Eve Online: Making ISK Bombing

Making ISK as a bomber has proven to be fairly difficult for me. Bombs cost between 1-2 million (depending on where you buy them) each, and typically if you are solo bombing, a single bomb won't pop most targets unless they have almost no type of tank fit to their ship. There are tactics that you can take to help increase your chances of popping your target with a single bomb, such as using a target painter, but the problem with that is you have to remain uncloaked and are likely within 30km of your target (since you just released a bomb) so they will be able to target you, preventing you from cloaking back up again.

If you are bombing with a group of bombers, then you'll need to split the loot with the other bombers, but that is limited by the amount of cargo space you have (which is next to nothing, especially when you have extra bombs in your cargo hold).

This means that your are spending a few million ISK every time you go out bombing, and most likely not making enough ISK to cover the cost of your bombing runs.

So why do we fly stealth bombers if not for the potential ISK you'll make?

There are lots of reasons out there but here are mine:

• The thrill of sitting cloaked 30 km away from your target, you knowing they are about to die, but them not having a clue
• The chance they will catch you and pop you is a huge adrenaline rush
• We control the battlefield when we stealth bomb, if we don't want to engage or think that it's not worth it, you'll never know we were there
• Camaraderie with other stealth bombers. Even if you don't know them, or maybe even if they are normally your enemy you still share in some unspoken bond.
• Because blopping (black ops cyno hotdrop) 20+ stealth bombers on a Dominix ratting in asteroid belts, and then lighting him up with so many torpedoes that he'll be shitting missiles for a week is extremely fun. 

The reasons go on and on, but ISK isn't one of them for me. I have to earn ISK other ways to pay for my bombing habit. You can make ISK bombing, but I don't think that ISK is in the top ten reasons why any of us do it. If you plan it right you can make it, but it will take lots of set up and patience.

Patience is one of the key attributes a bomber needs to possess. The ability to set a trap, know where your pray will be, and then wait for the proper moment is crucial. For example, right now Relic sites are the big thing out there that everyone seems to be doing. What better place for a trap? You know the ship that is going to show up will likely be a scanning frigate, and it doesn't take very long to wait if you pick the proper system with a high likelihood of traffic passing through regularly. Scan down the site, bookmark it, then hang out in the site all cloaked up and positioned to bomb one of the relic containers. Since the target will likely be a covert ops frigate, your steps should look something like this:

1.  Position yourself 30km from one of the containers
2. Cloak
3. Wait for target to show up
4. Align to target/celestial
5. Uncloak
6. Bomb
7. Target 
8. Activate Target Painter if you have one
9. Active Warp Scram if you have one
10. Launch Torpedoes over and over again (just in case)
11. Orbit at 15-20 km until target is dead

This is a safe way to practice bombing on a target that most likely won't be able to fight back.  Your bomb may be able to pop the frigate in one shot, but the added torpedoes are there just in case. Typically you would launch bomb and already be aligned to a celestial or warp away point, and then get the hell out of there. But against a target you know can't fight back, might as well finish the job in person.

If you want to try a can flipping trap in high sec, you can do the same thing by leaving a cargo container in a relic site with some tempting cargo inside. Hack one of the relic containers and leave the rest. This way the prey will think someone did visit site, but had to leave, and just left their cargo behind too. They take the cargo container, turn yellow suspect, and then you uncloak and share with them the penalties of breaking the law :)

Either way, planning and patience are your best friends.

Fly safe