Piracy and solo PvP

[Triforcer]

I've finally seen enough indirect Eve discussion on other parts of the site to come here.  I've tried to read many of dwindle's excellent starter posts, but they contain a lot of pretty words and jargon that I need explained.  A couple questions:

1)  How biI plag is the PvP space in relation to other gamespace?  Is it a trammel/felucca situation, where 900 people are in safe territory mining and the same 3 crack monkeys gank each other in Pvpland?

2) Even if the PvP space is big, how often do PvP opportunities come up?  How populated are the servers?

3) I am, I confess, mainly a soloer.  I love solo pvp in WoW, but am starting to get bored.  How viable is 1 man piracy?  Can you simultaneously outfit a shit with enough firepower to kill someone AND enough jamming capability to keep miners/people losing the fight from just leaving whenever they want? 

4)The main reason I am a soloer is I play at very irregular hours, but when I am on I am happy to help out.  Is F13 corp still looking for members?  Would I still be helpful in gang pvp with a solo pvp setup, or do the skillsets not overlap that much?  Thanks!  :-D

[Kail]

1)  How biI plag is the PvP space in relation to other gamespace?  Is it a trammel/felucca situation, where 900 people are in safe territory mining and the same 3 crack monkeys gank each other in Pvpland?

The PvP space is pretty big, but predictably, the population density is a lot lower than it is in protected space.  Here's a screenshot of the starmap; (a bit grainy, but you get the idea) the red dots are low security systems, and the other colors are higher security (red-orange-yellow-green-blue, from lowest to highest, I believe).

2) Even if the PvP space is big, how often do PvP opportunities come up?  How populated are the servers?

3) I am, I confess, mainly a soloer.  I love solo pvp in WoW, but am starting to get bored.  How viable is 1 man piracy?  Can you simultaneously outfit a shit with enough firepower to kill someone AND enough jamming capability to keep miners/people losing the fight from just leaving whenever they want? 

Taking these together: I don't have a lot of experience in this area, but here's what I've heard:

Piracy way out in the fringes is risky, because big player run corps claim territory out there.  They're set up to defend against entire fleets of enemy ships, and they don't like pirates whacking their allies, so even a fair sized gang of pirates is going to have a tough time turning a profit. 

From what I've heard, pirating in low-ish security areas (the orange systems on the map) tends to be easier for smaller groups, because the resources out there aren't as good as they are in 0.0, but they're still better than they are in high security.  So, instead of the huge organized PvP corps, the lowsec areas are mostly populated by semi-casual players, which makes them very tempting for pirates.

Pirating solo, I hear, is difficult.  You've got two things to balance: a ship that can get in close and scramble the enemy's warp drive, and a ship that can shoot holes in the enemy's armor.  If you're planning on doing both of those with just one ship, you're going to have to either get a really powerful ship yourself, or only go after enemies who are flying crap ships.  You can still do it, but you really have to pick your fights.  My information is all hearsay, though, so no doubt someone will be along shortly to correct me.

[ajax34i]

1.  There is a concentration of players in Empire and a lot fewer in 0.0, but there are people in 0.0.  The posts you've read about alliances and wars and BOB and ASCN, those are 0.0 wars.  Whoever controls a 0.0 solar system gets to deploy stations and generally enjoy the local resources, so people do go there and fight over the stuff, continuously.

2.  Server (just one) peaks at 30-35k concurrent during Euro prime-time, goes down to about 10k concurrent at 3 AM.  PVP happens all the time, because it's non-consentual in various ways:  those who don't want to be attacked can go hide in empire, but then the enemy can just declare war on your corporation and then they can fight you without police interference.  So no place is really safe.  There's plenty of PVP, I'd guesstimate hundreds of ships destroyed daily, and I'm basing this guess on the fact that the economy, which is completely player-driven, seems to be thriving, (people are buying replacements for whatever they lose).

