Pretend I'm new, I basically am. How should I approach ship ownership?

[CorvusDove]

I have three ships; the iEagle, the iCourier, and the iClipper. I have about 2.4 mil left, the iEagle is "all A's" style except for a fast recharge shield, and I have a modified fast recharge shield, 2x MCs, and 1x Beam laser on the Courier.

My preferred income has always been from some sort of murder. Either killing pirates in a RES or piracy or missions where I go kill even more things. Lately, for me and apparently most people, that last part is no longer an option due to a bug that has been around all year where Mission Targets aren't marked, or they are marked and don't count, even if you have no other missions but the one. My faction standings are diving fast.

Between the bugs and the fact I have more ships than I can affordably kit well, I find myself looking at my ships and wondering if I should just pick one and go somewhere to make actual decent money. just sell off everything I own but the one ship and go, even though I got the iShips on a discount weekend where I didn't have to have a high faction to buy them. If I do, though, what to keep and what to do? I used to play EVE and hear that (thankfully) mining isn't very profitable, so that hurts using the iClipper, but all three can bounty hunt. The iEagle is such a sports car at this point I'm struggling to convince myself to lose it, but it can't exactly haul passengers like the iClipper. The iEagle has two burst lasers and a plasma cannon, while the iCourier has two modified MCs and a modified Beam Laser; both do about the same in a RES, so logically the iEagle is the better investment there, but it can't carry a planetary vehicle, and the Courier and Clipper can.

What I am trying to avoid is endlessly grinding RES rats for small change just to get one module. I want to start making enough that buying a faction ship is more a matter of standing than scheduling away a month of my life killing things. I have no idea how some people have the time to have a fully A-kitted faction ship with powerplay special modules and Guardian weapons. it seems like that would take years! The only reason I haven't done this before is because I wouldn't be able to get the Clipper again without grinding both money and faction. Should I sell the ships to get the jumpstart I need and get the mobility to fly to distant systems without leaving things behind, or is a grind my only option?

 

[bladebss]

Well.. the clipper could be used to trasport cargo. Some missions will pay you nice rewards. You may not get to kill anything but you will make money much quiker than res hunting. Then you can fit out your ship better and go back to killing.

Alot of what you have to do to get fully engeneered will involve some grind and will need you to do exploration and mining and some trading and some killing so, if thats where you want to be, strap in.

You will also make quite a bit of money in the process of doing it all so there is that.


Powerplay can net you some prety decent passive income, buy getting to rank 5 you will be payed lots of money every week and as long as you maintain you rank you won't have to put in much work each week. Then you can get back to what you were doing and collect your extra money on friday.

This will help you get moeny and those modules. It takes a month for each module so choose wisely. And you might as well get payed in the procces.

 

[ilo]

If I were you, I'd never sell a ship. Sell the modules you don't use if you don't need them but need the money. You can transfer the ship to another place later when you are swimming in cash (it will happen sooner than you think).

 

[CorvusDove]

So sell it all off as far as modules only and just do an OK-Enough fit on the Clipper?

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

I have three ships; the iEagle, the iCourier, and the iClipper. I have about 2.4 mil left, …

…Should I sell the ships to get the jumpstart I need and get the mobility to fly to distant systems without leaving things behind, or is a grind my only option?

My advice is to keep all three ships. As you wrote you won't be able to get those ships back and even with the required rank they would cost more.
The Imperial Eagle is a very cheap ship, so you wouldn't get that much money from selling it.
The Imperial Clipper is probably to expensive for you to use it right now. Not sure how high the re-buy of the ship is, but I assume higher than 2.4 Mcr.

The best approach, again in my opinion, would be to use the Imperial Courier to gain reputation with factions in a few close systems until you are allied with many.
This should result in higher paying missions. Since the Imperial Courier is not exactly a trader or passenger liner the fastest option to get some credits is to do data missions and RES farming.
The moment you have enough credits for 2-4 re-buys of your Clipper use that ship for 180t cargo missions.
At that point your reputation with many factions in your little home cluster should be high enough to get the high paying haulage missions. Do those whenever you want to get a few million credits.

Just keep "earning credits" in balance with "having fun". No point in grinding credits to the point where playing the game isn't fun anymore.

 

[Hacker#451563]

So sell it all off as far as modules only and just do an OK-Enough fit on the Clipper?

