Agent
Agents are non-player characters (NPCs) responsible for managing the empire and faction generated missions. There are several types of agents available that offer missions involving, among others, mining, trade, and combat.
Overview
Why choose agents?
Agents offer several rewards for completing their missions. The tangible benefits include money, items and loyalty points, which can be used to purcahse Implants, ships belonging to the faction the agent belongs to or skill books. The intangible benefit to running agent missions is the ability to increase standings. This basically is the the approval or disapproval of the corporation you're working for. A high approval rating leads to higher level agents, which give better rewards, as well as less tax on using station services (like refining) and lower brokers fees when using the market.
Why avoid agents?
Like any possible source of wealth in the game, there are several balances in place to make sure it (1) doesn't get exploited and (2) doesn't become the sole activity for all pilots due to its appeal. The tedium, slow advancement, and competitive pay work to even the scales. Mission running can be quite tedious no matter what kind of agent a pilot chooses. Also, the slow advancement through the ranks of agents might make a player consider another career path. Additionally, the pay for running missions is similar to what a player can make in other activities skillpoint for skillpoint.
Additionally, gaining standings leads to derived standings, which can raise or lower your standings with other factions or corporations. At -5.0 faction standings, you become kill on site to the faction. Pilots should take care to avoid this if they don't want their travel restricted.
How do I find agents?
Open the map ( F10 ) - Star map - Color by - Personal - My Available Agents. Systems highlighted have agents and you can mouse over a system gives more info.
Additionally, agents can be found via "The Agency" UI(Alt-M). As of 2018/1/13, this displays a maximum of 12 agents. Third party services such as the Dotlan agent finder can also be used.
How do I find better agents?
SHOW INFO one of the agents you have already worked for ... click his CORP logo and then the Agents tab. See where the agents are located and which will talk to you.
Agent Locations
Agents can be found in station in highsec, lowsec, and NPC nullsec. Some agents are also available in space, and will typically have a beacon.
Most Agents, however, are located in their safe offices inside stations. Almost all Agents, Research Agents and Storyline Agents are located there. All you need to do to find them is to dock inside a station and look at the Agents tab. You can use many online Agent Finder services to facilitate finding and comparing Agents.
A few Agents, known as COSMOS agents, are located in other places and can be located via the HUD overview. Others may be located by Probing, some will be found at certain beacons, others will appear only to players doing certain missions. These Agents are mysterious, and there is no known complete database of them. Most Event Agents are also known as Agents In Space. See: Data Centers.
Types of Agents
Career Agents
Career Agents are available in the station in starter systems. They will introduce you to the New Eden Universe and get you started on your new career as a pilot.
You can do the career missions of all factions, no matter which you started at. This can be an easy way to get a standings boost.
Event Agents
- Event Agents can be found in various locations, and only rarely inside stations.
- You usually get a mission that can be performed only once per character. Exceptions are the Circle Agents and a few level 1 COSMOS agents.
- You get no loyalty points but get a faction and corporation standings boost plus some very interesting rewards, such as storyline modules. The repeatable Event Agents only give out the faction bonus the first use.
Mission Agents
- Probably the most common type of an agent, found in abundance on most stations.
- You get loyalty points, standings, and isk for completing missions for mission agents.
- You can have as many mission agents as you want.
- Mission agents can give Security, Mining, Distribution or R&D type missions.
- Every 16th mission will give a storyline agent. (See below.)
Research Agents
- You get Research point on a daily basis for having research agents. You can also get a full days worth of research points by running missions for your agent that are offered once a day.
- You can only have a limited number of research agents (max 6). The number you can have is limited by the science skill 'research project management'.
A research agent is a little different from your regular mission agent.
To find one you first have to check what npc corporation that has an R&D division. But under Research Services you can see relevant skills, High energy physics and Plasma physics. This means you have to have, except for a good standing towards the corporation , one of these skills to be able to use this agent. If you don't have one of these skills train to level 1 (if you're going to do missions for a research agent you should train the skill required higher than just the needed skill level, why will be explain if you read further) you will not be able to do missions for this agent.
As you also can see you have predictable patents listed under each skill. This means that this is what you have a chance to get if you do missions for this agent.
Storyline Agents
- Storyline or Important agents are ones you get access to every 16 missions from a mission agent. Their missions are like Events in that you get a large faction standings increase and a major corporation standings increase. They commonly reward you with implants, with level of the missions you've completed determined both the difficulty of the storyline mission and the level of the reward implant. The storyline agent will always be the closest storyline agent to the agent that gave you your 16th mission, it will always be of the same faction but not corporation, and will always be in the same security status bracket(highsec, lowsec, nullsec).
Agent Levels
Every agent has a level ranging from 1 to 5 which is listed in its info.
As you run missions for an agent, your standings towards the agent and its corporation will improve. As your standings towards the agent improve, you will be offered more rewarding missions. Once corporation standings have improved sufficiently, you can access higher level agents from the corporation.
