[TMA] Running missions in Nullsec

[Artjay]

So occasionally I like to take a break from organising 'content' for other people and looking to blow stuff up and kick back on my own for a few days to make some ISK and prevent burnout (them spaceships don't pay for themselves).

In the past I have done solo WH ops (find system with 50+ combat sites, take orca home + T3 and clear it out) and exploration roams, mainly around Vale/Gem for guristas mag/radar and 6/10's. I have dabbled in Caldari lowsec roaming too which can be quite profitable for 4/10, 5/10 and 6/10 content DED sites.

Since I have heard good things about nullsec missions (steady 100mil/hour, not sure if that includes LP or not) from former corpmates and since I live in a WH 90% of the time it would be nice to have a break from scanning every day. I know incursions pay better probably but I actually like to fly on my own occasionally without relying on others to get their shit together to get started.

Can anyone point me to a good guide to running missions (specifically) in nullsec?

Survival shouldn’t be an issue, I’m well aware of the mechanics of nullsec, I intend to deploy with my carrier containing Tengu + Legion and a few pvp ships for when the mood takes me, cov ops, cloaky hauler etc.

My main questions are:

1) Since Venal and GW have only a handful of stations I’m guessing finding a nice quiet spot to mission when you don’t have blues is hard so I’m writing them off as options. Same goes for Fountain and Geminate. This leaves curse, stain or syndicate. Since every alliance planning on capitalising on the DRF’s demise is camped out in curse I guess that leaves stain or syndicate – what are the pros and cons of both regions? Any particular nice spots that a solo mission runner would be ignored/not hassled to death?

2) I want to be able to move around highsec as the wind takes me. What worries me is that running level 4’s for some time for any pirate faction will tank my empire standings. Is there way around this? Is there a faction which is better than another for not loosing empire standings?

3) ISK. How much more ISK than running level 4’s in highsec do you get? Double? Tripple? I want to know if it’s worth my time. 100mil/hour sounds OK but I have no idea how that compares to highsec since it’s been years since I ran missions anywhere.

4) Are the missions any harder in null? I plan on using a Tengu to run them, will I get away with a standard T2 fit or will it need pimping?

Any advice gratefully appreciated.

[Mesh M]

Syndicate sucks. Outer Ring was suppossedly ok before they cracked down on macro mining which killed the market for ORE stuff. But Syndicate simply sucks cause the resident LP store doesn't offer any interesting goods (aka no faction ships, no good implant set (who in the right mind buys and Edge set) and nothing else to get a good return on your LP).

[Tsubutai]

Syndicate sucks. Outer Ring was suppossedly ok before they cracked down on macro mining which killed the market for ORE stuff. But Syndicate simply sucks cause the resident LP store doesn't offer any interesting goods (aka no faction ships, no good implant set (who in the right mind buys and Edge set) and nothing else to get a good return on your LP).

The Intaki Syndicate is not the only faction with agents in Syndicate...

[Mesh M]

True. But the whole point of running missions in nullsec is getting access to unique factions, isn't it? Otherwise you're looking at about half the isk/lp ratio at which point i'd rather run missions in .1 hubs.

[Raz]

1. Curse and Stain are the best options in my opinion given the items in their LP stores, the diversity of agents, and the distribution of stations. Curse is especially nice given the large number of stations and the extensive amount of agents. Even with different alliances moving in and out it's still fairly simple to run missions when you need/want to provided you aren't too committed and don't mind fucking off when people just decide to make life difficult. Doing some ground work and identifying who's active in a given constellation at what timezones and to what extent is an important part of deciding where to base.

2. If you don't do storylines, it won't tank your standings any more than running Empire missions will. Just decline faction kill missions. It's actually better than highsec in this regard because most stations have multiple agents, and there are a lot of adjacent systems with multiple agents for the same corp. So you can cycle mission agents 4-7 at a time which makes declining easier.

3. ISK/hour really depends on what you're using, what you're converting your LP into and how obnoxious the locals are at any given point. With Security Connections V, higher end L4 offerings are 14,000 LP with 6-8m in Reward and Time Bonus. Even with prices dropping, if you factor in that the isk rewards cover the LP store sink (and generally with room to spare), it's easy to get LP rates in excess of 2500 isk/LP. Even on a bad day I do in excess of 100m/hour. On average I personally do closer to 200m/hour.

