Setting up a new market trader in EVE Online can be overwhelming and confusing. This guide outlines how to effectively grind the correct standings for your low-skilled NPC station traders, and explains why high standings are important.
Brokerage Fee
The Broker Relations skill decreases brokerage fees from 3% to 1.5% at Level 5.[1] You can further reduce the Brokerage Fee to 1% if you raise the base faction and corporation standing to 10. [2] Effective standings are not considered.
=3%-(0.3%*brokerRelationsSkill)-(0.03%*baseFactionStanding)-(0.02%*baseCorpStanding)
Achieving a 10/10 standing is easy, but time consuming. The method is to chain security agent missions and trigger storyline missions for the appropriate corporation. Storyline missions are triggered after the completion of every 16th[3] mission, and provide a larger faction and corporation standings increase. The closest storyline agent to the agent who gave you the 16th mission is triggered.
If you chain level 4 missions, you’ll get a level 4 Storyline mission when it triggers, providing a larger standing increase than if you chain level 1’s. I need to run the numbers to see what is more effective, but for a low-skilled pilot you can rinse through level 1’s and 2’s.
This can be done in a low-skill sunesis
Or, if you want to go wild, a 438 dps, <2s align time Mekubal:
| Market | Faction | Corp | Mission Station |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jita | Caldari State |
Caldari Navy |
Kakakela VI – Moon 18 – Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Kakakela VI – Moon 15 – Caldari Navy Assembly Plant |
| Amarr | Amarr Empire |
Emperor Family |
Akes V – Moon 2 – Emperor Family Academy |
| Rens | Minmatar Republic |
Brutor Tribe |
Rens VI – Moon 8 – Brutor Tribe Treasury |
| Hek | Boundless Creation |
Hek VIII – Moon 12 – Boundless Creation Family* | |
| Dodixie | Gallente Federation |
Federation Navy |
Osmeden VII – Moon 18 – Federation Navy Assembly Plant Osmeden XII – Moon 1 – Federation Navy Assembly Plant or Jel VI – Federation Navy Logistic Support Jel VIII – Moon 20 – Federation Navy Assembly Plant |
*0.2 Helgatild IX – Moon 14 – Boundless Creation Factory is a good alternative to chain distribution missions and ought to be faster if you have the skills for a blockade runner.
If you are using a different market, the Agents tool on dotlan can be used to determine the best system to travel to. The corporation that owns the NPC trade station, and the faction they belong to, are important. For example, Tash-Murkon Prime II – Moon 1 – Kaalakiota Corporation Factory belongs to the Kaalakiota Corporation who are a member of Caldary State.
Using the dotlan tool we can determine that the system of Ohide has four level 1 mission agents and a storyline agent belonging to Kaalakiota. Cross-checking this via the agent finder in-game reveals these are distribution agents, which is a valid method of grinding the standings, but requires a higher skill ceiling for T2 haulers to be effective.
Returning to the list and cross-referencing with the agent finder reveals the system of Nausschie, which has two level 1 security agents and a story line agent.
EVEMissioneer can also be used to cross-check mission agents.
Reprocessing Tax
Reprocessing Tax in an NPC station is by default 5% of the adjusted value of the output materials.The adjusted value can be called via the EVE Swagger API and imported to a spreadsheet for lookup.
Training the Connections skill to 5 (and having at least +0.001 base standing with the NPC corporation) will result in an effective standing of 2 and therefore lower the reprocessing tax to 3.5%. Achieving a 6.67 effective standing reduces this to 0%. [4]
Effective Standing
=ROUND(baseCorpStanding+(10-baseCorpStanding)*(4%*connectionsSkill),2)
Tax Calculation
(If base standing = 0.00, effective standing = 0.00)
=ROUND(
IF(baseStanding=0,0.05,
LET(
rawEff,baseStanding+(10-baseStanding)*0.04*connectionsSkill,
eff,ROUND(rawEff,2),
IF(eff<=0,0.05,IF(eff<6.67,0.05*(1-eff/6.67),0))
)),4)
Achieving 1% brokerage fees and 0% reprocessing tax widens your trade margins significantly. A well situated Jita reprocessing trader can spend upwards of 5b ISK per month on reprocessing fees alone, so eliminating those costs is essential.
Alternative Method for Faction Standing
For a large increase in faction standing, run the Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc. This can be repeated once every 90 days and will take a few hours. This can be run in the same sunesis detailed above, though some missions may require warping out to repair, so upgrading the modules to T2 is advised. A second Sunesis is required for Our Man Dagan (for the extra DPS), so you may decide to use something faster for the whole Arc, such as, a Dramiel or the Mekubal I linked earlier.
Additionally, the Angel Sound Angel Cartel Epic Arc can be run to gain either Minmatar, Amarr, or Angel standings, or the Smash and Grab Guristas Epic Arc for Gallente, Caldari, or Guristas.
This Stiletto fit runs Angel Sound with ease, though I have not tested it yet on Smash and Grab.
- [1] Broker Relations Skill | https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Skills:Trade#Broker_Relations
- [2] Brokers Fee and Sales Tax | https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/203218962-Broker-Fee-and-Sales-Tax
- [3] Storyline Missions | https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Missions#Storyline_missions
- [4] Reprocessing Tax | https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Reprocessing