New to EVE, help needed

[edlavallee]

Decided I would check out EVE with the 14 day trial (partially due to Squirrel's review) and I am cautiously impressed. Cautiously because I have no clue how/where to get credible and useful summary information on how to proceed. What skills are more useful than others, what to train in what order, how to make good starting cash, etc...

Also, reading all the posts about needing the backing of a good corporation, I am wondering how I could get affiliated with F13 Corp.

Zipper Zee

[Venkman]

The great mysteries of life basically :)

The folks here are awesome for advice, but I find it best to be deductive about skills. Start with the sort of role you'd like to play and then advice can be given on what skills to take.

Do you want to fight close in or at range?
Do you want to PvP?
Would you rather play an active role in the fight or a support one?
Do you not want to fight at all and prefer to mine for ore?
Do you want to do Courier runs for NPCs and people?

[TheDreamr]

If you haven't already do the tutorial, it's a bit tedious but it'll teach you everything you need to start playing.  After that follow the storyline two missions you're offered;

The first is only one or two missions long and gives you a nice standing boost with your starting faction which will unlock a few more agents (npc's that give missions).   After this mission sequence completes you'll be directed to another agent in a nearby system.

The second sequence has eight or nine steps, and it can drag at times but the mission rewards will give you enough money (300k?) to buy an improved ship - they are mostly courier missions so if you buy a shuttle (approx 9000 ISK) they'll go a little faster than they would in your rookie ship.

Your reward for completing the sequence is a random implant that can be sold for at least as much as you got from the missions, sometimes reaching 2m+ for the better implants.  Either way it's a decent pile of ISK to get you started.

From there EVE is pretty happy to leave you to your own devices!


A few good first steps after that;

1) Go into a station and upgrade your clone - the clone they start you with probably wont cover the skills you started with.  It wont cost much to upgrade and it's peace of mind.

2) Browse the market and look at your starting race's frigates (since you hopefully started with some skills to pilot them).  To see if you can use an item or ship view the info and click requirements - all green boxes means you can, any red boxes means you can't.

3) Buy whichever of your races frigates you like the look of and then insure it immediately (just in case).

4) Go back into the market and look at equipping your ship - your rookie ship had some civilian weapons, buying the regular version of those is a good start (remember these will use ammo).

An afterburner and either a shield booster or armor repairer is good investment - civilian versions will do for now but you should look at replacing ANY civilian modules asap.

Once you've got standard weapons and some way to repair your shield or armor you're pretty much set to start running agent missions!

Skills

This will vary quite a lot depending on what you want to do (combat, production, mining etc), but...

Learning skills are a little pricy at the start, but very good skills to have since they increase your attributes which means other skills don't take as long to train.  Suggest starting with Instant Recall (memory) and Analytical Mind (intelligence) as the other learning skills rely heavily on those two stats.

Aside from that try looking through the market - check out what you'd like to equip and what skills you need to make that happen.  You can also use the market browser to examine all skills and see what they do, how much they cost.

A pretty good list of the skills required to fly ships well is here on the EVE forums, but it focuses on combat piloting more than anything.  Also doesn't cover learning.

Corp backing

For the first couple of weeks it's far more valuable to just have people to talk with, to answer your questions, to throw you a line when you get stuck etc

You can do all of that without leaving your starting corp - all you need to do is join the F13 public channel (it's called F13 and should be accessible from the channels and mailing lists screen) and just hanging out.

Once you properly understand the advantages and disadvantages of being in a player corporation then it's time to decide if you want to join one or not.

[Evangolis]

Remember to plan ahead, those level 4-5 skills are good 'set it and forget it' skills, so you can walk away for overnight or a couple of days and still accomplish something.

After the storyline, look for the Event NPCs that are available to you.  They will be easy money, and seem to form a loop you can travel along for a while.  Then find yourself a decent security agent in a well equipped station, and do some ratting for a bit.  You should generally know what you are doing after a few of those, and be ready for more involved stuff.  The storyline will pop back up and give you occasional faction or goodies.

