Title basically. And i guess are they actually worth it or will you always get more isk an hour blitzing 4’s?
Well, guess it depends if you’re ok with doing missions in low sec space since that’s where lv 5 agents are located. I think if you have plenty of back up available or find a relatively empty backwater system to mission in and keep a watchful eye on local chat, you should be reasonably safe from roaming PvP gangs.
Personally if your only goal is to blitz and make as much ISK per hour as you can, then I’d just blitz lv 4 Burner missions in high sec. Much faster mission completion time plus you can be a bit more relaxed due to high sec Concord deterrent.
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I’ve just spent the last month running L5 in lowsec and i’ve come to the same conclusion. They’re massively overrated and you’re better of blitzing burners in highsec with multiple pullers. I genuinely can’t fathom how people think they make 1 to 2 bill an hour running them.
For example if you cash out immediately for federal intelligence office you’re looking at 500/750 isk LP. You can get better if you sit on you LP but it’s still not that great. Then there’s the frequency of the carrier missions. I had access to a very comprehensive guide. Where the gated and none gate missions were listed at around a 50/50 split. In reality though there were far more unlisted gated missions that couldn’t be blitzed in a carrier. Maybe over the years CCP has added a load more gated missions to L5 agents i don’t know. All i know is getting 9 carrier missions in 5/6 hours on 5 pullers sucks big time. After putting in all that work to get the standings and grinding like hell it’s just sickening.
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Are you using faction pullers or corporate pullers?
Corp pullers but even so i was using 5/6 (6 when a mate joined me) and i was having to turn down so many missions my actual agent standing was getting near to -2.0. All i kept getting was most of the time was Rogue spy, Recover the containers and bloodly Hidden enemy base. Don’t get me wrong i did get good missions sometimes but nowhere near the amount to get anywhere near to make a 1 to 2bill an hour that people claim. Even then at most i could run was an hour while i wait on the agents cooling down and that was on a good day.
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Level 5 missions is not worthit. the isk/hour and risk is very bad, i highly suggest doing L4’s in highsec instead.
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sounds like something someone making good lv5 money would say to discourage competition. That said it’s hard to get reliable data on lv5s, can’t tell if people are bragging and overstating income at best, or trying to lure pvp targets at worst. I’ve though of going on the test server and trying to find out but
The Lv5 LP pool is similar (and worse) than the FW Lp store, so it faces heavy competition as the FW store can buy many items for less LP, and the FW store has a bunch of exclusive items. That said you can still move a lot of volume but typically in the 500-1000 isk/lp range.
If you want to stay in lowsec it sounds like the FW missions can be very profitable also. Good to have a few alts with different standing profiles to be able to get the good LP.
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With the upcoming changes to jump fatigue, does this push the risk vs. reward for L5 missions over the line?
Not particularly in my view. Jump fatigue isn’t really a limitation on running level 5s in my experience.
Just for credibility, since I normally hate PVE in EVE, I currently have just over 1 million LP with Fed Navy, running mainly Level 5s out of Uphallant in a Thanatos (https://puu.sh/zHa7E/4b94edf6b7.JPG). I have cashed in about another 4 million LP over the last month.
I generally find that the Level 5 agent in Uphallant provides missions that are grouped together in adjacent systems, so I normally only have to jump once every 3-4 missions and often I just take the gate between systems.
Some level 5s can be blitzed (ie. warp in kill the structure, done in 5 minutes), while others require all the enemies to be killed (15-20 minutes a site).
Tbe biggest limit from my perspective:
- rats target fighters, so you need to be constantly managing fighters in order not to lose too many in a squadron
- The LP is good (~60K base + early completion reward ~30K) and converts for 3% implants at about 1000 ISK/LP, but you still need to convert the LP and sell product (not level 5 specific though)
The more individual fighters that get lost, the worse the real value of level 5s are, and they do get killed individually (t1 fighters ~1.2 mill each, t2 ~10 mill each).
For me, running level 5s still pays more than level 4s and they are worth doing.
There isn’t really much risk from roaming fleets, as most don’t carry combat probes, but keeping an eye on dscan is always key.
In running near 100 level 5s in total over recent months, I’ve only had to warp out once due to combat probes, but your mileage may vary.
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If you saw the combat probes, someone failed at probing. With good scanning skills it is possible to scan down a thanatos using a 32 AU custom formation without a center probe. All probes will be out of d-scan range. Even with less stellar skills, a thanatos will take a single scan, so the probes will be visible for only a few seconds.
