If you go with military career in EVE Echoes, one of the safest and most profitable activities for solo play at this moment is doing encounters.
They are pretty straight forward, but there are few aspects that will help you get more ISK per hour doing them.
To accept encounters, go to News tab in Encounters window.
1. Focus on getting story missions
Story missions are essentially harder encounters which you unlock by completing all required encounters. On this picture below 3 encounters completed and 4 more needed. Two of them are rare (displayed as circle).
To unlock story mission faster just keep refreshing encounters and only accept faction missions that are not marked with checkmark. Faction missions have an emblem of one of 4 factions next to it. Checkmark shows that you have already completed that encounter so you don’t have to do it again. Here is simple priority list:
Encounters appear randomly in News, sometimes it takes long time to get rare ones.
2. Do both Transport and Combat missions
I made a mistake of filtering my encounters by Combat only, but there are actually some transport missions required to unlock some story missions. Also sort them by rarity so you won’t miss rare encounter accidently, these will always be on top of the list. Here are my filter settings:
3. What to do with story missions
Once you completed all required encounters, you will notice a small mark on Story tab in your encounters window. Go to that tab and find the mission. Once you click Accept you will get mission document placed in your cargohold. Mission rewards range from 20 to 200 million ISK.
When you accept mission and get the document, requirements will be cleared and you will be able to get it again.
Check this page to see how much ISK is the reward and how many enemies you will have to kill: https://en.game-m.ru/eve-echoes-story-missions-rewards-and-difficulty/
You have an option to sell story missions on the market for 10 to 30 million ISK (prices on September 8, 2020). Just go to Jita, check prices and create sell order for your mission.
Missions are pretty hard to solo for new players so ask your corporation for help in case if you want to do the mission and get full reward. Also check link above to see if there are any frigates with Warp Disruptors in any wave of your mission. Be extremely carefull with those and take them out first, because if they get in 10km range you will not be able to warp out. (edit: actually, any elite rat named “Interdictor” can potentially warp scramble you)
Here’s a screenshot of what you will be up against:
4. Don’t be afraid to go to lowsec
When you get to T5 you will be able to accept advanced encounters. Some of those will send you to lowsec (0.1–0.4 systems) which technically means that you can get killed by another player. But encounter beacons are only visible to you and nobody else will be able to follow you there, so you’re safe.
You will only be in danager if you go to combat anomaly or mining belts. Or if you sit AFK at gate in lowsec system, so try not to do that.
5. Ship requirements
Basic encounters (T1-T4) can be done in any ship. Destroyer will do the job faster and safer then frigate, but you lose time on traveling between systems.
Advanced encounters begin at T5 and I highly recommend getting at least a destoryer for those. Trainer Cruiser is optimal for rare encounters with 500k+ ISK reward.
6. Fittings
I’m flying Caracal, so this part will be my personal preference.
Caracal is a missile cruiser. There’s no perfect fit and it all comes down to your combat style an what rats are you fighting. In order to be versatile I carry around multiple fittings in my cargohold so I can dock and adjust my fit without going to Jita. I will cover all my modules and explain their purpose below, so you have better idea what and when to fit.
High slots
Medium Rapid Fire Missiles have better damage application than Medium Missiles which helps against frigates, destroyers and fast cruiser rats. Medium missiles have troubles hitting small and fast targets, but they have much better range.
I’m going with Rapid Fires 90% of the time. In story missions just warp in at 100km, wait until fast ships come for you first and take them out one by one in close range.
Low slots
For defense I go with passive shield tank which relies on shield hardeners and buffer shield. Caracal has 0 EM shield resistances, so invest in Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I rig to close that hole. It gives 30% EM resistance.
Next, we need to bump up overall shield resistances. Adaptive Invulnerability Field gives additional 30% shield resistance against all damage types, so it’s a must. Reactive Shield Hardener gives around 15% resistance overall but it will self-adjist in combat, so if you’re up against Amarr rats, it will slowly adjust to give more EM resistance. Both these modules must be always active when you’re in combat.
Medium Shield Extender just adds around 1600 hp to your shield. When activated, it grants additional 1600 shield hp for a period of time. I activate it as soon as I start getting damage from rats and then use it on cooldown.
Damage Control is not so usefull in pve since it gives only 5% extra resistance to shield, but I use it when half-afk farming encounters just orbiting beacon at 5km.
For speed the only option is Medium Afterburner, since Caracal is too low on capacitor to use microwarpdrives.
There are 2 types of weapon upgrades available for missiles: Ballistic Control System improves damage, Missile Guidance Computer improves range. These are passive modules, but they can be overheated by taping them which will temporary increase their bonuses. You can experiment by fitting 3 of these and overheating them one by one or all at once. Notice, that there is a penalty for using multiple weapon upgrades, so if you fit 3 ballistic control damage with 5% each your bonus damage will be much lower than 15%.
Mid slots
Medium Energy Nosferatu will take capacitor energy from your enemy and add it to your capacitor. Its optimal range is only 8km + 4km faloff, so it’s very situational.
Stasis Webifier will decrease target’s speed by half, which is good against frigates and some elite cruisers in story missions. It’s range is 11km
There are no other useful mid modules for pve Caracal, so just go with these two.
Drone damage is quite low, so use any available small drone, or medium drone if you can afford it.
My common fit is:
High slots: Medium Rapid Fire Missile Launchers x4
Mid slots: Medium Nosferatu, Statis Webifier, Infiltrator drone
Low slots: Adaptive Invulnurability Field, Medium Shield Extender, Afterburner, Ballistic Control System
Rigs: Rocket Fuel cache, Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer, Capacitor Control Circuit, Semiconductor Memory
Start with T5 modules and work you way to faction low slots and weapons. Remember to dock before the encounter and leave contents of your cargohold at station in case if you lose your ship.
7. Skills
Again, this is my preference so these are skills worth leveling for passive shield Caracal pilots:
Cruising Techology: Cruiser Command 5, Afterburner 4
Maintenance Technology: Shield Hardening 4, Advanced Shield Hardening 4
Electronics: Cruiser Engineering 4, Advanced Cruiser Engineering 4, Target Management 4
Weapon Technology: Medium Missile/Torpedo Operation 5, Advanced Medium Missile/Torpedo Operation 4, Medium Missile/Torpedo Upgrade 4, Advanced Medium Missile/Torpedo Upgrade 4
After training all these skills you might want to get some drone skills as well get some of these skills to 5. Remember that you might want to fly battlecruisers and battleships in the future, so some of these skills will become irrelevant.
Conclusion
This is all I can share, I hope it was usefull. If you have any questions, my character name is babybloke, feel free to mail me in game.
