The List of Ways to Make ISK in EVE Online

There are so many ways to make ISK, and there are also many scams claiming to hold the secret of making ISK. Usually these scams are the way of making lots of ISK, and players pay to figure this out. In this article today I will talk about the various ways to make ISK, and how to make those billions that you see or hear about. It really isn't a big secret, but it is something to point out to all players before they go mad trying to find the "holy grail" of ISK making.

When I first started playing EVE I was extremely happy to have an intricate market to make money off of. As this was something I enjoyed doing, and thought of as my forte, I wanted more. This vast game gave so many choices to become a multi-billion ISK tycoon in New Eden, that I found myself make more and more characters to cover all of the specializations to find the best way to make ISK while having fun. It wasn't until after dipping into every bit of EVE that I realized that just about everything had a potential to make lots of ISK, and was simply a matter of making the most out of everything to make a decent amount of ISK. Now it's time to discuss each of these methods, and how much ISK to expect to make.


Agent Missions

Agent missions are one of those things that are great for making ISK, but sometimes overlooked due to poor use. The reason I say this is that a lot of people disregard ways to make them more profitable. To make get the most out of your missions, spend a little time finding a suitable agent that gives the most profitable missions. All agents have a "pool" of missions they offer, and when your standing with that agent goes up, the good missions are offered more, and more. Such missions include Angel Extravaganza, and Worlds Collide. Angels is great mainly because of the extra room at the end of the mission, but requires a specific angel dog tag depending on the level of the mission (You can pick up a key from the market, and it does not disappear after use).

In the extra room you have chances of faction loot, and can destroy the structure inside for a chance for more as well. If you have someone salvage these missions as well, you can get up to 25 million isk worth of salvage loot from these missions. Of course make it a habit to destroy as many structures as possible in any missions. Even in level 2 missions you will see hardwire implants worth 20 million each, and science skill books that sell for 10m each. Basically destroy whatever structure that you think things would be stored in, like cargo rigs, ships, bunkers, etc. Eventually you'll learn what is worth destroying. With salvaging you can average 100 million ISK an hour. Always make sure to check out EVE Survival's Missions Reports for the best way to deal with the mission at hand.

Last remember to buy things from the LP store that give the best ISK outcome. Most of the time these are the blueprints, and implants. Sometimes you may want to run missions for a specific corporation for that reason alone. One great one is Sisters of EVE, and buying the Sister Probe Launchers from the LP store.

You can find out more in the Missions 101 article.

Exploration

This is one of my favorite ways to make ISK. While many people think it's unprofitable it all depends on how you do it. Basically you want to acquire expeditions a.k.a. "escalations". You can receive an expedition from an anomaly or DED site. Destroying a certain structure or NPC will trigger this effect, and you will see a dialog box pop up telling you if there is a sign of another site, or if the trail has gone "cold". You can find these expeditions in your journal in the "expeditions" tab.

What makes these so great is that you can get some great deadspace items from these sites. Just in the past week while doing a DED level 4 that was an expedition off a high sec anomaly, I had a Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field drop. These sell for a little less than 600 million ISK in Jita, and over 600m in other hubs. Not bad for 30 minutes worth of playing. Of course it's not always that profitable, but deadspace and faction will almost always drop in the DED sites; a lot of the time 2 and 3 at a time.

Sometimes it may be a bit monotonous to go from system to system trying to find open anomalies, but you can always scan DED sites down in systems as well. At the same time knowing miners that might be willing to pay for gravimetric sites you run across adds to the profit. The best way to do this is with a Deep Space Probe, using the DSP Method. With the DSP method you can use one probe to find out what each signature is without having to completely scan it down. When you find a suitable signature scan it completely, and remember to use the "Alt" key to move your probes closer together to save you quite a bit of time when scanning (If you don't know about the alt key use, try it out when moving probes. You'll thank me later).

