Newbie struggle with ISK
Posted: 2022.06.15 10:09
Hey everyone,
I just want to share my journey with EVE and ask what am I doing wrong, or the game is intended to chokehold new players for a while.
So I'm a returning player, after several years, however did not dived too deep into the game last time, so consider myself a complete freshie.
When I picked up the game recently, I decided to focus more around piloting, leave mining alone as it bores me too much, and try to finance myself through different means. Running Security lvl 1 -3, it became evident, that it is not meant to be the sole income of a player, as mission rewards are minor, with lvl 1-2 mission I could barely reach 1-2 mill isk per hour. Even tried the use of MTUs, where I complete 2-3 sec missions, dropping the MTUs and going back with a salvage destroyer to collect the loot and salvage. Unfortunately, it only decreased my isk/hour average, there wasn't enough "cookie" there to make it worth. By trying to step up from destroyers to cruisers I needed another income with some more "meat" on it.
Given I was focusing on piloting skills and amarr ships, solo T0 abyss runs seemed to be the go-to activity to richen up a bit. Completed the bloody long sisters of eve questline, with a coercer, constantly upgarding it as i figured out what works where and how. Upgrading is actually a bit of a stretch as I was more swapping T1 modules around. The ISK from the epic arc wasn't too bad and it was enough to fit a coercer to safely run t0 abyssal missions.
In the same time i researched some industry skills to, as I thought, the increased standing I got through sec missions would help to get a minor advantage with fees, combined with BPO research I might be able manufacture some T1 items with possible profit. I spent hours reading about industry, hours learning support apps like ISK per hour, wrote down pages of data in a notebook and carefully selected a few high turn over item's BPO at Oris- Emperor Family Academy market. As I didn't have much ISK, the aim was to try my luck with cheap to make items, mainly blasters and energy weapons, with small profit margins (400 - 2000 ISK/unit), after all every bit counts. After a month, I can say the whole endeavor run with heavy net losses. I took my time buying mats, waiting for them to come down in price on the market. Finally managed to manufacture 50, sold two and people just cut underneath my price with a seemingly endless supply (200+ listings of the same item). I thought well, I didn't loose much other than wasted time, so I focused on Abyssal runs instead.
The t0 abyssal brings in a steady income stream, 8 mill ISK / hour average, with the occasional blueprints. I even managed to farm out most of the abyssal mats for a damavik (a single run BPC dropped), purchased the rest of mats and manufactured one, that yielded me approx 4,5mill profit. Whilst the ISK was slowly but surely coming, the game was taking a massively boring turn, all I did is log in, and run the same abyssal missions over and over and over again. So I had to change something because the boring part started to drive me away.
People on the chat corp chat told me stories of 100+ mill/hour isk income from "ratting", I had to give it a go. Did the research, learnt about the different combat sites, and knew which one to chase for escalation and which one to leave alone. I hunted Domain for days on end, in a face of heavy competition and finally, I got my first escalation. Excited I was, here comes unmeasurable riches, my first escalation dropped me 1,8 mill worth of loot. Well..... This is just supper unlucky I thought, keep it up. 3-4 more days worth of ratting (approx 2-5 hours each day) gave me a few more escalation, with some better loot. The more expensive measured loot is about 38mill. But it doesn't really matter as I can't sell the bloody stuff. Most of it is listed over a week, I'm adjusting the price daily to stay competitive (losing isk on it like crazy) but no luck. I haven't been able to do a decent sale on the dropped items, regardless of cutting under everyone on the Oris marketplace.
I also invested a fair bit (in terms of my limited riches) to PI. Mining and manufacturing items all the way up to Tier 3 (Robotics), but the income on it is very small plus my hauler got blown up twice whilst trying to move good from one planet to another.
So I feel, I'm kinda stuck here. I can do Sec 3 mission in my omen, but it is sometimes sketchy, I don't like to risk it. A battlecruiser would be a better fit, but I'm not looking forward farming a kitting a Harbinger out from t0 abyssal missions....
Is this pushing s@#t uphill gets any better, or the game is designed like this. I kinda feel it is unreasonably difficult for new players to bring in some isk. Ofc, being a newbie means a lot of loss of isk on stupid stuff. Like test fitting my ship, found a dual laser that looked good, got the skill, etc. but it was pretty expensive on the market. I bought 5 anyway, but only simulator fitted one of them, so I didn't realise the powergrid couldnt support 5. so it goes back to the market, fees and dropped prices ..... fair loss. Bought and fitted an arbitrator for a mission I couldnt do without drones... haven't touched it since...
So yeah, there is plenty of learning to take place, so I'm pretty keen to hear what are other newbies or more experienced players thoughts on this.
