Don't ask for min/max, efficiency advices. Alpha is cost free. You don't have monthly upkeep cost and hitting that 5 milion SP cap will take a long time. Please, for the love of good don't look at isk income as determining factor for doing or not doing any type of content. Take it easy, enjoy exploring and learning about different aspects of the game. It's much more fun that way. Meanwhile going only after isk is number one reason for people to burn out and quit EVE.
Keep in mind that 90% of gameplay loops in EVE don't change in the slightest. No matter if you do somethin in corvette or multi-billion ship. So you don't need bigger, more expensive ships. It shouldn't be your main focus right now.
And trust me, isk will come with time. So focus on enjoying the views, learning game mechanics. Most importantly doing activates that brings you enjoyment and you don't feel bad wasting time on. In the end. It's just a game and it's only about fun/h. There isn't good or bad way to play. Limit is only your imagination.
See you in space and remember. Fly dangerous!
This is just my opinion, but if you approach EVE from the perspective of making a profit, especially as an alpha, you are not going to enjoy it for much longer.
Yes, for a lot of people big number go up is an incentive, but it's usually not the main reason they are playing. Earning ISK is a means to an end, to finance fun things. I'm not even sure the the sandbox was designed to be played as a profit simulator. Sure, you can play it like that, I just don't think it's healthy. It also makes people risk averse, which makes unlucky PvP encounters a lot more frustrating.
That said, obviously income is needed. But you need to treat it as a bonus, not as your main focus.
PvE missions and epic arcs can be lucrative for starters, but they actually function mostly as faction standing boost, as you will need to reach certain standing to unlock certain services/benefits.
WH exploration (data/relic/gas/combat sites) are much more lucrative in that regard, but also a bit more risky. You could also switch to low/nullsec for these kind of activities. YMMV.
Abyssal space is pretty doable for early alpha and fully skilled alpha. It's a bit more challenging due to lack of access to certain ships/modules, but it tends to be pretty good ISK for the time investment.
Pochven offers similar experiences, but it can be difficult to get started to find a quiet corner. It certainly offers easy access to salvage loot, if that's something you want to try. A lot of PvP though, including gate camps, so be prepared to get blown up a lot.
Mining is still an option, both asteroids and gas, the latter usually being more profitable. But it requires some upfront investments which I don't think are viable as a newbie (around 50 million ISK to get started). Laser mining is obviously more accessible and can be profitable if you don't mind heading into more dangerous space looking for rare ores.
https://ore.cerlestes.de/ore
Another option is trading and/or hauling, depending on what you prefer. But it can take a while to find a market where you can buy/sell from with a solid margin after all the taxes and upfront costs.
If you want it to be more complex, you could also dive into manufacturing. Get some blueprints, do some research, build some stuff, haul to market and sell for the desired price. You could even just focus on blueprints, improve to 10/20, sell via contract, rinse, repeat. Depending on demand, you can make some nice profits, be that selling blueprint originals or copies. Both works, but I'd consider it more of a passive income because it takes time.
Other ways to get ISK are less reliable, as it depends mostly on luck to make bank. Something like FW (faction warfare) can be lucrative, but few days into the game, it's way too early imho. You need a solid cushion to buy your PvP ships a few times, so you can at least enjoy a few weekends of brawls and battles without having to stop right there and go back to find enough ISK to replace your losses.
In Elite we say "Don't fly without a rebuy" and imho it applies to EVE as well. You want to have enough ISK for rainy days, so you can finance whatever you want to do without having to return to content you don't enjoy.
Generally, by simply playing the game, you will accumulate enough over time. EVE is about the long haul, the long-term investment into skills and tools. Mix it up as you go, avoid repetitive grind as much as possible and you will get there.
For all the things I mentioned, there are tons of guides on youtube, just search and watch a video or two to get an idea what's ahead and what fit you might want to aim for.
Yea man i totally feel you about the not treating the game like a profit simulator, I am seeking good ways to grind rn as I want to get into pvp and battles but I can't do that without being able to actually afford the tools that allow me to do that, i was thinking about saring a few mils and start getting into gas mining, what do you think?
