Eve Online Newbie Millionaire

How to make hundreds of millions of ISK even as a complete day one beginner to the EVE Online Universe!

Everyone has been a newbie at some point when they've just started playing this great game that is Eve Online. Making ISK as a newbie is a daunting task especially since the game can be very unforgiving and you could lose your ship anytime due to lack of attention or even ruthless gankers. So without further ado let's delve right into the heart of the matter and see how you can improve your Eve Online experience as a newbie. Basically there are two main methods to make lots of ISK right off the bat from day one:
 
• The first one is AFK mining with TinyMiner. Even a lowly mining frigate or cruiser can make you millions of ISK daily when you set up a mining bot and let it run while you go about your business. You can find out all about TinyMiner from the Features and Tutorial pages and then testing the fully functional FREE trial version.
 
• The second method requires that you actively play the game (as opposed to employing an automated software) and do the job yourself. It is affectionately called "Ninja Salvaging" and this is what we'll be discussing in great detail below. So basically when you feel like playing the game yourself you could start with a bit of Ninja Salvaging and then later on or during the night you could switch to AFK mining with TinyMiner for even more amazing profits!

TIP: In case you are not familiar with the term "salvaging" it basically means equipping one or more salvaging modules on your ship and using them on the wrecks of already destroyed ships in order to gather crafting materials which industrialists can use to build rigs (enhancements for ships). Most of the time these salvage parts are worth a pretty penny on the market.
 
Now some could argue that I've left out a couple of other lucrative ISK-making methods, namely mission running and market trading. In order to make good ISK running missions you need to already have great skills and a well fitted ship which are both out of reach for newbies. The same goes for market trading which requires to start with a sizable bankroll that newbies simply don't have. Both of these as well as many other advanced ISK-making methods are covered in the "Eve Online Ultimate Guides Bonus Pack" available with every TinyMiner purchase. That being said let's move on with our guide:

Ninja Salvaging Explained

If you've done very much missioning in Eve at all, or even been around more than a short while, you will have already heard about the infamous "ninja salvager". That dastardly fellow who swoops in on hapless mission runners, spiriting away with all of their hard earned salvage. Why do they do it? How do they do it? And could I do it? These are the questions we've all thought at one point or another, and now it is time to answer them. Strictly speaking, a ninja salvager is a person that uses scan probes to locate a mission runner, then enters their mission area without permission and proceeds to salvage all of the leftover wrecks before the mission runner has a chance.

While many, or rather most, do more than simply salvage, that is all required of you to be allowed to label yourself a ninja salvager. Many do indeed stop at simply salvaging wrecks, oftentimes not even encountering the mission runner at all. They find a mission, warp in to the already completed room, and get to work salvaging the wrecks, moving room through room as the mission runner completes it. Then leaving, with the only sign that they were there being the free floating loot cans scattered across the mission rooms. Unfortunately for the PvE oriented population of New Eden, this is not your average ninja, but we will get into that shortly. First off, let's figure out what exact skills we need to become a ninja:

• Survey III
• Mechanic III
• Salvaging I
• Astrometrics II
• Any Racial Frigate II

That's it. Note that this is not what is preferred, not nearly, but this is all you need to be able to locate a mission, warp in, and salvage to your heart's content. I have personally taught a 100% newbie, his first hour in Eve, to use those skills and be able to ninja independently within two days. He made millions in the time it takes most to get started on level 1 missions. Such is the appeal of ninja salvaging. Now, you've trained up your skillset to the absolute minimum and you're itching to go out on the hunt. What now? Well now you make a ship selection.

There are two ships required for ninja salvaging, a scan ship and a salvage ship. Some combine them into one, but that causes sub-optimal performance for both jobs, which is not what someone new to the profession needs. The scan ship will be an obvious choice, every race starts with a frigate that has an inherent scanning bonus, so you will use that one until you're able to purchase and fly a covert ops ship. The ship you use for salvage, however, can vary. First of all, do not under any circumstances think that you should use a destroyer. This is not your mission and you cannot tractor these wrecks, so that defeats the point. Most choose either one of two: a frigate, for fast speed between wrecks, avoiding rats, and quick getaways; or a cruiser, for decent speed, larger cargo that allows for a fair amount of looting and better tank.

Remember, salvaging someone's wreck does not flag you, looting their wreck does. Salvage = safe. Loot = risky. Those of you lucky enough to fly Minmatar, congratulations, you're in luck. They have the absolute 100% best ninja ships in both the frigate and cruiser class. For the frigate, you want the Vigil. It's fast, very fast, with a 5% speed bonus per level and a high base speed. Get some good skills and you can pass 2.5 km/s with an afterburner, change that out for a MWD and I've seen some fits get speed as high as 7.2 km/s with nothing but a MWD and overdrives/nanos in the lows. All you really need to ninja though is to fill the highs with salvagers, an afterburner or MWD in the mids, and you're good to go. Zip between wrecks salvaging up to three at a time, however there is precious little room for loot.

