Alpha ISK making guide [Brave Collective]

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====== Alpha ISK making guide ======
So you're new to Brave, maybe new to nullsec, or perhaps you are a returning player. But one thing is for certain, we all need ISK to blow up more ships! As an Alpha I'm going to try and teach some ways to make ISK as an Alpha. Obviously Omega clones may wish to use this but they have access to a greater sources of income (Planetary Interaction, Incursions etc.). I will go a bit more in-depth on how manufacturing and importing works but I will assume you know how to rat and mine and show you how to make money (I will try provide useful links)

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===== Mining =====
Required skills: None\\
Upfront cost: Less than 1m ISK (free ventures from dojo)\\
Useful links:[[venture_mining]] and [[public/alliance/industry/buyback]]\\

So after you've mined your ores, you'll want to get them compressed, you can find which structures do so by using [[member:alliance:logistics:infrastructure]]. By doing so you will make it easier to transport (if you need to) and get more buck for your ore.//
After doing so you will want to visit the link above (Buybacks) and find a program to sell your ore back to, make sure to follow the instructions carefully and you'll get that sweet ISK in no time.
Generally you want to remembers your ABCs. That stands for Arkonor, Bistot, Crokite and Spodumain all of which are the most valuable ores in our systems. I will add that mining isn't the best ISK/hour but it can be enjoyable especially if there is a fleet or a group of miners.//

Look into moon mining as well for great isk.  [[/member/alliance/industry/moonmining | Moon Mining Guide]]

There is another type of mining kind of called gas huffing which I will talk about in the exploration section


===== Ratting =====
Required skills: Can vary from race and which ship you are flying, for the Vexor see the [[public/dojo/vexor-newbro-edition#the_skillplan|Vexor Newbro Skill Plan]].\\
Upfront cost: Little to none, the Dojo gives out Gallente  Vexors,  but all races can belt rat at least.\\
Recommended race: Any\\
Useful links: [[public/dojo/vexor-newbro-edition]] Also teaches you how to rat. General fits [[public/dojo/wiki/alpha-ratting]]\\

==== Belt ratting ====
Belt ratting is killing NPC pirate ships in asteroid belts. This does not generate as much income as running anomalies but can still be a source of income. Destroyers are more than capable of killing these rats. Also the miners will love you!

==== Combat Sites (Anomalies) ====
Anomalies are more catered towards Cruiser class ships, they have tougher enemies, there are more of them and give a greater payout. You'll generally need to keep your wits about you to not die when doing these.

For both of these you can increase your income by salvaging the wrecks of the ships after you kill them, which I will explain in the next section.

===== Salvaging =====
Required skills: None\\
Upfront cost: None - few mill for a salvage ship\\

==== Salvaging while you rat ====
Whilst you rat, there will be wrecks from the ships you explode, these drop loot and can also be salvaged for more loot which is low volume and high cost. You will need to fit a salvager onto your ship to actually salvage the wrecks. Alongside this you will want a Mobile Tractor Unit which will pull in all wrecks within 125km and loot the wrecks (so you just need to loot the MTU for the loot), this means all the wrecks are nice and close for you to salvage. To sell your salvage look here [[public/alliance/industry/buyback]] and find whatever one tickles your fancy, or you sell on the market.

==== Salvaging other peoples sites ====
For fittings: You'll generally want salvagers and tractor beams, I go 4/4 on my Catalyst but find what what works for you. Along with that Small Salvage Tackle rigs, Capacitor Power Relay(s), Cap Rechargers, and a prop mod. The salvaging destroyers are Catalyst (Gallente), Coercer (Amarr), Cormorant (Caldari) and Talwar (Minmatar). Use the ingame simulation tool to experiment to find the perfect fit for you.

This can take a bit more prep, you'll want to ask in standing fleet if there is any salvage or wait for "$$$" in chat. Once you warp to the site you'll want to drop a MTU and salvage what you can. BUT, if there is already a MTU, the loot belongs TO THE RATTER. From this point you'll just want to salvage and follow the instructions in the above section to sell it all. 

==== Battlefield Janitor ====
After a big fight you can expect tons of wrecks just laying about and someone should tidy them up (and make ISK at the same time). Just note where the fight was and make a bookmark at that location and come back once everyone has buggered off in your salvage ship, drop an MTU and get salvaging and looting. Be wary of others from the opposing side looking to do the same, try bringing a friend or 2 to scare them off. You may even find ship components within the loot which can be resold on the market for a nice profit aswell.