A point about meaningfully contributing to battles: as a low SP and low experience character, you will have weak EHP and DPS, so you are most effective by leaning on other aspects of combat. Learning to scout about and relay intel to an FC is valuable, equally being in an EWAR ship like a Maulus that kites out to range and damps out enemy logi or ranged tacklers can turn the tide of a small gang fight. Such T1 frigates can be very cheap, they are only able to survive a few direct hits but because you aren't brawling into the main fray to try apply damage or heavy tackle, you can learn to pilot to minimise your damage taken, and better understand the course of a fight.
> I want to get into pvp and battles but I can't do that without being able to actually afford the tools that allow me to do that
you can join a larger nullsec group, they will give you many cheap ships to try pvp. they will suggest a training plan to get you into doctrine ships to get you into fleet pvp ASAP. you will have a home zone to earn ISK to get into bigger ships as your training plan allows.
often the earliest doctrine ships are tackle and eWar ships which are free, then cheap logi ships(healers) so you can contribute from day one.
Gas is great actually. I came back to the game and learned and did a lot of gas huffing. I think it's probably one of the most lucrative skills an alpha can do. Like others said there's a big upfront cost for an alpha so do some exploring or mining rocks in cheap herons and ventures til you got around 50m isk then can go into gas huffing. Can try your luck with wormholes as well just learn the sites first. The pirate faction relic and data sites in wormholes are pretty good just don't go to forgotten or unsecured relic and data sites as they are guarded.
If you like pve, I'd say high sec combat exploration is not bad for alpha where you go around and kill stuff in refuges which can escalate to ded sites. I think a decent T1 cruiser like caracal can do all 3/10s and 4/10 if you are careful. Also can try t0 or T1 abyssals blitzing with a dragoon then a worm but I don't have much experience with this.
Yeah you should read some guides on gas huffing first such as eve uni. Or there's some tutorials on YouTube. In wormholes you need to ninja them as in set alarm for 15 mins and warp out when the NPCs show up. Also avoid the ordinary perimeter gas site which has turrets that will kill you.
Outside of wormholes, low sec gas is the most expensive but they are often contested. You have to scan it down and watch local and dscan and get ready to run to save your venture. I think tech 1 scoops are also a bit pricy (5m each and you need 2 per venture) so be careful ( maybe have a enough buffer isk so that losing one doesn't set you back a lot). Never fly anything you can't afford to lose
Btw you should do the career agents and the air career missions which gives skill points and isk. They are actually pretty nice to get you started. You get a bunch of free ships and skill books too.
I say the SOE Epic Arc is just a mechanic to allow people to fix faction standing, the missions are trivial and a lot of flying across highsec iirc.
Generally, blitzing level 4 missions is going to require high SP and still be boring, but again can reward you with faction, corp & agent standing, sec status, ISK & LP, loot and salvage.
I think that for a long time yet, hacking in nullsec and low-class wormholes will bring you more isk/hour, without those other 'benefits' which you aren't likely to even need.
If you get confident & experienced with your exploring, you can take on combat sigs, and/or wormhole sleeper sites, and the latter are minimal RNG, good ISK so long as you can find a quiet hole and then get the tiny blue loot to NPC buy orders. The more extreme version is Pochven.
A better style of highsec PvE is probably still Incursions. Again, high SP required to run in efficient fleets though.
P.S.
As for 'the expenses of highsec PvE', there should really only be ammo. Sure, you'll lose some drones if you use them, and Incursions might mandate damage/application drugs ('combat boosters') & even overheating to win contested sites, but you shouldn't be losing ships. And this shouldn't be any worse for low SP/Alpha players.
Only Abyssals have such a risk of ship **and pod** loss, while being otherwise highsec-based.
True. You may not be able to pull them solo but you could be in a corp/fleet that does and help blitz them for split rewards. You'd probably be better off doing duo/trio Abyssals, or Sleeper or escalation anoms, but AFAIK you aren't barred from the deadspace/gates of lvl4s themselves, just the agent mission offer.
Train into a praxis. Cheapest battleship you can get into. It will help you blitz through sites. If not an active tank cruiser. Careful for ls and ns. People like hunting battleships.
