Making ISK
This is extracted from Akita T's Beginner's Guide to Making ISK post on the forums.
--Mara Rinn 08:21, 11 August 2009 (GMT)
ISK - it's the lifeblood of EVE's economy. Some of us have it, many of us want it, here are some ideas on how to get it.
Contents
Mining
Mining is one of the simplest activities in the game. You go out in an asteroid belt, you start your mining lasers, you launch your mining drones (if you have any), and you haul the ore you mine in a station to be used later. It's a boring activity which appeals to some people since it leaves you with time to do something else such as chat with corpmates, make strategic plans, or anything else which requires a modicum of concentration.
The optimal progression in ships is to graduate from your racial mining frigate (because you've already got the skills to fly it) to the Retriever mining barge, then to a Hulk directly. You will be able to mine copious quantities of ore to fund your training into combat ships or whatever path you have chosen for yourself.
Whenever you mine, look at what ore is available in the region and check the existing mineral buy and sell orders. If you have the choice of what to mine, always pick the ore that gives you the most ISK per cubic metre. If you are able to refine with no losses, you may find that refining the ore and selling the minerals will earn you more ISK. Note that Kernite is especially valuable as raw ore in stations housing storyline agents: this is due to the "Materials for War preparations" storyline mission (L3 version asks for basic Omber, L4 version asks for basic Kernite).
There's not much more to be said about mining as a concept, everything else is details. The details are most clearly explained in Halada's Mining Guide.
Mission Running
Right now, there are four main types of missions you can be offered : courier, trade, kill and mining. Mining missions are a relatively recent addition (or return, some might argue).
Missions are more fully covered in the Missions guide.
When running missions, you must make yourself aware of derived standings, otherwise you may find yourself Kill-On-Sight in half the Empire space of EVE. You can only recover your standings by running level 1 missions from very poor quality agents.
For more information about mission-running as a profession, read the Missions & Complexes forum and maybe ask your own questions too.
It's worth reading Kerfifa's thread about Mission Income to understand where all the money is coming from. Make sure you take the time to salvage wrecks if you can salvage them faster than you create them!
It's a good idea to try and run missions together with other people you trust.
Science and Industry
Science and industry covers a range of activities from small-scale T1 manufacture through to the complexities of T3 manufacture or capital ship construction. Many of the activities in this realm are best attempted with large ISK starting funds, as small-scale efforts are bound to fail miserably.
Once you have established yourself as a T1 manufacturer, you might want to explore the world of T2 invention or Research and Manufacturing. This is, of course, well outside the realm of a "beginner" since you'll need to spend a significant amount of time and ISK in preparing for this pursuit.
Manufacture
The entry point for a manufacturer is T1 manufacture, and preferably in either ammo, modules, rigs or small ships (because of the relatively affordable blueprint costs). Do not even bother with manufacture before you have Production Efficiency trained up to level 4, and try to get it to level 5 as soon as possible. To be at all competitive with established players (even to the point of being able to produce your own ammunition at market prices), you really need to be able to make your production line as efficient as possible.
For more details on what to manufacture, how and where, visit the Science and Industry subforum. A good idea would be, for instance, to manufacture ammo in mission hubs, or frigates, cruisers and assorted modules (for the frigates/cruisers you also manufacture) somewhere near a lowsec (or even 0.0) system on a major transit "pipe" across EVE.
The most common mistake made by people new to manufacturing is failing to understand opportunity cost. If you are building things in order to sell them for an income, you should sell it for more ISK than you could have made by simply selling the things you used to manufacture it with. That's the most critical mistake a rookie manufacturer makes : selling below cost. The reason such rookies do not go bankrupt is that they usually mine the ore themselves, reprocesses it, and use those minerals to manufacture. The ore you mine yourself has intrinsic value based on the market in the area where you mined it.
Datacores
Collecting data cores is a relatively passive income stream: if done properly each character you create can produce around 150M ISK a month. The Research Agent Guide is a good place to start. Basically, you grind some standings (via missions usually), train some skills, and then once in a while you exchange the RPs accumulated for datacores, which you could then sell or use yourself.
Hauling
There are two main types of hauling: the contract hauler and the speculative hauler. The differences between them are minor enough not to justify treating them separately.
Contract hauling is almost the same as NPC courier and/or trade missions - you pick up courier contracts and fulfil them. Courier contracts are almost the same as NPC courier missions, the difference being that you have to move it all in one go.
Speculative hauling is basically the same as a trade mission, but you set your own destination and cargo type: you just scour the market for cheap things in one station that sell high in another one, and move them around. Sites such as EVE Metrics or EVE Central will help with the selection of goods to trade.
Arbitrage Trading
Arbitrage trading is a simple activity which can be undertaken without leaving a given station, in which the arbitrageur (person doing the trading) simply buys things at low prices and sells those things at higher prices to make a profit. The arbitrageur can set up courier contracts so others do any required hauling (for a price, or course). An arbitrageur will typically post buy orders in certain key locations (mission hubs, mining hot spots), sell orders in a trade hub, and issue courier contracts to haul materials from the out-of-station locations to the trade hub.
