Alpha to Omega Challenge | EVE Online Regional Trading - CHALLENGE SUCCESSFULLY FINISHED

This is the summary of how I used EVE Online trading, regional market arbitrage, and Alpha Clone–friendly ISK methods to fully PLEX my account—with less than one hour of gameplay per day.

This article serves as a progress update and a as a first guide for anyone searching for:

• “How to make ISK as an Alpha Clone”

• “How to earn PLEX in EVE Online”

• “Best ISK making methods for beginners”

• “EVE Online trading guide 2025”

Let’s dive in.

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✔ Goal Achieved: PLEXing My Account as an Alpha Clone

After 86 days of focused trading:

• 400 PLEX purchased

• ~550 million ISK liquid

• ~2 billion ISK in sell orders

All done while maintaining an average playtime of 45–60 minutes per day, proving that regional trading is one of the most efficient ISK-making strategies for low-playtime players.

With the current release of the Catalyst expansion, CCP also launched two rare NES store offers:

• 400 PLEX → 30 days Omega (instead of 500)

• 7 days Omega for 10 PLEX (available to all players)

Using these deals, I secured 37 days of Omega time for only 410 PLEX, saving more than 100 PLEX (~500M ISK).

If this guide motivates you to start your own account or Alpha challenge, I'd appreciate if you use my referral link. 
You'll get 1.000.000 Skill Points, making early game progression significantly faster.

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Starting vs. Final Wealth

• Starting ISK: 75 million

• Ending ISK Value: 3 billion + 400 PLEX

    

My PLEX valuation uses the current average price of 5.226.172 ISK/PLEX, though real trading prices allowed me to buy under 5 million ISK using buy orders.

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Challenges Faced

1. Limited Playtime and Setup Overhead

Much of the early challenge time went into:

• Building my trading spreadsheet

• Integrating the EVE Online Excel Add-In

• Fine-tuning item lists and price logic

Once optimized, my daily trading routine took 30–45 minutes, split up in a morning and an evening session of 15-25 minutes.

2. Taxes & Broker Fees: The Alpha Clone Profit Killer

Alpha Clones pay the highest taxes in the game. I paid :

• 7.5% sales tax

• Up to 3% broker fees (reducible to 2.38%)

• ~14% effective broker fee due to constant order updates

This is why high-margin items are essential for Alpha Clones.

To stay profitable, you need:

👉 25–30% gross profit margin minimum.

3. Only 17 Market Orders

The Trade skill caps Alpha Clones at 17 orders, forcing a strategy that focuses on:

• High-value items

• Low-volume, low-competition items

• Maximizing ISK turnover per order

This limitation is why item selection is the single most important factor in Alpha trading success.

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My Trading Strategy

1. Jita → Dodixie & Amarr: Monetizing on Regional Arbitrage

The foundation of my PLEX-farming setup:

• Buy low in Jita, the main trade hub

• Haul (via courier) to Dodixie or Amarr

• Sell high in these less competitive regional markets

• Don't be greedy! Players may accept a 50% or even a 100% markup if they save travel time to Jita. BUT there is a psychological ceiling. This is why I usually kept my markups between 35% and 50%. The higher the item value, the lower the markup. 

This is one of the strongest EVE Online ISK-making methods for new players.

Late-Run Enhancements:

• Began station trading in Jita

• Used Perimeter buy orders (ultra-low broker fees)

• Sold high-turnover items directly in Jita for fast flips

2. Item Focus: High-Margin, Low-Volume

I specifically targeted:

• Implants

• Faction modules

• Structures and components (later in the challenge)

• ALWAYS Low-volume items

• ALWAYS Low competition items (trade volume 1 per every 3 or more days)

These items offer great returns even with Alpha order limitations.

3. No Hauling – 100% Courier Contracts

Thanks to the Haulers Channel, I outsourced all hauling.
This allowed me to scale trading while keeping my daily playtime very low.

4. Scaling Strategy With Limited Orders

To grow beyond early-game ISK levels, I focused on:

• Increasing item value

• Maximizing ISK turnover per slot

• Maintaining strong margins

• Avoiding low-value, high-volume markets

This is the only reliable way to scale as an Alpha trader.

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What You Can Learn from This Trading Challenge

If your playtime is limited—under 1 hour/day—then:

✔ Regional trading is the best ISK-making method for Alpha Clones.

✔ It is absolutely possible to PLEX your account with Alpha restrictions.