3.  On paper, it works, you just fit a ship with some warp-jammers so your prey doesn't run away, and off you go.  Yes, you can fit one ship with firepower AND jamming so they don't escape.  In practice, though, nobody flies alone, or if they do they'll call for backup asap, and if they go through the low sec / danger areas, they'll be extra careful.   If you're going to pirate others in lowsec space, your sec. standing will go down, so others will be able to identify you as a pirate as soon as you enter the solar system.  If you don't want to have your sec. standing affected, you'll have to "pirate" in 0.0, which means entering some alliance's space and attacking their people.  They're organized.

[Raging Turtle]

I've done a good amount of solo piracy in lowsec.  It's not hard, but to do it profitably can be difficult.  Most of the targets you find in lowsec are relatively new players, meaning that even if they're flying a nice ship, any loot you recover isn't going to be top end stuff.  The rich targets mostly live in protected highsec space or in 0.0 (0.0 piracy can be VERY profitable, but that's another thread).

A lot of pirate corps declare war on other corps, so they can attack them legally in high security space.  There are pirate corps that will take in new players, but the 'better' ones will want players who have been around a bit and don't have to babysit as much.

Also: Eve-griefer.com.  Browse the boards a bit, you can learn a lot there.

Download the free 14-day trial, ask for a couple million in the F13 channel, and try it out.  I highly recommend that you get a Minmatar character and use a Rifter for a while - they're an excellent starting frigates for pirates, and the new character creation system means you can be pirating almost immediately.  Well, after you do the long-but-necessary tutorial. 

[Triforcer]

Cool! Thanks much, all.  I'll see how it goes, downloading trial version now.

[dwindlehop]

1) The other answers cover this well. No one is perfectly safe no matter where they fly. You can profitably suicide gank in Jita if you really want.

2) I think I've died more to PvP than PvE.

3) Most of my killmails come from flying solo. 

4) Yes, we're actively accepting new members. In a large 20 man fleet fight, your solo PvP setup won't do you much good, but in the small gang warfare that F13 corp engages in, you will be a huge asset. F13 is based in lowsec, but we fly in all levels of security: high and low for missions; low and zero for PvP; zero for ratting.

[hal]

EVE is an interesting place. Heres an attempt at an overview. Space security is ranked from 1.0 to 0.0. Lets deal with them as groups for a bit. 1.0 to 0.5 is empire and is protected at least somewhat. As far as minerals and rat bounties are concerned. 0.0 is where the wealth is but every square inch in owned by somebody. Lowsec 0.1 to 0.4 is richer than empire/not as rich as 0.0 and a pirates heaven. Small groups,  singles... EVE is a big place and local politics abound. You are not safe anywhere at any time but your relatively safe in empire or 0.0 (if you belong there and it is not under contension). If your cruising lowsec dude, watch local chat. if some one appears you gotta do a gestalt on your position, your options. Who they are and what do you know about them.

[Triforcer]

1) The other answers cover this well. No one is perfectly safe no matter where they fly. You can profitably suicide gank in Jita if you really want.

2) I think I've died more to PvP than PvE.

3) Most of my killmails come from flying solo. 

4) Yes, we're actively accepting new members. In a large 20 man fleet fight, your solo PvP setup won't do you much good, but in the small gang warfare that F13 corp engages in, you will be a huge asset. F13 is based in lowsec, but we fly in all levels of security: high and low for missions; low and zero for PvP; zero for ratting.

Cool.  I'm reading up much more now, trying to figure out how not to gimp myself in char creation.  Some boards say to do a detailed analysis of what ship you want first, comparing all sorts of factors, and then selecting skills based on that...sigh.   Consistent advice I am hearing is get to IV Frigate and balance attribs.

[Yoru]

1) The other answers cover this well. No one is perfectly safe no matter where they fly. You can profitably suicide gank in Jita if you really want.

2) I think I've died more to PvP than PvE.

3) Most of my killmails come from flying solo. 

4) Yes, we're actively accepting new members. In a large 20 man fleet fight, your solo PvP setup won't do you much good, but in the small gang warfare that F13 corp engages in, you will be a huge asset. F13 is based in lowsec, but we fly in all levels of security: high and low for missions; low and zero for PvP; zero for ratting.

