EVE Echoes started out big with its vast open world and the plethora of game contents it offers at launch. While it is safe to say that most, if not all, players have yet to explore the entirety of what EVE Echoes has to offer, it is certain that the game can only get bigger. With players constantly shaping the economy and environment within New Eden and influencing its growth over time, each player needs to be consistently aware of developments to ensure their steady progression and survival.
While the general atmosphere may seem like a race to the top for avid enthusiasts, there is still plenty of space for casual players to get involved and revel in EVE Echoes’ constantly evolving environment. As there are a lot of features and concepts to know and understand, and a chunk of contents and activities every player should experience first-hand, the time and effort to put in on your interstellar voyage requires more than the usual amount that is expected from most other mobile games.
The amount of time you spend in EVE Echoes directly impact the amount of currencies you earn as well as the pace at which your pilot status improves. Still, though, there are multiple ways to go about earning profits and knowing the best one for you is a crucial knowledge you should acquire as soon as possible.
If you have just started playing EVE Echoes and find yourself rummaging through its vast content and features without much order, then we highly suggest you read our beginner’s guide first. Our EVE Echoes beginner’s guide provides the most basic tips and strategies to get you through the initial phase of your galactic adventure in New Eden with relative ease and efficiency. As no single guide will suffice to cover all of the game’s content, you may want to read our EVE Echoes advanced guide for additional tips and strategies.
Your chosen career in EVE Echoes stands at the core of your progression in your journey. As you start off partaking in a variety of quests, it should help give you a firmer idea of what type of occupation you should choose to pursue. For one, you are very much free to become an all-around pilot exterminating bounties, mining precious ores, creating various modules, making deliveries, and even selling merchandise. As far as skill points, training time, and resource limitations are concerned, however, focusing on a particular line of work and expending all efforts in line with it is the best way to go, most especially towards the latter stages of your career progress.
There is practically no limit in the amount of skill points you can earn to expedite training sessions. The skill points required to instantly upgrade a skill, however, will make short work of your skill points supply and you will still have to spend a lot of waiting time for the rest of the other skills. As the skill’s upgrade level increases, waiting time grows exponentially longer and, with it, the cost of expediting the process. Outside spending real money, therefore, the total number of hours it would take to max out all skills across the 3 main career choices will extend as far as years to complete.
In this case, it becomes the best choice to set is as your goal to max out skills in your particular field of expertise, rather than split waiting time, Isk, and skill points with a hodge-podge of low level skills spanning across the career choices.
In this EVE Echoes career guide, we will be focusing on each career path to help you become the best, or hopefully at the very least one of, in each field of expertise. Choosing from among the combat, industry, and business side of being a pilot can be a challenge itself for some players in the early stages of gameplay. With each category, prioritization in terms of skills and investments will vary as well for everyone. Again, in this aspect of the game, there is no such thing as a perfect pilot in a particular field of endeavor. What matters is how well you manage to align actions and investments you do to a career path that suits your preferences and play style.
Military Pilot Career
Engaging in battles and grooming yourself to be good at it is perhaps the most straightforward and linear path to take as a career in EVE Echoes. As the initial hours spent on your dive into New Eden will involve some interstellar combat as well as engaging in one battle after another through most quests and bounties, players will more quickly get accustomed to the battle mechanics in the game.
In terms of skill training and progression as well, the available choice of training courses to learn typically will not split your decision from between one choice and another. Military skills either improve the performance of all ships, save the industrial types, and can have focused specialization on each and every weapon type. As such, having a solid enough idea of the ships you have and intend to secure in the future lays out the map of skill learning you ought to take.
As we mentioned in our first guides, raising your pilot level will be much quicker from levels 1 thru 5. With it, more skill points are available to consume on expediting some training sessions. Relative to this, there will be a limitation in terms of the kind or classification of ships you can purchase as a result of tech levels unlocked and, of course, your financial capacity. In this sense, the first 2 military ships: the frigate and the destroyer can lead to a dichotomous decision point where you can choose only one until you are capable of owning a cruiser or battleship.