To check which agents in a corporation are available to you, open the corporation's info dialog and look under the agents tab.
Access to Agents
Access to Agents is determined based on your Standing with the agent's faction or corporation, whichever is higher.
Level 1 agents will always be accessible. One major function they serve is to allow capsuleers to redeem themselves in the eyes of the NPC factions.
| Agent Level | Standing Required |
|---|---|
| 2 | 1 |
| 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 5 |
| 5 | 7 |
Rewards
Rewards are affected by: 1) Agent level 2) Security status of the agents location 3) Social skills level
Most missions will reward ISK, Loyalty Points with the corporation the agent belongs to, and sometimes items.
Level 5 agents
Level 5 agents are beyond the scope of this page, however here are some notes.
- They are always in lowsec/nullsec.
- The agents are often camped heavily to catch people running them.
- They are often done in carriers, however subcaps are capable of running them.
- They are often done in fleets of multiple pilots, however they can be soloed with extreme difficulty.
- They require 7.0 standings, which will take a large amount of time to get.
Finding Agents
Affiliated with a Particular Corporation
Open "The Agency" UI(Alt-M) and filter it to "agents". You can then choose the amount of jumps from you to search, faction, corporation, agent type and agent level. As of 2018/1/13 with the removal of the agent finder, this displays a maximum of 12 agents. Third party services such as the Dotlan agent finder can also be used.
Loyalty Points and Rewards
- Loyalty Points can be spent at stations belonging to the corporation that they're for.
Agent Divisions
A list of missions agents will offer you: Missions
Mission Distributions
Agents of different divisions give you different types of missions to run:
| Division | Mission type |
|---|---|
| Security | Combat Missions |
| Distribution | Courier Missions |
| Mining | Mining Missions |
Security
Security missions can send you several jumps away, and can send you into lowsec. Always be sure to choose an agent away from lowsec systems if you don't wish to go there.
Distribution
- Level 1 Distribution missions will send you 0 - 5 jumps and will require up to 350m3 of cargo space.
- Level 1 Storyline Distribution missions require up to 99.9m3 of cargo space.
- Level 2 Distribution missions will send you 0 - 5 jumps and will require up to 450m3 of cargo space.
- Level 2 Storyline Distribution missions require up to 1500m3 of cargo space.
- Level 3 Distribution missions will send you 0 - 12 jumps and can cross regional borders. They require up to 4200m3 of cargo space.
- Level 3 Storyline Distribution missions require up to 4200m3 of cargo space.
- Level 4 Distribution missions will send you 1 - 12 jumps and will ALWAYS send you to the neighboring constallation. They require up to 7500m3 of cargo space.
- Level 4 Storyline Distribution missions require up to 40,000m3 of cargo space.
All distribution missions can be completed in multiple trips.
Mining
Mining missions will have you mine ore in deadspace sites.
Skills for Agent Runners
If you know you're going to do a lot of agent missions you will want to take time to invest in a few skills. These will cut back on the grind and improve rewards.
- Social - Skill at social interaction, 5% bonus to npc standing increase.
- Connections - Skill at interacting with friendly npc's, 4% bonus to effective standing.
- Negotiation - Skill at agent negotiation, 5% additional pay for agent missions.
- Connections skills - Distribution Connections, Mining Connections and Security connections. These increase Loyalty Points gain by 10% per level for missions of their types.
If you're also looking to raise your personal security standings you might want to train the skill:
- Diplomacy - This skill is required in the long term to hold off on being set kill on site by factions, which will heavily limit your ability to travel around highsec. Regular missions don't grand faction standings, however storyline missions do and when you gain or lose standings with a faction, other factions standings are effected by derived standings. Some of these can be negative, for example, working exclusively for Caldari State will reduce standing with the Gallente Federation. When your effective standing reaches -5.0 or less, Faction Navy ships will begin attacking you on sight, regardless of your overall Security Status with CONCORD. Eventually, work must be done for the Gallente to balance these effects out, but the Diplomacy skill can buy you more time. Alternatively, you can simply not go to the space of the faction you've angered.
It can also be used to get access to level 2 missions quickly. If a character starts with level 5 Diplomacy and then completes one Event Mission with a faction, their faction standing instantly raises to +2.0 and any corporations with that faction get a +2.0 boost giving the player access to level 2 missions with that corporation.
To what level should you train these skills then?
If you want to run missions as a career choice, they're worth training to at least 4, and then up to 5.
Locator Agents
Some agents can help you locate players in the world of EVE. These agents have 'Location Services' listed in the Agent Info along with the time it will take and the price of locating the player. The better the agent, the less time it takes the agent to find the player you're looking for and the further range you can locate them. If you want to use the location service you need to be in the same station as your agent and then tell him/her who you are looking for. The cost will then be withdrawn from your wallet and you will receive an EVEmail with the player's last known location when your agent has located him/her.