No ship is really going to shine (especially against any NPC above "Expert") until it's A-Graded.
As an EVE player you know the difference going from a standard fit to a T-2 or "named"mod fit made.
I would be thinking about a Vulture if I was you.
Small ship
Well armed
Manuverable
Punches above it's weight (well above for a good pilot)

You can also get away with not quite A rating it to begin with because working to get those higher level mods is still fun.

You can play around with the build on this site.

https://coriolis.io/

 

[CorvusDove]

My advice is to keep all three ships. As you wrote you won't be able to get those ships back and even with the required rank they would cost more.
The Imperial Eagle is a very cheap ship, so you wouldn't get that much money from selling it.
The Imperial Clipper is probably to expensive for you to use it right now. Not sure how high the re-buy of the ship is, but I assume higher than 2.4 Mcr.

The best approach, again in my opinion, would be to use the Imperial Courier to gain reputation with factions in a few close systems until you are allied with many.
This should result in higher paying missions. Since the Imperial Courier is not exactly a trader or passenger liner the fastest option to get some credits is to do data missions and RES farming.
The moment you have enough credits for 2-4 re-buys of your Clipper use that ship for 180t cargo missions.
At that point your reputation with many factions in your little home cluster should be high enough to get the high paying haulage missions. Do those whenever you want to get a few million credits.

Just keep "earning credits" in balance with "having fun". No point in grinding credits to the point where playing the game isn't fun anymore.

This is sort of in the realm of what I'm trying to avoid. The clipper is, as you say, around 2.4 mil rebuy if it has a decent kit on it, based on what I have in it at this point. What I don't want to do is RES farm in the courier or the Eagle 1 mil every hour and a half like I have been; i'm trying to find bigger payouts, and am willing to sacrifice combat for a bit in order to do it. I *could* do combat missions with the Courier and Eagle, but with Massacres totally broken right now, it's just not an option.

 

[ilo]

I would be thinking about a Vulture if I was you.
Small ship
Well armed
Manuverable
Punches above it's weight (well above for a good pilot)

mmm

What I am trying to avoid is endlessly grinding RES rats for small change just to get one module.

If you get a vulture you will be stuck again in a RES.

 

[CorvusDove]

Yeah, I actually had one before I visited the Apple Store and got my iShips. it's part of why I'm semi-broke, because I made the mistake of taking PvE fits into CZs and getting group ganked by powerplayers while I was trying to get Prismatics and lost a load of money on rebuys. I'm leaning Clipper at this point, if I can get enough to get her in the air without all E class to somewhere I can run a profitable passenger route or something and do at least two rebuys. I think I just hoped for a solution that would make better use of my VR wireless battery life than space trucking.

 

[Speedcuffs]

Massacre missions broken.
Dunno what to say about that. Last CG I finished top ten and made millions stacking massacre missions from nearby systems.
I wish they would fix it and get it working for you

Keep that Clipper.[yesnod]

Edit: Could you get a cheap medium pad ship and run
sightseeing passengers from Robigo? I make a lot of creds from that even though I always take the mat's rewards.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

… What I don't want to do is RES farm in the courier or the Eagle 1 mil every hour and a half like I have been; …

I mentioned RES farming since I got the impression that you like combat and thought it would be a good way to do something you like from time to time.

The important part of my suggestion is doing missions to get allied with a few factions and then using the Clipper to do high paying cargo missions.

 

[CorvusDove]

I found I had an A rated FSI hiding somewhere. That was an easy 7 mil. I might be able to do the Clipper and keep my iEagle A'd out.

 

[Florenus]

If I understand correctly, you want to have a lot of credits to be free to do killing, that you want to avoid while making money because it's grind?

Don't rush it, just enjoy the ride.

 

[CorvusDove]

By leaving in the all-A core but transferring modules around and selling my extra ones, I was able to put an OK fit with largely A rated items on the Clipper, keep the Eagle A'd out and actually upgrade its optionals a little to make it faster and more durable, and keep the harder to find bits on the Courier although it's not fully kitted anymore. I also designed the Eagle specifically for CV and the Courier specifically for RES ratting. The Clipper came out to have a 6A power plant, 6C thrusters, 5A FSD, 5A sensors, a pulse-MC fit, shield boosters, KWS, Chaff, lots of cargo, limpets, an SRV, a scoop, a spare fuel tank, and a 7C bi-weave, and I still have enough cash to rebuy the clipper three times. I guess from here I need to figure out where to live that I do cargo or passengers in the Clipper for a bit to fill out what I have and get out of "oh **** I can't afford death" territory. Now to figure out where that is, near an engineer....in 18LY hops from Hansen Station without stranding myself.