[edlavallee]

Awesome input so far. Here is some info:

I started a Caldari - Civire, male, focused mainly in flying and combatish skills. My preferred style of play is action oriented (always the warrior type, rarely if ever the caster), and I seem to have ADD when it comes to time-intensive activities like mining or trading. So, primarily combat with some mining if it is necessary to pay the bills. I would like to do some PVP but at this point I am too new to really know for sure.

I also started with a good friend who is more into the trading/mining/economic conquest side of things (although he always wants to be a jack of all trades, I tend to focus on one thing) and I was thinking that I could run protection for him. Not sure if that is a realistic goal or not.

Can someone help with that factions frigates? Like, there is one (I think it is the Kestrel) that does not have any mining lasers at all, is that a problem going forward given where I am kinda heading? What are the benefits/issues with missles vs lasers or railgun-type things? Can I still do courier type missions in that or is a shuttle better?

Probably better for me to focus on the questions asked...

Do you want to fight close in or at range?
--> Either, not sure I know yet.

Do you want to PvP?
--> After I have some confidence and understanding of the mechanics and roles and strategy, yes. Definitely.

Would you rather play an active role in the fight or a support one?
What is the difference? By support do you mean running supplies or running blocking maneuvers with smaller ships? I tend to want to be involved in the main actions.

Do you not want to fight at all and prefer to mine for ore?
As mentioned above, I am more action oriented than not. I would like to be able to make some cash, but firing lasers at asteriods was something I did on my Atari.

Do you want to do Courier runs for NPCs and people?
Would not be a bad way to make cash if that is necessary. Would be preferable to sitting in an asteroid belt farming ore and then making a run back to the ship for processing.

[TheDreamr]

There are two main choices for Caldari combat frigates;

Kestrel - this is an all-out missile frigate, it can fit up to 4 missile or rocket launchers.

With 4 rocket launchers it is a good close-range frigate, with 4 missile launchers it's one of the most powerful long-range frigates.

The downside is that you need strong fitting skills to fill all 4 slots with missile launchers because they're fairly power intensive to fit and your mid slot gear (afterburner, shield booster etc) will consume power too.  Also missile launchers require two skills before you can use them; Missile Launcher Operations (to fit the launchers) and Standard Missiles (to use light missiles).

Merlin - the premier Caldari combat frigate, it can fit two hybrid turrets and two launchers.

A good choice for players who started without missile skills as it's fairly fast, has nice defences and you can start out with just hybrid turrets (railguns or blasters) and gradually build up to fitting missiles / rockets when you get the skills.

Merlins are nice because they will grow with your skills for quite some time whether you decide you want to focus on hybrid turrets or launchers.



If you want to do some mining then you could fit lasers to your rookie ship and see how you like it -- if it doesn't bore you to tears and you want to take it further then I'd suggest buying one of the mining frigates (Caldari Bantam?) in addition to whichever combat ship you wanted.

[Yegolev]

Mining is not necessary for money.  In fact it can be worse than ratting, but this varies by where you are, what your skills are, and whatnot.  The other thing you have to consider with mining is that it is just like combat: without the proper skills and equipment you are going to suck at it.  Best to not even bother learning the skills if you are not interested in mining.  Same goes for trade or manufacturing or even other racial ships.  Specialization is the key, at least early on.

[Venkman]

Sounds like you've done some homework. Great! I'm still a real newb myself (playing about a month, and very differently from my last time through), so the only help I can give is maybe with asking the questions :)

As mentioned, you won't need to mine for money. I myself have only mined twice, once in the tutorial and once for a storyline mission. Both were mere minutes and just required I swap two cannons out for a miner (powergrid issues). I'm not rich by any means, hovering at the 4.5mil mark and having spent about 8mil in skills and the occasional piece of equipment. If you focus on Missions and ratting (hunting pirates in asteroid fields), you'll not only be fine for money, you'll get some darned good loot you can either use, sell outright, or reprocess down to minerals for sale.

Finally, if you and your friend make your way over to our system (I'll PM you), you can hook up with Addryc and myself for some hunting and good-timing. A buncha lowbies in deep space. Pirate's dream! ;)

What is the difference? By support do you mean running supplies or running blocking maneuvers with smaller ships? I tend to want to be involved in the main actions.

