The PC Spotlight 2.26.09 – Striking it Rich in EVE Online (Part 2)
Posted by Chris Vicari on 02.25.2009
The self-appointed economist and money maker is back, and it's time for part two of striking it rich in EVE Online.
Hello there and welcome back to another Thursday with the PC Spotlight. My apologies for the absence of last week's column, a slight emergency sprung up during the course of the week, forcing me to put my writing and musings on hold for some time. Now that's all handled, I'm happy to present to you part two of striking it rich in EVE Online. If you recall two weeks ago, I covered the basics of the game's economy, provided a bunch of helpful hints for newer players, and showcased a few of the low-rISK methods of obtaining some income. For part two, I'd like to focus on many more money makers, both common and outlandish, give my personal take on each one, and similar to last week, provide additional links for more thorough guides, should you choose to pursue a particular avenue.
Money, money. MONEY!
More Low Difficulty Methods of Income
Everyone loves making easy money, and I'm happy to report there are even more easy ways of obtaining income. Unlike last week's though, these particular methods have extended survivability and take a while before they start to get a little boring, not like the snore-fests that are mining and missioning where you want to off yourself on a daily basis. A bit of random info, but CCP is eventually boosting the AI of opponents found within missions, belts, and other areas, so missioning and the like may become a little more intriguing in the near future. In any case, let's get down to it. I know you don't want to listen to my constant babbling.
Relevant skills to achieve this task
• Salvaging – Yea, that's it
• Skills necessary to use probe launchers if you're ninja salvaging
Salvaging in EVE Online is an easy activity. All one has to do is fit one or two Salvager modules onto their favorite ships, find a few wrecks in space, and go to town. Making real money on the other hand is definitely not so simple. While you can fly to each and every asteroid belt shooting pirates and salvaging their wrecks, it's terribly inefficient. What you'll need is a dedicated salvaging vessel, something with plenty of high slots, and look for ships destroyed by other players. A destroyer is a popular choice, often utilized by many budding salvagers, while battlecruisers eventually become the preferred choice because they can handle some punishment. Thankfully, unlike looting other people's wrecks, you are not flagged for PvP when salvaging, allowing you to swoop in, snatch and grab, and then hightail it out with minimal risk.
The real money in salvaging, up to 5-15M an hour depending on individual success, is ninja looting wrecks in other people's missions. If you're not the type okay with annoying other people, I wouldn't recommend this to you. While many players generally do not come back after they finish a mission to salvage everything, you may receive a fair bit of hate mail anyway. The skills required for this type of salvaging are a little different, as you'll need skills to use probe launchers, and they are the only means of pinpointing players while they are missioning. For an in-depth guide on using probe launchers, follow the link here. This guide goes into much more detail about what you'll need.
Relevant skills to achieve this task
• Race-specific industrial ship skill
• Skills required to fit Expanded Cargoholds
• Eventually, the skills required to fit Cargo Optimization Rigs
If you enjoy delivering packages and helping other people out, but would rather not run courier missions for NPC agents all day, rest assured there are plenty of opportunities to fulfill the role of this crucial calling. All you really need is a ship with a sizeable cargo bay for the job and you're ready to go. The race-specific industrial ships are always a good choice because they are easy to get into, and can handle the majority of courier missions out there when properly fit with cargo expanders. If you become a little more serious in this path, training for a freighter, the ultimate ship type in the courier business, is not out of the question.
The means of obtaining decent income is really a double-edged sword though. While many players create courier contracts via the in-game contract system, most of the rewards are simply not worth the effort. It is not uncommon for couriers to have obscene collateral fees and minimal rewards. One time I saw a 9-jump contract with 94 million ISK in collateral, 8 jumps, and 100k reward. That's just terrible. Good courier missions, the ones that offer a decent reward, are snatched up very quickly by aspiring haulers. It's a reason why many players do not go this route, but if you sit in a trade hub long enough, someone will undoubtedly advertise they need something moved and quickly, this is where the opportunity to create a personal business relationship comes in. Instead of spamming the local channels looking for anyone to haul for them, they'll simply ask you, offering a good reward for your time.
Once you jump into a freighter, you can also start a ferry service from scratch, making millions hand over fist. Freighter pilots are the big players in the game, carrying hundreds of thousands of items simultaneously, charging clients based on the weight of the cargo, as well as how many jumps are needed en route to a destination. You can charge anywhere from 100k per jump all the way up to a million or two, depending on popularity, quality of service, and other such factors.
