Jspace ISK and the Newbie

A practical guide to newbie farming in jspace

Brought to you by Dropbears Anonymous and a DAMN PATRIOT

Greetings loved ones. A rich newbie is an eager to PvP newbie. I will never forget when I first discovered that I could make obscene amounts of ISK in wormholes, with extremely low SP. I Iost 3 battlecruisers in a day. At that time, obscene, for me, was 15m-30m ISK/hr, and extremely low SP meant a t1 fit Exequror. I would spend hours spamming alliance channels to form a c3 fleet of t1 logi and cruisers, and be bouncing off the walls excited to pull down 800m for 13 people in a night.

Since that time, I’ve formed Dropbears Anonymous, wasted far too much time on this shitty game, and learned how to live and love in jspace. We make more money now, and PvP in shinier ships, but I will never forget my roots as a newbie, and I will never stop loving BRAVE for giving me my start.

I’m writing this guide because in Phoebe, possibly the best patch since before I joined, c1-c3 (aka low class) space got significant ISK buffs, and I want you, the average newbie, to be able to take advantage of it! One of the things I love about jspace jewing is that it is a straight progression of difficulty and reward from c1-c3 space, and on to c5-c6 space and above. In low class space you might expect 25-100m isk/hr depending on your skills. This one secret that sleepers hate in C5 relics can jump you up to 200-400m/hr depending on your luck. And capital escalations can earn you from 700m – 2.4b/hr depending on how many capital accounts you have. This guide will address low class space, and future guides will discuss c5 and c6 space. C4 space is shit don’t go there.

General concepts

In the past, I’ve encouraged newbies to bring logi based fleets, both armor and shield. However, I’m now convinced that solo fits are the best way to go. You can of course fleet up with your buddies, and the isk/hr your group brings in will scale up almost linearly with the number of people you have, since they’re all in DPS boats!

The fits we will look at today are 100% passive, capless shield fits, mostly drone based. I am a huge fan of these types of fits for solo jewing, since you can modulate your dps and tank using the handy mobile depot, simply by switching out your low slots.

Most of your ISK in low class holes used to come from Melted Nanoribbons, but since 2 types of cheaper “blue loot” got buffed by nearly 300%, a large portion of it will now come from blue loot drops. Blue loot is what sleepers drop, and each class (frigate, cruiser, battleship) will always drop the same exact amount of loot. You can take this loot and sell it in hisec space to NPC buy orders.

What you need

In order to successfully print ISK in jspace, you will need the following things:

1. Don’t be a fucking idiot

2. Scanning skills

Astrometrics 4 recommended, with support skills to 3. Spring for sisters core scanner probes once you get used to surviving in your scanning ship, they will make your life much easier.

3. Skills to fit one of the fits presented here, with the absolute minimum being:

T2 shield tank

T2 light and medium drones, Heavy Drones or Sentry Drones, and basic Artillery skills

Weapon upgrades 4

Energy grid upgrades 4

4. Salvage skills

Salvaging 3 is necessary for c1 space, and 4 for c2-c3 space. However, you can get away with salvaging 3 if you fit a salvage destroyer and come back through to vacuum instead of salvaging as you go.

Resources to help you with #1: Bookmark these sites:

www.wh.pasta.gg is a wormhole information tool which will instantly give you details on activity in any wormhole you are present in

www.siggy.borkedlabs.com you can pay a small monthly fee to use this wormhole mapping tool, it has many many features which I will not detail here, but suffice it to say, I pay a lot of isk to keep my corporation subscribed

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Wormholes#Wormhole_Identification is a page to learn more about wormholes in general, which will fill in information gaps I leave here. Read it all. This particular bookmark will take you to the wormhole identification guide.

What are wormholes?
Wormholes are systems which are not connected to the rest of EVE via jumpgates. Instead, they are connected to each other and kspace by… wormholes. Yes, wormholes are places and also gates to places.

Inside wormholes you will find combat anomalies called Sleeper sites, populated by the most deadly rats in New Eden, the Sleepers, which are drones long left alone and gone rogue. You will also find players who live in wormholes, and want to kill you. Watch out for these dudes.

Finding your wormhole
For a “day trip” into jspace, you will need to first find a suitable wormhole system. Finding wormholes is easy, just take your favorite scanning ship to a nearby system and scan down signatures. When you find a wormhole, warp to it! You will land 8km off of a pulsing translucent ball, a wormhole connection which will lead you into a wormhole system.