Cool.  I'm reading up much more now, trying to figure out how not to gimp myself in char creation.  Some boards say to do a detailed analysis of what ship you want first, comparing all sorts of factors, and then selecting skills based on that...sigh.   Consistent advice I am hearing is get to IV Frigate and balance attribs.

Getting Frigate IV and balancing your attributes is a sure win in the mid-to-long term. In the short term, for instant pvp, you probably want to make sure you have a weapon skill (e.g. small X turret) at V. You will need to get the warp scrambling thing (Propulsion Jamming, I think?), some tank skills, and the basic fitting skills (Engineering, Electronics, Mechanic).

Also, consider picking up the 5 basic learning skills (instant recall, iron will, spatial awareness, analytical mind, learning) and taking them up to III; the ~1 day sunk into them will significantly accelerate your other training. Taking them up to I and II should be your immediate priority and should only take ~1 hour total.

[ajax34i]

If your piracy isn't profitable (and it probably won't be in the beginning), how are you going to make cash?  The grind in the game is about cash, rather than XP / levelups, and the death penalty is harsher than WoW's (although balanced with how easy it is to make cash to replace your lost ships, more or less).

[Raging Turtle]

Careful when reading creation guides - a lot of them are totally out of date.

Aim for the soldier or special ops character choices in the creation system if you want to do the pirate thing. 

[Yegolev]

There was that total revamp of the character creation back in November, so there might be some bad info out there for short-term things.  The thing about EVE is that it's the player that levels up, so really your best bet is to get out there, fuck up and die a lot, THEN you'll know what you want to do.  The bothersome bit is that you'll have to find a way to pay for your new ships, but it's like the kids say: total item loss builds character.

[Triforcer]

There was that total revamp of the character creation back in November, so there might be some bad info out there for short-term things.  The thing about EVE is that it's the player that levels up, so really your best bet is to get out there, fuck up and die a lot, THEN you'll know what you want to do.  The bothersome bit is that you'll have to find a way to pay for your new ships, but it's like the kids say: total item loss builds character.

Yeah, learning the hard way is the only way it really sinks in.  @ Ajax: what do you recommend for moneymaking on the side?  Will it take another char, or is there something I can do first on a pirate char to make a bit of a nest egg first?

[ajax34i]

I don't know what to recommend; I'm not good at making money.  I mentioned it because I got the impression from your first post that you wanted to jump in, guns blazing, expecting an FPS type of experience, and I wanted to mention the death penalty somewhere in there.

Mining makes steady, extremely predictable and calculable cash, probably sufficient to support you losing several T1 frigates with T1 gear.  Trading makes a lot more, sometimes tons of cash in quick sessions, but you need a large amount of cash to get anything out of it.  Agent (combat) missions are kinda like mining, except it's PVE instead of sitting next to a roid, and the randomness of the occasional good loot.  Pirating, you're probably looking to hit fat targets, in the "one hit and I can retire" style, but the chance of finding the targets can be small, and your losses mount in the meanwhile.  Ore theft can bring some cash but probably not that much.  Manufacturing, you'll probably not be able to get into.

For me, the easiest was to mine in the beginning, but it was boring as hell too.  I don't know.

[Yoru]

Mining or PVE are the stock ways of making money early on. Depending on how active you want to be, you could always grab the Racial Industrial skill, put a cheap mining laser on it and orbit a crappy asteroid in 0.9 space, then go watch a movie. Come back ~500k richer.

Slightly more active would be grabbing a mining frigate and doing the newb mining experience: warp to belt, mine until hold is full, warp back, sell ore, repeat.

PVE, you can either run missions or kill NPCs by warping around to random asteroid belts. The latter is more profitable in the short term, while the former will improve slowly but steadily as you ramp up the level of missions you do.

Trading, as mentioned, is highly profitable if you can stomach the time to do market research (knowing the items helps to think up potential commodities, but anyone can do it by staring at the market for hours), but you'll need startup capital, at least to the tune of 5 million or so.

If your ultimate goal is to do pirating/solo PVP, you may want to try hitting up some of the "PVP School" corporations. They take newbies fresh off the tutorial, give 'em some basic equipment and teach them the ropes.