4. A lot of the missions are the same as you get in highsec. The null specific ones are either fairly easy to blitz or faction kills which I decline. An unprobeable T3 setup is the best way to do this really. You still have to be attentive, but most probers aren't able to pinpoint you. Just watch for probes at 2-3 AU in abundance. A covops scout is pretty essential since the most dangerous activity is undocking and moving system to system.

All in all, it's a pretty reliable and low risk way to make isk. Provided you do the groundwork and are careful.

[Sneakyfool]

Are the missions any harder in null? I plan on using a Tengu to run them, will I get away with a standard T2 fit or will it need pimping?.

I wouldn't say harder, that comes from the locals usually, and how bothered they can be to disrupt your money making. However you do get concord missions DED and you do get a chance of the Concord cloak drop which nets you 500mill, but aside from that rare drop you get immense ammounts of isk from the tags, I'm not even joking but that means faction missions.

I don't give a fuck about hi sec and that's the decision you have to make, tags or hi sec? tbh tho i've been doing them for ages and haven't incured hardly any standing loss, just make sure you train those social skills so worth it.

Also i do mine in a Vargur, why? because you wanna go for as much dps as possible, last thing you want to do is spend 15mins doing a mission when you can pimp a little and do it in 10. Time really is money and killing shit that much faster can be the diffrence between completing or getting probed.

Should never happen tho if your competent. Good luck

[Gix Tyrionn]

Do the pirate story arc's if you can to get the initial standings.

Oh yeah and raising faction rather than corp standings will take a while. Most of the storyline missions are similar to the ones in high sec (fill 3 badgers and go 10 jumps?) and aren't worth doing.

You must salvage/loot mission vs faction shit so be prepared for that with a noctis. Tags are a huge part of it as most people avoid faction kill missions as they'll get them locked out of that part of high sec. Oh yeah and you'll miss the cool drops from tags with 25m buy orders at angel stations to the odd fed navy blaster.

You will get locked out of half of high sec eventually. For Angels you'll kill minmatar and gallente. I assume blood/sansha is the opposite.

If your the type of person who lives paycheck to paycheck you will hate this money making method. There is a fairly big chance you'll get a group of faggots moving into your system on the day you need money and they'll camp 23/7 and/or be there to stay and run missions. On the other side of that, if your moving in with friends start abandoning probes/perma afk'ing and watch the locals give up on mission running there. It'll happen sooner if you gank them when you come back to the computer you left running all day.

Oh yeah and the amount of "pimp" your ship seems to have will attract more people to camp for you. A gank fit bs+ logi seems to be a great option. No one sticks in system for 3 hours with their 30 man gang who can't find kills to gank a pest but they'll stick around for a mach.

If you use d-scanner for close range and stay in multiple gate missions you should be pretty safe. Which is why players who know how to use bubbles will ruin you when you get over confident.


Be prepared for changes in eve politics to ruin your life. When I left eve there was never anyone in my corner of curse. I came back and local is often over 100. NPC 0.0 usually gets the terrible alliances who just lost space there, and after being out blobbed by super caps they'll have no problem being as lame as possible to get kills and return their epeen to normal levels.

[n0th]

3) ISK. How much more ISK than running level 4’s in highsec do you get? Double? Tripple? I want to know if it’s worth my time. 100mil/hour sounds OK but I have no idea how that compares to highsec since it’s been years since I ran missions anywhere.

100mil is pretty high, at least for Curse Angel Missions with LP/ISK conversion rate where it is now ( below 2k/1). Thats probably Pirate BS/Marauder territory.

I managed ~80mil/h tops when Cynabal BPCs were still at 190mil-ish (including dock/undock/travel but excluding logistics to Jita which were done by corp JF). I was blitzing in a Vaga - p sure Tengu isnt much faster, since you want to blitz and ISK/h will drop if you actually clear missions with a <1000dps ship.

Then again you could consider looting tags - some empire tags were through the roof last i checked, not sure if its worth the hassle w/ having to get in a Noctis.

In terms of security: basically get a (nearly) unprobeable Tengu + dont travel through gates (even if that means parking several ships in NPC stations and/or declining some missions), dont AFK and you're p much safe. Oh and obv. get undock-BMs for the more active stations.