Mining

This is one of the most popular ways to make ISK, but one of the slowest ways. Personally I use a character to "AFK mine" in high sec while I do something else on one of my other characters. Even with a Mackinaw in high-sec using crystals your average is around 12 million an hour with refining skills at 5, while selling the minerals yourself. Of course finding a mining fleet with Orca boosts can increase this substantially.

As for low or null-sec mining, you need to pay attention to the possible risk of enemies appearing in the system, and that requires a lot more attention. To add, while the null-sec ores generate more of an income, there can be a lot more risk involved. There may even be times when you have a cloaking neutral hanging around your mining system for days, making it a bad idea to be undocked. If you do have a fairly secure area in null-sec, this can be a great source of income for miners as the minerals from the ores are usually in high demand.

You can mine in null making around 20 million ISK without a fleet, or mine in high making 12 million while doing something else on another character making even more. It's all about how you want to do it. If you want to make your own fleet of miners, calculate how much you make per hour, and if it's feasible to use income to Plex those accounts.

Market Trading

By far the most profitable way to make ISK. It does take a lot of research, and time to start, but with this method you can literally rake in the ISK. Basically you want to buy low, and sell high with everything you can. The more you put into it, the more you make. The best way to accomplish this is to use the Margin Trading skill to put in buy orders for more than you have, and constantly sell stuff as it comes in. This is explained in detail in other Making ISK articles. ISK per hour all depends on where you trade, and how much you watch. In low traffic trade hubs you can easily average 2 billion ISK a week with minimal effort. In Jita you can expect much more, with a lot more effort.

Manufacturing & Invention

This is like the market in the sense that the sky is the limit to how much you make. To make the most out of it, you want to have your own POS to research and invent blueprints, while manufacturing there as well. The secret to making the most out of it, is making great use out of invention by using decryptors to get the most profitable result out of your T2 blueprints. By doing so you can make sure that you get the most ISK per unit when manufacturing. The best way to figure this out is to use an invention and manufacturing tool like EVE-Cost, and my favorite which is an Android App the EVE Industrial Tool. Also be sure to use the BPO Calc to help get the best ME/PE out of your blueprints.

Once you have a steady amount of products being produced, you can sell your stacks of items in the Bulk Trade mailing list. Selling your items slightly cheaper than Jita prices will guarantee your items to sell to another player fairly quick leaving you more time to manufacture, and less time worrying about selling the items while paying the fees included in doing so. The ISK average is like the market; it depends on how much you spend. Getting into good marginal products could easily make you 25% more than what you spent to produce.

Scamming

Probably one way to make great ISK, but also a great way to lose friends. There are many ways to scam various players to make your billions, including advertising in local and in your "Bio" that you have the best way to make ISK, and that it will cost the player 50 million or more to find out how it works. Of course there are many other scams, and many players have come up with extremely clever ways to scam people out of their ISK. Props to Spaceship Barbie and his scam saying that he wanted a partner to "help him collect his 5 billion ISK bounty", but that he needed a 800 million ISK deposit to make sure that they were legit. To become a great scammer, remember that every scam is fueled by greed.

Factional Warfare

This one is fairly straight forward as it is pure Loyalty Point farming. You rather do sites in contested areas, or do the agent missions which are extremely easy, but give a lot of LP for completion. The LP can be traded for almost anything profitable, but the faction ship blueprints give a great ratio as they consist of about 1 million worth of minerals to make a 20 million ISK ship. You could average around 100 million ISK an hour with a good path to mission destinations when doing level 4 FW missions.

Incursions

Incursions are by far one of the best ways to make ISK. Dubbed the name "The ISK Faucet" Incursions provide players with a large amount of money for a low effort task. The main types of incursions done are Vanguard Incursions (15m per site), and Headquarters Incursions (45m per site). Both types are plentiful in sites, and can be done very quickly with the right fleet. Overall you can easily make 150 million an hour doing this. The only requirement is that you have a good ship to do them with. Some fleets will allow tech 1 ships, but most will require you to use a faction ship, or Tech 2 (Logistics).

