How much ISK/day is good?

Communications Center General Discussion
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As the title says, how much ISK/day is a decent days work? And a possible follow up, what activities pay better than others?

I’ve been running a Venture mining Plagioclase near a trade hub for a while now and I’m making 1m ISK per run, which, while I don’t think it is bad, I don’t see it getting me where I want to be. At the rate I’m making ISK, it would take 7 million days of non stop playing just to get 500m ISK, which is necessary to buy a mining barge, and even then that doesn’t increase my profit margins too much.

Is the only way to get the ISK necessary for the bigger ships to pay money for PLEX?

EDIT: I think I should restate some things here. A lot of people are saying “you shouldn’t be focusing on ISK generation”, which, while that works for some people, is not the reason I am playing this game. I started playing EVE because of the extreme possibility it offers the players in terms of becoming true legends in the game world.

For example, Elite Dangerous has much more interactive mining and combat gameplay, but doesn’t offer the possibility that EVE does. That ore you mine in Elite can get sold to a station, and never used again outside of a slight change in the background simulation. Rather in EVE, that ore you sell is being used by players to build their titans and supercarriers, and every mining trip you take means someone is better off for you having done so.

The obvious point I am trying to make here is that I need ISK in order to get better machines capable of making that change. Ultimately my ambitions lie in becoming a hardcore mining titan, but I need to know what methods of generating ISK will allow for such a status. My enjoyment from EVE is the possibility, and to fully realize that possibility I require ISK. So if we could just skip the “play for enjoyment, not for ISK” arguments that would be great.

Thus far my take away from this is using my character slots to complement each other AFTER I get some initial capital from combat/exploration. If we can build off that, that would be great.

EDIT 2: Yes, I am having fun with mining and adding to the economy, the issue is that the income to progression ratio isn’t enough to build on. Had I not made this thread I would have kept mining in a Venture until someone finally said “hey that’s one of the least profitable activities in the game” and I realize how much time I’ve wasted trying to progress in the least effective way possible.

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I don’t know. I just enjoy explo. :slight_smile: What ever isk i made when I log in.

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STOP VENTURE MINING, IT’S THE WORST ACTIVITY YOU CAN DO IN THE GAME

That being said, the amount of money you make will increase as you age. A few million per hour now will turn into hundreds of millions per hour later.

But don’t concern yourself with what you’ll be making months from now.

What you should do today is completely drop mining, and start training for exploration and combat. Probe down hacking and combat sites, and do those. A few weeks from now, when you have some decent cruiser skills, maybe try killing rats in low-sec.

Don’t mine. If you absolutely insist on mining, however, roll a second account/character, and do it on that one. Your first character should be combat-focused.

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You can make billions per minute building and selling capital ships. But those minutes are few and far between. Most of your minutes you make absolutely ■■■■ all.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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Sounds good. Combat into mining.

I’m primarily doing mining because in most of my space sims I like adding to the industrial heart of the games. EVE seems to be the one that benefits from it the most however, as people can actually utilize the minerals I bring to them.

In any case can you elaborate on why combat works better? Does it just pay out more, can I then transfer those profits to my mining character?

Or, can I make 3 individual characters and train one in combat, one in mining, and one in production (I don’t mind using plex to buy the additional skill training queues for characters), and use the combat income to fund the other two while the mining character provides the materials to my production character, and the production character is building capital ships for billions of ISK with little/no risk?

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Considerably, especially on the high-end. There are sites you run do for 100-200 million an hour solo, which mining can’t compare to, even if you’re max-skilled and fully-boosted.

Another reason why you should learn how to fight, even if that’s not what you’re generally into, is that it will better prepare you for the dangers you’ll face in this game, including other players. When you know what other combatants are able to do, and how they can do it, you’re more equipped for preventing your own losses.

Yes. Any sort of trading you do with other characters, via market, contracts, or in-person, can be done between characters you personally own.

Exactly like that. Except the recommendation is to have them on separate accounts, so that you can log them in at the same time. You can also get rewards from referring other players to EVE, which includes your own alts as well.

