Saturday, December 28, 2013

Noob Friendly ISK Through Hauling

UPDATE:  It seems that some of my information was outdated; these inconsistencies have been fixed.

One of the hardest things for a new player to do is start making good ISK.  Generally, big income methods (level 4 missions, wormholes, nullsec, station trading etc.) require significant investment capital or skills.  However, new players are still left with a wide variety of options for instant gratification which require very little capital and skill training time before they can be put into action.  One such method is hauling, the process of bringing goods from one station to another where they will sell for a larger amount of ISK.  Specifically, this method involves finding sell orders for an item in one region that are lower than the highest buy order for the same item in another region.  It sounds easy on paper, but how does a new pilot go about doing this?

The Ship

Every new pilot starts out with their racial frigate skill already trained to level II (for example, a new Amarr pilot will have Amarr Frigate II).  The requirement to train the racial industrial skill is racial frigate level III, which is not a terribly long skill in the grand scheme of things (training can be complete in less than a day).  However, each race's industrials are different, and depending on the amount of time invested in hauling, it might be worth it to train for a different faction's industrial.  For the average pilot, training your race's industrial skill should suffice.  However, pilots that intend to pursue hauling as a career path should consider training Amarr Industrial for the Bestower, the largest cargo ship.  Remember that the higher you train the Amarr Industrial skill, the larger your cargo capacity and max velocity will be.  (Note: After training an industrial skill to level III, one can train for a race's freighter, which has a much larger cargo capacity than the T1 industrials.  However, other prerequisites take quite a while to train, and they are beyond the scope of this guide.)

Once a pilot has chosen their ship, it is a good idea to fit it.  If more cargo space is necessary, Cargo Expanders can be fit to increase the size of the ship's cargo bay.  You should not fit more cargo expanders than you need; once you have enough space to carry all of your cargo, Intertial Stabilizers should be fit to decrease the align time of your ship.

WARNING: Do not fly with too much ISK in your cargohold; there are people out there who are willing to sacrifice themselves to Concord to blow up your ship and steal your loot.  My general rule is to stay below 100 mil at a time when flying a T1 industrial.  You have been warned.

The Route

Figuring out the route you should take to make ISK sounds like it could be the hardest part of all this, but in fact, it turns out to be one of the easiest.  There are multiple tools available that enable you to find profitable routes by analyzing the markets in different regions.

If you don't mind doing it by hand, you could take a look at the Jitanomic website and try to find items that are being bought in one region at a higher price than they are being sold in another region.  This data is usually fairly accurate, but the process of figuring out profitable routes can be tedious due to the sheer amount of market data available to you.

An easier way would be to use EVE-Central's Trade Finder, which allows you to simply input two systems and will display all items that would turn a profit if bought in the starting system and sold in the destination system.  Keep in mind that there are a finite number of orders on the market, and this number can be greater in one system than another; if you see 5 entries for an item where each entry is for a quantity of only 1 item, it's likely that the orders available will limit you to making profit off of only 1 item.

There you have it!  Find your route, load up your ship, and take off!  Just remember that double checking the data can't hurt, as it'll help you avoid jumping on deals that have already been exploited by another player.  If you have requests for future guides, please leave me a comment or PM me on reddit! (/u/toxicity959) Fly safe o7

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Getting Resituated

Damn, it's been a long time.  After taking quite the break, I'm pleased to be back to New Eden.  There is much to be done to get myself back in the game.  All of my orders have obviously run out, so I've got to choose and invest in maybe 50 items, preferably ones I haven't used before, to get the ISK flowing again.  Though that'll only take me an hour or two, I am put off by the prospect of such a menial task, and have been procrastinating it since resubbing.

I've got my two main pilots back in their nullsec corp, and it's high time I deploy my PVP pilot and get in some kickass fleets.  It's been too long since the last time I've been bored out of my mind jumping gate to gate looking for action.  It's also been too long since the last time I've taken part in a large fleet encounter, and I have to say I kind of miss it.  Though it doesn't provide the same adrenaline rush as solo PVP does, it's still a lot of fun melting targets in a fleet, probably mostly because of just how quickly they go down.  It helps that my PVP pilot has got a name that isn't too close to either end of the alphabet, so I'm not usually primaried in large engagements.