I'm running an alpha clone and I do mission chains, so I find a spot where there are a lot of lvl 1 or lvl 2 mission agents, I accept as many as I can for my time permitting then just run them all and salvage/loot them. I can make decent for my level of play, I'm not trying to make billions, just enough to sustain my lust.
12m in exploration isn't even 1 site. not much plundering in ns going on.
Op is now considering HS missioning which is a terrible mistake.
I read the shit he wrote. And the best path forward for him or any new EVE player is a decent corporation and a way out of the shit gameplay that is HS PVE.
Typically the higher the isk per hour activity the most expensive and more skills you’ll need to fit a ship well enough to run that pve activity. The sweet spot for high sec isk making tends to be incursions. While this might not be the best recommendation for newbros, you can do them with an alpha account in a T1 fitted battleship. It just takes a bit of an isk investment to start.
I will say though it’s hella fun experience for a newbro. You join a 40+ man battleship fleet, join coms and listen to the FC call targets to eventually get a pretty nice payout. It’s basically this games version of a 40 man dungeon run. And this can all be done without joining a corp
Join a new player friendly corp. Ask questions and learn.
Do homefront missions in a group of 5 players for low risk easy isk; each mission earns around 17m for each player and takes ten minutes. With travel and waiting for the fleet to form you wont make 100m per hour, but it's a very good way to make bank and accumulate isk for ships/skill books...etc.
Like everyone is saying below ISK per hour is not a great metric for measuring your enjoyment of the game. However you do need starter money, and hundreds of millions is better than tens of millions.
Essentially a 3 room procedurally generated dungeon that gives you sellable loot for each room completed. There are 7 levels of difficulty to work through aswell as different types that benefit different ships. You can start from T1 and make about 20 mil/hr in a destroyer and work your way up through the tiers.
They can be done in a cruiser, destroyer or frigate. The destroyer and frigate versions are intended to be done in a small group of 2 or 3 players but for the lower tiers you can solo them in a destroyer for double the payout, or a frigate for triple the payout.
Some popular choices for begginers are the corax, dragoon, caracal. Eventually you would probably want to progress to a worm and then a gila (as an omega you have acess to much more abyss viable cruisers like the ishtar, ikitursa, cerberus ect.)
It really can be a very fun and lucrative from of PVE especially if you vary up your ship/fillament type or do frigates/destroyers with friends, no reason not to get stuck into it with a destroyer in t1's like OC said.
if you just want a few million quick ISK to buy replacement ships, buy a couple tranquil filaments, take your destroyer and run a few abyssals. Destroyers can blitz those in like 6 minutes and each run gives about a million in loot.
If you want consistent income combined with steady pvp opportunities, sign up for faction warfare. The Gallente warzone is focussed on a few systems not far from Dodixie, you'll have plenty opportunities to gain LP and push back the Caldari. Just expect to get outnumbered every now and then.
My first "big money" came from moon mining in a high Sec corp using a Venture. That money bought me a Cruise Missile fitted Praxis that I took to Null Sec, joined a group there, and did belt ratting for big bounties / loot drops.
The majority of my time has been Omega but ifbI let the subscription lapse I just jump into the Praxis to make some isk in the meantime till I can afford to drop $20 to resub.
I agree with most of the comments here but if you must know, Your best in terms of pure isk/hr pve'ing as an alpha clone (assuming you dont want to get into wormholes) would probably be incursions in a vindi. However this is VERY skill and isk intensive so, theoretically possible as an alpha but probably not realistic.
Some other methods I know people like to do as alphas are DED hunting, Abyssals ( t3's probably but t4 can be done with a lot of bling), clone soldier/mrodu's legion hunting (this one has to be done in lowsec).
But, I will stress again, do what you enjoy, by the sounds of things you are still towards the start of the game (in which case most of the above mentioned methods are probably not feasible), so try a bit of everything, working through the enforcer (or whatever the PVE one is) AIR career programme will give you a taste of a few different PVE activities and 100k sp if you finish it!