Regards,
GinTonic
I just want to share my journey with EVE and ask what am I doing wrong, or the game is intended to chokehold new players for a while.
So I'm a returning player, after several years, however did not dived too deep into the game last time, so consider myself a complete freshie.
When I picked up the game recently, I decided to focus more around piloting, leave mining alone as it bores me too much, and try to finance myself through different means. Running Security lvl 1 -3, it became evident, that it is not meant to be the sole income of a player, as mission rewards are minor, with lvl 1-2 mission I could barely reach 1-2 mill isk per hour. Even tried the use of MTUs, where I complete 2-3 sec missions, dropping the MTUs and going back with a salvage destroyer to collect the loot and salvage. Unfortunately, it only decreased my isk/hour average, there wasn't enough "cookie" there to make it worth. By trying to step up from destroyers to cruisers I needed another income with some more "meat" on it.
Given I was focusing on piloting skills and amarr ships, solo T0 abyss runs seemed to be the go-to activity to richen up a bit. Completed the bloody long sisters of eve questline, with a coercer, constantly upgarding it as i figured out what works where and how. Upgrading is actually a bit of a stretch as I was more swapping T1 modules around. The ISK from the epic arc wasn't too bad and it was enough to fit a coercer to safely run t0 abyssal missions.
In the same time i researched some industry skills to, as I thought, the increased standing I got through sec missions would help to get a minor advantage with fees, combined with BPO research I might be able manufacture some T1 items with possible profit. I spent hours reading about industry, hours learning support apps like ISK per hour, wrote down pages of data in a notebook and carefully selected a few high turn over item's BPO at Oris- Emperor Family Academy market. As I didn't have much ISK, the aim was to try my luck with cheap to make items, mainly blasters and energy weapons, with small profit margins (400 - 2000 ISK/unit), after all every bit counts. After a month, I can say the whole endeavor run with heavy net losses. I took my time buying mats, waiting for them to come down in price on the market. Finally managed to manufacture 50, sold two and people just cut underneath my price with a seemingly endless supply (200+ listings of the same item). I thought well, I didn't loose much other than wasted time, so I focused on Abyssal runs instead.
The t0 abyssal brings in a steady income stream, 8 mill ISK / hour average, with the occasional blueprints. I even managed to farm out most of the abyssal mats for a damavik (a single run BPC dropped), purchased the rest of mats and manufactured one, that yielded me approx 4,5mill profit. Whilst the ISK was slowly but surely coming, the game was taking a massively boring turn, all I did is log in, and run the same abyssal missions over and over and over again. So I had to change something because the boring part started to drive me away.
People on the chat corp chat told me stories of 100+ mill/hour isk income from "ratting", I had to give it a go. Did the research, learnt about the different combat sites, and knew which one to chase for escalation and which one to leave alone. I hunted Domain for days on end, in a face of heavy competition and finally, I got my first escalation. Excited I was, here comes unmeasurable riches, my first escalation dropped me 1,8 mill worth of loot. Well..... This is just supper unlucky I thought, keep it up. 3-4 more days worth of ratting (approx 2-5 hours each day) gave me a few more escalation, with some better loot. The more expensive measured loot is about 38mill. But it doesn't really matter as I can't sell the bloody stuff. Most of it is listed over a week, I'm adjusting the price daily to stay competitive (losing isk on it like crazy) but no luck. I haven't been able to do a decent sale on the dropped items, regardless of cutting under everyone on the Oris marketplace.
I also invested a fair bit (in terms of my limited riches) to PI. Mining and manufacturing items all the way up to Tier 3 (Robotics), but the income on it is very small plus my hauler got blown up twice whilst trying to move good from one planet to another.
So I feel, I'm kinda stuck here. I can do Sec 3 mission in my omen, but it is sometimes sketchy, I don't like to risk it. A battlecruiser would be a better fit, but I'm not looking forward farming a kitting a Harbinger out from t0 abyssal missions....
Is this pushing s@#t uphill gets any better, or the game is designed like this. I kinda feel it is unreasonably difficult for new players to bring in some isk. Ofc, being a newbie means a lot of loss of isk on stupid stuff. Like test fitting my ship, found a dual laser that looked good, got the skill, etc. but it was pretty expensive on the market. I bought 5 anyway, but only simulator fitted one of them, so I didn't realise the powergrid couldnt support 5. so it goes back to the market, fees and dropped prices ..... fair loss. Bought and fitted an arbitrator for a mission I couldnt do without drones... haven't touched it since...
So yeah, there is plenty of learning to take place, so I'm pretty keen to hear what are other newbies or more experienced players thoughts on this.
Regards,
GinTonic