can get you good EVE Online ISK
The basic strategy is to kill the haulers when they are not on their own respective stations. As only the haulers own corp will defend it. Say you are at a DED station and you see a group of haulers pulling away from the station, toss a view onto the lead hauler and align your view so it is looking in the direct direction that particular hauler is moving. It will at about 110km out align tword the station it is going to jump to. at about 120km it will disappear, 2 minutes later it will appear at the destination station. So long as this is not the same corp station it has left from you may follow and kill.
I like to get EVE ISK in a gang with myself and then TAG the haulers going outbound to make them easier to find. For example if they are leaving from a DED Station I tag them with a “D”. The I can even hop station to station to look for my targets till I find haulers tagged with a “D” and I know I have my target as well as the fact the came from a DED Station. The best possible setup fot this procedure is to find a system like HEK with 3-4 stations all with different corp ownership. In a system like this it is way easier as ALL INCOMING NPC HAULERS are viable targets. The aggression timer will be in effect for the corp that the hauler came from and so you should not go to that station till timer is done.
Basically Corporations AND Corporation stations as well as guns will ONLY Protect their own haulers. And not the haulers of another corperation at there station.
REQUIREMENTS
For a low SP character
Many new characters may think themselves useless as pvpers; but this is most definitely not the case. In a frigate you can take down, or immobilize, an opponent much larger than yourself. They key to not dieing while yo do it is speed.
Therefore it is a lost essential for all new characters to train for a microwarp drive
Now that the missile changes have come to pass, an afterburner is probably more viable, though having the skills for a microwarp drive is a very good idea
This will help you to take reduced damage from missiles and evade turret fire.
Thus a new pilot should invest in the following skills:
High speed maneuvering I
Navigation IV
Afterburner IV
This is probably the most time consuming of the skills that you will need.
Next, you will need to be able to use a warp disruptor or warp scrambler, to stop your prey from warping away.
Both of these have their benefits, however i recommend using a warp scrambler as a lot of your targets may carry a warp core stabilizer, and the -2 scramble on this item is more likely to stop them from warping. Secondly, a warp disruptor uses too much capacitor to be run easily on a frigate.
To use this module you will need to train:
Propulsion jamming I
Navigation II (you should already have this at IV)
Electronics III
Since you now have the two main essentials: you may also want to fit a stasis websifier (which has the same requirements for skills as the warp scrambler) to slow down your prey. However this may not be necessary if you are in an asteroid belt or at a planet etc as your target has nowhere to run.
Of course you need a ship to fit these to, and i recommend either the KESTREL or the RIFTER as both have the ability to lock down a target, while staying reasonably fast and dealing some good damage. For the kestrel, the choice between rockets or standard missiles is one best left to you. Rockets are better for close range combat as they have a better damage/time. For the rifter, experiment with the guns/missiles, and find out which suits your style best. An INCURSUS fitted with blasters is also a good option or gallente users. For amarr, the punisher is a solid frigate but lacks midslots. With pulses it can still be damaging and can absorb a lot o damage, so it is a useful ship in a gang.
At this point i would not recommend training gunnery skills too much.
Now, running a micro warpdrive and a warp disruptor, along with whatever else you wish to fit, is a drain on your capacitor. Capacitor power relays in the low slots can help you to sustain the modules.
These require:
Energy grid upgrades II
Science I
Engineering II
(don’t worry about all this training: it doesn’t take very long, and many of the skills are essential later on anyway)
The rest of the slots on your ship if you have any free) is really up to you.
WHERE DO I HUNT?
By now you are thinking; “Great I’m ready, where do i go to kill!”
Unfortunately it isn’t that easy. To find targets, you need to go in 0.4 and below systems. These are often sparsely populated, but now and again you can find something to kill.
Try to look in the less busy low security systems, as this is where miners are more likely to be hiding. Fly around these until you see a possible target in local.
Then you use your scanner to see what ships are in space. (see “using the scanner” near the end of the tutorial) If the scanner shows a prime target, such as a hauler or a mining cruiser; off you go. To find him you can either
Browse the belts.
Use the scanner and narrow him down.