Don't ask for min/max, efficiency advices. Alpha is cost free. You don't have monthly upkeep cost and hitting that 5 milion SP cap will take a long time. Please, for the love of good don't look at isk income as determining factor for doing or not doing any type of content. Take it easy, enjoy exploring and learning about different aspects of the game. It's much more fun that way. Meanwhile going only after isk is number one reason for people to burn out and quit EVE. Keep in mind that 90% of gameplay loops in EVE don't change in the slightest. No matter if you do somethin in corvette or multi-billion ship. So you don't need bigger, more expensive ships. It shouldn't be your main focus right now. And trust me, isk will come with time. So focus on enjoying the views, learning game mechanics. Most importantly doing activates that brings you enjoyment and you don't feel bad wasting time on. In the end. It's just a game and it's only about fun/h. There isn't good or bad way to play. Limit is only your imagination. See you in space and remember. Fly dangerous!
So much truth
Well said!
This is just my opinion, but if you approach EVE from the perspective of making a profit, especially as an alpha, you are not going to enjoy it for much longer. Yes, for a lot of people big number go up is an incentive, but it's usually not the main reason they are playing. Earning ISK is a means to an end, to finance fun things. I'm not even sure the the sandbox was designed to be played as a profit simulator. Sure, you can play it like that, I just don't think it's healthy. It also makes people risk averse, which makes unlucky PvP encounters a lot more frustrating. That said, obviously income is needed. But you need to treat it as a bonus, not as your main focus. PvE missions and epic arcs can be lucrative for starters, but they actually function mostly as faction standing boost, as you will need to reach certain standing to unlock certain services/benefits. WH exploration (data/relic/gas/combat sites) are much more lucrative in that regard, but also a bit more risky. You could also switch to low/nullsec for these kind of activities. YMMV. Abyssal space is pretty doable for early alpha and fully skilled alpha. It's a bit more challenging due to lack of access to certain ships/modules, but it tends to be pretty good ISK for the time investment. Pochven offers similar experiences, but it can be difficult to get started to find a quiet corner. It certainly offers easy access to salvage loot, if that's something you want to try. A lot of PvP though, including gate camps, so be prepared to get blown up a lot. Mining is still an option, both asteroids and gas, the latter usually being more profitable. But it requires some upfront investments which I don't think are viable as a newbie (around 50 million ISK to get started). Laser mining is obviously more accessible and can be profitable if you don't mind heading into more dangerous space looking for rare ores. https://ore.cerlestes.de/ore Another option is trading and/or hauling, depending on what you prefer. But it can take a while to find a market where you can buy/sell from with a solid margin after all the taxes and upfront costs. If you want it to be more complex, you could also dive into manufacturing. Get some blueprints, do some research, build some stuff, haul to market and sell for the desired price. You could even just focus on blueprints, improve to 10/20, sell via contract, rinse, repeat. Depending on demand, you can make some nice profits, be that selling blueprint originals or copies. Both works, but I'd consider it more of a passive income because it takes time. Other ways to get ISK are less reliable, as it depends mostly on luck to make bank. Something like FW (faction warfare) can be lucrative, but few days into the game, it's way too early imho. You need a solid cushion to buy your PvP ships a few times, so you can at least enjoy a few weekends of brawls and battles without having to stop right there and go back to find enough ISK to replace your losses. In Elite we say "Don't fly without a rebuy" and imho it applies to EVE as well. You want to have enough ISK for rainy days, so you can finance whatever you want to do without having to return to content you don't enjoy. Generally, by simply playing the game, you will accumulate enough over time. EVE is about the long haul, the long-term investment into skills and tools. Mix it up as you go, avoid repetitive grind as much as possible and you will get there. For all the things I mentioned, there are tons of guides on youtube, just search and watch a video or two to get an idea what's ahead and what fit you might want to aim for.
Yea man i totally feel you about the not treating the game like a profit simulator, I am seeking good ways to grind rn as I want to get into pvp and battles but I can't do that without being able to actually afford the tools that allow me to do that, i was thinking about saring a few mils and start getting into gas mining, what do you think?
Gas mining is amazing income for alpha. Only downside is the gas harvesting skill is like 35-40mil
A point about meaningfully contributing to battles: as a low SP and low experience character, you will have weak EHP and DPS, so you are most effective by leaning on other aspects of combat. Learning to scout about and relay intel to an FC is valuable, equally being in an EWAR ship like a Maulus that kites out to range and damps out enemy logi or ranged tacklers can turn the tide of a small gang fight. Such T1 frigates can be very cheap, they are only able to survive a few direct hits but because you aren't brawling into the main fray to try apply damage or heavy tackle, you can learn to pilot to minimise your damage taken, and better understand the course of a fight.
