I've been playing EVE (with a few extended breaks, since about 2008. I've been an industrialist, missioner, incursion runner and miner. I have lived in null and have participated in a fair amount of PVP. I have lived in a wormhole and explored complexes. I guess the point is I've tried out almost every aspect of EVE. While there is nothing more pulse-pounding than PVP, I find other aspects of EVE to be more enjoyable as I can do them at my pace. In PVP, its a matter of finding a target and in Null, you can go a long while before you get someone to commit to a fight (at least in my experience).
Where am I going with this..Ah, yes. The new capsuleer. EVE is not the most user-friendly game. In fact, when I started, there really wasn't even a tutorial section. I had to learn the hard way as I didn't join a corporation right away. I've been ganked, can-flipped, robbed and at the wrong end of the blaster cannon. I didn't know how to fit a ship or where to make the most ISK / play session. I did speak with some of those who wronged me and they were happy to point out where I went wrong (and I mean genuinely helpful especially about fail-fits). I think CCP has been doing a better job at easing in the newbie, but until you are put in a dire situation, you really have a false sense of security. When you first come to EVE, you probably don't realize (until it's too late) that EVE is all about non-consensual PVP. As soon as you leave a station, you are agreeing to be attacked. PVP is the core of EVE and it is what drives the economy and wars. The player has a huge impact on the game. I am referring to things like Burn Jita (where people just sit in Jita and gank anything they can) or large scale batters in null over sovereign space (as in the battle for B-R5RB)
ISK is pretty much your first concern. It is like water. You can go without it for a day, but after that, you realize it is the only thing that will sustain you. ISK is relatively easy to get, if you want to live hand to mouth. If you want to make serious ISK you have to invest time. The thing I like most about EVE is that you can train your avatar in real time. That means you are training while you are not playing. You skill up skill training queues and you can walk away. Grinding is one of the things that irk me the most about RPG's. While you still have to grind missions for ISK, not having your characters skills dependent on your available time to play, it can take a lot of stress off you.
I know, I am getting verbose. I should get back on topic.
If you want to know how to make lots of ISK (without PLEXing), there are some options available. Some are available right now. Some will take months to get to the level you need to succeed. Start with the tutorials. They give you ships, implants and other goodies. You get ISK for completing tutorials too!
After that, mining is probably the easiest way to make ISK. It is probably the most boring, but it is easy. You grab a frigate, some mining lasers and hit a belt. While you are very efficient in a frigate, filling your small cargohold and jumping to and from the station/belt, it is lucrative. If you are serious about mining, I would really recommend training for the ORE mining frigate and work on rounding out your mining skills. If you are just part-timing it, there are other things that you can train, but most new players hit the belts. I would stick with Veldspar. Tritanium is always a good seller. It is the most commonly used mineral in EVE and in high volumes. Veldspar takes up the least amount of cargo space of the minerals. Next bet would be Scordite. The pyerite you can get from refining it is worth some ISK.
If you want to forgoe the doldrums of mining, you can train up your combat skills and run missions out of NPC stations. This is a fun way to make ISK and helps give you an idea of how combat works. Let me tell you now, PVP is PVE are COMPLETELY different. NPC's in missions are as dumb as tacks and they are in now way an analog for real players. Mission rewards and their time bonuses can help fatten your wallet. Also pay attention to bounty prizes you get from killing NPC pirates. Those can be very nice. I would suggest not taking faction missions. That is, when you are reading the mission brief, stay away from missions where NPC Factions (Gallentee, Amaar, Caldari, Minmatar) are the targets. You can skip one mission per agent per 4 hours. If you skip one after that, you will take a standings hit with the agent. As you do more and more missions, you gain standing with that agent. After a while, you can get access to Level 2 agents all the way up to level 4. Also, periodically, the faction that you are running missions for will give you a high priority mission. If you can complete it, you get a standings boost with the Faction. This is helpful. On top of that, doing missions for agents will give loyalty points for the faction that agent belongs to. You can use them for faction ships, items, implants, etc. If you want to get a faction frigate, you can use loyalty points to acquire one. They are much better than the T1 standard frigates and they run for about 20-24 million ISK. If you don't want it, you can just sell it.
When you get better skills (battleships) and have strong defensive tanking skills (shield/armor), you can try to get into incursions. The ISK is spectacular. They are hard to get in fleets, but if you can, you are golden. You can pretty much print ISK. You will need a strong skill base, a good ship fit and some luck to get into a fleet. Incursions are serious business. I once went to Vegas and sat down at a black jack table. I hit on a card that I shouldn't have. People at the table got pissed. What happened was if I didn't hit, they would have had a better change at getting the card they needed. Incursions are similar. They don't want to deal with Noobs. They are there strictly for the ISK.
This post is longer than I had planned and I kept it more informational than detailed, but maybe it will give you some direction. My biggest suggestion for new players is to leave their NPC corp and try to get into a good player-owned corp. There are soooo many benefits. If you are looking for a corp, check out Manu Fortius. We are happy to help new players get on their feet.
As always, fly safe-ish
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