[dwindlehop]

I say the best way to earn startup capital is to take your frigate or cruiser, gang up, and head into 0.0 for ratting. Obviously this only works for either large groups or a gang with at least one skilled character. Send me a gang invite when I'm online and I'll take you out sometime.

I made the isk for the first cruiser, battlecruiser, and battleship I ever owned by the generosity of folks in the F13 corp, giving me donations and loans.

[Evangolis]

Another option, probably not for you, but I'll mention it for lurkers, is high sec trading.  Pretty much risk free, you can do it while 90% AFK, if need be.  The deals aren't anywhere near what you can get in low sec or 0.0, but if you aren't in a hurry, you can buy bargains and save up for a run.  I log in somewhere between twice a day and once every two weeks, and I check the markets in 3-4 regions, buy up any bargains, pick up a few assets, fill any really profitable buys.  Best one I've ever had was today, bought 800 rocket fuel at 5 isk per, sold it six jumps and one region away for 627 isk per.  And that deal was gravy for the actual run I was making when I spotted the rocket fuel.

Another example from today is a deal I saw on Exotic Dancers.  I bought 50 for ~55 isk a week or so back, and I see a buy out in the boonies today for 40 of them at 10K isk.  If I was still trading out of a frigate, I'd jump that, but with my industrial, I can make more per time spent on shorter runs, and I know a couple places on my standard routes that will pay 5K anyhow.

I've also made some good money off the bonus goods I get from missions and agent offers, just by hanging on to them and watching the markets as I travel.  There is always someplace buying a few dozen or a few hundred of something at a premium.  You can make enough to outfit a basic PvP frigate in one or two game sessions with pretty much zero risk.

[Slayerik]

The thing about 'getting a group and hitting 0.0 for ratting' is most/all 0.0 corps are going to pop you. Many 0.0 entrances are bubbled (warp scrambled).

Low sec is the way to go for pirating, unless you have a crew of friends good at doing hit and runs in enemy/neutral space. We regularly take a gank crew around 0.0 and kill unsuspecting ratters.

The battleship Raven will be your most common target, as it is generally accepted as the best ratter. Know the NPC damage types of the area you are pirating. If its Guristas, they will have Mad kinetic resist and maybe a bit of thermal...so load up for EM/Explosive.

I was in low sec, and found a Buzzard (Tech 2 Covert Ops cloaker) AFK using my scanner (LEARN HOW TO USE THIS TOOL NOW). He had a 25 million isk bounty on his head. I destroyed the ship and what do you know? A Tech 2 Covert Ops cloaking device (70 million isk). After that, I went out and bought me a nice new Megathron :) It will be tough for you, start raising a lot of basic PVP skills to level 2 or 3. Its a fast way to become semi dangerous ...

The other tool to learn is using your map. You can have it show you a TON of info, like how many jumps in the last hour, pilots in that space, KILLS in last hour (helps avoid gate camps when entering 0.0), medical services. You can also set your autopilot to Prefer Less Secure. It will give you all jumps between 0.1 and 0.4 , right where you wanna be killing. I recommend ratting for Isk though, you will also gain Security status so that you can lose it when killing in low sec.

[Vedi]

Trading, as mentioned, is highly profitable if you can stomach the time to do market research (knowing the items helps to think up potential commodities, but anyone can do it by staring at the market for hours), but you'll need startup capital, at least to the tune of 5 million or so.

This is not entirely true. I started off as a trader on day two in my game, after training industrial I and buying a Badger for 300k or so using the funds from the implant you get at the end of the first storyline missions. The rest of the funds from that (about 500k for me at the time) was more than enough to earn millions the first days. When you are low on capital and have decent cargo space, the items under Trade Goods (check out Industrial and Consumer goods) give good margins (at least 20-30%) for low capital stuff, so you can double your money every 2-5 trips for a while. This is fairly predictable, because the buyers and sellers are NPC corps, so the demand is fairly constant.

[Strazos]

With all this Trading...stuff...do you generally need to cross regions to get the good returns, or can you usually find good deals within the same region?

Also, you trading guys...do you generally just stick with the trade goods stuff? If you go with other types of items, how do you go about it?

