Making Isk with missions?

So over the past week I’ve moved from null sec and went to highsec. I started doing Missions to try and make some isk.

It started out slow, until lvl 4 then it got better. But then I started doing High LP reward missions. I found out I’m in the hole by about 2b doing these missions over the past 2 weeks. It seems for every mission there’s a specific fit mechanic you have to obtain and the payout for LP/isk per hour isn’t worth it. On top of that, there’s nothing better than fitting out a good ship just to find out the research you did was junk and your ship gets destroyed after spending around 1b on a cruiser fit. Wether it be a tracking issue, active tank issue, or resistance issue.

So what’s the secret? How do you fund so many different ships for so many different types of missions? Do you do the high LP reward missions? Do you just skip them and F1 all the other missions?

My main issue is the missions that aren’t on Eve Survival. There have been a few, so I turn to youtube. Which has succeeded almost all the time. But as soon as I start making profit. There’s a new mission that requires me to buy a new ship or fittings which beats the crap out of profit. And in turn if I lose that ship, there goes even more of my profit.

I’m very aggravated with this part of the game atm. But I’m trying to cope with living in highsec w/o spending my day shooting a rock.Any pointers or tips would be GREATLY appreciated.

In case by “high LP reward mission” you mean the mission with an “anomic” in the beginning of the name, those are called “burner missions” and you should read the 2 threads here in the forums discussing them.
Burner missions are quite different from the other missions you find on eve-survival.

All other missions should not be a problem.

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In all your research, did you happen upon this chart?

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Mission_ships#Standard_Ships_by_Mission_Level

So if you’re using “Cruisers” for L4s, then you’d better have some damned good skills and mods. T1 and Faction Cruisers are only good for L2s and L3s. If you’re running L4s, you’d either want a T3 Cruiser, maybe a well skilled / fitted HAC, or a BS. If you want easy mode, take a Marauder.

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Marcus, there is that one Guristas mission, where you have to collect that viral agent, which I run in a Gila.
Just as an “it can be done” idea, I ran a “Stop the thief” level 4 in a Harpy once.

I think he means the burner missions.

@elitatwo The anomic missions are fun though, I am able to do the anomic team missions now that I have the ships to do so. But I just came across the stolen carrier one. https://zkillboard.com/kill/71773101/ So this didn’t work out. My issue was simple. Even with dual webs, I couldn’t hit the dragonflies in optimal range. I was living fine, had no issues until I ran out of cap batteries :frowning: But I just couldn’t hit them. With dual webs, I don’t see how this is even possible. Even in my life in null sec in PvP I’ve never had an issue hitting fighters with webs at a cruiser base.

Yes I did come across the link @Marcus_Gideon and I am a well skilled pilot with 90m sp in combat skills. This is my 1st time ever actually doing missions in my eve career. The burner mission I was on only allowed cruisers and aside from burner missions, I can handle non burner with ease.

It just so happens that this particular mission was just discussed a few hours ago:

Guristas burner

Scroll a little up. The comments are all about that mission and fits to consider.

Thank you, this makes more sense now. I knew it was tracking but how much I had to sacrifice for the tracking I didn’t know. I will try some of these. Again, thank you.

As I’ve had to learn for myself you can have a lot of skills on your character sheet, but they’re little good to you if you don’t know what to do with them. Most missions (except burners) can be completed in a ship of the right size as long as you mind your tank, resists and damage types. I’d never use webs for normal missions, a pack of drones (or light missiles) can handle any fast frigates while my main guns take out the heavier ships. For example the BS fit I’ve been using has two resist modules, and keeping a few extra resist mods in my cargo isn’t really much of an issue. Switch them out for the right ones considering the opposition, then go. Ammo swapped to right types too ofc. I could probably even keep extra drones in station if I want to maximise the right damage type, but often don’t bother.

Burners, that’s a different beast.

I almost quit using drones. I switched to using precision cruise for small stuff while I use fury cruise for big stuff

If you want to avoid the risk you can go over on sisi and use /booststandings to practice them, there is something of a learning curve to missions, but I think once you start getting them down they should start to feel pretty easy after a while.

For ship progression I’d suggest a mach first, that will work to run and eventually blitz the normal mission set. From there the garmur and daredevil are good next steps, the garmur can run all 4 team burners, and the daredevil can run several burners with the same rigs, just need to swap a few slots. Then there’s a speed fit DD, a hawk, a wolf, and you should be all set for the frigate burners. The bases are a bit more expensive, I wouldn’t suggest spending a bil on any of these, Blood base uses a pretty standard purger gila, Serp base can use a deimos for safety or a vaga for speed, then the angel base is pretty easy in a vigilant.

all my setups can be found in this post:

And if you notice I didn’t even mention the gurista base, but if you really want to run it I suggest the vigilant. You’ll want to be decent at cap and heat management to make it through the whole mission, if you think things are going bad you should be able to warp out in between waves.

You are my hero atm. I tested the Muininn fit on the other post on SiSi, it worked, but there was 0 room for error. If I over heat an extra 2 cycles or more this is the difference between living and dying. I will try the vigilante fit in SiSi and see if it’s easier. Thank you!

I tried yesterday or so and it was not possible after the DF : the mantis insta lock and point you.

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Have you tried the muninn fit with 175hp/s armor regen (with implants) or the cerberus fit from my experience those can tank the mission without problem. The cerberus can finish the mission in about 25 min and the muninn using this fit 12-18 min depending on your piloting and luck with shots.