There are several skills to upgrade in relation to one type of ship: command, defense, and engineering. In some cases, these skill nodes have advanced versions as well that further boost the ship type’s performance. For the destroyer type ship for example, Destroyer Command training will reduce the ships inertia modifier by 5% per level and at level 3, will boost the ship’s velocity by 8%. Destroyer Defense will boost shields by 50 per level and add 60 to armor starting at level 2. This skill will also improve the ship’s structure by 125 starting at level 4.
In terms of investment, every offensive module in existence does not necessarily have to be on your menu. Every military ship, even within its own class, has a unique set of bonuses that apply to specific modules. As such, you should always plan ahead in terms of module purchases relative to the class of ship you own and the ones you plan on acquiring later.
As far as single player adventures and explorations are concerned, there are a lot of quests to take on that involves exterminating enemy ships and engaging bounties. In terms of ease, your performance in each quest is dependent on the class of ship you have, the modules you have installed, and the skills you have invested in. For example, a tech level 3 destroyer can accept and accomplish a tier 4 quest, even if the recommended ships are tier 4. It can be a little challenging, but a couple of Mk5 weapons on a tier 3 ship should be enough to pull you through it.
EVE Echoes is a multiplayer game that takes into account not just your progression as a lone pilot but the evolution of the corporation you belong to as well. The fleet system likewise gets you involved in quests and other undertakings that make it a lot easier to do in a group. Although you can join in anyone else’s fleet outside your corporation, the ideal way to do so banks on accomplishing feats in support of your very own group.
As a military pilot, one of your functions as a member of a corporation is to provide combat support to allies who specialize in either the industry or business side of things. Other allies may be involved in mining or transporting merchandise and can be an easy target to hostile corporations. In some cases, your presence may be requested to join fleets within the corporation to help them accomplish some tasks that will benefit the entire group.
Being in a fleet, however, makes it easy to partake in “ratting” or hunting down enemy ships in asteroid belts. The difficulty and RNG compensation for engaging in such activities vary depending on the star system’s security level. If you check the Star Chart, tapping on each dot, which represents a star system, will reveal its corresponding security level at the lower right side of the screen. A security level of 0.6 means it is completely safe and as the number goes down, the more likely that bounties will be more challenging.
The color of each dot may very well represent the security level as well, so be sure to take note of it whenever you pass through any star system. On top of the outright Isk rewards for exterminating bounties, you will also have a chance of obtaining loot corresponding to the tech level or tier of the enemy ship you have destroyed.
Industrial Pilot Career
If you have chosen to be a military pilot and focus exclusively in skills and resources that further your career, one of the early struggles you will encounter relates to finances, or Isk, specifically. Without a fleet to travel with in hunting higher grade NPC ships, it can become very difficult for you to raise Isk on your own. Currently, the trend in New Eden is that prices of ships and modules grow each day.
If you are not earning Isk enough, then it can be difficult to earn enough to purchase the higher grade modules you need or, more importantly, save enough to purchase the next level combat ship. In this sense, the ease of only engaging in combat and focusing on raw power unveils its impactful downside.
The other two choices for a pilot career, on the other hand, makes earning Isk a little easier as their function revolve around earning currencies for their labor. Both industry type and business type pilots can still engage in combat, but will be highly ineffective in the matter, which is the downside of their advantage in securing better ships.
A pilot focusing on industrial skills will specialize in mining, reprocessing ores that they mine, processing scrap metal, and manufacturing industrial ships they need as well as military ships to sell. Industrial pilots can also improve the performance of industrial ships they use and while the focus may steer towards improving actual industrial skills, it becomes necessary to compensate for an industrial ship’s lack of combat capability by upgrading its performance along with learning some industrial skills.
In terms of being selective in choosing which from among the number of available skills are to be prioritized, check the coverage of skills relative to manufacturing. Industrial pilots may gain some advantage in mining and processing, but the end result is the manufactured merchandise they can sell. As far as the actual manufacturing proficiency goes, specialization can be focused on a particular class of ship, for starters. Later on, industrial pilots can even focus on a specific faction’s ships as well.
There are some quests available that require players to mine specific ores. On top of earning extra Isk and perhaps even gathering more ores for your production needs, these quests will be relatively easier for industrial players to accomplish. Their performance in the accomplishment of these types of quests will continue to improve as well based on the skills they invest in. On the other hand, venturing on your own for areas to mine on as well as investing in planetary production can suffice to supply you a steady flow of sustainable income.
