General guide [not for cash] : EVE Online Guides | Free EVE Guides

This guide is still good overall so I have moved it here. I will be editing it to add updated info.

Buck 5/8/2006

This is NOT MY GUIDE. Just thought I'd get that clear.

I write for income and for fun. It pains me to see entire guides posted with unreadable sentences, ridiculous spelling, and crapshoot grammar. This guide was originally created by roel_stijl, though I added a few things here and there. Sometimes it was for clarification, while other times it was for the sake of adding useful info. I did my best to correct basic errors, but I didn't completely revamp the writing style. I figure if you're going to have a guide, I'd rather you have an easily read one.


Important: All this is based upon my personal opinions and experiences. It might differ a bit from reality or your opinions, but then again, so is every other player made guide out there.

Things I'd like to talk about:
- Ways of making money (isk)
- My opinions and aproximate profit versus risk.

1. Mining
Mining is the most basic and ancient way of making money. It basically means getting a frigate, cruiser, battleship or barge and fitting them with mining lasers. Frequently, mining is done by placing a few miners in asteroid belts, which are found in nearly every system, filling up cans with ore, and then having industrial class ships pick up the ore from the cans. The cans can be either "jettison cans" or "secure cans"; however, secure cans can only be achored 5km from the nearest object (asteroids, stations, etc) and in systems with a security level below 0.8. Secure cans are being used for fear of ore thieves. Ore thieves are people in industrial ships who will scavenge asteroid belts and take ore from jettison cans. They can do this without retaliation in secure areas because firing upon them would trigger a Concord (police) response. Usually the best mining ships have the most turret slots (i.e are most capable of using Mining lasers).

Frigates: Here, the race doesn't matter. Frigate pilots will usually mine solo; therefore, a large cargohold is a plus. Some examples are the Bantam, Probe, and Imicus.

Cruiser: If you have the time and money to spare for the Cruiser IV skill, I'd recommend getting the Thorax. This ship has 2000m3 of drone space and 5 turret slots, so both defense and mining are possible. With 5 lasers and plenty of drones, mining capability is maximized here. A Vexor or Maller would be the second choice. Below that, most ships will have near equal mining ability.

Battleships: Most battleships have enough turret slots to be excellent miners. The Tempest and Dominix have 6, the Armageddon and Megathron have 7, and the Apocalypse has 8. Drone bays on these ships are fair enough to maintain nominal defense. The best ship is, of course, the Apocalypse. However, the 1 or 2 more slots it carries only provides a 12.5% - 25% higher mining yield, which isn't a huge difference with proper skills. This is especially true with the Armageddon, the first battleship I'd recommend since it is half the price most.

Mining Barges and Exhumers: For the dedicated specialist miner. 3 tech I ships and 3 tech II. Small, Medium and Large (number of lasers to fit). They can use special strip mine lasers that greatly increase mining yield and are the only ships that can mine ICE. Skill requirements are steep as is the cost. Recommended for corps and team play due to the need for protection.

Mining can also be done in different areas. Different locations mean a difference in what minerals are avaiable, but I'll keep it general (in general terms, one or two types of minerals will be missing in each area due to the location/region of the belt). Let's consider the follow areas while mining solo in 1 industrial ship and 1 battleship: 1.0 - 0.9, 0.8 - 0.5, 0.4 - 0.1, and 0.0.

1.0 - 0.9: These are some of the worst areas to mine in. They are often very close to general travel routes and will be mined by hordes of people, often stripmined by mega corporations. They'll contain scordite and veldspar most of the time. The main benefit is the lack of NPC pirates. Expect to rake in just above a million dollars per hour.

0.8 - 0.5: These belts are often mined unless you find one outside of popular routes. I've found a few totally unmined areas, which can be very profitable. Common minerals are veldspar, pyroxes, scordite, and plagioclase. Lower security levels also contain omber (0.7) and kernite (0.5). Expecct a few frigate pirates, but nothing drones can't handle. Additionally, player pirates cannot safely attack miners in these areas.

0.4 - 0.1: STAY OUT OF HERE unless traveling in large groups. In my opinion, this is the domain of the real player pirates. Here you can find the decent ore, cruiser NPC pirates, and worst of all, player pirates. Player pirates are people usually working in groups of about 3, each person scanning others for potential targets. If they come in on you they will normally scan you; by this time you should already be at a station or docked! If you plan to mine here in a group smaller than your whole corporation, watch the local channel with your life. Profits here can be around 2 - 3 million per hour per person if mined properly. However, I would suggest mining in 0.8 - 0.5 for a better profit vs. risk ratio unless you know how to run properly. Remember, there are sentry guns at stations; you are safer near those.