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What you are doing is both a waste of time and potential.

How to increase your ore/hr and actually have fun playing the game at the same time:

  • You steal from other miners’ jetcans.

  • You have a friend who loots a full miner after you ganked him.

  • You keep bumping an active miner out of range of the roids and demand his ore as ransom, otherwise you won’t let him go. This is perfectly acceptable by the GMs as long as you demand a ransom and honour it. The requirement, as stated by the GMs, is that you have to give the miner a way of getting out of this situation.

  • You make several Alpha chars, skill them for the ore-hauler (Miasmos? I forgot.) and join different mining corporations. You offer to be hauling the ore to the station for other miners during a mining session, then at the end of the session contract it all over to your main and never log that char back in.

PS: Aiming for being capable of buying PLEX for ISK so you can sub is an even bigger waste of time, pursued by many who subsequentially burn out trying to make money so they can play the game which requires them to make even more money to play the game, while never actually getting to play the game. You have been warned!

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I kind of pulled the following numbers out of my ass, but it can give you a rough idea on isk efficiencies and time frames)

<50 mil / hr = Garbage Money
50-100 = Meh - Short Term Goal (ASAP)
100-250 = Decent Money - Medium Term Goal (6-12 months)
250+ = Good Money - Long Term Goal (1 year)

Getting up to 50 mil or so an hour isn’t particularly hard, even for a newbro alpha. Thus, you should try to get above that ASAP. Try doing a youtube search for “eve online how to make isk alpha”. Just be aware that many creators will exaggerate incomes for the views, so try to keep your expectations in check.

I recommend making decent money a medium term goal. You won’t get there overnight, but it really doesn’t require that much time, effort, or investment, and it will help you to be able to “live comfortably”. You won’t exactly be making the big space bucks, but you’ll make enough that you should feel comfortable regularly PvP’ing with T2 cruisers (and everything of equal or lesser cost).

Making good money tends to require a decent amount of knowledge, execution, training, and/or investment. Moreover, the guides for making good money tend to be less common, as people are financially incentivized to keep their mouths shut. That being said, there are still resources out there, and it’s not exactly like you have to be a wizard at this game to figure it out.

Of course, you don’t need to be making a kagillion isk an hour to have fun or be successful. Thus, a better long term goal might be to focus on maximizing your fun per hour, and not how much money you make.

I also recommend that you try picking a career (or two) that appeals to you. Yes, some careers can have higher income potentials, better risk to reward ratios, and other advantages, but you can make decent to good money with most careers, and you’ll enjoy the game more if you’re doing something you actually like, rather than doing something you hate because it makes you a little bit extra money.

Do note, however, that some careers have crappy income ceilings, or unclear/steep progression paths. For example, salvaging is not a good long-term career, and many players have no clue how to make decent money with missioning. They sometimes come to the forums to ask, or stumble upon a guide, but some will toil away for way too long making garbage money. Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do any of those careers (for example, salvaging has a low barrier to entry and can help you get the isk together for getting into a more profitable career), but I think it’s wise that you consider the income potential and progression path of a career before investing too heavily in it.

Something else to consider is a career’s skill overlap with PvP and other careers. For example, Industry is a good career that many people enjoy, but most of the required skills are absolutely worthless in anything pew-related. In contrast, the player and character skills that you will acquire as an explorer will translate well into PvP and other careers. Of course, if you are interested in things like industry, mining, or trade, then you should by all means go for it. But if you’re sitting on the fence between two careers, you should probably roll with the one that will help with PvP and/or allow you to more easily transition to other PvE activities should you ever want to.

Finally, I recommend that you eventually get into additional careers, and diversify your income. Many people will tell you that specialists will be far more powerful than a generalist -and there is definitely some merit to this idea. However, this game is also in active development, and just like in nature, specialists are the least able to adapt to and survive change. Thus, having career options will allow you to more easily pivot should something get hit with the nerf bat (which is a likely possibility in the age of resource scarcity). Moreover, getting into different stuff will reduce burnout and keep the game from getting stale.