If it is loot that you're after in addition to the salvage, then look no further than the Stabber. It is also fast, though not nearly to the point of the Vigil. It can carry far more goodies, as well as fit and impressive rack of salvagers. The tradeoffs here are the fact that you have to train up to cruiser, it is slower and an easier target as well. Remember, ship selection is a personal choice and I have seen almost every frigate used to ninja, as well as ships such as Hurricanes, Nightmares and stealth bombers. While I don't recommend using those, if you find it more fun or productive to do so, then by all means. The ultimate ninja ship for many seems to be the Dramiel. With its blinding speed, drones, and overall epic-ness it is hard to argue that a better ship for ninja work exists, however, the cost of such a ship generally makes it an absurd risk to take on a ninja run. The death of a ninja ship should result in a chuckle at yourself and at worst a facepalm moment, especially if you're just starting into it.

So, you've trained up your skills to the point where you're able to ninja, you have selected your ships and equipped them with their required gear, now what? First off, you have to pick a location. Your goal here is level 4 mission hubs. Locations with multiple and/or popular level 4 agents that will provide plenty of missions, the systems surrounding these hubs are also good locations for hunting, as often the agents will send the runners out one or two jumps to complete the mission. You can find mission hubs fairly easily, just find populated systems with level 4 agents in them. Below is a list of the hubs that I used to frequent myself just to get you started right quick:
 
• Dodixie - Gallente
• Frarn - Minmatar (my personal favorite and longtime hangout)
• Gulfonodi - Minmatar
• Emolgranlan - Minmatar
• Motsu - Caldari
 
[Note: with the changes to agent quality and levels, the hubs may change as pilots adapt.] Once you've picked a system and moved yourself over there, it's time to get to work. First off, head out in your scanning ship and get to work hunting down targets. There are literally dozens of effective scanning tutorials for Eve, so I won't cover the basics of how this is done. Here is a great video describing this technique (make sure to play it in HD):

What you are hunting for are ships out in the middle of nowhere. Any sort of battleship, marauder, HAC, or even battlecruisers or destroyers could point to a high level mission in progress or being salvaged. Once you get a lock on a promising target, swap ships quickly and head into the mission. Once there, two things will happen. Either you will be alone, or you'll have crashed someone's party. Assuming they don't already know you're there, you then also have two options. Begin salvaging the wrecks room by room right away, or move through the mission to get an idea of where they're at and if they have finished yet. It's personal preference which you do, though for straight up salvaging only, there isn't much point in searching through and revealing yourself to them.

Now that you've started salvaging you need to work in a pattern. You can't just hop from closest wreck to closest wreck, as that will wind up with you having five wrecks left, all 50-90km apart. Zoom out, waaaay out, so that you can see the entire mission area. Locate yourself, and begin on one end of the room. You want to slowly move to the other side, clearing out the larger groups of wrecks first, then the stragglers, then moving towards the other side until you hit more wrecks. This ensures that you're saving as much time as possible and by hitting the large groups first you prevent any unexpected problems from costing you salvage by interrupting you before you clear out the big bunches. Remember, you most likely have more than one salvager, you can target more than one wreck. This is much preferred to using them all on one wreck, as if more than one salvager gets a hit, then you've still only removed one wreck instead of two, three, or more. Once the mission is clear of salvage and possibly loot, head to a station, unload, and enjoy your rewards.

So, you have successfully completed your first ninja run. You may or may not have earned the angry insults of a mission runner raging in local and you may or may not still have an interest in continuing. Now we will get into advanced tactics. These are things that you do not have to do to be considered a ninja, they are simply ways to make more money and get a much bigger response from your target.

Almost every mission you will encounter has some sort of trigger. Be it warping in, attacking a certain rat, killing a certain rat, etc. By learning the missions and which rats are the triggers, a very clever ninja can effectively use this knowledge to overpower their victim's tank without ever firing a shot. By choosing the moment at which the mission runner is taking the most damage and then engaging the trigger, you can potentially bring down an entire additional group or two onto their poor ship. This is very, very situational, and requires more than a little bit of luck, but few things will give you a bigger smile than seeing a mission runner realize just too late how much damage he's taking. It's then a simple matter of dodging the remaining rats to his wreck, loot and salvage, and be on your merry way. And possibly sticking around to salvage the mission if he returns in a new ship.

Mission objectives: the damsel, the reports, the random janitors. There are more than a few missions that require you to ferry some random object back to the station before your agent is willing to pay up. If you can manage to make it to the objective before the mission runner, you have yourself an opportunity for some quick cash. Some objectives will just be sitting there, floating in a can, enjoying life in a cramped cardboard box until you come and scoop them up. Others you have to be a bit more watchful about, such as the Damsel, which can only be grabbed after exploding the Pleasure Hub. For these that require something to be destroyed you must move quickly after the mission runner does his work, but before he makes it to the can that was dropped. Once you've secured the item you should open up a private chat with the mission runner, or in the case of multiple runners, invite them to a group chat. Here you should politely request payment for the safe return of their objective. Nothing extravagant, remember, it has to be worth it to them to actually go against their egos and accept it so they can then receive their mission payout. I'll leave the actual ransom amount up to you as a player, as everyone seems to have a different idea on what a reasonable amount is.