[corywyn]

what i did back in Venal (when i had the luxury of a more or less blue pocket) was to just bookmark a bunch of missions (wreck last 2h after all) and then come back with a Noctis after a while and clean everything up. not sure i'd the same in more or less hostile space unless the system is empty (or only other bears active)
caldari tags were nice (my CS standing didn't like it much ...), concord tags were even nicer (plus blockade l4 has a chance of faction spawn, sadly i usually only got shit) but you have to be really careful there (you lose concord faction standing which you can't recover, your sec status is concord corp standing ... i ended up about .3 away from being KOS in concord sov).

one thing you have to keep in mind if you're running an unprobable setup in curse: a lot of missions are against minmatar/minmatar-style rats which mean target painters -> can make it a lot easier to probe you (i was triple/quadpainted at times)

Do the pirate story arc's if you can to get the initial standings.

on and just in case you didn't know (@OP and whoever it interests): the pirate arcs are resettable every 90days. so free cynabal/gila bpc & domi tp (yes, lolguristas multispec ecm too) every 90d

[Artjay]

Thanks for the advice so far, very helpful.

I think I will start with the pirate faction missions that sound fun to get a feel for it and go from there. I'm thinking working towards trading LP for Snake implants by running missions in stain, clone jumping down there when the mood takes me seems like should be fairly steady income.

Cheers!

[Calvin]

Stain... Sansha have Slave implants in LP store. Currently Omega Slave selling for 900mil. Costs around 256000 lp + 256mil ISK + Hardwiring - Inherent Implants 'Noble' ZET5000 implant (79000 LP + 79mil isk in sansha lp store). So actually you are making around 550mil on single implant. Think it over.

[zoturi]

do the math...thats terribble lp/isk conversation

also that lp takes ages to grind

other single pirate implants are much better lp/isk

or ammo (guristas antimatter xl for example)

[Tsubutai]

If you're running missions by yourself and can't rely on a corp JF service, I think exporting significant quantities of XL ammo (well, non-crystal ammo anyway) will quickly become a massive PITA. Much easier to just get implants and BPCs and truck them out in a cloaky nullified T3. If you were looking to sink significant quantities of Sansha LP at the moment, a Nightmare BPC would be pretty appealing.

[Aurora148]

If you're running missions by yourself and can't rely on a corp JF service, I think exporting significant quantities of XL ammo (well, non-crystal ammo anyway) will quickly become a massive PITA.

you can fit something like 800k of xl ammo in a carrier using cargo expanded industrials in the ship hangar array.

[Cue1*]

If you're running missions by yourself and can't rely on a corp JF service, I think exporting significant quantities of XL ammo (well, non-crystal ammo anyway) will quickly become a massive PITA.

you can fit something like 800k of xl ammo in a carrier using cargo expanded industrials in the ship hangar array.

Was about to say you can't do that anymore but you can, since it's only ammo, can't you? That's an awesome thought.

[Aurora148]

If you're running missions by yourself and can't rely on a corp JF service, I think exporting significant quantities of XL ammo (well, non-crystal ammo anyway) will quickly become a massive PITA.

you can fit something like 800k of xl ammo in a carrier using cargo expanded industrials in the ship hangar array.

Was about to say you can't do that anymore but you can, since it's only ammo, can't you? That's an awesome thought.

Only "charges" allowed, so ammo, cap boosters, probes, scripts.

[Varcaus]

Could a legion/Loki run these or do you need a tengu if your not going to have blues?

[kyrieee]

They're just L4 missions. You can tank them in any T3 but the Tengu is the only one with good dmg projection.

[Calvin]

I can't speak about other faction but sansha missions usually sends you against Caldari or Amarr. Sometimes Concord (Blockade). Tengu works well against Caldari and Concord against Amarr your dps is lacking... If you can get standings with AAA and do missions in G-ME2K you can use any ship you like. Nightmares and Machariels are common ships out there... But in my opinion current Sansha LP - ISK exchange value is simply too low to even bother.

[killfalcon]

They're just L4 missions. You can tank them in any T3 but the Tengu is the only one with good dmg projection.

Yup. Proteus can tank better, Loki does more DPS, Legion is shinier* none of them do more than 500 DPS at 70km (which is easy to get on a tengu, unless it's covert-fit and nullified). You can get bored pretty quickly, though (orbit LCO at 40, proceed to lock and destroy everything smallest to largest, fuck aggro, triggers).

Thing to remember with a Tengu is that even active fit, you can tank most L4s on your passive shield regen because A) you're 40-60km away B) you're doing 550m/s with a 120m sig and C) your worst resist is in the high 70s/low80s. When Sleeper torpedos hit for single-figure damage, Angel Machs really aren't a danger to you. I'd test some fits in hisec missions, try and find a good balance between tanking your fuckups/AE bonus and maximising your rate of murder.

*I don't know shit about Amarrr, if I'm honest.