The best fleet to run with is "Incursion Shiny Fleet". You can join their channel "ISN Secondary" to get a fleet invite, but remember you will be asked to change your fit to their exact fit. No other fits are accepted as these are "safe fits" to allow the fleet to go through the sites as quickly as possible without casualties. They run Vanguard and HQ fleets all day everyday, so this is the fleet you want to run with if you really want to make money from incursions. You can find more information about incursions in the article Preparing for Incursions.

Wormhole Space

Wormholes are a great source of income, but require a great deal of effort. The best way to make money from these with the smallest amount of effort, is to have at least a 10 person corporation of constantly active players. Setup a POS in a Class 4 wormhole with at least a class 4 static wormhole. With this you always have a new C4 each day to run sites, as it takes a week for sites to recreate after being completed. If you have at least 8 people on at one time to run sites, you can easily make 1 billion ISK per pilot clearing all the sites out of one wormhole. To make even more, you could have another 5 active members focusing purely on Planetary Interaction, and mining the ore and gas in your home wormhole. Easily add another 2 to 3 billion to your total.

COSMOS Missions

This is one great way for High Sec players to gain a large amount of money with the smallest amount of effort. The reason I say that is because it doesn't take much to go through most of the missions, and can be done over time. Up to the level 4 COSMOS missions, a player can easily use a heavy assault cruiser to fly through them. The only unfortunate issue is that they can only be done once. Each empire faction has a COSMOS mission line, and each one gives items and blueprints that can only be obtained by the missions themselves. Since that is the only way to acquire them the prices for these items are quite high.

Another benefit is the standing increase that comes from these missions. It's highly recommended to have the Social skill to level 5 before accepting a single COSMOS mission. Between these missions, and Data Center tag missions, a player can get their empire faction standing to 8 or higher to receive the faction's blueprints giving a substantial amount of ISK.

Another addition to the income from these is the ability to anchor Player Owned Stations in High Security space after gaining 5 standing for the empire faction you wish to anchor in. Many players will pay for such a service just so they do not have to gain the standing themselves. You can find many COSMOS guides all over the internet including Evelopedia, but always remember to stay away from the Amarr COSMOS until you have at least 4 in your faction standing, otherwise you will hit a dead end very quick. This can be easily remedied by doing the Caldari COSMOS first as you receive Caldari and Amarr standing from the missions.


Character Trading 

Lastly this is one of the best ways to get billions quickly and easily. There are two ways to do this. One is to buy and resell characters from the Character Bazzar on the EVE Online forums, or create a new character through a "Power of 2" promotion, and sell it six months later. The first requires billions to start, but the second requires $50. That may seem a bit much, but to put in perspective you can spend $35 for 2 plex that roughly sells for 1.2 billion ISK at the time of this writing. Spending the $50 and 6 months of training can make you roughly 7 billion ISK profit depending on what you train for. Generally a T3 pilot, minmatar sub-capital pilot with core skills, or some sort of booster pilot are things that are high in demand.

Back to the note of buying and reselling characters, the best way to make that profitable is to take a character that is partially unfocused, and make it a focused pilot of some sort. The things you want to take into account is the PLEX cost to keep the account up for the training time, and the 2 PLEX required for the character transfer since sellers are expected to pay that. Overall you can make a large amount of ISK with this method, but requires a lot of ISK to start, and of course a long period of time before it shows profits.

Carrier Ratting

If you have the skills, a carrier, and a fairly peaceful piece of null-sec, carrier ratting is a great source of income. Treated like mining you can use a carrier to run through anomalies with little effort. Doing this over a long period of time you can make a large amount of ISK. The only thing to remember is to watch local,
and align your carrier for a quick extraction. Not counting the faction/officer drops, you can make close to 100 million an hour.

In Conclusion 

I hope that many benefit from this, and maybe now more people will see the various potentials to make ISK, instead of spending their hard earned ISK and money paying people to tell them something that isn't as helpful. If there is anything that I missed, or you would like to hear more about, comment on this post, and I'll think about giving whatever area a separate post going into more detail. Enjoy, and fly safe. o/

Also check out More Ways to Make ISK.