How to Play EVE as Omega for FREE (Mostly)

Communications Center General Discussion
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Disclaimer: While this is a tried and tested method, it will require an outlay of some real world currency at some point. How little depends on how hard you want to work.

Before Embarking: As an Alpha, you will want to train up as many of your core skills as possible. Wherever possible, you will want to complete your daily, weekly (NES) and monthly rewards to maximize free SP. Cerebral accelerators from events can further this objective.
. . . . .

Upgrading to Omega
In order for this methodology to work, at some point you will need to upgrade your account to Omega. It’s nearly impossible to achieve this as an Alpha unless you’re willing to put in an insane amount of work.

The minimum Omega term you want is 3 months ($47.98, which is a 20% discount). CCP typically offers a 25% discount on Omega plans several times a year, so if you’re patient - you can actually get the 3 month Omega for as low as $35.99 (a 40% discount overall).

Saving for PLEX
The ultimate goal is to be able to completely PLEX your account (or at least mostly PLEX your account). However, doing this month-to-month is a sucker’s bet as it will cost you 500 PLEX per month (or about 3 billion ISK at current PLEX prices).

The two best deals to PLEX your account are:
• 12 months Omega (3600 PLEX, 40% discount)
• 24 months Omega (6600 PLEX, 45% discount)

As mentioned above, CCP offers several 25% off deals on Omega subscriptions several times a year - and this includes deals in the NES store:
• 12 months Omega, 2700 PLEX (55% discount)
• 24 months Omega, 4950 PLEX (59% discount)

Month-to-month, you need to come up with 3 billion ISK per month to PLEX your account. Yearly, only 1.35 billion ISK per month to PLEX your account. The caveat here is that you will need to save up enough PLEX to redeem in 3-month, 6-month or 12-month increments to maximize the savings (and minimize your workload).

Banking ISK
As an Omega, you now have access to level 4 missions (you will want a T1 battleship to start, and then progress to a Faction or T2 battleship). As a solo player, running L4 missions for a typical corporation in 0.9 or 0.8 space will net you roughly 60m ISK/hour on the low-end (bounties, salvage and LP conversion).

This means in order to save up the roughly 1.35 billion ISK per month to convert to PLEX, you need to put in roughly 22.5 hours every month (call it 30-45min a day and a few hours on weekends or just 5-6 hours on weekends). That’s it. The key is to save as much as you can and only spend on what you need to (consumables, etc.)

If you start with PLEX’ing Omega in 3-month increments you’ll obviously need more than the 1.35 billion ISK, but once you’ve comfortable banked 3-6 months of Omega time you should be able to then save up for an entire year.

Onwards and Updwards
Even if you’ve paid by credit card for a 3-month subscription, as long as you have remaining Omega time CCP doesn’t bill you for the next instalment. This allows you to take advantage of any free Omega time or other promotions that are occasionally available.

Additional Notes
There are, of course, lots of alternatives to running L4 missions to earn ISK: blitzing L3 missions, abyssals, mining, market trading, manufacture, etc. Some of these require less skills but more investment (manufacturing, trading, market speculation); some of these are more afk (mining) and some entail more risk (abyssals).

There is also nothing stopping you from paying for a few months of Omega and grinding in-game to PLEX an additional few months of Omega (the net result being you still halve your Omega subscription cost).

Skill Extractor Sale
One final note: at least twice a year (sometimes more), CCP offers a 2:1 on skill extractors. While a cash-only offer, this is essentially a 50% discount - which CCP never (ever) offers on anything else. $99 for 100 skill extractors works out to ~40 billion in ISK (this works out to just over 6,600 PLEX at current prices) - which is enough to PLEX an Omega account for 2 years (even more if you take advantage of CCP’s occasional 25% off Omega offers in the NES store). This works out to < $4.13/month for Omega - which is the best cash deal you’ll find.

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If you tell this to a real newbie, 80% of them will uninstall on the spot.

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Long term goals, have people never heard of them…

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This mindset is one of the main reasons EVE has difficulty attracting and keeping newbies. Lots of players do this and CCP themselves do it as well, and they can’t just figure out why the conversion rate is sow low. Don’t get me wrong, long term goals are fine but you’re never going to win over newbies with them, because they can’t envision those goals.

