Grismar's EVE Wiki : AgentMissions

Agent Missions

An important part of EVE gameplay is the agent mission. This article explains what they are, how to get them, how to complete them and how to climb up the corporate ladder.

Related articles: AgentAvailability.

Running missions for NPC agents is a good way to earn some ISK in EVE. It will also raise your standing with your agent and the NPC corporation he belongs to. If you successfully complete 16 missions for agents from a single faction other than the Servant Sisters of EVE, you will be offered a StorylineMissions. Storyline missions usually grant greater rewards than normal missions and will raise your standing with the faction you were working for. Note that some some missions, especially those involving combat, will lower your standing with factions opposed to those you work for. For instance, destroying Gallente Navy ships during a mission for a Caldari corporation will lower your standing with the Gallente Federation.

As you keep running missions for a particular agent, you will build a relationship with that agent, reflected by the accumulation of loyalty points. If you continue to run missions for that agent, you will receive special offers for items or services which will require loyalty points as (part of) the payment.

You can run missions for agents in all NPC corporations in all factions except for those belonging to InterBus, the CONCORD (Concord, DED, SCC and Inner Circle) and the Jovian Directorate (Genolution, Impro and X-Sense in currently accessible space). This includes NPC pirate corporations - you don't just have to work for the good guys.

To see what type of missions an agent is likely to give, check DivisionMissionType.

Your first missions

When you start the game, the tutorial will refer you to your first agent. In addition to basic instructions about the interface and gameplay, he or she will give you two missions to run. These two missions are admittedly not the most exciting adventures you will ever have in the EVE universe. Nevertheless it is a good idea to complete these missions as you will be rewarded with a boost in standing with your own faction and a referral to a storyline mission agent who will give you your first implant when you have completed his series of missions. The tutorial agent will also refer you to yet another agent. You don't have to work for the second agent you are referred to, however. This referral merely a suggestion, and you will have access to a number of agents in your faction, based on your standing.

Finding a better agent

The first step in running agent missions is to find an agent to work for. The choice of agents when you start the game can be bewildering. To see where the agents available to you are:

1. Open the map (press F10).
2. Go to the Display Settings tab in the World Map Control Panel, then the Stars tab.
3. Scroll down to the My Associates section and click My agents.
4. A number of solar systems will be highlighted in green.
5. Hover your mouse pointer over a highlighted system - a list of available agents in that system will be shown.

A basic way to find an agent, is to find a corporation in your racial faction that has several agents available to you in systems near you. Once you select a corporation you want to work for, you can look at their available agents:

1. Open the People and Places window (second icon down on the left)
2. Set the Search Type to Corporation and search for the corporation of interest
3. Right click on the corporation name in the search results and Show Info
4. Go to the Agents tab
5. Agents are listed by divisions
6. Expanding a division will list agents Available to you and Not available to you

Whether or not an agent is available depends on your standing to them, either your corporation or tyour faction standing, whichever is highest. If you can improve the best standing even more, you will get access to agents of a higher level and better quality level.

A more advanced way of searching for agents is available on this site as the EVE Explorer. To get started, set it to show agents, belonging to a corp with name containing .. or belonging to a faction with name containing .. and enter (part of) the name of corp or faction. You can then further refine the results by only showing agents requiring standing ... and entering something like (for instance) <= 0.85 to only show agents that require 0.85 standing or less.

The right agent for you

Agents are ranked by level and quality. At first, your standing will only allow you to work for low quality level 1 agents. This is not as bad as it seems, as level 2 missions - especially those involving combat - would probably be too hard for you. Try to find the highest quality agent of a level you're comfortable working for. Also look at the SecurityStatus of the system the agent is in. Selecting an agent in or near low security space may result in missions requiring you to visit low security systems.

Agents are also classified by divisions. Some divisions give combat-oriented missions, some give more peaceable tasks such as making deliveries or mining ore. Most divisions give a mixture of these missions. Research and Development agents are a special category of agents and do not give regular missions for loyalty points.

Mission types

There are several types of mission on offer. You should find out what agent division gives what type as well.