You answered this earlier. You like being in the front of the action, rather than sitting back and "healing" (which happens in Eve too) or firing off missiles/rail/lasers from kilometers away.

I generally prefer being a damage caster, but in this case, I'm loving up close and personal. But then, I haven't been victimized by a webifier (snare)/interdictor (warp snare) yet. I imagine that happening enough times and I'll be looking at 10km range Rail guns with interest ;)

(Courier runs) Would not be a bad way to make cash if that is necessary. Would be preferable to sitting in an asteroid belt farming ore and then making a run back to the ship for processing.

I haven't done a Courier run yet for a player. Natural paranoia here. The higher the payout, the much higher the collateral. To me that just felt like a player trap. Have someone accept the mission, pay the collateral, wait until they're in sub-security space, attack them and walk home with the collateral. It's been hard for me to recognize the difference between legit Couriers and traps, so I just avoid them.

But there's also Couriering for NPCs, and the general couriering you'll do as you look at the Market for the highest regional return on whatever is in your hold :)

[edlavallee]

If specialization is key early on, what skills should I focus on in this first week or so?

[WayAbvPar]

If you are looking for combat, I would focus on either hybrid turrets or missiles (probably Missiles if you plan on exclusively flying Caldari ships). Once those are at 3 or so, you can start branching out to some of the support skills under Electronics, Engineering, and Mechanics. Also, get all the basic Learning skills to about 3 or so- should take you just a couple of days to do. Then you can train those from 3-4 and 4-5 in overnight chunks while training shorter stuff while playing.

You will find yourself naturally picking up support skills as you run across neat trinkets you want to use but don't have the skills to fit.

[Venkman]

I can't speak for Caldari, but I can say for my turrets (Autocannons), I really was not aware of the support skills for them until gimpyone told me about them in the game. Then I started looking at this part of the Item Database and realized just how many Gunnery skills there are.

Otherwise, yea, as you pick up items during your travels, you're going to find they require skills you don't have yet, or haven't trained to higher levels yet. Things like Webifiers, Small Armor Repairer, Missiles, etc all have primary and secondary skills.

Invariably, you will find these items from loot from Pirates, look at the prerequisites, and realize that you're about 10 jumps away from the one place that seems to consistently sell these skills (for our base, Kulu IX always seems to have the skills, and thankfully it's only 5 jumps. Schmael also seems to have many of them, but that's a lower-security place).

[WayAbvPar]

Schmaeel and Kulu have very similar inventories as far as skills go. Schmaeel can be a death trap though- lots of the UWoF guys haunt that place. It IS closer to Arzi, however, so it is much more convenient for me. I just do it in a shuttle 

[Reg]

Yea I would avoid the player created courier missions. Every single one I've looked at has been a scam.

It's a shame too. I've got 20 million tritanium sitting in one station in Nakugard that I need moved 1 jump to my factory. I'd happily pay a newbie 2 or 3 million to haul it for me but the way things work if I set up a courier mission I'd have to demand like 40 million collateral in case the guy decided to just keep the minerals. Nobody who can afford to pay the collateral is likely to want to do my little hauling job.

[Trippy]

Yea I would avoid the player created courier missions. Every single one I've looked at has been a scam.

I did a few cheap player courier missions back when I was playing the trial just to test out the mechanics and they went fine. However, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT "unpack" the courier package. If you unpack it you bought it. That means you have to absolutely positively make sure you can fit whatever it is you are trying to deliver into your ship. You also need to make sure the delivery route doesn't take you somewhere you can't handle (e.g. 0.0 space).

It's a shame too. I've got 20 million tritanium sitting in one station in Nakugard that I need moved 1 jump to my factory. I'd happily pay a newbie 2 or 3 million to haul it for me but the way things work if I set up a courier mission I'd have to demand like 40 million collateral in case the guy decided to just keep the minerals. Nobody who can afford to pay the collateral is likely to want to do my little hauling job.

Create a few affordable frigate-transportable test packages and see if you get anybody to move them for you.

[Venkman]

It's a shame too. I've got 20 million tritanium sitting in one station in Nakugard that I need moved 1 jump to my factory. I'd happily pay a newbie 2 or 3 million to haul it for me but the way things work if I set up a courier mission I'd have to demand like 40 million collateral in case the guy decided to just keep the minerals. Nobody who can afford to pay the collateral is likely to want to do my little hauling job.

Screw the newbies. Pay me! I have no idea where Nakugard is, but I'd be happy to help haul it.

[Reg]

It's like 40 jumps away from where you guys live or I'd have offered the job to one of you already. :) By the time you could even get here I'd have it all hauled myself.

[Venkman]

Bah, I live to help the Corp.

Well, ok, seriously, I'd really like to help the Corp. It's fun skilling up and missions and whatnot, but this game wouldn't be anywhere near as fun soloing. Even with the chaos of last night, where Addryc lost his second Rifter and I got pulverized by guards, just ganging with two people from the Corp was much more engaging than running yet-another-Blood pirate run.

I have no idea what it would take to haul that there quantity you got, but the distance doesn't matter. I can do that through high-sec space over the course of the day. If it would help you and you are willing to pay that, then I'd be willing to do it.

We've all made 40-jump hops from newbielands to Neesher anyway :)

[Reg]

Well if you train up your race's industrial piloting skill so that you can fly something with a decently sized hold I'll get one of them and leave it in Nakugard for you. Next time I have a ton of stuff to move you can shuttle in and do it and it wouldn't be that bad. You're a Minmatar right?

I'll just move this batch myself but I'll probably have a ton more spread all over the system in a week or so.

Being able to fly a hauler is one of those basic things that pretty much everyone ends up doing at some point so the training won't go to waste and it'll let you help out on corp mining ops if you want to even if you don't mine yourself.

[Venkman]

While I don't plan to Haul full time, I completely agree that being able to do so at all is paramount.

Of course, I didn't realize what it would take to actually be able to use a Hauler. Looks like, as a Minmatar, the three Industrial ships I can use are the Hoarder and the Mammoth and the Wreathe.

What sort of capacity is needed for the 20mil Tritanium? The Wreathe has 3,300m3, Hoarder is 5,100m3 and I could be in tonight and the Mammoth is 5,625m3.

Edit: was looking at the wrong stuff.

[gimpyone]

with two t1 cargo expanders and my indy skill at 2, the hoarder can hold 7811.3

[Venkman]

Ah ok cool. Good to know I can finally use those Expanded Cargo Holds I took off my Rifter ;)

How much is needed for 20mil Trit though?

[Viin]

More than that, it'd take you a few (10?) trips. Getting a bigger one would cut it down by 2-3 trips.

[Reg]

I'd go for the Mammoth myself. You'd be surprised just how big you can make the cargo hold when you put expanders into those 4 low slots. That's the ship most Minmatar use. Most don't train any farther than that unless they're seriously into trading/hauling.

[Venkman]

Ok. I'll plan to work through to Industrial IV then.

But I'll also pick up a Hoarder along the way. Never can tell if/when it might be useful. I will, however, buy and park it someone outside of Neesher :) Heck, since you mentioned you'll be in Naku for a bit, maybe I'll just buy whatever I can near there and leave it parked. I don't mind the long runs. I'd rather make those long runs in a ship I can fight/escape with though ;)

I actually have been thinking of rolling an alt for this type of stuff, but I've never been very good at managing multiple characters and there's still so much to learn on this one, I don't want to waste time training skills on another one when I could be training my main.

Actually, how does that work anyway? Some skills say they can only be trained on one Account at a time. That implies some other others can be trained on Character A while Character B is training different skills.

[addryc]

Ok. I'll plan to work through to Industrial IV then.

But I'll also pick up a Hoarder along the way. Never can tell if/when it might be useful. I will, however, buy and park it someone outside of Neesher :) Heck, since you mentioned you'll be in Naku for a bit, maybe I'll just buy whatever I can near there and leave it parked. I don't mind the long runs. I'd rather make those long runs in a ship I can fight/escape with though ;)

I actually have been thinking of rolling an alt for this type of stuff, but I've never been very good at managing multiple characters and there's still so much to learn on this one, I don't want to waste time training skills on another one when I could be training my main.

Actually, how does that work anyway? Some skills say they can only be trained on one Account at a time. That implies some other others can be trained on Character A while Character B is training different skills.

I was told you basically can't be skilling up two characters on the same account at the same time, so I haven't bothered.  Not sure if theres more to it than that.

At some point I want to do some R&D/Mining/Hauling also though - from what I've read about the amount of resources/time it takes to get big in this game, I think the Corp needs all the help it can get! :)

[Reg]

Oh does the Mammoth need industrial 4? That might involve more training time than you really want to put into it right now. Take a look at what kind of time you want to spend training for it and let me know the ship you decide on.

[addryc]

Oh does the Mammoth need industrial 4? That might involve more training time than you really want to put into it right now. Take a look at what kind of time you want to spend training for it and let me know the ship you decide on.

I heard the Iteron was the bomb when it came to hauling stuff - is that still the case?  Its a Gallente ship, right?  Since Dq hasn't trained up any Indy skills yet the investment cost of either would probably be the same in terms of buying the skill, right?

[Reg]

The Iteron 5 is awesome. Probably the best T1 hauler in the game short of a freighter. The Mammoth though is way, way better than the lower level Iterons with its 4 low slots. If you plan to do serious hauling and go all the way to 5 training up the Iteron is probably a good idea. Otherwise I'd just go for a Mammoth.

I just finished training for Iteron 5 and it took me 18 days to go from level 4 to level 5 of the skill. And this is wearing +3 implants and all my advanced learning skills at 4. It is not for the impatient. :)

[Venkman]

Hehe yea, I'm not that interested yet. Just want to be helpful :) I'll eventually train the skills, but there's a few weeks worth of the combat/support/social/market ones I want to get through first.

[edlavallee]

What is required if I wanted to get in on this little action? Do I need to train skills? Is there anything preventing me (Calderi) from helping out? The way I see it, it is a way for me to make a little coin and still learn while I am doing it. Just learning the interface gyrations required to do this would help me...

[Venkman]

Zippee, start at this page in the Item Database. These are the Industrial ships Caldari can use for hauling. You'll see when clicking the ship the Skills required to use it. For example, the Badger requires:

• Spaceship Command III
• Caldari Frigate III
• Caldari Industrial I

You can then look in the Skills & Accessories section of the same place to understand what those skills do you for aside from unlocking new ships and new skills.

I basically live in the Item Database. Trouble is, it's so big, I'm still learning the basics of what questions to even ask :)

[TheDreamr]

Just a "be aware" ... but the skill needed to pilot industrials isn't trainable on trial accounts.

[Venkman]

Oh yea, good point. I thought it only would tell one that in the interface, but I just checked and it does say this in the Description too.:)

[Nija]

Yea I would avoid the player created courier missions. Every single one I've looked at has been a scam.

It's a shame too. I've got 20 million tritanium sitting in one station in Nakugard that I need moved 1 jump to my factory. I'd happily pay a newbie 2 or 3 million to haul it for me but the way things work if I set up a courier mission I'd have to demand like 40 million collateral in case the guy decided to just keep the minerals. Nobody who can afford to pay the collateral is likely to want to do my little hauling job.

One of my hauler dudes is based in Stetille, which is 9 hops from Naku. I could move that stuff for you pretty easily. So long as it's not to a .4. I don't want this guy down there yet. Implants and stuff you know.

Send me an evemail - NIJASAN

[Reg]

I don't think I have enough hauling work to keep you all busy but if you can stand mining at all Nakugard has weekly omber spawns and I ALWAYS need all of the minerals. Here are the prices I pay my corp mates who have succumbed to the horrible and debilitating mining affliction.

tritanium     2
pyerite        4.5
mex allon    11
isogen      120

If anyone wants to do a little mining for me I'd be happy to set you up with an equipped mining cruiser in Nakugard system and buy anything you care to dig up. If there's enough interest maybe you could do it as a group - that makes the unbearable tedium of mining much less unbearable. It's a .5 system so you could even do a little ratting while you're there. It's about 40 jumps from Neeshur so I doubt you'd have to worry about F13's more or less constant state of war. :)