If you'd rather not work for the man and instead be your own boss, hauling goods from hub to hub can also be fairly lucrative. Because players cannot view the market details of a different region, prices are never the same from one area to the next. All one needs is an alt in a popular hub checking on prices in one area, while another character checks them somewhere else. If there is a severe difference between the prices on a particular item, say a 500k difference, a crafty trader would buy a sizeable amount of stock at the cheaper price in one hub, and then haul it to the other, raking in a hefty amount of money. The only thing one needs to look out for is price volatility on the item, how quickly it moves, and if the price is being manipulated. To see if the price is being manipulated, simply check the item's price history for any irregularities. If everything looks good though, you're pretty much set.
A word to the wise though, if you're hauling millions in valuable cargo, give it the best shield tank you can possibly fit. Do not fly on autopilot either or you risk becoming a target for suicide gankers.
Challenging Methods of Income
If the easier stuff is starting to bore you a little, and you're aching for something new and interesting to do, perhaps it's time to ramp up the difficulty just a little bit. In this section, you'll find plenty of activities to satiate your desire for fake currency, and these should keep you busy for some time.
Relevant skills to achieve this task
• Trade skills allowing you to list more orders as well as ones which increase the range of how far away you can set up buy orders, sell orders, or adjust a particular order
• Accounting – Reduces sales tax, very useful
• Broker Relations – Reduces broker fee for setting up a market order, also useful (Good standings with the corporation that owns the station you're placing the order in also helps lower this)
Similar to mules in other MMOs, trade alts are the characters which handle most of the marketing load. These characters are generally reserved for playing the markets either through buying products at a low price and reselling them at a higher cost or manipulating the local markets, and nearly all players have one. While the main character is in some backwards system out in the middle of nowhere, the trade alt lives in one of several hubs, setting up market orders. Unlike other MMOs though, items acquired by the main character are generally not transferred to the trade alt due to time wasted shipping the product. Instead, items collected by the main are either sold in the local markets where it was acquired, or melted down into raw materials. Only rare and expensive goods such as officer loot and high-end implants are reserved for a personal trip. Setting up a courier contract and paying someone else to deliver the product for you is also a safe approach for moving expensive goods around, but again, this method is generally saved for the expensive items or stuff only freighters and heavy transports can move.
Trade alts are self-sustaining characters, and their lifelines aren't the ships they pilot or the guns they shoot, but the maximum amount of market orders they can have at one time. Right out the gate, most trade alts have at least 54 slots, but it's well advised to train the skills which increase this number. Once you've created your trade alt, it's time to figure out which system to fly to. Some of the main trade hubs are currently Jita, Rens, Amarr, Oursulaert, and some heavy mission systems can also be considered hubs, such as Dodixie. Jita is the most popular of all the hubs, and a population of 600-800 people is not uncommon.
The hardest part about using a trade alt though is figuring out what to buy and sell. With hundreds of different items on the market, coupled with the blinding speed of how quickly prices fluctuate and items move, depending on which hub you camp in, this can be very confusing for any new player. The best way to go is to start with small, inexpensive goods, just to get a feel for how things work and to limit the amount of money lost if you mess up. The following modules are good items to start with:
• 1MN Afterburners and 1MN Micro-Warp Drives
• Small Guns and Launchers (Remember, Caldari = Missiles, Gallente = Hybrids and Drones, Minmatar = Projectiles, and Amarr = Lasers, so choose depending which hub you're in)
• Small Armor Repairers
• Small Shield Boosters, Amplifiers, etc.
• There are plenty more out there, so do some research
Once you have a few items picked out that suit your fancy, it's all downhill from here. Before you do anything though, make sure the highest buy order in your area is a sizeable amount less than the lowest sell order in the same area, you want to make as much money as possible. Once everything seems in order, it's time to start placing buy orders. The amount of stock you want is at your own discretion, but since you're low on capital, a couple dozen for each isn't a bad idea. It's also up to you how much you want to undercut by, and .01 ISK is just fine. When your orders are up and ready to go, all you have to do now is wait for the little wallet icon on the left side of your screen to start blinking. Depending on hub traffic, this heart-jumping event can take a few minutes or even an hour or two. Remember, too much money in your wallet is bad. If you're doing it right, most of your ISK should be tied up in market orders.
Check your wallet for order updates.
If your wallet never blinks or does it too intermittently to your liking, several things are happening; either you were undercut by another buyer, usually by .01 ISK infamously known as the .01 ISK wars, making it your obligation to undercut them back, or you just picked an unpopular item and are better off dropping the order for something else. Always check the item's price history to see how many modules of that type move in a particular day as well as how many orders were placed. To do this, select the "Price History" tab next to the "Market History" tab. Once opened, a selection box appears at the bottom of the window either saying "Show Graph" or "Show Table." You'll want to see the table for this information.