Lets assume you start playing a new game that’s VERY different from anything you’ve ever played, you don’t “level up” like you’re used to in other MMO’s, there are no classes, the UI looks like Excel 95, it’s been out for 2 decades, the tutorial is horrible and nothing make sense not even a little bit. It kinda sounds interesting even in spite of these issues but it hasn’t won you over yet and so far it’s boring, perhaps play for a bit longer to see what’s what.

And then someone goes “just get a 24 month subscription and follow this roadmap that reads like it’s a howto on getting a STEM degree. That’s what you should do”.

What do you do?

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Absolutely agree. Telling players to basically grind2play is … horrible.

And if, for whatever reasons, someone would want do do it, do it with Abyssals. A damn 80m Assaultfrig or 120M T3D can generate 100M ISK/hr in there, no standings required, no Agent close by required, no Battleship Skills required, no large weaponry skills required, no LP exchanges… basically as often as you want wherever you live…

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I am still waiting on someone to make the “How to Play EVE as Alpha for FREE” thread guide. I pay almost $100 on the internet bill per month and between $250 to $300 electric/water/gas/waste removal ( it is a combined utility bill) I don’t want to take time to calculate all that nonsense. I won’t even bother with the depreciation cost over time of a given PC. Free is an illusion, anyone telling you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

Have fun!

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When it comes down to it, it’s all grinding. You can sugarcoat it with all sorts of different activities - but it’s all essentially the same thing. And yes, there are certainly other activities you can do besides L4 missions, ie: mining, abyssals, manufacturing, trading, etc.

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80% already do quit as soon as they realize EVE is just like every other MMO grinder.

Arthur is at least putting the truth that CCP marketing tries to hide right up front.

Mr Epeen :sunglasses:

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I uh. Never looked at my gaming laptop/PC like that because it’s for sustained entertainment/hobbies.

Thinking about this now my logic is horrible… hm :thinking: huh… xD

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That’s not the main issue. The issue is painting a picture of 1-2+ years of commitment, with lots effort, to a newbie who’s not even sure he likes the game enough to keep playing it. They first need to find a reason to keep playing in the first place and any “here’s 29 hoops you need to jump through” will just scare them off.

And I know Arthur wasn’t really doing that but I also know that a lot of newbies are given very similar answers, plans and goals by older players. Some newbie asking about high sec mining and someone going “it sucks until you get 3 hulks and an orca” because from that older player’s pov anything less than 100 mil/h is crap, totally forgetting he’s talking to a newbie. But now that newbie feels like he’s powerless and has no options so there’s a high chance he’ll just quit or play Skillqueue Offline for a few months. I’ve seen it happen way too often.

On the grinding part, that’s really just an option. Unless you go “technically breathing is also grinding” you can play EVE just fine while making enough isk without ever getting the feeling you’re grinding.

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These are all fair points. I mean, I haven’t checked what my Xbox Live subscription runs these days (last I checked it was $59.95) - but there’s always going to be at least some minimum investment in terms of time, etc. in whatever game you choose.

Playing as an Omega opens up a lot of possibilities in EVE. I’m not necessarily advocating that everyone should or will want to upgrade - but it’s very much akin to looking out of the window as opposed to looking into it.

I’ve tried to frame the options with a minimal commitment of 3 months of Omega. Obviously you save more with 6 months, 12 months or even 24 months - but those savings can come in time (I did wanted to outline these at the outset for those interested).

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It’s just a matter of recurring cost over a long time.

IMO it’s very important to differentiate grind that’s made as an enjoyment in itself, and grind that is made solely for another goal that enjoyment.

If I play a deathmatch in an actual PVP game, this deathmatch is the enjoyment and goal of itself. I win or lose, I had a meaningful experience and can then do something else, it was fun.
In Eve if I grind, that’s not for the fun of grinding. It’s a tool for a goal. That’s what makes people quit : when they realize it’s just plain grinding, with additional loss compared to another game.
Sure destruction drives the game economical engine, but does it drive their fun ? Well, only if they end up winning in the change, which some do, and some don’t.
And those who don’t, they feel betrayed and plainly leave without an explanation. Unless they feel in debt to someone who was helping them :slight_smile: . Getting the stick but someone else getting the carrot is not really “fun”.

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Very much so. Grinding in EVE should be looked at as a means to an ends - such as a long-term goal of ultimately PLEX’ing your account) or a short-term goal of simply earning enough ISK for a new ship, a coveted upgrade, new skill book, etc.