0.0: This is completely lawless space. There are no police, no sentry guns, and the only laws are those imposed by force. You can be killed without any security hit. However, in my experience, as long as the refinery and mining spot are close to each other, there is not that much risk in exchange for immense rewards. You can expect 10 - 20 million per hour or more. The NPCs are very powerful, and either getting one or two battleship sized defenders or parking your own tanked battleship in a safespot is a must.
If you're on your own, I'd recommend ninja mining. Basically, this means getting a ship that can run properly, parking an industrial ship at a safespot in the system, and mining in the ship until you see pirates. Once you see pirates, run to a moon or your safe spot, wait for about 10 minutes until your scanners clear, and then go back. Next, once the can contains about the amount your industrial can carry, get your industrial out of its safespot and grab the ore. Mine, run away, mine, run away, grab ore, run again. Bookmarks are a good idea to cut down on traveling time.

My favorite: 0.0 space. If you're in a good alliance, have a good group, and don't have too many player pirates around, this is the #1 way to make money. However, it's only for the people with nerves of steels and those that live with the knowledge that they could lose a ship daily. For those that do not have this kind of fortitude or those that are simply unprepared for this kind of mining, I'd recommend 0.8 - 0.5. That is, if you can find a decent system.

Best trick I have heard is this: Find a central location in whatever quiet, out of the way system with lots of roid feilds. You want this spot to be "central" to all fields, meaning that you can warp on top of this spot from any field. Got the sweet spot? Get a hauler and load up with 20 or so giant secure cans and warp to your spot. Now, you want to deploy those cans in a circle around your safe spot. The idea is that you will instawarp to your safespot and no matter what you will dump your ore in any secure can for later retrieval.

2. Agent Missions
At the moment, agent missions are one of the safest and most boring ways to make money. To start, you need to climb up from a lvl 1 agent to a lvl 2 agent to a lvl 3 agent, and perhaps higher levels as extra agents are added to the game. This can take several days. The 3 levels contain different difficulties. Level one is very easy; frigates can handle these with ease. Level two is moderate; frigates can handle these given the right equipment and pilots. Level three, however, requires either a battleship or cruiser in addition to an industrial. Of course, each level has higher rewards than the ones below it.
An agent's effective quality will show the breadth of its rewards. This can be raised by standing and by various social skills. Your standing with the agent, which increases with every successful mission and various other factors, can also be raised by the Connections skill.
I'd say agents are either for beginners or for people who can't find a good belt to mine and like to watch TV while playing.
There are two different classes of agents: Research and Development (R&D) agents and regular agents.

R&D agents will only give out rare blueprints, and handouts are based purely on luck. No matter what you do, it will always be a lottery. For example, I have had an R&D agent for nearly 180 days without any results, while others have had 3 blueprints in a row. If you manage to get a blueprint, you can make several billion dollars by selling these items at inflated prices, as you would be one of the few people owning prints to manufacture these items. In my opinion, it's not balance out at all. I'd recommend people get 1 R&D agent for the sake of it, but it's not a reliable way of making money. Also, to increase research points (RP), you don't have to anything, but by doing missions, you can sometimes double or triple the daily amount. R&D agents are all level 3 agents, and the higher quality agents give more RPs per day.

Regular agents: These are also based on luck, and the only large profit to be made through them is by selling implants for 12 - 15 million dollars a pop. Incase you don't know, implants give certain boosts to attributes (for example, +3 to intelligence). If you're lucky, you can get one every 10 missions. I think the average is about every 30 missions. But, again, this is based on pure luck. You can only get implants during important missions, which are fairly rare. The minimum requirement is a 6.0 standing and a level 3 agent, so don't expect to start off with implant rewards; it requires some work.
The rewards per mission are around 150,000 isk a pop, which is not much, so I wouldn't focus on missions. However, you often get Tech 2 building components to sell. I have no idea how much this can make you extra per hour, but it is nothing compared to mining or NPC hunting unless you're incredibly lucky.
Lastly, you can direct the type of missions you'll get by picking the right corporations and the right divisions in the corporation. For example, the security division in the Caldari navy will likely get you fighting missions. However, you still get the occasional transport mission, so keep that industrial ready .

Exploits: Need some

3. NPC hunting/chaining
NPC hunting is quite profitable. Of course, you'll try to take your abilities to the max for the maximum amount of profit. The most important thing here is to know your limits. Don't try and take spawns that are out of your league; getting killed will ruin your profits for some time. It's better to take on pirates slightly below your ability than to shoot high and miss. Also, chaining them means they'll instantly respawn, so if you had any difficulty in the original spawn, that problem might be even worse when they respawn right after they die.
Generally, chaining is the best way of making money; however, some say this will be removed in the future. Still, I will discuss the basics:

First, you skim through belts while trying to find one that suits your own ability. Then, you'll have to kill the entire spawn except for one pirate; this should be the weakest one. Let him attack you constantly and don't let him get away. At first, nothing will happen, but after some time (anything from 5 minutes to an hour), the whole spawn will respawn. Again, you kill all but the one circling you. After that, it should respawn faster and faster until it will be nearly instant. In other words, right after you kill one, he'll respawn again.
You need to experiment for yourself to see which chains suit you, and sometimes you will have to learn the painful way. Eventually, however, you'll get good at it. Perhaps ask some corporation mates for advice about your abilities. Another method is to go to a pirate base. This is hard at first because there can be upwards of 30 pirates at once. Still, there are usually only a few spawnpoints, and then they spawn one at a time at a slow rate that cannot be increased.

