Pod pilots in New Eden have a number of so-called “careers,” or “professions”. Certain sets of skills and activities work well together. Some of the more well-known ones might include miners, manufacturers, scouts, explorers, fleet commanders, CEOs, pirates, traders, and militia. Typically, a pilot can train a certain path and undertake particular operations that take advantage of his skills. Making a choice to focus on a given profession allows that pilot to excel in that area, although some pilots prefer to do many things poorly. New pilots in particular need to explore the options available to them, for example, so they can understand whether they enjoy nullsec warfare, agent work, mining, or something else entirely. This has less to do with “not making a choice” than it does with “getting information to make a good choice.”
Not that any pilot ever should feel locked into anything, of course, since you can always buy a few skillbooks and get started doing something new. As time goes on, he might choose to add another (possibly unrelated) profession to his skillset, or he may choose to continue to specialize in a given track. Experienced pilots often want to try something new after having done the same sorts of things for an extended time, or perhaps other circumstances have led them to need to look into a career change.
For the most part, professions involve lots of cooperation with other pilots. A pilot might choose to engage in them alone, but he generally can work with others should he desire. Some professions literally cannot work without having others with whom to collaborate (e.g. fleet commanders).
What about trading? This profession — the buying and selling of items on the market — generally classifies everyone else into two groups. To a trader, any pilot is either a customer or a competitor. Customers fill your buy and sell orders, while competitors try to get their orders filled instead.
Other than information exchange, traders have very little room for cooperation with anyone else. Haulers can use escorts, of course, but while these two professions (hauling and trading) frequently overlap, we can’t view them entirely the same. Station traders may never undock during their entire career, and some haulers just work on courier contracts or for agents.
Pilots who intend to fly solo for the most part and have an interest in making a lot of ISK can do quite well for themselves in trading. But they shouldn’t expect a great deal of collaboration beyond information exchange.
Side note: Ecliptic Rift has started to explore this area, so we’d welcome anyone with ideas on how traders can collaborate to make more ISK together. In the meantime, we have plenty to keep us busy in addition to whatever individual trading a pilot may do. If you’d like to work with us, then please contact me via EVEmail, or come chat in “Ecliptic Rift Public”.
Photo credits kozumel and Artotem via Flickr