The main thing keeping you safe is that the rats in a lvl 5 mission will slaughter most roaming low sec gangs, and by the time they’ve formed up something that can tank the site and kill you, you’ll have completed the mission.
I don’t only use the Thanatos luckily. I keep eyes elsewhere too, knowing how easy it is to dscan before combat probing.
Posting this on an alt for anonymity.
I can’t believe you’re sharing this publicly! You got balls.
Pro tip, buy 3 thannies and put one in each system. You can afford it with l5 pay.
You can sell to buy orders consistently at 700isk/lp. I’ve occasionally been able to sell at sell price and get 1000+ but competition is fierce. 700isk/lp is still about 50-100 mil on the average 5 minute mission.
Yup. My main issue to. Try holding down Q, clicking once where your fighters are, then moving the cursor and making your fighters fly straight up when they are in danger. Also you can make them orbit things with W and change their default orbit distance by setting your ships orbit.
I’ve been probed once in the past 3 months. It was some noob that kind of did it on accident. The biggest thing keeping you safe is that you’re typically alone in system. Everyone is afraid to do level 5s because of a massive disinformation campaign perpetrated by sc. Many people do them in my area but I know who’s who. And the folks that run them don’t generally mess with you.
Check Volundark Gallente’s killboard, what alliance is he in? Why do you think SC would say Level 5s are bad when they live in Aeschee? Lets think about this for a second…
There are a massive amount of misconceptions out there about level 5s.
There is no jumping involved in level 5s at all aside from buying fighters.
If you’re interested in level 5s, no one will lend you guidance. It took me months to get setup and I’m still improving my setup. At this point I make a base of about 4-500 mil but that can go as high as a bil if the Wyrmslayer Loot fairy is kind. If you are patient and create sell orders and babysit them then yeah I guess you could consistently get more than a bil an hour.
Level 5s are really a much higher class of mission than 4s. The ships required are expensive. Most fits are going to be 2-4 bil if you use Carriers, dreads, marauders, pirate ships–all good for certain missions. On top of this, if you’re smart like me you buy 3 of everything and put one in each system and hop systems with a ceptor. Right now I’m working on putting a rattlesnake in every system that Rogue Spy part 1 sends me to. You might think I’m crazy because that’s 10 systems and it will cost me 20 bil, but I made that 20 bil in about a month of only playing 2-3 days a week. Also that mission takes 5-10 minutes in a snake and pays 100 mil on a good day.
In conclusion, if you think you’re going to hop in your one and only t3 cruiser and double your income making level 5s you won’t. You will make less than blitzing burners. If you think you can do level 5s with corporate pullers you can’t. Faction pullers are 100% necessary to keep the good missions flowing. If you think hopping gates in a thanny is a good Idea, well you’re wrong again. I encourage people to pursue level 5s, but just know what you’re getting into. I’m over 30 bil into this little business venture and don’t regret spending a .01 isk and haven’t had a loss yet. I’ve lost like 400 mil to burners and won’t touch them anymore.
edit: ~Knocks on wood.~
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Sorry, I should have elaborated. WIth the pending ease of once again moving fleets large distances due to the 95% drop in jump fatigue, is this going to adversely make it too risky to be out and about in low-sec?
It might, but all the lvl 5 missioning hubs are already within single jump range of whatever local pirate alliance lives in that region. I don’t think it will make a difference.
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I don’t think it will have any impact.
The 95% reduction is to fatigue accumulation. The reactivation timer reduction is less so (to a max 30 min), however any capitals that would drop in on a missioning carrier are already in single jump range. As Scooter wrote, pirate coprs/alliances also live near the level 5 hubs. They provide a good source of income for them too, so fatigue changes won’t really impact their ability to say hello. That ability already exists.
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For lvl5s you keep 1 ship in every system you get missions for in my case it was needing 5 ships but like another guy said it is worth it if you don’t have an eggplant for a brain.As far as my streak with lvl5s it was long before citadels were a thing so had to keep several poses runing in some systems even so the isk was great I never did an isk/hr estimate but it was about 10/12 bil per week and I was using a golem only.
According to the article i attached below, L5 missions make 140-160m per hour. Which is under what most people say you can make from blitzing L4’s at 200m per hour.
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it also gives a much lower number for lv4 missions than what is generally stated, so I wouldn’t consider it 100% accurate.
400mil+/hr in a nyx doing anoms that’s just bounty no faction drops or escalation sales 
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All lvl4 missions are easy for me but I’ve never tried lvl5. Probably a silly question, given I’ve been out of the game for 6 years, but can you do them solo or do I have to get a group together?