Being a member of a corporation will carry with it some noticeable advantages for industrial pilots. In a fleet, it can be a much safer task to mine for ores with fellow players in an industrial ship and more so with military ships around. There may not be much to contribute currently to the corporation as far as finances go, but the role of industry specialists will eventually be an important one for any group.
Beyond manufacturing ships for personal use or for sale, industrial type pilots can also aid in their corporation in general by supplying ships for the corporation’s use. It could lead to mutual benefits in some cases, but will definitely benefit you in every instance.
Business Pilot Career
With ratting being a great source of income for combat pilots and mining or production serving as viable sources of income for industrial pilots, the presupposed expertise of business type pilots in trading equates well enough to both income-generation activities. While a career in business and trading is definitely not for everyone, it is possible to earn more income from it than any other activity in EVE Echoes.
Business type pilots will also have to balance between enhancing industrial ships and upgrading skills related to earning profits. Boosting factors related to profits also mean reducing costs associated with doing business such as handling fees, insurance costs, and taxes. As far as trading is concerned having more personal contracts and corporation contracts is important so prioritizing the upgrade of associated skills in trade is crucial.
Like industrial type pilots, business pilots can also improve on their planetary production, as well as ore reprocessing and scrap metal processing. While upgrading expertise relative to these skills may come in handy as a source of main or extra income, prioritizing skills unique to your career choice is a more suitable alternative.
With reduced costs and more contracts to handle, business enthusiasts will profit more from simple cargo delivery jobs as well. Delivery systems allow for players to take on transportation jobs from one location to another and in contrast with actually delivering goods yourself, business type pilots can also take advantage of this feature on the other side of the fence. If a more profitable venture is available, then pursuing that rather than the transportation business is the better option.
In terms of specializing in trades, purchasing an item at a lower price and selling it for profit is the basic idea behind the craft. An effective business trader should be well aware of current market trends and be able to predict potential behavior of future trends as well. At the time of this writing, for example, selling prices of ships and modules continue to rise. Taking advantage of this trend will be highly beneficial to business type pilots. There will be risks involved in each and every transaction but being able to take risks is an important trait every successful business person should possess.
Knowing the current market trends and prices to raise the chances and amounts of potential profits is not enough. Analyzing supply and demand ratio for specific products is important as well. Although every bit of item you purchase for the purpose of reselling will most likely be sold, what you would want initially is to have a fast enough turnover rate to ensure that you have sufficient funds rolling to continuously make purchases.
Another constant decision points to plan ahead for is the time within which you can afford to hold an item for sale. While going for a quick acquisition and disposal of merchandise is what we would recommend for beginners, some trends in price hikes will surely make it more viable to hold on to some of your properties. In any case, sticking with low-risk, fast income transactions are best to start beefing up your capital. Once you have secure a huge enough amount of money to roll, then that should be the time to gamble away at longer-term trades.
Business type pilots are equally important for corporations especially when it comes to raising assets. While corporation members tasked for military work may potentially dominate in numbers early on, the need for the corporation itself to have financial sources other than taxes will be much more challenging to replace or attract in the event that the current ones disappear.
As far as legit or ethical careers in EVE Echoes are concerned, the potential sources of profits fall within the 3 career paths in the game. If you have spent a lot of time through various contents of the game and have entered into a lot of transactions, however, you may have encountered an infamous alternative to profit-generation.
The scale and complexity of EVE Echoes leaves a lot of ajar doors for scamming and if you are not careful about the details of every transaction you partake in, you may wind up being on the receiving end of a con or swindle. A lot of these malicious operations revolve around contracts so before dealing with contracts, be especially careful with its details.
Up front, there are some very noticeable signs of bad deals in the market like overpriced merchandise and so. Survival in EVE Echoes, however, will stretch its meaning to include not just continuing to earn profits and avoiding dangerous encounters. It is important to be wary early on and as much as there is much to explore and enjoy in EVE Echoes, there will always be a lot of things to watch out for as well.
That sums up all we have for you on our EVE Echoes career guide. Hopefully, you will find the best one for you or rediscover something else early on to shift to. There are still a lot of aspects in the game we have yet to delve in as well so if you have relative experiences to the topics we discussed in this guide and would want to share your thoughts and opinions, feel free to drop us comment down below!