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But why should it be ?

I strongly disagree that grinding as a tool is a good thing.
I think, the experience in itself should be worthwhile. The game should be fun.

edit : this does not invalidate your post, as you are right that’s the common vision of the game right now. I know this sounds like off topic, and is in some ways, but IMO getting the fun in the game is more important than learning to grind efficiently, at first.

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There are quite a few play styles that are alpha friendly, or at least doable, that make enough isk to get ahead. Gas huffing, abyssals, exploration, FW, joining a null alliance and ratting, trading. I’m sure there are a lot more I forgot (or don’t know enough about). In many ways omega is really just a crutch, or at the very least it’s a long term proposition new players aren’t necessarily hooked on (yet). And this whole Play2pay2play (which is what plexing really is) sounds like a horrible idea for most newer players.

The funny thing is actually that being alpha means you can use multiple accounts for multiple play styles without paying a massive amount or somehow trying to cram all those play styles into one omega character or account. Newbies don’t need omega unless they want to do play styles that require it or they run into the boundaries of what they can do with it and feel they want more (which is not even a given).

“just try some play styles, find what sounds fun to you and go do that. Preferably have like 2-3 different play styles so you won’t get bored. Don’t rush, go at your own speed” sounds a lot better than:

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Doing combat anomalies in null, with ratting on the downtime between sites/signals/systems etc will easily net you a couple of hundred mil in an evening, do like 5 or 6 nights of this spread out over the month and you should have your 1.65b

People tend to ignore Bounty Modifiers but if you’re in a system that has a bounty modifier of 150% and you’re bashing Serpentis Rear Admirals and such as between 1m and 1.8m per ship, in a system with like 10 - 15 asteroid belts, that stacks up. Then if you’re getting some nice anoms (the kind where the loot is a 21st Overseer’s Personal Effects for 80m, or even shadow loot for anywhere up to 150m), along with all the rats in the anom (again, subject to the bounty modifier), you’re making bank.

What makes it work is consistency, it’s almost guaranteed so long as you’re prepared to do a small amount of probe scanning, and have the stones to leave your system, but everything I need to plex is within a range of 0 to 2 jumps from my base. What’s more, you can afford to lose a couple of ships a month and still profit.

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Yet, these same newbies never tire to demand Grind2Progress. For some reason, they think that grinding to farm SP is better than just passively gaining SP.

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It’s understandable for several reasons. People are used to this concept so when presented with something different their first reaction is going to be “why isn’t it like all other games and MMO’s I know”, it’s natural behaviour. Beyond that people like the idea of putting in a few hours and seeing direct results, where if they play for an afternoon with the intent to get X amount of levels once done those new levels signify their progress, again completely normal behaviour.

They’re going to need a bit of time and understanding to adjust to this very different idea.

The real problem is other EVE players, and of course CCP themselves, all hammer in the idea of how everything should be focussed on getting the most SP the fastest way possible. Then there’s the people who tell newbies “if you don’t fly T2 it sucks. Look at my cool T2 ship, that will take you 6-12 months to train for”, “there’s no point in mining in a Venture” and other stuff that doesn’t make sense nor helps any actual newbie.

The whole concept of skill injectors itself is really just a “grind to level” idea to begin with.

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Good afternoon, Aisha Katalen :blush:

There is another real problem: Rookie and Help Chat aren’t worth a damn.
Many players hang in those chats but not with the intent to help but to bother those new players who ask questions.
Rookie Chat regularly has more than 1000 players but no one wants to answer simple questions but as soon as they see an opportunity to mess with a new player they will suddenly post, same for the Help Chat.

Very antagonistic to newbies and not good first impression for CCP, makes it look like the game is full of toxic trolls.

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Alpha does suck. And so it should…as it is supposed to be a free ‘trial’ and not something one does for 15 years. I have both Omegas and Alphas, and can thus see just how limited the scope of Alpha actually is.

One can actually use ( some ) T2 modules as an Alpha…its always a popular misconception that Alphas can’t use T2. But even with T2 modules you simply wont get even a flexible ship to the same DPS, EHP, etc that you can with Omega. I have Alphas that can fly with T2 lasers…they can do about 150 DPS less than Omegas with the full range of skills. And its not just DPS but tracking, speed, signature radius, etc, etc.

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