Anyway, check out youtube and the career chart. And if you have any questions about any specific careers, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m sure someone will answer.

Oh, I have definitely gotten better over the years, but I tend to be slow to step outside of my comfort zone. And once I finally do it, I’ll realize that I should have done it a lot sooner… and then repeat the process all over again. Call me risk adverse. Call me a pussy. Whatever. Do what I say, and not what I do. Don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone.

Oh ■■■■, and the career chart is out of date. At least the abyss, Pochven, and hypernet raffles need to be added to the list. And I’m probably forgetting something else.

4531×2517 2.31 MB

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No. You’re raising carebears and farmers with this …
… who concentrate more on making money than on being resourceful.

Everyone only needs as much ISK as he needs.
Not more, not less.

Getting to making lots of money ASAP is absolutely counterproductive …
… because it turns into the sole reason for playing.

When 50 mill per hour are enough, then 50mill per hours are enough.

Someone who manages to get twenty million ISK for an hour of playing …
… already has quite a bit to just play with frigates!

If you want people to like this game, then teach them how to be resourceful …
… and not how to hunt for money.

You’re giving the wrong impression that it’s required to hunt the big money.

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Welcome to “how make second job from game”.

Completely forget about isk. You don’t need isk! Alpha is totally free and you can play all the time without spending isk or real money.

Do things that are fun for you and wealth will come with time. You can do almost any activity in game as alpha. Aim for fun/day not isk.

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Mining as a whole is only good if you go parrallel with lots of alt’s as even in the most expensive ships you are only making like 70m/h per char and more only only small timed instances when moon’s come out with good ores but that is few and far between.

If you want isk as a new bro, exploration especially relic sites is good isk between 50m/h and 300m/h depending on how good you are and how much risk you take.

pochven is also between 50/300/h hour depending on how lucky you are and if you can pvp against other people doing it too.

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Well, I actually talked about this.

Perhaps I could have been more clear, but I’m not saying that players should should focus on making money; I’m saying that they shouldn’t waste their time making garbage money if it’s their goal to make money.

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Fair.

Maybe we should make sure people don’t actually want to play solely for making money.
The new environment likely isn’t going to support this, at least not solo.

Though maybe this “problem” solves itself by the absense of these types of players …
… naturally, because the new environment won’t be supporting it.

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My main concern in this game is not to be assploded than to earn a tons of isk. Am I playing it wrong?

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Nope, not in the slightest.
That’s a very healthy approach, actually.

Reminds me, I need turrets for my ruptures in Uedama.
And a Tornado. Two Tornados! 1400s, 1200s and their ACs I never use.
And more bookmarks! Bookmarks! Probably not even two hundred at the gate, so far!

Those are combat ships solely existing to fight people as -10 …
… with no profit in sight …
… because ■■■■ that ■■■■.

AntiGankers make me happy. :blush:

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As long as you make more than you lose you’re good and as long as you make that doing something you enjoy then you’re playing EVE properly.

If you have few expenditures then you don’t need a zillion isk, if you don’t have some weird need to fly expensive stuff (because reasons) then you never risk much meaning, again, you don’t need much isk. So it all depends on where you live, what you do, what you enjoy and how much you risk.

Ultimately it depends on what drives you: some people have numbers as goals, some people have different goals. I personally don’t care about isk nor do I want to fly the biggest most expensive ships just because. The stuff I do for isk are play styles I actually enjoy doing and the ships I risk in solo PVP are generally T1 without bling or silly implants.

You could only make 10 mil a day and do just fine and be happy, you could also make 500 mil an hour and be poor and in trouble. You can’t put a number on it, it’s all nonsense.

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I pick up cans I find in the street. I used to sell em to recycling but now Im crafting plate armour for boxing day sales.

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No, there are dozens of ways to make money in New Eden, some are obvious, others not at all. Money is in capsuleers purses, make them open those purses and get iskies flow out.

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Remember:

ISK is not a scoring mechanism.
and
More expensive ships are not a win button.

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