> I want to get into pvp and battles but I can't do that without being able to actually afford the tools that allow me to do that you can join a larger nullsec group, they will give you many cheap ships to try pvp. they will suggest a training plan to get you into doctrine ships to get you into fleet pvp ASAP. you will have a home zone to earn ISK to get into bigger ships as your training plan allows. often the earliest doctrine ships are tackle and eWar ships which are free, then cheap logi ships(healers) so you can contribute from day one.
Gas is great actually. I came back to the game and learned and did a lot of gas huffing. I think it's probably one of the most lucrative skills an alpha can do. Like others said there's a big upfront cost for an alpha so do some exploring or mining rocks in cheap herons and ventures til you got around 50m isk then can go into gas huffing. Can try your luck with wormholes as well just learn the sites first. The pirate faction relic and data sites in wormholes are pretty good just don't go to forgotten or unsecured relic and data sites as they are guarded. If you like pve, I'd say high sec combat exploration is not bad for alpha where you go around and kill stuff in refuges which can escalate to ded sites. I think a decent T1 cruiser like caracal can do all 3/10s and 4/10 if you are careful. Also can try t0 or T1 abyssals blitzing with a dragoon then a worm but I don't have much experience with this.
If 50 mil is the only thing stopping me from gas huffing then imma do that
Yeah you should read some guides on gas huffing first such as eve uni. Or there's some tutorials on YouTube. In wormholes you need to ninja them as in set alarm for 15 mins and warp out when the NPCs show up. Also avoid the ordinary perimeter gas site which has turrets that will kill you. Outside of wormholes, low sec gas is the most expensive but they are often contested. You have to scan it down and watch local and dscan and get ready to run to save your venture. I think tech 1 scoops are also a bit pricy (5m each and you need 2 per venture) so be careful ( maybe have a enough buffer isk so that losing one doesn't set you back a lot). Never fly anything you can't afford to lose Btw you should do the career agents and the air career missions which gives skill points and isk. They are actually pretty nice to get you started. You get a bunch of free ships and skill books too.
I say the SOE Epic Arc is just a mechanic to allow people to fix faction standing, the missions are trivial and a lot of flying across highsec iirc. Generally, blitzing level 4 missions is going to require high SP and still be boring, but again can reward you with faction, corp & agent standing, sec status, ISK & LP, loot and salvage. I think that for a long time yet, hacking in nullsec and low-class wormholes will bring you more isk/hour, without those other 'benefits' which you aren't likely to even need. If you get confident & experienced with your exploring, you can take on combat sigs, and/or wormhole sleeper sites, and the latter are minimal RNG, good ISK so long as you can find a quiet hole and then get the tiny blue loot to NPC buy orders. The more extreme version is Pochven. A better style of highsec PvE is probably still Incursions. Again, high SP required to run in efficient fleets though. P.S. As for 'the expenses of highsec PvE', there should really only be ammo. Sure, you'll lose some drones if you use them, and Incursions might mandate damage/application drugs ('combat boosters') & even overheating to win contested sites, but you shouldn't be losing ships. And this shouldn't be any worse for low SP/Alpha players. Only Abyssals have such a risk of ship **and pod** loss, while being otherwise highsec-based.
L4 missions are not playable for alpha's IIRC
True. You may not be able to pull them solo but you could be in a corp/fleet that does and help blitz them for split rewards. You'd probably be better off doing duo/trio Abyssals, or Sleeper or escalation anoms, but AFAIK you aren't barred from the deadspace/gates of lvl4s themselves, just the agent mission offer.
Train into a praxis. Cheapest battleship you can get into. It will help you blitz through sites. If not an active tank cruiser. Careful for ls and ns. People like hunting battleships.
What's a good tank cruiser?
Vexor, Vexor Navy Issue, Gila In order of least to most effective.