The biggest prize from NPC hunting often comes in a loot can. NPC pirates will drop loot cans after being destroyed. Sometimes, however, the bounty is more valuable than any of the loot. Chaining can be done alone, though larger chains that contain battleship pirates (0.0 space) will probably require group work. In this scenario, I'd also recommend shield transfer arrays for everyone, because 4 medium shield arrays pointed at one ship can make it practically invincible against even the heaviest NPC battleships. Due to splitting of loot, profits from killing NPC battleships are not that high, but sometimes the loot is very rewarding.
Overall, NPC hunting is profitable but still risky. Knowing your limits is a must.

Exploits: I wouldn't call it an exploit, but technically chaining is one. However, you won't be banned for it. Another one is when fighting heavy guristia: hide behind an asteroid. Since they're using missiles, they won't be able to hit you. Also, since guristia like blasters, a big rock can keep them far enough to render their weapons useless.

4. Trade runs
A friend of mine used to make hundreds of millions of dollars a day on trade runs, but now it is no longer possible. It's useful for noobs, but I wouldn't suggest doing it if you're any kind of age. I haven't done any recently, and if anyone can send me some trade runs to prove me wrong, I'll reward their troubles with a small isk donation. I'll also expand this part of the tutorial if I get more info. Until that time, I can't really tell you much about trade runs due to lack of recent experience. I can, however, explain the basics:

You need an industrial ship or one with decent cargo room. Find a place where something is sold cheap, and then try to sell it at a higher price somewhere else. It requires a lot of planning and research, and is therefore time-intensive to start with. But, of course, there is the autopilot once that is all done.
Also note that market data is downloadable and several sites exist that take advantage of this.

Exploits: None I know of. (Buck)

5. Pirating, scamming, and everything else God has forbidden:
This generally means letting other people make money and then taking it away from them the easy way. This includes scamming, pirating, gatecamping, and other bastardly activities.

Scamming:
One of my personal favorites . I'm not going to go into details about how I do it, but let's say I didn't exactly mine for that Raven of mine. Basically, this means using the stupidity of others to your advantage. Here are a handful of older scams to spark your creativity:

Selling shuttles for 10 million a piece. Sometimes people are desperate enough, while other times they just blindly buy without realizing what they're buying.
Selling minerals for ridiculous prices. Once again, people don't notice the extra zero or simply click by accident. An extra zero on a several thousand unit sell order makes a hefty difference.
Putting a Condor named Scorpion in the trade window. They used to look identical. Sometimes someone stupid enough will buy them.

Scamming is commonly done with alts, but this no longer works because people know alts are being used. Scammers can, however, expect to become outcasts, and can expect to no longer be appreciated if this gets known by others. It can definately be the most profitable thing to do, but it will get you on more blacklists than pirating itself will.

Somewhat nerfed due to new trail account limitations.

Ore theft:
I have to admit, I wanted to know what it was like prior to making this guide, so I trained an alt to fly a small, basic industrial. Within two days, I was on the KOS (kill on sight) lists of at least 3 alliances. This is the most hated profession in the game; it makes about twice the profit mining does. Basically, you get in an industrial, sit in 0.5+ asteroid belts, and grab the unsecured cans of hapless miners. They can't attack you without police retaliation yet. Sometimes they will attack you anyway, but they'll get taken down by police in the end.

The game now has criminal flagging. This means the person you steal from can attack you with no punishment for some period of time. I think 24hrs.

Pirating:
The real forms of pirating would be killing miners, killing NPC hunters, and camping gates. Most people see pirates attacking alliances, but I consider these people to be space Vikings, not real pirates (m0o for instance). If you're lucky and any good, this profession can be among the most profitable around. You can have people ejecting from their battleships to save their pods, and you can collect an easy 30 million from most smart pilots that desire to live. Unlike what most people think, pirating is commonly done in 0.1 - 0.4 space. 0.0 space is usually filled with groups of people, who end up in fleet battles. These are not quick miner holdups. The start the way of pirating described here, you used to only need a Blackbird, but since the nerf, you need a little more. You also need to make sure friends are not too close, and you need to put pressure on people. However, blowing them up is not as much profit as negotiating some money from the deal. It's a balance of building fear and reaping the benefits.

Corporation theft:
Among these are the most infamous, hated, and richest people in EVE. It means betraying friends you've been with for months and being hunted to the end of the world. Some examples of these are agent shield, who corptheft after his corporation had just let another thief join, and Fallzone, who stole from the richest corperation at that time.
This is the most hated of all professions. It will not get you friends, even among pirates. However, it will get you immense riches, after which you can sell your account...