===== Exploration =====
==== Data/Relic sites ====
Required Skills: None, Archaeology and Hacking will give you a big boost to your chance of succeeding.\\
Upfront costs: 0-1 million ISK (Dojo will provide Magnate/Heron/Imicus/Probe which are the T1 explo ships you can fly) depending on race\\
Useful Links: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Scanning & https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Hacking & https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Wormholes \\

Once you've scanned down a relic/data site you want to go ahead and start hacking them. Once successful you can loot the container and find a stash a goodies inside, these range from salvage, to some BPCs, to data-cores and decryptors which are used for T2 manufacturing and are in demand. Once again visit [[public/alliance/industry/buyback]] and find which program you want to sell your loot to, or use the market instead.

==== Gas Huffing ====
Required skills: Gas Cloud Harvesting II (24m from Dojo)\\
Upfront costs: 24m + Cost of huffer (10m+)\\
Useful Links: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Gas_cloud_harvesting , https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Wormholes & https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/ore/gas.html (gas prices in The Forge regions), https://wiki.braveineve.com/public/dojo/wiki/gas_huffing

=== Nullsec Huffing ===
Huffing uses a ventures which gets boosts to doing so. You may be able to scan down gas sites where you can huff away till you're full, in nullsec gas nebulae do damage to you occasionally so you'll need to fit for purpose, https://forums.bravecollective.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3662 is the best I could find right now. If you have another Alpha friendly build I'd love to see it.

=== Wormhole Huffing ===
Like in K-space you will find gas sites in wormholes which have more valuable gasses. But once you warp to a site, sometime after the 10 minute mark rats will spawn in the area. They can easily kill you so you'll want to warp to a safe spot as soon as this happens.

Gas huffing is more profitable than mining in nullsec but you can get lost in wormholes aswell. To sell your gas visit [[public/alliance/industry/buyback]] and find a program that you like.

===== Manufacturing =====
Required skills: None, but Mass Production is very useful\\
Upfront costs: None\\

This is a bit more fun, for me atleast. There's a few things to manufacturing and I'll hopefully go through them.

Blueprints: There is 2 kinds, Blueprint Originals (BPOs) and Blueprint Copies (BPCs). BPOs can be used an infinite amount of times and can be copied into BPCs where you retain the original and get copies of it with limited amount of runs. This is useful for reselling the BPCs, or speeding up manufacturing (It is faster to make 100 items across 4 slots against 100 items in 1 slot). Many people in Brave offer free BPCs and there is alliance BPCs program in the works, coming out soon (TM). Some stations are better at researching aswell, makes it happen faster which is good.

Research: As an Alpha you can only do time and material efficiency research of BPOs which reduces the time and materials to manufacture said item. Time to research gets exponentially longer per level, and Alpha's are locked to 1 research slot so if researching you may want to consider having alts. You can also buy researched BPOs via contracts. BPCs carry over the TE & ME of the BPO at the time of copying.

Manufactuing: The real stuff, here you actually produce the goods using BPOs/BPCs. Use [[member/alliance/logistics/infrastructure]] to find out what station has the best efficiency for what you want to produce. For minerals there are a few options: Import them yourself (don't recommend) or buy them off the market in GE (cheaper than importing). For making rigs you'll have to source your own salvage via buy orders or however else you can manage. Once you are ready go ahead and start the job to manufacture your goods.

Selling: Since you want to make ISK you'll want to sell your goods on the market. HOPEFULLY, you have done some research on your products and have seen that you can make some profit. If you haven't...you ain't doing a good job are you? Try to produce in a market where you can make a profit and know you may have to reduce prices to combat others.

===== Importing =====
This is slightly different from the rest. You don't need any skills, but you do need an alt in Jita or Amarr (I prefer Amarr, saves me hauling costs), and maybe about 100m to start up. When importing what you are doing is buying items in major trade hubs, importing them using http://www.trinity-x-industries.com/ and [[public/alliance/logistics/jf/how-to-use]] and then selling them on the GE markets for a profit.
You will have to do some research, I suggest looking at doctrine fits and checking the market to see what sells in volume and for profit. Another tip is to try fitting a few more items into your haul when using the calculator when importing goods using BLT since if you can fit more items in, your average cost per item will decrease and you can make more money!
Importing also has the added benefit of keeping the market nice and healthy which is good for us and our allies who use our market.

{{tag>general guide intro alpha english}}