[dwindlehop]

I make money on the bid/offer spread on T2 items. I haven't made a billion isk, though, so what do I know.

The thing about 'getting a group and hitting 0.0 for ratting' is most/all 0.0 corps are going to pop you. Many 0.0 entrances are bubbled (warp scrambled).

Low sec is the way to go for pirating, unless you have a crew of friends good at doing hit and runs in enemy/neutral space. We regularly take a gank crew around 0.0 and kill unsuspecting ratters.

I've been popping into 0.0 regularly for the past month or two. The only times I died where when I took the original F13 frigate gang past the bubble camp but didn't make it myself. It's not that hazardous if you know how to fly defensively. Mostly, you don't head into a known gate camp and you don't fly in systems with locals.

[Raging Turtle]

With all this Trading...stuff...do you generally need to cross regions to get the good returns, or can you usually find good deals within the same region?

Also, you trading guys...do you generally just stick with the trade goods stuff? If you go with other types of items, how do you go about it?

Cross regional trading = win.  Trading within the same region *usually* has relatively low profit margins. 

Trade goods are great for new traders; it's a pretty stable market.  Eventually you'll outgrow that and move onto bigger and better things, such as high-end mineral trading or t2 ships and items.

[Yoru]

In general, it's better to buy at mission runner systems, near 0.0 entrances and outside of regions with market hubs. I've been eking out some cash buying rig components down near the F13 base and assembling them for sale in Jita.

Inside regions with market hubs, your buy orders will get buried by the hub orders and it's far more tempting for people to fly up to the hub when they realize it's 2-3x more money for them. Selling, however, is better done at market hubs, as they tend to have either average or higher-than-average prices for items. The exception here is rare nameds or tech2 items, which are almost always cheapest in hubs.

[Kail]

(Apologies for the derail, fist off)  Trading sounds interesting to me, but I've never been able to get it to work.  All the posts I've seen on this site about it seem to be of the "I bought ten widgets for ten dollars, and sold them for six million," which makes me drool, but I have no idea how I'd ever be able to find something like that on my own.  Do you just open the market and go down the list, write down the prices for all ten squillion items, log on to a character in another region, and go through item by item to find imbalances, or what?  Can someone explain, in really tiny words such as a completely incapable moron might understand, the process of how you'd go about finding something in one area that's selling for way more than it's being sold for in another?

[Morat20]

(Apologies for the derail, fist off)  Trading sounds interesting to me, but I've never been able to get it to work.  All the posts I've seen on this site about it seem to be of the "I bought ten widgets for ten dollars, and sold them for six million," which makes me drool, but I have no idea how I'd ever be able to find something like that on my own.  Do you just open the market and go down the list, write down the prices for all ten squillion items, log on to a character in another region, and go through item by item to find imbalances, or what?  Can someone explain, in really tiny words such as a completely incapable moron might understand, the process of how you'd go about finding something in one area that's selling for way more than it's being sold for in another?

What I'm doing, which is really low-end easy stuff, is checking the difference between the buy and sell orders for something. If people are selling Widget X for 300,000 ISK, but there's only one person buying (and hopefully with a tiny range -- like station only) for 1,000k, I might put up an offer for 200 units for 10,000k with a 5 system wide radius. (About all I'm willing to handle).

Some people will loot it and sell it to me at 10,000 rather than go through the hassle of setting up a sell order, or just because they see someone is buying it. I wait until I've got a decent stack, then gather them together and either put together a sell order (hoping mostly that someone from Jita will buy it and resell it there) or haul it to Jita myself. Even if I get just 20 of them before someone tops my price, I make a really tidy profit for something I'm not even having to pay attention to.

Right now, I've got open about 10 buy orders for various things -- offers from 500 isk to 15,000 isk. Most sells for around 50k ISK, and I try to specialize where there's not buy orders -- if nothing else I can refine it and sell the minerals for a profit (I have good refining skills). However, I do have about 300 units of crappy AB's that I thought would be in more demand for lowbie frigs....no takers.