• Kill missions
  These involve killing a number of ships, usually pirates or enemies of the corporation you are working for. You may also have to retrieve items or people from the ship wreckage or from structures in space at the mission location. Missions may occur in open space or DeadSpace; in general, DeadSpace missions are harder. Missions in open space may feature several waves of enemy ships. Those in DeadSpace may feature several areas that have to be cleared of enemies.

• Courier missions
  These involve moving items from one space station to another, usually several solar systems away. At higher levels, there may be a large quantity of material to move and the mission may require deliveries to several destinations.

• Trade missions
  These involve buying items from the market and supplying them to a destination space station. It is usually wise to check that you can buy the items for a price that is lower than the value of the mission reward.

• Mining missions
  These involve the delivery of a quantity of minerals to a destination station. The minerals can be obtained by mining, or you can treat the mission as a trade mission and buy the minerals from the market.

How to run a mission

Talking to your agent to get a mission or tell them that you have completed a mission is fairly simple. Running the mission might not be so easy.

1. Dock at the SpaceStation where your agent is based.
2. Locate the agent of your choice in the Agents tab to your right.
3. Right-click your agent portrait and Start Conversation or double-click the portrait.
4. Ask the agent if they have any work for you (the top option).
5. Ask for further details about the mission (the bottom option) and read these carefully.
6. If the mission looks suitable, accept it (the top option).
7. Once accepted, the mission appears in your journal as such.
8. Do the mission: be sure that you complete all objectives (see below).
9. Dock in a SpaceStation (it does not have to be the agent's home station) and talk to the agent again.
10. Tell the agent that you have completed their mission (the top option).

Remember, you need to have sufficient standing with the agent, corp or faction to be able to speak with the agent. If the details of a kill mission list a number of targets, the mission will be in ordinary space (not DeadSpace) but there might be more targets in consecutive waves, increasing the difficulty.

If you don't accept the mission, it will still appear in your journal and every time you ask the same agent for a mission, they will offer the same mission. You can decline the mission (the middle option) but you're only allowed to decline a single mission per agent every four hours, without penalty. If you try to decline another within that time, the gameclient will warn you that you will lose standing with this agent and corporation if you do.

Completing a courier mission requires that you have all the items you were required to move in your current ship or your hangar at the destination station(s). Having them in several locations in the station or in your corporation hangar (if you're part of a player corporation) won't work. Some kill missions require you to bring back some of the loot to the station.

Mission rewards

Agents offer a reward for successful completion of a mission. This is almost always ISK. In addition, there is a bonus reward if you complete the mission within a short bonus period. The length of the bonus period depends on the difficulty of the mission. Bonus rewards may be ISK, but they may also be trade goods, skills or ship equipment. If the bonus is not money, it is usually something that the agent's corporation trades in. You may find that working for some corporations gives a bonus of undesirable trade goods - such as garbage.

The level of a reward is determined by the agent's level and quality, your level in the Negotiation skill and the SecurityStatus of the agent's home solar system. Running missions in lower security systems will give better rewards.

Rejecting or failing missions

If your agent offers you a mission that looks too hard or that you just don't want to do you can reject it without any penalty. You will not be able to reject another mission from this agent for four hours without suffering a standing penalty.

All mission offers and most missions expire within seven days after being offered to you; some expire earlier but will contain a respective warning message in the mission briefing. Mission expiry times and dates are shown in your journal.

If you accept a mission and later discover that you cannot complete it, you should tell your agent. Failing a mission in this way will mean that you suffer a standing penalty. The level of penalty varies, but it is usually at least the standing gain from successfully completing three or four similar missions. Letting a mission expire results in the same standing penalty.

Progressing to better agents

As your standing with agents, corporations and factions increases you will be able to work for agents of higher AgentLevel and AgentQuality. You will not be notified when new agents become available to you, you will have to search for them in the same way you searched for your first agents (formula for agent availability also available).

The increases in standing for successfully completing missions can be quite small, especially when you are working for level 1 agents. It can take a long time before higher level agents become available. You can increase the speed with which your standing increases by training the social skill. You can increase your effective standing by training the Connections skill.

Relevant sites:

• EVE Explorer - find any and all agents

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Current EVE version: 2.09.3913 (Bloodlines)