Whereas I’m flitting from randomly-generated mission to randomly-generated mission, he comes in and starts Trading.

Trading

Like missions, this is a fairly straightforward process:

1. Open the Market window and set the search area for the entire Region (a cluster of star systems).
   
2. Go through every item in the list noting which items are being both sold in one place and bought in another. Of course look for items that are being sold for cheaper than they are being bought.
   
3. Go to where the item is being sold (Station A), and buy a quantity of it.
   
4. Haul it over to where it is being bought (Station B), and sell it.
   
5. Rinse and repeat.

As usual, the actual actions required are just a bit more complex.

Considerations

There’s many things to consider when getting into newbie Trading. That’s personally where I’m at. This gets much more complex as you expand your ability to Trade, particularly when you start dealing with other players rather than just the NPCs.

Capacity

The first thing to consider is hauling capacity. Sure you may occasionally come across a single item that takes up almost no cargo space but will yield some insane profit. But for the most part, when dealing with NPC-spawned Trade missions, capacity is king. Luckily, it does not take long to train up your skills to be able to drive one of your race’s Industrial ships.

In addition to Industrial ships default capacity, you’ll want to consider expanding it. There are a number of different items that can do this, and even a newbie can increase their capacity by as much as 54% if they buy three Expanded Cargo Hold Is (each one taking up one Low Power Slot and adding 18% capacity). If you, like me, went from a regular Frigate with it’s capacity of 150-300m3 volume, you’ll first think an Industrial ship with 5,000m3 volume capacity is huge. But when you realize the big money is in hauling very large quantities of goods, you’ll quickly outgrow that 5,000, and start wondering how to get into the truly huge ships as quick as possible. But capacity is just one of many considerations.

Capital

The next thing, though no less important than Capacity, is how much money you can afford to spend. You have to buy the cargo in order to haul and sell it, so both Capacity and Capital are your primary limiters.

Distance and Security

If you’re exploring Trading in Eve, chances are you’re already familiar with System Security Levels and how the whole warpgate and autopilot thing works. But there’s other factors in Trading when it comes to travel:

1. You could see a huge Profit potential in hauling 5,000 units of Livestock from Station A to Station B, but what if that took 32 jumps to do? Industrial ships are pretty slow in sub-warp speeds, so 32 jumps could take upwards of an hour. Time is money.
   
2. You want to know the Security Level of both the origin and destination as well as every system in between. You wouldn’t want to blow your entire bank account on buying stuff only to lose it to some pirates in low security space. At the same time though, some of the most lucrative trade available is in the least-secure areas, which is expected.
   
3. Consider One-way profit versus Roundtrip (or system loop) potential profit. If that 32 jump trip would net you 700,000isk, perhaps a Roundtrip through two systems could net you the same amount by trading one commodity on an outbound trip and trading another commodity on the return one. System loops are more complex Roundtrips but can also be fairly lucrative.

Market Fluctuations

The NPC market for Trade goods is dynamic. The moment you buy and sell items, their market value adjusts. Here’s an example of why why Capacity is so important.

• 10,000 Livestock in Station A are selling for 8,000isk. They are being bought in Station B for 9,000isk. You can carry 5,000 Livestock at a time, so pick them up at Station A.
  
• You travel to Station B and sell 5,000 Livestock for the 9,000isk quoted.
  
• The Market window changes to now show the new price of Livestock at Station A and B. Station A remains unchanged this time, but Station B has dropped it’s buy price to 8,500isk.

From this example you can see it’s not always the best idea to buy at Station A what you can’t haul at that exact moment. However, this also leads to additional considerations:

• You notice Station C has buying for 8,750. This would compel you to buy all 10,000 Livestock at Station A, knowing that the price will drop at Station B when you drop it off, but also knowing the price at Station C won’t be affected (unless someone else sells Livestock there).
  
• The price at Station A will be affected by your continued buying of Livestock. The amount of Livestock available will also change, though sometimes you won’t be able to buy all of them out of a station altogether.

Potential

There’s a lot of money that can be made in fairly short order by a player dedicated to this form of Trading. It’s also possible to begin Trading like this within mere hours of starting a new character. And the best part is, once you’ve learned the basics, you can start using powerful tools like Eve Trader to make quicker and more effective decisions.

By comparison, the “mission grind” can take a bit longer, and cost more. As you increase your rating with your Agents to tackle bigger missions, you also need to upgrade your ship and equipment to ensure you can handle them.

Alternates

Trading isn’t for everyone. I’m still trying to assess whether it is for me. This is currently a means to an end, a way to finance both the Cruiser I would like to buy, and the inevitable series of replacements I will need as I lose them. Level 1 missions can pay out ok, and are all very easy in a well-equipped Frigate. Level 2 missions are apparently as easy for someone in a well-equipped Cruiser, and of course, pay out much more than Level 1 missions. Further, the goods gained while doing missions (and from separate offers made by agents) can either be reprocessed down to their component minerals for use or sale, or they can be sold on the market. If you’ve ever played an MMORPG, you’re not only familiar with the quests as mentioned above, you’re seen rare loot and how much it can be sold for on the market. The same is true in Eve.

Finally, the time it takes to complete an Agent mission is typically far less than it takes to do Trade runs. While the incremental payouts of Mission will be less than well-planned Trade runs, the total daily ISK earned is still comparable. This is particularly true if you continue to grow your combat skills to use bigger ships and take on bigger missions whereas you never train your Trade skills beyond newbie level.

So at some point I’m going to assess whether I can make more money doing the combat I really want to do anyway, or whether I need to periodically dust off the Industrial ship to spike my capital. If I was seeking better efficiency, I’d dual-box Eve, having one character doing Trade runs while another doing Combat mission. Ultimately though, I just don’t have it in me. Like buying ingame currency for realworld cash, I appreciate the options available, but don’t have any particular need to be fast track myself into the higher tiers. I prefer to play the games the way I think they were intended. If I can’t maximize my potential through that, then I generally am bored with the experience anyway and looking to move on.

Meanwhile, I will be doing missions anyway, and performing guard duty for my buddies who mine. That was the original goal actually, mine for the minerals to have our ships built. But like Trade, Mining is a complex game all unto itself.

And that’s the best part of Eve. Like old SWG, there are truly a wide variety of completely different games within the larger system. Finding one’s place within it is a game unto itself.