On another note, how did you fare with the vigilant?

Like everything in this game, it requires investment in order to come up on top and do well. Investment in skills / training, ship, fit, time, you need to get your standings up without screwing up other standings in the process.

However you do not need too many ships for L4s. You do not have to have different ship for each L4. I do vast majority of my L4s in only a few ships / fits, and I will give you my break down of it. There are of course other peoples methods which may be better, this is what works well for me.

The ships I fly are all omni tank, I do not use mission specific hardeners, they also can use all damage types with ease. So I stay away from lasers and hybrids. What this lets me do is run many, many missions in a row without having to waste time and refit. It also ensures that I am not accidentally caught without tank, or without a good way to deal any damage type. I even got jumped by FOB mobs and it came close, but I did not lose my ship or pod.

In addition, when I do decide to refit a bit, I can take teh same exact ships and go run some DED sites, escalations, whatever is my fancy because the ships are flexible. So here goes:

For L3s, faction grinding, SOE arc (again more faction grinding), and otehr equivalent content I use a Cinnabal. Its very quick, like Machariel but much quicker. I have an omni tank autocannon fit and carry EMP, Thermal and T2 ammo (which is explosive / kinetic). It has far more then enough firepower to overcome anything in my way and warps around real quick, I even put 1 T2 Hyperspatial rig in it. perfect for blitzing low end content and moving on ASAP.

For L4s, I use Gila, Rattlesnake, Navy Scorpion and Loki. I use other ships sometimes for novelty, like I did some L4s in a VNI, in a Munnin, Tengu, couple other ones, but these are my mainstay.

The Gila has to be a little blinged, or more specifically, you need faction drone amplifiers, faction prop mod (unless a deadspace is cheaper, sometimes they are) and I like to stick eitehr medium or large Thukker Cap battery in it. Everything else stays T2. Total ship cost is around 1.2 bil so its still well under a decent fitted battleship costs. It is Omni Tank, RLMLs and I carry scourge and inferno missles in it as well as all 4 drone types. It is absolutely perfect for running the L4s that do not have the big groups in them, for example duo of death, anomaly, etc.

The Rattlesnake. Its a bit on the expensive side of things so I actually do not like running it a lot. It does the most DPS so the full clear times are good, especially on missions with a lot of battleships in them. In addition I can drop MTU and have it start pulling wrecks right at combat start, if there is anything good, I pick it up, dump the rest. I use Omni Tank, double prop mod MJD + MWD. To be effective it needs only faction damage mods, pass that all T2 is OK. However, because its hull drone bonusses are only for heavies and sentries, you need to fit a lot of precision or drone tracking into it for smaller targets, which dips into either your prop or tank or you have to switch to mission specific tank, this is why I don’t like runnign it despite it having best DPS. I actually end up losing time overall due to its lack of flexibility.

Scorpion Navy Issue. I like this ship a lot. With its slot configuration I can go ubber omni tank, double prob and have enough space leftover to have enough missile precision to hit even frigates at point blank range very reliably. I use cruise missles, omni tank, double prop, MTU. This is my ship of choice for running either the L4s that have a ton of battlehips in them, or the harder content. I use it also to do epic arcs. Completely solo, full clears. It does not have the DPS of a Rattlesnake, but with my fit, implants etc. I get a very nice and comfy 950ish @ 100+ km, max missle flight range is around 130-150km depending how I ffit it. I switch to precision missles which actually have shorter range for the small targets and usually 1 shot them.

The disadvantages of the Navy Scorp are 2 fold. First, it has horrible scan resolution. So often I fit a sensor booster or at least a scan resolution rig. 2nd, it has horrible alignment time. It is a heavy ship, even for battleship. So you have to plan how to approach things to get somewhat optimal at it.

The Loki. I do some L4s in a Loki, but I don’t like doing it too much. The reason being is that it gets very good and high DPS from having a right down phenomenal rate of fire on HAMs and the AC version can’t achieve the same numbers. So because of the super high rate of fire, you burn through ammo like crazy. I am not exagerating when I say you can run through 4-6k missiles on some of the big L4s. This actually becomes noticable ISK wise.

the Loki does however have an uber omni tank, and its very flexible when refitting. If you wanna do some L4s, them maybe some DED sites, then something else, then Loki is the way to go.

So, my key to it is do not run different ships for different missions, except maybe the epic arcs, use same 3-4 ships for everything. Going for LP per time, is the most profitable thing to do, but not always. For example, if you get “the informant” mission, you wanan kill and loot all the battleship drones that drop loot. there was anotehr mission I did recently (I forgot which one it was) where I finished it, and shot a structure just for kicks and 5 battleships spawned on me worth 1.1 mil each bounty.

So its mainly the LP, but sometimes its some otehr stuff as well. If you are lookign to just chill and kick back, get the Navy Scorp. Warp in, drop MTU, MJD out, kill everything, come back to MTU to pick it up, rummage through the loot see whats worth keeping, and you can have a flight of salvage drones on it. Let the salvage drones loose on the wrecks, while you go grab a beer or something, come back recall them, go to next room, rinse repeat. Salvaging is mostly a loser if you wait for it. But you can have your drones already salvage while you’re still killing NPCs, then as soon as you stop, recall them and move on. So in this sense its just a little bit of extra income.

Hope this helps you a bit.

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