Soon enough I'll be spending all my ISK on shiny new doctrine ships, trading fire with reds, shooting some structures (woooo), running some more sanctums, and hopefully watching my wallet grow.

I also hope to be doing a lot more posting on this blog/making videos on my YouTube channel.  EVE is a place where you never really know everything there is to know, and my goal is to help new (and veteran) EVE players keep learning.  If there's anything you guys would like me to make a blog post or video about, leave me a comment here or shoot me a PM on reddit (/u/toxicity959).

I haven't had the time for some real adventures yet so for now, I'll keep this post short and free of fluff.  Thanks for reading, and fly safe o7

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Noob's Guide to Success

Let me start this post off by reminding everyone that EVE is about what you want it to be.  ISK is meaningless if you don't have fun; it just so happens that I find my satisfaction in game in the form of an ever increasing number of space pixels in my wallet.  Granted, most of the fun stuff in EVE requires some ISK to do, but I encourage new players to focus more on what is fun for them than making ISK.

So you're totally new to EVE, fresh out of the clone vat in this endless sea of opportunity.  What do you do?  The answer: tutorial missions.  CCP has worked very hard on making the tutorial missions more fruitful for new players.  Try everything at least once, who knows where your niche will be.  In addition to teaching you the game, the tutorial missions will also provide you with the equipment you need to pursue certain careers.  For example, completing the mining tutorial missions will provide you with your very own Venture-class mining ship for blasting space rocks.  None of the rewards come close to the stuff you can get after a little training, but it's definitely enough to start you off, and there aren't many other uses for your time that compare to the rewards you get from the tutorials.

Once you've done the tutorials, you'll probably have more of an idea of what you'd like to do in the game.  The best way to pursue this career and continue to learn about the game is by joining a corporation.  EVE has an overwhelming variety of career paths, but there exists a corporation for almost any career you can think of.  Some people find mining mind-numbingly boring, others (Chribba) find it one of the most relaxing things in the world.  Mining ops with a corp can be a great way to take some of the edge off by relaxing with some friends while you melt rocks.  Some people like exploration, and some people don't have the patience.  If you feel like mining is your calling, consider skilling up for a mining barge, and then maybe even finding a nullsec industrial corp, where you might pay a monthly fee for the right to mine all the juicy rare ore you wish.  If exploration is your thing, maybe join a wormhole corp, where you can rake in billions of ISK a week and have some adrenaline-fueled adventures in the middle of nowhere.  Be warned, however, that moving your stuff out of a wormhole can be difficult at times; while it might not be a big deal to move in when you're new and have no assets, getting new equipment or getting your spoils out of a wormhole can be a challenge to even the most seasoned veterans.  PVP fiends might want to join a corp such as Brave Newbies, Inc. (my friends from reddit might be interested in the BNI subreddit), where you can crash your ships into a wall of enemies over and over, having much more fun than it sounds.

You can progress in EVE sans corporation, but if I'm completely honest, solo in EVE is one of the least entertaining things in the world.  All the fun stuff (fleet battles, taking sov, high-value rats, high-value ore, wormholes, etc) is difficult if not impossible for one person to do alone.  Besides, why play an MMO solo?  You can have much more fun doing almost anything you can do alone when you're surrounded by friends.

However, I must include a warning with this post, lest I lead you astray: be very wary of other pilots in EVE, because if your trust is misplaced, you can get burned.  Scamming, ganking, and many other unsavory activities are entirely legal in EVE, and it's not fun to be on the receiving end of a lot of these activities.

I'll end this post on a lighter note: once you find your niche, gain some skillpoints, and collect some ISK, you can start making more passive ISK and focus instead on burning it smashing ships.  Once you think you're ready to move on, check out my ISK/trade guides on this blog, or watch my station trading guide on YouTube.  Have fun and fly safe my friends o7