I’m still new to the universe myself so while there may be better qualified people to give you an answer a lot of them are veterans that have invested a considerable amount of time.  As such this is an answer from a noob to the noobs.

Without a shadow of a doubt the absolute best way to make ISK in EVE is mission running.

Why Missions Are the Best Method for Making ISK

• Incredibly low barrier for entry. You are fully prepared after doing the combat tutorial “Cashflow For Capsuleers”
• Bounties (unless you have to destroy broken drones)
• Salvage
• (Regional) Mission loot (hint: don’t just sell it, trade it)
• Mission reward; ISK and/or item

Most of those are self-explanatory but lets take a moment to look at salvaging.

When things (read: ships) get destroyed in New Eden they leave behind a wreck. You probably already know that some of these wrecks can be looted just by getting within 2500m and opening their cargo hold but the wrecks themselves are also a potential source of  items and consequently ISK.

Setting Up a Noob Salvager

Fortunately getting a salvaging ship is relatively cheap these days. Once you have around 1.2 to 2 million ISK (easily achievable with mission running) you should purchase and fit the following:

• Destroyer – You will need to train Destroyers I
• 2x Salvager I (the Civilian Salvager will *not* work) – Requires Salvaging I which you can get as a mission item from one of the tutorial agents
• 1 or 2x Small Tractor Beam I (these are the most expensive items for this setup but are well worth the investment) – Requires Science IV so not immediately available to the noob.

That I would say is the bare minimum setup, from there you have two choices.

1. Fit some guns and a tank – the destroyer can handle itself in Level I missions
2. Fill every high slot with salvagers and tractor beams and aim for a pure salvager.

As a noob I suggest number 1, it’s cheaper and quicker. Give consideration to number 2 when you start finding your missions difficult to take on in your destroyer.

As for the actual process of Salvaging read the excellent Salvaging Guide on EVElopedia

What About Mining

By all accounts it looks like mining is a spectacular ISK generator but there are a couple of points to note.

Firstly, since Apocrypha the entry point for mining is significantly higher. It’s no longer possible to create a miner from scratch with a butt load of skillpoints and mining related skills. As a result making ISK from mining is incredibly laborious at the lower levels.

Secondly and most importantly you can’t mine the asteroids at public belts without being the victim of can-flipping – whereby another player will steal your ore and put it in their own jettisoned canister in an attempt to goad you to steal it back and giving them free reign to blow you to itty bitty tiny pieces.

So where do you mine? That’s right, missions.

Which brings about another point. If for whatever reason you are not in a mining corp. then at some point you will need to train refining skills to decrease the waste generated when turning your ore into minerals. However, the corp. that owns the station you are refining at will take a cut of those minerals as a charge for using their services. Unless you have a good standing with that corp. (I believe its 8.0 standing for free refinery use). And the best way to increase standing with a corp?

You guessed it. (Combat) missions.

If you absolutely must make the most ISK possible out of every mission then start training the relevant skills otherwise give it a miss. At the lower levels you’ll be spending too much time mining and hauling ore, time which can be better spent doing more missions.

I hope this little guide has been of use to you. Don’t underestimate the value of salvaging, there’s quite a bit of extra profit to be made from running all those missions.

Any questions or comments?

In theory it sounds great, learn all of these skills before hand and then move onto more specific training be it trading, mining or how to shoot things that move.

The learning skills and suggested order for training are:

• Instant Recall I
• Analytical Mind I
• Learning I
• Instant Recall II
• Analytical Mind II
• Learning II
• Instant Recall III
• Analytical Mind III
• Learning III
• Instant Recall IV
• Analytical Mind IV
• Learning IV
• Cybernetics I
• Logic I
• Eidetic Memory I
• Logic II
• Eidetic Memory II
• Logic III
• Eidetic Memory III
• Cybernetics II
• Iron Will I
• Spatial Awareness I
• Empathy I
• Iron Will II
• Spatial Awareness II
• Empathy II
• Iron Will III
• Spatial Awareness III
• Empathy III
• Iron Will IV
• Spatial Awareness IV
• Empathy IV
• Focus I
• Clarity I
• Presence I
• Focus II
• Clarity II
• Presence II
• Focus III
• Clarity III
• Presence III

In practice however things aren’t as straight forward. As with every other kind of learning these will take time. Almost a month in fact. As a result there are 3 schools of thought on how to best approach the matter:

1. Don’t bother until you need them; i.e. when you want to reach the higher tiers of the skills you want to train (levels 4 and 5).
2. The polar opposite of number 1; train the lot as outlined above and set yourself up for long term development.
3. Space out the training. Train the basic skills as quickly as you can get a hold of them but don’t touch the advanced skills until later.

Number one is very tempting as none of these skills directly apply to trading nor do they affect my ability to make ISK. They do however decrease the time it will take to learn the skills that are related to trading and I know I’m in in this for the long run suggesting that number 2 would be a better choice.

Having said that I am likely to pause after Cybernetics I for the prime reason that this path is incredibly long and just as tedious. Another reason is that the training manuals for those advanced skills (Eidetic Memory, Logic etc) cost 4.5mil ISK each. So I’m going to need to train some of the trade skills to maximise my profit potential, not to mention the need to train ship related skills such as industrials, hull upgrades and so forth.

So this is my plan. Get to Cybernetics I and then start trading. As I get the ISK buy Eidetic Memory and Logic and train them to level 3 as soon as possible. The rest can probably wait a while.

What do you think? Good idea or bad? What would or did you do differently?

Yeah right. Pompous, asinine bastards would be a more fitting title.

Still, all three of them are throwing ships, various pieces of equipment and skill books at me left, right and centre. So I’m currently hoarding the lot along with any ISK they reward me with. I figure it will form the basis of my trading fund, after all you gotta spend money to make money.