 

[Clicker]

Keep your ships.

If you want a break from combat, jump in the ship with the longest jump range and go do the “Road to Riches”. http://edtools.ddns.net/expl.php?

I have found that each 10 hops take about 15-20 minutes and nets an average of 6m Cr.

Clicker

 

[Ertman]

Buy a Type 6, fill it with economy cabins, a docking computer and an A-rated FSD drive. Fly to Robigo Mines in the Robigo system. Fill the cabins with missions that pay 5m, 2.8m and 1.7m using board flipping and you get 14m in every 15 mins. You don't need to worry about the cops because there are none in the outpost. Docking computer makes it much more pleasant to dock and you don't even need a shield but you may need a fuel scoop or a small extra fuel tank unless you have a 33ly+ jump range.

Once you have done that for two hours, buy a Python and you can raise the payout to 20m+ per 15 mins or 12 mins with 33ly+ jump range. This method will work until 3.3 because board flipping will be removed and you can no longer find enough missions to fill your boat consistently (I tested another farm site where you can currently fill 20 missions every time but in the beta the average missions was 7).

 

[Stealthie]

Sooner or later, you're going to have to accept that making stuff explode doesn't pay the bills.

Also, progression in ED is a continual "spiral" (although I'm still not sure whether it's upward or downward) so you'll often find that the stuff you want now won't matter to you by the time you've done what you need to get it.

With those 3 ships and Cr2.4m in the bank, my first bit of advice would be; STOP FLYING THE CLIPPER!!!!
If it's cheap enough that you can afford to fly it, it's weak enough that you'll lose it or if it's powerful enough to be good in a fight, it'll bankrupt you if you lose it.

Back when I had that amount of credits, I was doing cargo runs in a Cobra and saving up for an AspX.
After I bought the AspX... I ended up still flying the Cobra 'cos I couldn't afford to lose the AspX.
Once I'd sunk about Cr15m into the AspX I started flying it, upgrading further as I went along, and carried on flying it until I had Cr100m or more in the bank.

You probably don't want to hear this but, as others have said, the "journey" IS the game.
It's fine to have long-term goals but don't fall into the trap of thinking "Once I get [thing] I'll be able to start doing what I want" cos you'll be doing the same stuff that you're doing now.

Basically, you need to pick yourself something to do to earn the credits you need to build a ship that can make stuff explode.

The iEagle's strength is it's speed. Keep it and one day you'll be able to turn it into a super-duper canyon racer. It's not really a practical ship for most things.
The iCourier is fast but it's also got a decent jump-range and it's also also got a useful amount of internal slots.
The iClipper is, erm, alright but it's big problem is there's always something else that can do the same job (whatever that job is) better.

If I was you, I'd flog any fancy modules fitted to the Clipper (actually, I'd then sell the ship too) and use the credits to fit out the Courier properly, stick a couple of cargo racks in it and then spend a few days doing data-delivery and cargo missions for the same faction (to build up rep and get better missions) and then get started on engineering it.

Also, it's worth saying that different ships are better for different things.
You might like flying Imp' ships but there are going to be other ships that are better for various things.
From where you are now you should probably be aiming to progress to something like an AspX and then to a Krait or Python for doing the practical stuff like cargo/passenger missions.

 

[krylite]

"Road to Riches" has been mentioned. Another is doing the Ram Tah missions. You could also sell the iClipper and get a python or a Krait /w fighter. Actually it's kind of fun doing the hunt pirate lord missions in a Krait. Also multi-crew or winged shared missions is another possibility.

 

[Frank]

Pirate massacre missions are incredibly tedious. You can spend a lot of time twiddling your thumbs waiting for the right type of pirate to show up, and fail the mission because the gods of RNG deigned you unfit to provide you those pirates. The conflict zone massacre missions are better.

The honking bug now seems to be cured, but if you want to check that out for yourself you might want to try assassination missions from a faction you don't mind losing a bit of reputation from just in case your honk doesn't work.

If you'd prefer to remain in the game and stay away from 3rd party guides then I've always found the community goals are fairly lucaritive. You don't need to grind in them, just do enough to get you in to the top fifty percent... ride the coat tails of those who enjoy the grind.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

OP - are you in a rush to get more credits/ships? If so, you're going to have to grind. If not, then just chill.

You have a Clipper which is a great multirole ship. Mix things up to keep things fresh and kit it out for whatever takes your fancy.

You could play the game for years with no other ship than a Clipper, although personally i'd recommend a... Cobra!