Show info on the wormhole, and you will find 4 critical pieces of information.

1. Wormhole ID:
If it says “K162,” it was spawned from the other side. Wormholes spawn from one system to another. If it says something like “R934,” you can google that result, or go to https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Wormholes#Wormhole_Identification, and find out the hole’s stats, and where it leads. 

2. Wormhole mass.
Each wormhole connection has a maximum jump mass allowed, as well as a total jump mass allowed over its life. The WH ID will tell you your connection’s mass stats. Total mass allowed is variable by up to 10% up or down.

The wormhole mass status is indicated by:
50%+ left: Has not yet had its stability significantly disrupted
50% to 10% left: Has had its stability reduced, but not to a critical degree yet
10% or less: This wormhole has had its stability critically disrupted by the mass of numerous ships passing through and is on the verge of collapse.

Unless you are a Dropbear, I would not recommend moving through a “critical” or “Stage 3” hole (verge of collapse), as any amount of mass (even a pod) might collapse it.

If you are looking to avoid PvP (and in this guide, you are), I would recommend staying away from “reduced” or “Stage 2” holes, as they indicate a high amount of traffic.

3. Wormhole life
A wormhole connection will exist in space for between 16 and 48 hours, variable by up to 25%.

The wormhole status will display:
99%+ life left: Life cycle has not begun
25%+ life left: Probably won't last another day
0% to 25% life left: Reaching the end of its natural lifetime

Do NOT go through an end of life, or “EOL” hole unless you are a Dropbear. An EOL hole can collapse at any time. However, if you know precisely when the hole changed to EOL status, you can use maths to figure out how long you have left before it collapses.

4. Frigate and Destroyer holes
In the Hyperion update, new wormholes were added which can only be entered by very small mass ships such as frigates, destroyers, and multiple bubble hictors (it’s a wormhole thing.) These wormholes are of course no good for your purposes, because you will not be able to bring your jewing ship through them.

The wormhole status will display:

Frigate/Destroyer only: This hole can be entered by very small ships only
Subcapital: This hole can be entered by ??? I don’t remember
Capital: This hole can be entered by very large ships

So, you are looking for a hole that

1. Leads into your preferred class

2. Has not been mass disrupted

3. Is not end of life

4.Is a medium or larger size hole

However, you can enter a hole which does not meet #1 and scan inside it for additional connections.
Once you have found your target class (c1-c3), you will evaluate the hole for its jew potential.

PVP Safety

Wormholes have no local chat, which makes them awesome, and also means at any time a cloaky hunter could be watching you. This means little newbie jew boats are vulnerable to being jumped at any time. While you probably can’t eliminate this risk, especially as a solo pilot, you can reduce it.

Evaluating the hole:
Go to www.wh.pasta.gg and refresh the box. It will tell you who lives in the hole, link you their killboards, and tell you about recent pvp activity. If the hole has active pvp residents who share a TZ with your jewing, you may want to find another hole. The chances of this are extremely low, as most of jspace is empty or populated by lightly active or non pvp corps.
Safest: Scan down all signatures in the hole, place a scout on each, and listen for wormhole activations. Dscan all moons and make sure there are no online ships. Have a scout warp between moons to dscan them all periodically to make sure no residents come online.
Safe’ish: Scan down all signatures in the hole, make sure none of them are wormhole connections with active ships inside them. Dscan constantly with your jew boat, and make sure you are ready to warp out at a moment’s notice. Stay aligned to a celestial or safe spot.
Risky: Don’t scan down signatures, verify the hole has no uncloaked active pvp ships, jew to your little heart’s content and then explode. Dscan constantly.

Combat anomalies

Next, check your show combat anomalies button on your probe scan, and look for a lot of green sites. Are there a lot of them? Great! Make sure they’re combat and not ore. Ew. Mining. Ew. Worse than carebearing. Ewww. Ew for the ew god.

Congratulations, you’ve decided to farm in this particular hole! Here’s how you’ll do it.

The Jew Boats

The following boats are all passive (capless) shield tanks. Here are some important things to think about.