✔ A spreadsheet or structured approach dramatically boosts results.

But if your goal is to PLEX a fresh Alpha in under 30 days, you should not rely on trading alone.

Here are the top complementary activities for Alpha players:

• Project Discovery (excellent ISK/hour)

• Exploration (one of the best Alpha ISK methods)

• AIR Career Program

• Daily Opportunities

• Sisters of EVE Epic Arc (standing gains = lower broker fees)

• Faction Warfare (competitive but rewarding)

• Ratting & combat missions

Combining these with trading is - from my, admittedly, limited point of view - the fastest path to generate sufficient ISK to PLEX an Eve Online account as an Alpha Clone at the time of writing this blog in autumn 2025.

Thanks a lot to Croda and to Oz who inspired me to do this challenge. 
Thanks as well to all the readers. Despite my linguistic shortcomings - I am obviously not a native English speaker - this blog has generated more traffic than I dared to dream at the beginning.

Let's see if I can find a new challenge to blog about.

Alpha to Omega challenge - final stage reached

2 days ago I reached the FINAL STAGE of  the challenge by having accumulated a wealth equal to 1.000 Plex. It's been exatly 80 days since I started.

At the time Plex sell price ingame was 5.125 million ISK * 1.000 = 5.125.000.000.
 

For 2 days now I am converting my assets into ISK and consequently into Plex. The goal is having 500 Plex in my wallet.
I cancelled all buy orders I had set up in Jita and put instead a buy order for 250 Plex for less than 5 mio ISK each, which was fulfilled pretty quickly. 
The remaining ISK in my wallet is currently about 630 million which I use for updating existing sell orders. 
I stopped buying new items and concentrate on selling the existing assets to generate another 620 million ISK (conservatively assuming a Plex price of 5 million ISK and needing additional 250 Plex).

So, the Alpha to Omega challenge sees the finish line on the horizon.

I still have to workout what the next steps for this player account will be.
Maybe I will continue trading, but then be relocating to other trade hubs.
Maybe I go into industry, which is an area I haven't done at all in a serious way. But there is a lot of very good and interesting content around, like the blogs from Stranathor and Alilus Tellis. 
Or maybe I'll find a completely different activity I can put a new challenge in. We'll see.

My next blog entry will most likely be the final status update to this challenge. 
Let's see how long it will take to convert my assets to generate the ISK for the remaining needed Plex.

PS:
I will write a summary of my learnings later on.
This may help other players (capsuleers, as they are called ingame) in pursuing their attempts to generate enough of the ingame currency ISK to be able to pay for their omega subscription without spending real money.

Month End Update - October 2025

This challenge is now going on for 69 days.

During the last week I finally hit the 4 billion ISK mark. 

Learnings and tips

As pointed out in the last blog entry I recently changed my strategy.

In addition to the regular regional trading I do now use the order slots of my Jita alt to put up buy orders as well. 
I put the buy orders out of a Perimeter based player owned structure, which allows me to massively safe relisting fees. I still keep buying directly from sell orders for regional trading if I find profitable opportunities.
After the buy orders have been fulfilled I either sell them directly in Jita or let them be hauled to Dodixie or Amarr to sell. 

To reduce fees and contract rewards I reduced the collateral from 120% to 110% of the expected sell price. This led to a reduced effective contract reward rate, which decreased from 1,5% in September to 1,2% in in October. 

Numbers

In Oktober I made sales of 12,2 billion ISK which is an increase of 1,7 billion ISK (or 16%) in comparison to September.
The ISK paid in market escrow rose from 8 billion in September to 10 billion ISK in October. 

(I recognized that the final Profit or Loss numbers in my former postings had been flawed, because they did not account for the value of the outstanding sell orders. So I left them out of the following screenshot.)

My wealth rose by 1.648 billion ISK to 4.291 billion ISK - which is a whopping 62% increase month over month. As you can see, a significant part of this wealth is ISK put in buy orders and some inventory I still need to sell.

Next milestone:
Reaching a wealth of 5.4 billion ISK, which is equivalent to 1.000 Plex in current plex prices.
This would achieve the short-term goal of this challenge!

As indicated in my most recent blog entry going on accumulating ISK above the 1.000 Plex threshold would not bring any additional value neither to you readers nor myself. 
What I will do instead is starting to buy Plex as soon as I reach a total wealth of 5.4 billion ISK. 


The moment when I finally have converted enough ISK currently tight up in assets into 500 Plex will mark the succesful end of this challenge.