Baiting the Runner

Here is the main goal of a great many ninjas. To loot and poke and prod and goad until the mission runner attacks you, at which point you promptly grind him into spacedust. Some people will see your tiny little frigate go flashy red from stealing their loot and seize that chance to immediately fire upon you. Others require a little more.....antagonizing. Locking them, using ECM drones to jam the rats so that they retarget the runner's drones, bumping/circling them, stealing loot and salvage from underneath their nose, some prodding in local and generally being an ass are all good ways of frustrating the mission runner to the point at which they shoot you. You can also drop all or a sizable chunk of their loot/salvage into a can and name it something along the lines of "I'm Sorry", then warping out and watching to see if they take the bait, or take the mission objective and quickly transfer it from the mission can to your own, sometimes without the runner noticing. Your overall goal here is to trick, force, or annoy the mission runner into giving them an aggression timer against you. Once this happens you should head off and pick up your prepared (you did prepare it right?) combat ship. This could be a battlecruiser/battleship, a HAC, or anything you think can take down a mission runner. Remember, adjust your ammo and tank based on what the mission's rats are. Nine times out of ten the runner has adjusted his ammunition and tank to suit that of the rats, this gives you the advantage. Neutralizers are your friend against almost all ships, Drakes being the glaring exception. Most non-Drake PvE ships active tank rats, meaning once their cap drops, they'll start taking a serious beating from the rats and you. Once you've gotten him damaged enough to where he's starting to sweat, feel free to open up a private chat and ransom his ship. It is far more profitable to the both of you if you ransom rather than simply explode, also, you're free to continue ninjaing his mission if he keeps the ship to run it in. Sometimes they may take off once they see your super-duper-carebear-killer ship come rolling in after them. You could be slow on the draw, they could be keeping a keen eye on the overview just in case, or it could be one of those moments that by the time you made it there they were already 80km off the warp in point. Watch their warp out path, and follow them after a few seconds if they warped to a station (your goal being to not alert them that they were followed), if not then follow immediately to make sure you catch their next warp. Then sit outside waiting on them. What's that you say? Aggro timer only lasts 15 minutes? Well, you kept that mission bookmarked didn't you? At 13 minutes warp to the mission, shoot one of the runner's wrecks, and "voila", refreshed timer. I've done this to keep a timer active for almost an hour and get a kill when the runner finally undocked.

Before I leave you, I want to share two other tactics that I have picked up along my travels. The first is ID tracking. Whenever you scan someone/something, they have an ID show up to the left on the scanning screen, next to where it shows the ship and scan strength. This ID will change for player ships whenever the player docks, jumps, or logs off. If a player is really annoying you, you're unable to bait him, or you just want to give it a try, then you can use this. Follow him home after he finishes a mission, waiting outside the station. Close in the probes to the bare minimum scan range around the station, and wait. When he undocks, hit scan, and look at the ships pop up. If he is the only ship of that type, you know exactly which ID belongs to him, otherwise write them all down and when he warps off, scan again to see which one is missing. Now when you're scanning across the system you can search for his ID, and specifically target him. Do this several times, making a nuisance out of yourself every time, and he may just be willing to pay you in exchange for giving him some peace and quiet. (Note that you shouldn't make any sort of stalker-ish threats when following him around, even when trying to get him to pay up. I've heard of people getting GM notices from things like that, and its best not to risk it. Let your actions speak for you.)

The second tactic is for when the missioner just straight up leaves the mission. They see you and suddenly lose all interest in it. At this point you can either try and wait them out until they come back, find another mission, or sell the mission. Announce in local what the mission is, how far done it is, and how many BS rats there are left. Oftentimes you'll have people in local come in to mop up for whatever reason, giving you more salvage, and sometimes a small payment for the warp in point. Not always guaranteed to work, but it can be a viable option for those times that the mission runner absolutely refuses to do anything with you there. And there you go, the basics of ninja salvaging explained along with some advanced tactics. This is by no means a complete list of all the tricks ninjas use, there are dozens more out there, such as group ninja salvaging, using an Orca alt to hasten looting and ship switching, using alt accounts in conjunction with the aggro timer. Feel free to explore more possibilities and create your own style of it; just remember the most important thing is to have fun. Though some profit never hurt anyone...

If you enjoyed this little guide then you'll love the "Ultimate Eve Online Guides Bonus Pack" available with any TinyMiner purchase! This mega collection leaves no stones unturned when it comes to Eve Online tips&tricks, ISK-making, pirating, pvp, pve, planetary interaction, mining, wormholes, cosmos missions and much, much more!