[ajax34i]

No, you have to narrow down the number of items that you'll be tracking the prices of.  What's profitable for you usually depends on:  the size of your hauler, how much cash you have, the trading volume (millions of minerals get traded daily, whereas you might only see one titan sale per day, heh), and the price differences that you can find between the various regions.

If you have a small hauler or you have very little cash, the best is probably trade goods, simply because the big traders won't bother with them.  Trade Goods are sold and bought by the NPC's, which means that their prices increase daily, until someone bothers to buy/sell, and then prices reset to no profit.  Then they start to increase daily, again.  Each region specializes in different things, and for example in Caldari Space, robotics and antibiotics are being watched by the big traders, because they require a lot of capital and big industrials to do, but you could probably find decent deals for a starter character with hydrogen batteries, HCl, maybe consumer electronics, polytextiles, carbon...  What you're looking for is something that has a lot of unfulfilled buy and sell orders, with a big price difference, and 2-3 hops between the sell and the buy locations.

Once you have more cash, but still an average hauler, you can probably start doing mineral reselling.  Trit takes a lot of space and not much profit, pyerite is usually sold and bought by the millions and you might make nice profit on it, and mex, noc, and higher, you can probably haul with a small industrial or even a fast frigate with a larger hold and still make decent cash.  The higher the mineral level is, the more cash you will need to invest, and the smaller the size of hauler you'll need.

Then once you have hundreds of millions to invest, and maybe a good hauler (talking about industrial level5 with named cargo expanders, capacity 20k or higher), then you're either going to specialize in bulky expensive items (like, move battleships around, buy in one place, sell in another), or bulk trading of T2 ammo or T2 modules, buy them at the hub where they're made, sell them out in the fringes.  These things don't get sold instantly, so at this point you're starting to rely on orders a lot, and you'll probably need the Trade skills to keep 40-50 things on the market at once (that would be Trade at 2, Retail at 3, easy to get, really).

The biggest thing that you need to develop is a feel for what moves and what doesn't. 

Once you get that and get into a few trade routes, then you'll get outsold or outbought by the other traders that are already on the route, so then you get a feeling for how many competitors you have, and how low you can go to under/outbid them.  Plus, heh, maybe deal with threats or war declarations.

[Morat20]

I'm happier with relieving people of looted modules and saving them the hassles of sell orders. Especially when I can buy them well under the Jita price. All I have to do is send a hauler around to collect them all.

Then again, I'm not trying to make billions right now -- I'm just fiddling with the system, getting a feel for what sells and doesn't in terms of actual modules. And it takes money to play -- I saw a golden oppurtunity for profit a few days ago, but it required about 5 times as much money on hand as I had.

So I let it pass. Which reminds me, I have to check my bids again and see if that idiot is still trying to drive up the buy prices for those laser modules.

[Polysorbate80]

I have several buy orders out for items that drop reasonably frequently in my region but nobody actually ever uses; the profit margin after refining (96.2% efficiency currently) has worked out to be about 500%, bringing in 1-2 million ISK per day on the side.  It's not a lot, and it requires a lot of periodic flying around, but I save it for the times my mission agent gives back-to-back missions that I want to refuse (Guristas Extravaganza in lo-sec?  no thank you, caldari navy....)  That way enough modules have accumulated that it's worth it to not be missioning for that time period.

My philosophy is not to buy *too* cheap on an item.  For me, hitting "sell" and seeing someone try to buy it for peanuts is a sure sign that I'm getting screwed on the deal and I need to look at the item in question more closely.  Currently, my best buy order is for 1000units/90 days at 5,000isk each, with the refined value of minerals around the 25,000ISK range.

[Evangolis]

For me, I just usually mess with NPC trades in pure Hi-Sec.  Using a mining frigate with basic cargo expanders, that earned me enough for a Industrial, which I use to collect bargain stuff I buy remotely.

To get a feel for low prices and what to watch, use the map, or trial and error to spot several star systems close in space, but in different regions.  Bookmark them, and fly that little route, checking the entire market in each region.  You will spot the high and low prices pretty quickly, and settle on some items that had commonly good margins.  Then buy fanatically low, and consolidate your buys until you spot a real high.  Then sell.  It isn't a billion dollar business, but you can do it with very little time investment on a secondary char in a cheap ship.