The basic rule to follow when trading is "buy low, sell high." In general, you can buy lower if you post buy orders, and you can sell higher if you post sell orders. Things to watch out for: prices you sell/buy at, and all broker fees or sales taxes. It's a bad idea to disable the market-related warnings: people have accidentally put up an order with an extra zero (or two, or three), and not only did the taxes amount to more than they would have wanted to buy/sell the items for originally, but they also lost the ISK or the goods in question more often than not.
For more thorough information on trading see the Trading and Advanced Trading guides, and check the Market Resources page in this wiki. For futher reading on the issue of trading, market manipulation and guides on buying/selling, review the stories in the Market Discussion forum.
COSMOS
This is a lot like mission-running, after a fashion. The big difference however is that you can only do it in the "COSMOS" constellations, and NPCs respawn continually in there. A list of empire-based COSMOS areas can be found by a simple site google search, but here's one of the possible results : Eveinfo - Caldari COSMOS page. EVEinfo is also a decent resource for regular missions too, in case you want to have an idea of what to expect in them.
Ratting
Ratting is simply a matter of patrolling asteroid belts for hostile NPCs. The problem is that the "good NPC rats" only appear in lower-security systems, and the very good ones only in deep 0.0 space.
The advantage of ratting (especially for the beginner) is that highsec belt rats are VERY EASY to kill, and you find usually a lot less of them compared to what you could find in a mission. This means you can take your time to kill them, which is especially useful for low-skilled characters. Then again, by the time you can fly a destroyer you're capable of finishing most level 1 missions.
Another advantage of ratting is that there's always a (very small) chance of encountering a "faction spawn", even in empire highsec. While they usually only drop some tags, faction ammo and such, you might also find occasionally some valuable faction modules, or even more valuable implants. Hisec ratting is not a particularly high income stream.
The drawback of ratting compared to mission-running is that you don't get any agent/corp/faction standings.
Exploration
The shipboard scanner is only able to find "encounters" (almost the same as a mission) but you have a slightly higher chance (compared to belt-ratting) to encounter faction or even commander NPC spawns dropping valuable loot.
Using probes you can find various other things (including entries into wormhole "wildspace"), but these are best left for others to explain. The Probing wiki page is a good place to start your exploration career.
Mercenary work & Wars
While not the best avenue for a solo beginner pilot, it could be a nice endeavour for a group of younger pilots, especially if they can find a tutor of sorts in the "art of war" but like they say, experience is the best teacher.
Basically, you find somebody in need of protection... or in need of a good shakedown... and you start a corporation war against your chosen targets. It could be good, it could be bad, but as long as your goal is to have fun, every bit of ISK you get from it is an added bonus... if you pick your targets carefully, you might actually make some decent money, even if your group is not that good.
Of course, the opposite could happen, and you end up all losing everything you have.
Player Exploitation
Having fun is the primary reason to play video games. One of the most fun you can have in Eve is stealing. If you can think of a way to make somebody else's wealth your own, it can be the most effective way to make ISK. Eve can be very fun when you think of every other player as investing in your future wealth. Almost none of these rules are enforced. People generally discourage these behaviors because they are only economical to the thieving player.
Many players deceive or manipulate other players to make their ISK. Since Eve has a free market economy with little to no government regulations there are a multitude of ways to develop monopolies or cheat others to become rich. Some players have made ponzi schemes in game that paid off nicely. Posting items for 10 to 100 times the average cost sometimes pays off for example.
There are many ways to set traps for pirating. Having a creative mind or pirating someone else's brilliant pirating tactics can produce great results.
Many people are working hard (even though this is a game) to earn their ISK so keep your identity as anonymous as possible. The less you talk the better. It is generally a great idea to immediately block anyone you designate as a target.
Capturing videos of dumb players can be very profitable and fun. For example, can flipping on unarmed vessels in high security is among the dumbest thing players can possibly do. Unarmed vessels generally don't attack back. Typically, after heckling can flippers, they will then ram you. Sometimes you can get them to follow your ship in orbit. A few players have made billions so far by blackmailing people for ISK. They generally have to post the video first, and then after the victims are brutally insulted enough they pay for the removal of the videos. Typically, if you make a few great videos and show people how bad they can look it is the most effective.
Report death threats. Some people don't know this is a game. The fact that this is a game can not be stressed enough.
Various Acts of Dubious Morality
What's the fun of a player versus player game if you can't hijack, bail-up, steal or do someone over? Among the "dubious morality" acts are activities like baiting, can-flipping, ganking, suicide ganking, pirating, ransoming, scamming, and ninja-salvaging.
Scamming in itself could fill whole threads, for instance... from contract scams, to chat spams, the "lofty scam" and so on and so forth, the possibilities are almost only limited by your imagination (and your victim's stupidity, greed, lack of knowledge or a combination thereof).
While not the most lucrative things you can do on a regular basis, SOME of them can offer the enterprising (and unscrupulous) beginner untold riches compared to any other endeavour he could embark on, at his "young age".
To get an idea of the activities mentioned here, you can head over to the Crime and Punishment forum and read about other people's stories regarding this "edge" lifestyle.
Ninja-salvaging is worth noting here: has it's own Ninja Salvaging Guide, written by Kahega Amielden. Ninja-salvaging is an exploration-based activity which can provide a decent income of ISK. Most people partake in ninja-salvaging for the copious carebear tears that you can harvest.
Have Fun
Alyx Farstrider pointed out something that all ISK-gatherers should pay attention to: