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.   

Alpha to Omega by regional trading! - Update after 5 days

Right before my first complete weekend I want to share the current status of my challenge.

Currently I have  16 sell orders active, 12 in Dodixie and 4 in Amarr.

My wallet allows me to reinvest the current 43 million ISK which I will do in Amarr.

An issue I run into is the frequency my courier contracts to Amarr are accepted.
As Amarr is almost 3x the number of jumps away from Jita than Dodixie, and because of my contract values (and therefore rewards) being quite low on a per jump basis, i need to post my courier contracts to Amarr more frequently before they get accepted.
I hope this will smooth out as soon as the contract values rise.
For this to happen I need to find items that I can buy with my current wallet size and be able to sell them for about 100 million ISK or more (in total).
I hope to be able to do this by the end of next week.

I created a list of about 150 items that show a 50%+ margin and trading reasonably often.
I don't trade in consumables, mostly implants, and modules. 

As mentioned before I calculate a 25% provision against my sell orders, and against my contracts as well.

Wealth at start of the challenge. 23.08.25

Current Wealth:

Let's see what the weekend brings...

Happy trading and manufacturing to you all!

Alpha to Omega by regional trading! - Update after 3 days

Start of the challenge: 23.08.25

Wealth after 3 days: 

• Wallet: 8 million ISK
• Inventory: 1 million ISK
• Sell orders: 143 million ISK
• Provision against sell orders (25%): -36 million ISK
• Open courier contracts: 98 million ISK
• Provision against contracts (25%): -25 million ISK
• Total: 189 million ISK

My main effort over the last couple of days was to improve my spreadsheets.

I created a list of items and I'm now able to filter directly for items that fit my requirements regarding gross profit margin, number of days where orders have been filled during a specific time frame and minimum gross profit in ISK. 
Still a lot to improve but it's working for now. 

To reflect the higher taxes and fees in my accounting I increased the provision against sell order value and contract value from 20% to 25%.
Taxes and fees have a much bigger impact for an alpha character in comparison to an omega character. 

-----------------------------

Goal short-term: Plexing the account by trading and having at least the same amount of ISK in wallet + sell orders that is required to instantly buy another 500 Plex (1 month Omega offer)

Goal mid-term: Plexing the account by trading and having least the same amount of ISK in wallet + sell orders that is required to instantly buy another 1200 Plex (3 month 20% Omega offer)

At current prices (5.8 million ISK per Plex) I need around 2,9 billion ISK to plex the account (short-term goal).
As my short-term goal is to plex the account AND having the same amount of ISK available (either in wallet or in sell orders) I need a wealth of 6 billion ISK with current Plex prices to reach my short-term goal.

Tools: The tools I will be using are the Eve Online Excel Add-in and Evetycoon.

The challenge is considered to be completed and will end when the mid-term goal is reached.

From Alpha to Omega by Regional Trading – My EVE Online Plexing Challenge (2025)

Welcome to my From Alpha to Omega by Regional Trading challenge. This blog documents my journey from starting as a fresh alpha clone to reaching Omega using only ISK and PLEX earned in-game — with no real-money subscription.

The goal: Plex the account through regional trading only, despite severe alpha account limitations.

How I Came Up With This Challenge

The idea started with two major influences in the EVE Online trading community:

Oz’s Station Trading Method

I first tried the alpha-to-omega challenge using station trading exactly as Oz teaches in his videos. It worked extremely well.

Croda’s Regional Trading Method

After discovering Croda’s regional trading blog and seeing his interview on Oz’s Twitch show, I tried regional trading myself — and successfully plexed an account using nothing but inter-hub trading.

But I had never tried starting regional trading as a brand-new alpha clone with:

• No skills
• No standings
• Limited market orders
• High alpha taxes
• No ships or capital
• No access to Omega trading skills

So the question became:

Can a fresh alpha really plex Omega using regional trading alone?

Rules of the Challenge

• No ISK or PLEX transferred from my main account
• One account with three characters:
  • Buyer in Jita
  • Seller in Dodixie
  • Seller in Amarr
• 17 max sell orders per alpha character → 34 total
• High taxes:
  • Sales Tax: 7.5%
  • Broker Fee: 2.38% (Broker Relations II)
• Minimum gross margin target: 50%
• One account only
• Max 30 minutes per day gameplay
• I expect about 21 active playing days per month due to real-life commitments.
  
  

Challenge Goals

Short-Term Goal

• Plex the account with 500 PLEX
• Keep the same amount of wealth in wallet + sell orders

Mid-Term Goal (Challenge Completion)

• Plex the account with 1200 PLEX (3-month Omega offer)
• Again: maintain equivalent ISK in wallet + orders
  
  

How Much ISK Is Needed to Plex Omega

With current Plex prices of 5.8 million ISK, the cost to plex an account is:

• ≈ 2.9 billion ISK for 500 PLEX
• ≈ 6 billion ISK total wealth needed for my short-term goal
  
  

Tools I Use

• EVE Online Excel Add-in
• Evetycoon
  
  

Preparation Before Starting

• Created a new account with referral link
• Created 3 characters (Caldari for Jita, Gallente for Dodixie, Amarr for Amarr)
• Completed all tutorial and career missions on each character
• Trained Social and Connections for standings
• Sold all mission items to buy orders to save time
• Trained available trading skills:
  • Trade III
  • Broker Relations II
• Trained basic corporation management
• Created a corporation with:
  • 100% tax
  • Shared wallet
• Placed each character in its respective trade hub
• All ISK at this point came from:
  • Starter missions
  • AIR career rewards
  • AIR daily goals
  • Sell value of mission items

Starting Wealth

• Wallet: 67 million ISK
• Inventory: 8 million ISK

Total starting wealth: 75 million ISK

Wealth is always calculated as:

wallet + sell orders + outstanding contracts – 20% liability factor

My Trading Strategy

The entire challenge is based around the limitations of alpha trading.

1. Buy in Jita → Sell in Dodixie & Amarr

Pure inter-regional market arbitrage.

2. Item Focus

I focus on:

• Low-volume items
• Low-demand niche markets
• High-margin items

3. No Hauling

I use public courier contracts from the very beginning to save time.

4. Scaling With Limited Orders

With only 34 sell orders total, the only way to scale is:

• Move into higher-value items
• Maintain strong margins
• Increase ISK turnover per order
  
  

Alpha Trading Skills and Limitations

• Accounting: Not available → Sales tax fixed at 7.5%
• Broker Relations II: Broker fee 2.38%
• Trade III: 17 sell orders per character
• Marketing II: Remote selling (not used)
• Retail / Wholesale / Tycoon: Not available
  
  

Current Tax Rates

• Sales Tax: 7.50%
• Broker Fee: 2.38%
  
  

Start of the Challenge

Start Date: 23.08.2025

Starting Wealth: 75 million ISK

And with that…

The Alpha to Omega Regional Trading Challenge begins.

Let’s see where this journey ends!