Once you start doing that, you will spot the occasional amazing deal in the course of regular business.

[Raging Turtle]

USE THE QUICKBAR MENU ON THE MARKET.

I've been playing for a year and I slapped my forehead last week when I figured out exactly what it was.  Real time saver and it remembers your favorite trade items for you.  Right click on any item in the market to add it to the quickbar.

[Triforcer]

I'll have to try out the trading stuff.  Right now I am missioning but finding it frustrating because the difficulty is really schizophrenic.  My first non-tutorial mission obliterated my newbie ship, and was very difficult to beat in a Slasher (Pirate Blockade of some such).  The next three missions I got were laughably easy in the Slasher.  Then I got another mission that one-hit killed me.  At that point I had enough money for a Rifter, and it would have been about a five-hit kill if I hadn't warped out with 10% of my structure left (hitting some convoy).  I wish there was more of a mission progression difficulty, and I HATE the fact you can't back out of a mission- I wish you could see the reward beforehand as apparently that is the way to tell how difficult it is.

Otherwise, loving it.  I probably don't have the right weapons on my rifter, or hte right skills, probably just going to mine or shoot the newbie pirates in the starting deadspace complex for awhile to slowly but steadily make money.  Trade looks interesting but I don't have the nest egg or feel for it to do it yet.

[Raging Turtle]

You can back out of a mission, but if you do it more than once a day or something you get a faction hit.

[Evangolis]

Get on the F13 channel and ask somebody for cash.  No reason to grind this game, unless you like to.

[Endie]

...I wish there was more of a mission progression difficulty, and I HATE the fact you can't back out of a mission- I wish you could see the reward beforehand as apparently that is the way to tell how difficult it is...

You can find out mission difficulty in a couple of ways.  One is to choose option 3 when offered a mission - the "can you give me more info" option - and check the money and loyalty points offering, but that is not a sure-fire guide, since they vary with agent quality (including effective quality thanks to your skills and standings), whether the mission requires a jump to get there, and what the security status of the system is (lowsec missions pay really well, I've found).

The rewards are also really unbalanced: you get less at level 4 for Pirate Slaughter (a real killer which also involves 170km of tedious flying between gates every time you warp out (and you will, since my 87% resists raven with cap and shield rigs lasted about 45 seconds even with a 640-per-3-seconds booster before having to warp out the first time on gate 3)) than you do for stage 3 of Enemy Within, which is a dawdle, never having to tank more than 4 BS and 4 frigs at a time.

The places to check up on what you'll meet in a mission are battleclinic and eve missions.  Google or use dwindle's links in the sticky.

Re backing out from missions, is there not a big faction hit if you accept a mission then say you can't finish it?  I've never done that yet, but I thought there was a standing hit *and* a delay in the next storyline mission?  Not sure though.

[Slayerik]

I'll have to try out the trading stuff.  Right now I am missioning but finding it frustrating because the difficulty is really schizophrenic.  My first non-tutorial mission obliterated my newbie ship, and was very difficult to beat in a Slasher (Pirate Blockade of some such).  The next three missions I got were laughably easy in the Slasher.  Then I got another mission that one-hit killed me.  At that point I had enough money for a Rifter, and it would have been about a five-hit kill if I hadn't warped out with 10% of my structure left (hitting some convoy).  I wish there was more of a mission progression difficulty, and I HATE the fact you can't back out of a mission- I wish you could see the reward beforehand as apparently that is the way to tell how difficult it is.

Otherwise, loving it.  I probably don't have the right weapons on my rifter, or hte right skills, probably just going to mine or shoot the newbie pirates in the starting deadspace complex for awhile to slowly but steadily make money.  Trade looks interesting but I don't have the nest egg or feel for it to do it yet.

The only tough lvl 1 mission you are probably referring to has 2 different gates you can go through, its called "When Worlds Collide" I believe. You chose...poorly :) Remember, if shit gets bad...warp the hell out! And know your optimal. In a sniper when you warp in, run the hell away from them with AB on. Take down small targets first then work your way up. etc etc