Using the scanner like this is difficult at first, but often quicker than going through the belts, and well worth getting used to.
USING THE SCANNER
First of all, position your camera so that it is facing in the same direction of your ship. From what i have seen, the “nose” of your ship when at rest points to the 5degree scan (although this is very difficult to find people with as it is so precise)
Firstly, set your overview settings to show asteroid belts, then do a 360 degree scan at full range (about 14 au)
Proceed to narrow it down until you have only the ship and the belt on the scan: the ship is most likely at the belt. Warp in. Don’t worry about messing up a few times, this requires a LOT of practice.
Once you have your prey in your sights: its time for
THE ATTACK
Orbit your prey at your optimal range and engage your warp scrambler and weapons. If all goes well and you get him to structure, convo him (if you wish to ransom and not just destroy the ship) and ask for a toll. Choose this yourself, judging the value of his ship and modules and thinking how much he would lose if he went boom.
The actual technique you should sue depends on your ship, your fitting, and your opponent. For mos purposes i would suggest having a close range fitting (ie: AUTOCANNONS/ROCKETS/BLASTERS/PULSES for minmatar/caldari/gallente and amarr respectively. If you are using a MWD, then i suggest you engage it to close the distance between you and your foe. Once you are within range and hopefully under his guns) turn it off and orbit: this will save your capacitor for other essentials like guns and repairers.
I advise you not to pod kill your target, as the security status hit for this is very heavy, meaning you wont be able to go into high security space.
Once your prey has paid you (hopefully) let him go by deactivating your guns/scramblers. If he did not pay, send him on his merry way in his pod.
Do NOT go near the sentries for 15-20 minutes after you have committed a hostile act, as it will leave you in your pod. (sentries are cruel masters)
The new introduction of the criminal flagging counter is a very good indication of when you are flagged or not but I wouldn’t trust it fully.
SECURITY STATUS
When you kill a player’s ship, (and more seriously his pod) you receive a security rating drop. This can only be raised by killing battleship npcs, which is probably way above you at this point. Don’t worry, if you want to be a true pirate, you can worry about this later: just make sure you dont get trapped in a low security system surrounded by a lot of high security ones, as you may find it hard to get out. Once you reach -5.0 you can be shot ANYWHERE without penalty, so be aware.
Security ratings:
-1.9 and above: you can enter all space freely
-2.4 and above: you can enter all but 1.0
-2.9 and above: you can enter all but 0.9 and above
-3.4 and above: you can enter all but 0.8 and above
-3.9 and above: you can enter all but 0.7 and above
-4.4 and above: you can enter all but 0.6 and above
-4.5 and below: you cannot enter secure space without being fired upon by the navy/concord
Expect to lose ships often until you get the hang of it. Don’t worry: basic frigate setups are cheap.
Lastly: EVE Online is NOT a single player game, making friends is an excellent idea: and joining a pirate corp can help you to learn quicker and kill more (killing with friends beside you is much easier, and more fun)
Hope this helps, and if i forgot anything, feel free to post it.
Part II - Advanced Pirating Techniques
By now you should be reasonably experienced: and for most of these options you should be able to use a battleship.
The first is probably the best way to earn EVE ISK, but you will need friends or a VERY good setup. [This bit is mainly up to you, you should know how to fit things by now]
SENTRY TANKING
My personal favorite: for this you will probably need about 3 well tanked battleships for sustained tanking, or perhaps one or two if you are not staying under sentry fire. I would not recommend capacitor boosters for this unless you have a secure can anchored somewhere in the system for easy access as they tend to run out very quickly. I would advise a close ranged setup with a web and disruptor, and a sustainable tank. Having an alt in an industrial ship to pick up the loot is also a good idea. To be successful your best bet is to have a couple of people in cloaked ships watching for a “blob” which would overpower you. Begin to allign for warp every time something comes in the system, just to be on the safe side. Pick a busy-ish low security system where you may be able to make some nice EVE Onine ISK. Incorporating a nos or two into your setup could be the difference between life and death if you get attacked by anything cruiser size and down.