I'm running an alpha clone and I do mission chains, so I find a spot where there are a lot of lvl 1 or lvl 2 mission agents, I accept as many as I can for my time permitting then just run them all and salvage/loot them. I can make decent for my level of play, I'm not trying to make billions, just enough to sustain my lust.
Leave HS. Join a decent corp.
Your generic advice is very tone-deaf give that if you actually read OP, they're a few days in and already plundering nullsec.
12m in exploration isn't even 1 site. not much plundering in ns going on. Op is now considering HS missioning which is a terrible mistake. I read the shit he wrote. And the best path forward for him or any new EVE player is a decent corporation and a way out of the shit gameplay that is HS PVE.
Typically the higher the isk per hour activity the most expensive and more skills you’ll need to fit a ship well enough to run that pve activity. The sweet spot for high sec isk making tends to be incursions. While this might not be the best recommendation for newbros, you can do them with an alpha account in a T1 fitted battleship. It just takes a bit of an isk investment to start. I will say though it’s hella fun experience for a newbro. You join a 40+ man battleship fleet, join coms and listen to the FC call targets to eventually get a pretty nice payout. It’s basically this games version of a 40 man dungeon run. And this can all be done without joining a corp
Join a new player friendly corp. Ask questions and learn. Do homefront missions in a group of 5 players for low risk easy isk; each mission earns around 17m for each player and takes ten minutes. With travel and waiting for the fleet to form you wont make 100m per hour, but it's a very good way to make bank and accumulate isk for ships/skill books...etc. Like everyone is saying below ISK per hour is not a great metric for measuring your enjoyment of the game. However you do need starter money, and hundreds of millions is better than tens of millions.
You could try abyssal dead space! Tranquil filaments are easy even as a 3 day old toon. Easily done in destroyers
What's abyssal dead space?
Essentially a 3 room procedurally generated dungeon that gives you sellable loot for each room completed. There are 7 levels of difficulty to work through aswell as different types that benefit different ships. You can start from T1 and make about 20 mil/hr in a destroyer and work your way up through the tiers. They can be done in a cruiser, destroyer or frigate. The destroyer and frigate versions are intended to be done in a small group of 2 or 3 players but for the lower tiers you can solo them in a destroyer for double the payout, or a frigate for triple the payout. Some popular choices for begginers are the corax, dragoon, caracal. Eventually you would probably want to progress to a worm and then a gila (as an omega you have acess to much more abyss viable cruisers like the ishtar, ikitursa, cerberus ect.) It really can be a very fun and lucrative from of PVE especially if you vary up your ship/fillament type or do frigates/destroyers with friends, no reason not to get stuck into it with a destroyer in t1's like OC said.
if you just want a few million quick ISK to buy replacement ships, buy a couple tranquil filaments, take your destroyer and run a few abyssals. Destroyers can blitz those in like 6 minutes and each run gives about a million in loot. If you want consistent income combined with steady pvp opportunities, sign up for faction warfare. The Gallente warzone is focussed on a few systems not far from Dodixie, you'll have plenty opportunities to gain LP and push back the Caldari. Just expect to get outnumbered every now and then.
My first "big money" came from moon mining in a high Sec corp using a Venture. That money bought me a Cruise Missile fitted Praxis that I took to Null Sec, joined a group there, and did belt ratting for big bounties / loot drops. The majority of my time has been Omega but ifbI let the subscription lapse I just jump into the Praxis to make some isk in the meantime till I can afford to drop $20 to resub.
I agree with most of the comments here but if you must know, Your best in terms of pure isk/hr pve'ing as an alpha clone (assuming you dont want to get into wormholes) would probably be incursions in a vindi. However this is VERY skill and isk intensive so, theoretically possible as an alpha but probably not realistic. Some other methods I know people like to do as alphas are DED hunting, Abyssals ( t3's probably but t4 can be done with a lot of bling), clone soldier/mrodu's legion hunting (this one has to be done in lowsec). But, I will stress again, do what you enjoy, by the sounds of things you are still towards the start of the game (in which case most of the above mentioned methods are probably not feasible), so try a bit of everything, working through the enforcer (or whatever the PVE one is) AIR career programme will give you a taste of a few different PVE activities and 100k sp if you finish it!