Many people start out in EVE thinking they have to spend days mining ore to make money. This is not the case. Mining is the easiest and cheapest way to make some cash but there are many other ways.

Here, you will learn about pirate hunting as a means of generating income. This is a much more exciting path and often filled with danger, but it's also a lot more fun for players that like more action; however, mining in deep space is still a very exciting endeavor as you run the risk of being attacked by NPCs.

While the starting ship is no power house of death-dealing, with a small investment in some cheap weapons and by using the Civilian Shield Booster you got from doing the tutorial (you did the tutorial right?), it can be more than adequate to kill some low level pirates.

• At the end of the tutorial and the first set of tutorial agent missions, a new player should have around 15,000 ISK. Take some of this cash and buy a cheap weapon. If your ship can handle the CPU and power costs, get 2 of them.
• Next, buy some good ammunition. The stats can be a bit overwhelming at first, but you will catch on eventually. Try to get ammo that results in a good range of damage, but also has a low negative range modifier. Antimatter ammo, for instance, does more damage than most other ammunitions but it has a -50% modification to range. It doesn't matter how much damage you do if you can't hit a target from a decent range. However this is mainly applicable to long range weapons such as railguns, beam lasers, and howitzers. Close range weapons such as blasters and autocannons should almost always close range, high damage ammunition.
• Then, make sure the guns and the Civilian Booster are mounted using the in-station, the guns are loaded, and there is extra ammo in the cargo hold; it's time to go hunting.
• The best place to start out as a new pirate killer is in 0.8 security space. Find a sector with lots of asteroid belts and patrol the belts. Most pirates in 0.8 solar systems are relatively weak and don't travel in groups.
• Make sure you have the overview open and, when you see a pirate, right mouse click on the entry on the radar and target lock it. You can also spot pirates in space as red "+" signs; be sure to I.D. them before you lock on to them. This can be done from the radar by double clicking on the entry there, or by right mouse clicking on the "+" sign in space. Ensure that you do not lock on to innocent NPCs such as CONCORD, Navy, or Tradeships.
• NPC pirates also have their faction in front of their name for better identification, i.e. "Blood" Raider, "Sansha's" Beast, "Angel" Impaler, "Serpentis" Smuggler, or "Guristas" Terrorist.
• With the target identified as hostile and locked, you can use the "orbit - X km" command to ensure you stay away from the target and shoot at it while orbiting; the value of X will be the optimal range of your weaponry. To do this, right click on the target or the representing autoscanner line.
• In most cases, especially in the high security systems, players have longer weapon ranges than NPC pirates. If everything goes well, you should take very few hits and the NPC pirate should explode quickly.
• Loot the cargo container. It may have something you can use, sell or recycle. Congrats on your first kill and your first bounty. The lowest level pirates are usually worth 1000 to 1500 ISK, and their loot can be worth twice that or even more.