1. All low slots can be interchanged, so carry a full low rack of drone damage amplifiers and shield power relays.

2. Carry a mobile depot, mobile tractor unit, cloak, probes, probe launcher, appropriately sized MWD and AB, and a full rack of warp core stabs for travelling through sticky situations.

3. All weapons other than small and med drones are t1, but obviously use t2 if you have the skills for it and your dps will go way up.

4. Sentry drones are interchangeable for heavy drones, you will get slightly less DPS but apply it much faster. This won’t work on some sites, however, depending on the range the sleepers like to pull, and if you only can carry 1 set (VNI for example).

5. If you have a fleet of 2 or more, you can replace some high slots with remote shield boosters. This will allow the non-primary(ies) to feed the primary shield, and reduce his need for refitting. Although you lose dps from the guns (not much, and none of VNI), it’s well worth it to keep your drone dps buffed.

6. Depending on your skills, some of the high slot modules may need to be offline. That’s fine, they’re mostly there for decoration.

7. If your drone avionics skill is low, you may need a Drone Link Augmentor in your high slots. Be careful, it uses a lot of CPU

8. Geckos are often preferable, but are quite expensive, and sleepers WILL target drones. Also my EFT is not up to date (see above) so I couldn't put them in the fits.

9. Carry a couple of ECM modules and nosferatus. If your drones are taking agro, fit them and activate them. Sleepers hate EWAR.

Passive Vexor for C1-2:
Stats: [Low skill] 381 DPS, 148-336hp/s tank, [All V] 472 DPS, 166-379 hp/s tank

[Vexor, Passive c1 -c2]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
280mm 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP S

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Salvage Drone I x5
Hornet EC-300 x5

Passive Myrmidon for C1-C3:
Stats: [Low skill] 468 dps, 270-616hp/s [All V] 630dps, 695hp/s

[Myrmidon, Passive C1-C3]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Hammerhead II x2
Hobgoblin II x4
Salvage Drone I x5
Vespa EC-600 x5
Hammerhead II x3
Hobgoblin II x1
Federation Navy Ogre x2

Stratios, Passive C1-C3
Stats: [Low skill] 461dps, 248-466hp/s, [All V] 664 DPS, 280-638hp/s

[Stratios, Passive C1-C3]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
Medium S95a Remote Shield Booster

Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II

Hammerhead II x3
Hobgoblin II x5
Wasp EC-900 x5
Salvage Drone I x5
Hammerhead II x2
Federation Navy Ogre x3

Vexor Navy Issue, Passive C1-C3
Stats: [Mid Skills] 572dps, 206-469hp/s [All V] 738dps, 232-529hp/s

[Vexor Navy Issue, Passive C1-C3]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

720mm 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
720mm 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
Medium S95a Remote Shield Booster
Medium S95a Remote Shield Booster

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Federation Navy Ogre x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Hammerhead II x5

Ishtar, Passive C1-C3

Stats: [Mid skill] 532dps, 272-619hp/s, [All V] 734dps, 309-704hp/s

[Ishtar, Passive C1-C3]

Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M /OFFLINE
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M /OFFLINE
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M

Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II

Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Federation Navy Ogre x5
Wasp EC-900 x5
Salvage Drone I x5

Dominix, Passive C1-C3
Stats: [Mid Skills] 605dps, 252-574hp/s, [All V] 826dps, 284-647hp/s

[Dominix, Passive C1-C3]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II

1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP L

Large Core Defense Field Purger I
Large Core Defense Field Purger I
Large Core Defense Field Purger I

Federation Navy Ogre x5
Hammerhead II x5
Wasp EC-900 x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Salvage Drone I x5

Salvaging Destroyer

[Cormorant, Basic Salvager]

Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Beta Hull Mod Nanofiber Structure

Upgraded 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Cap Recharger I
Cap Recharger I

Prototype Cloaking Device I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Small Tractor Beam I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I

Small Salvage Tackle I
Small Salvage Tackle I
Small Salvage Tackle I

Sample Scanning Frigate
[Heron, Scan Drop]
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I

Scan Acquisition Array I
Scan Pinpointing Array I
Scan Rangefinding Array I
Upgraded 1MN Microwarpdrive I

Scan Rangefinding Array I

Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Prototype Cloaking Device I
200mm AutoCannon I, EMP S

[empty rig slot]

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Combat Sites and how to run them
Information about all combat sites can be found on siggy or by googling the name of the site, or by going directly to http://eve-survival.org/. Generally, C1 sites will put out ~150, C2 sites will put out ~400, and C3 sites will put out ~700 max. I haven’t been in low class space for a while, so I’m going to publish this guide without details on each individual site, but in the future I plan to supplement this guide with specifics on each individual site and how to run them.