If everything goes well and your buy orders are filling, it's time to turn around and sell everything for a profit. Much like setting up a buy order, sell orders are done in the same fashion. You've already checked to see if the item's price is being manipulated so all you have to do is load up your stock on the market, and undercut the competition. Again, when your wallet starts blinking, which can take time, you're gold. If not, check for undercutters and the like. If you've picked an item that moves well, but it seems you're being undercut not five minutes after you altered your own order, there are several things you can do.
First, you can continue undercutting the competition, but by larger amounts and see what happens. Remember though, never undercut your price to a point where you make no profit. Surprisingly, many players forget how much they originally purchased items for and sell for lower than what they paid for. A crafty technique you can try is purchase one item of your competition's stock, check your wallet to see who you bought the item from, and then add the character to your address book. In doing so, you'll know when your competition is online, and if they aren't, you can undercut to your heart's content.
Another technique you can try is to wait until he undercuts you with a price so low that you can buy out his entire order and re-upload it with your original price. Be careful though, experienced traders and manufacturers can combat this easily by having a spare amount of stock for this particular occasion, and simply put that on the market when their original stock clears. There is no easy way to tell if someone is experienced or not, and you'll just have to bite the bullet and take the plunge. Also, you have the added risk of him buying out all of your stock if you set your prices too low, but it might not be a total loss as you've still made a profit regardless, just not as much.
In all honesty though, if you're knee-deep in a price war with someone who is always online, always checks their prices and undercuts you no matter what, it might be best to save yourself the time and energy and cut your losses. The frustration can be just too much to bare.
Relevant skills to achieve this task
• Skills for probe use and probe launcher-capable ships
• Skills depending on specific exploration site:
o Gravimetric – Mining
o Unknown – Combat skills
o Radar – Skills to use Codebreakers coupled with combat skills
o Magnetometric – Skills to use Analyzers and Salvagers coupled with combat skills
o Ladar – Gas Cloud Harvesters – Found in 0.0 space only
• Skills to pilot Cruisers and/or Battlecruisers
Exploration is an activity synonymous to treasure hunting in MMOs. There are hidden locations found in deep space, and it is up to the player to locate these caches of loot and plunder them. Similar to most of the other professions, better rewards are found in the deeper and less protective regions of space. The stuff you'll find in high-sec is immensely different than the loot found within low-sec and 0.0 sites, as well as the difficulty of acquiring the loot. Before you even think about giving exploration a try though, you're going to need a whole bunch of different skills to properly locate these pockets and take full advantage of the treasures found inside, so it's best to be prepared.
Using the in-depth guide found here, you'll learn everything you need to know. Because exploration is a difficult venture when first starting out, and since there's a lot of information on the subject, I'd rather not give a bare-bones overview and not mention all the key points. So if you're interested in trying this, I recommend reading the link posted above.
Relevant skills to achieve this task
• Anchoring – 3 at the most
Owning a POS, or player owned structure, is similar to owning a house in other MMOs. It's your own personal hideout where you can store goods, manufacture ships and modules, research blueprints, moon mine. These structures can be placed in the safe areas of high-sec up to a 0.7 system where only warring corporations can attack them, all the down to 0.0 where it's FFA. POS' are mainly used by corporations as a means of generating income, but individual players can also take advantage of these structures. All one needs to create a one-man corporation and then you're able to anchor these structures.
Placing a POS is a fairly simple yet time-consuming endeavor, and I'm sure you're used to hearing that by now. Finding an empty moon is not too hard, but it takes some time for structures to place, sometimes 30 mins, so expect to wait around a bit. The biggest issue you'll encounter, aside from defending the tower, is maintaining it, as it requires expensive fuel to work properly, and as you add more structures, that fuel cost goes up. If you're looking to place in the safe areas of space, you'll need an additional item called Starbase Charters, which are race specific, depending on the region you're placing the POS in. Also, to anchor a POS in high sec, your corporation needs 10x the faction standing to the security of the solar system. For instance, if you're placing in an Amarr-controlled 0.5 system, you'll need 5.0 standing with the Amarr Faction.
POS' open the door for many money-making endeavors, and once you've become acclimated with their use, and are more experienced in maintaining them, they really aren't all that difficult. For a more in-depth guide and what you can do with your POS, consult the following guide.
Until Next Week
Well, that's it for part two. Stay tuned next week for the final edition of striking it rich in EVE Online. I'll cover some of the hardest and most challenging methods of making income, as well as talk about some of the more outlandish means. I want to thank you for reading this little guide I've cooked up, and if you have any criticisms, or would like to make a recommendation, please do not hesitate to write a comment or shoot me an email. I'll be more than happy to oblige.
Until next week, thanks for reading and stay safe!