SNIPING
I’ll be blunt. I hate this, but it IS a very good (and generally safe) way to make EVE ISK price and accumulate a lot of kills. This can be done solo, but you may not be able to kill larger ships quickly enough. Having an alt boosting your lock time, tracking may help, as will having an alt in an industrial to pick up the loot. To actually get in position for sniping you must be 150km+ from the gate. I would advise changing spots every now and then and keeping a close eye on local. If a covert ops ship enters system it is time to run away
COMPLEX HUNTING
Since RMR, complexes have been very good places to find targets in low security. A heavy assault cruiser, recon cruiser, or well setup battlecruiser is your friend here. An afterburner is nearly essential, as a microwarp drive will not work in dead space complexes. This is fairly simple: if you scan a ship in local and there is a complex simply check it out. If you “patrol” certain systems make a point of checking the complex every now and again. If it is easy you could do it for the security status and cash, if you are bored.
SCAN PROBING
By this point you will probably have had many people run to safespots on you, or even leave ships and supplies at them. Probing is a great way to kill them or blow up their supplies in true pirate fashion. A covert ops ship with all the relevant skills is a great way to steal ships, or find your enemy. Simply scan the target down with the scanner, and drop a 3 AU probe in a “triangle” around his position (use moons and safespots etc) Then hit scan. I advise turning on your cloak while it is scanning, and warping once the signal has been found while cloaked. There you go, have your gangmates war in and give your best “YARR!” in local.
Disclaimer: this is going on what I know, I don’t have booster production running yet, but the people who do aren’t talking. Some of it is guesswork/reasoning, some is known info. If someone could actually get this thing running, its no doubt you can make great amount of EVE Online ISK out of this.
The process:
- Find gas cloud. Best info is that these are LADAR sites and spawn certainly in 0.0 COSMOS constellations and apparently in non-COSMOS areas in the same region
- Harvest the gas cloud. This requires a Gas Harvester module and the Gas Cloud Harvesting skill. This gives you with a Cytoserin compound.
– The base module is known to be offered as a reward from some 0.0 COSMOS missions at least some of the time.
– The meta versions are bugged - their skill requirement is set to “Gas Harvesting”, which doesn’t exist.
– The skill is known to be offered as a reward from some 0.0 COSMOS missions at least some of the time
- React the compound. This requires a Medium Biochemical Reactor Array (POS array). These are empire-seeded. It also requires the requisite reaction. This gives you a pure booster
– Reactions can be found in certain 0.0 exploration sites which are believed to be COSMOS constellation-only
- Manufacture the booster. This requires the right blueprint and pure booster compound, as well as usually some additional commodity. It presumably requires the Drug Manufacturing skill. Presumably it can be done in the seeded Drug Lab POS module; it’s also been suggested that it can be done in player outposts.
– In cheap EVE Online Blueprint copies can be found in certain 0.0 exploration sites which are believed to be COSMOS constellation-only
There are two further classes of booster. The Improved versions require an Improved reaction and both the pure standard booster in question and a pure booster compound which is believed to be from an adjacent COSMOS constellation, plus a commodity. The Strong versions require a Strong reaction, the pure improved booster in question and a pure standard compound which is believed to be from the COSMOS constellation opposite it on the map, plus a commodity. It is assumed that both reactions require a Biochemical Reactor. Both obviously also require the relevant BPC.
In summary, to make a standard EVE Online booster, you need:
-Gas cloud
-Harvester module
-Harvester skill
-Medium Biochem reactor
-Standard booster reaction
-Drug Manufacturing skill
-Booster blueprint
Again, this is not guaranteed to be accurate. Feel free to correct any errors, or alternatively act like a [expletive] and flout your “superior knowledge” without actually telling anybody anything, even though you very probably relied on other people being open and honest with their info to get as far as you have.
Sometimes the 7-10 jumps can be worth its wait in buy ISK, refine or not, but sometimes hauling your cargo to other stations helps, if the ore
you want is near that station; setup shop there and mine.
Next!
When looking at a 9-20 jump trade with high value; look for other
opportunity’s that require less jumps, but that has a close to average
yield as the higher jump. You can spend a longer time jump to one
place for an instant cheap EVE ISK, or spend that same time making lesser
jumps for multiple trades for less time, think on it.