For now, here’s some basics:

0. Warp off
When you're first experiencings sleepers, you may find them stronk. Fortunately, there are very few scrams in low class anoms, so remember you can always just warp off if you start getting low.

1. Bookmark your warpins
In each site, the sleeper will spawn x distance away from the warpin point. I find it useful for many sites to warp to the site, bookmark an object in space near the sleeper spawn, then warp to the next site, and repeat until all the sites I plan on doing have warpins. This saves a lot of time and boosts your dps/applied dps by having shorter ranges.

2. Orbit your depot, refit
Drop a mobile depot and MTU, and orbit the depot at 1000. You will be able to refit your low slots as necessary, learning how much tank you can sacrifice to gain additional DPS. Remember, the more guys you bring, the less tank you need! Don’t forget to warp in to different points if you want to drop multiple depots.

Also remember that orbiting makes you more vulnerable to cloaky ganking, so if you are risking a big portion of your assets doing this, consider aligning to celestials back and forth instead. Go at 75% speed.

3. Watch your triggers and scrams, kill the small shit first, use the right drones
Unlike nullsec anoms, each wave has a trigger rat which will spawn the next wave, and then you will die. Be sure you read eve-survival to tell you which rats to shoot first. Make sure you shoot any scrams (there aren’t very many) first, so that you can warp off if you need to. Kill any smaller non-triggers first, since that will reduce incoming DPS. Switch drone types depending on your target (frigate- small, cruiser- medium, battleship- large/sentry). Consider assigning various size targets to individual pilots for faster clearing.

4. Salvage for justice

If you are soloing, you may find yourself capless during sites, and won’t be able to salvage. If not, try

to salvage during the site. The alternative is to put salvaging drones out after each site and salvage, or fit a salvage destroyer and bookmark each site to warp back to and salvage after you are done.

Careful, the wrecks despawn in 1-2 hrs.

Relic/Data 

The Phoebe update added Nullsec data/relic sites to C1-C3 space, which can be very profitable. They will present their own set of challenges, but I highly encourage you to seek them out and learn about them.

Selling your loot
Congratulations, your cargo has a very high estimated value! However, unlike nullsec ratting where bounties are automatically credited to your account, you will have to safely take your loot to hisec to be sold. The loot will come in two forms: blue loot, and salvage, mostly melted nanoribbons. Blue loot can be sold to any NPC buy orders in hisec, which can be found on eve-central or by showing market details on your loot in a hisec region. Remember not to get scammed and NEVER sell to a player order. Scam buy orders permeate kspace, ignore them. NPC buy orders will be for 200,000, 500,000, 1,500,000, and 4,000,000. Don’t be fooled! Salvage should ideally be taken to jita where prices are the highest. You can sell to buy orders or list them to sell, but the market is very competitive.

PvP
Now go take your hard earned isk and PvP with it you fucking jew.

What’s next?
In the future, I’ll write guides on higher difficulty activities, including soloing C5 relic sites, and solo escalating C5 and C6 sites, which is where the stupid isk is. Once you’ve arrived at C5 and C6 escalations, be prepared to buy a new cap pilot every week with your shekels.

Dropbears has reopened direct recruitment to players of (nearly) all skill levels. In fact, we have crafted doctrines which require low SP, but are surprisingly powerful and can be flown directly alongside our mainline T3 doctrines. You can be a newbie and thrive in high class space, as long as you aren’t a pussy. See our in game channel, Dropbears Anonymous in game for more info.

Good luck out there and feel free to convo me in game with questions, a DAMN PATRIOT, or stop by the Dropbears Anonymous channel to hit up one of our officers or members.

a DAMN PATRIOT

CEO

Dropbears Anonymous

BRAVE Collective

p.s. This is a first draft, and probably fucked sideways because I wrote it in one afternoon off the top of my head, and haven't farmed low class space in about a year. If you have any suggestions for easy to use fits that get better stats than mine, or other suggestions to improve this guide, please send them to me so I can include them