Free Trial Help

[Morfiend]

So, I was surfing the web looking for demos to keep me entertained, and I notice on fileplanet they are advertising a free 14 day trial of eve. The only problem is, I cant for the life of me figure out how to get a trial account. I have been all over their site, and the closest thing I can find is to buy an account for $19, and get a month free. Where oh where is this 14 day free trial?

[Reg]

I found a link on Gamespot that seems to have what you need.

http://www.gamespot.com/promos/eveonline/

If that doesn't work or you don't feel like registering on Gamespot then PM me an email address and I can do the buddy program thing and have a 14 day code sent to you.

[Trippy]

https://secure.eve-online.com/ft/?sk=GHELL

That one you don't need to create a GameSpot account.

[Reg]

Why do they hide that damned link? When I wanted to start my trial account I had the same problem.

[Morfiend]

Ok, im in and slowly working through the tutorial, I made a ummm, Calidis/Calidon? Some thing like that. How do I meet up with you guys?

[dwindlehop]

We live in Neesher. Go to the Peoples & Places button and search for Solar System. Right click on the Neesher result and set destination. Slowly wind your way towards us. Eat a sandwich. Dock at the station orbiting M15.

[Yoru]

Better be a footlong if he's flying all the way from the Caldari noob zone to us. Don't forget to set your autopilot to only fly through safe zones. (It's on the autopilot tab of that menu that pops up when you go to the map screen.)

[Furiously]

Or grab a shuttle and live dangerously.

[Morfiend]

Wow, this is going to take me all day to get there.

57 Hops.

What is a good race for a fighter pilot? Maybe I should make sure I am the right character before I hop all that way.

[Merusk]

Wow, this is going to take me all day to get there.

57 Hops.

What is a good race for a fighter pilot? Maybe I should make sure I am the right character before I hop all that way.

Races are all fairly equal.  The better question is what kind of weapons do you want to mess with. Lasers (Amarr) , Missiles (Caldari), Projectile Turrets (Minmatar) or Drones (Galliente).

I know we all tore through a more detailed explination of  each race in one of the other threads.

[Hoax]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=6053.0

This should get you started with some detailed thoughts on Caldari and Amarr.

Once you decide what races ship you want to fly, look at the various bloodline choices and try to make your pick using a system similar to this:

(stats in order of importance)

Training in all areas:
INT/PER/MEM/WP/CHA

Combat Focus:
PER/WP/INT/MEM/CHA

If you wanted to specialize in research/building or agent running you would do things a bit differently but those are pretty good general guides I feel.

Or just pick based on what description/look works best for you.

Make sure you focus your granted skills as much as possible and dont worry about min/maxing too much.  It makes a difference but the most important thing is that you start down the newbie path asap as the first few weeks of being a pod-pilot are a ton less interesting as your using the newb-only ships.  Once you get your first cruiser or the top tier combat frigate things will look up.

[Trippy]

Wow, this is going to take me all day to get there.

57 Hops.

In your autopilot settings turn off "avoid systems where pod killing has recently occurred" but leave on the "prefer safer" setting. That might get you a shorter route and if you die in your n00b ship you can always dock your pod somewhere (assuming you weren't podkilled) and get a new one for free.

 

[Venkman]

We live in Neesher. Go to the Peoples & Places button and search for Solar System. Right click on the Neesher result and set destination. Slowly wind your way towards us. Eat a sandwich. Dock at the station orbiting M15.

Is it worth heading over there right away? Or should I go through the first and/or second Agent missions first?

[Trippy]

We live in Neesher. Go to the Peoples & Places button and search for Solar System. Right click on the Neesher result and set destination. Slowly wind your way towards us. Eat a sandwich. Dock at the station orbiting M15.

Is it worth heading over there right away? Or should I go through the first and/or second Agent missions first?

The first storyline agent mission after the tutorial should give you a random implant. Might as well do that one before heading off into the great unknown.

[hal]

The only way to answer that is as you will. Were at war at the moment and our base may be camped. or maybe not, maybe thats something you want to be involved with or maybe not. We seem to be seeing noobs with an odd skilled player here and there. I'm not sure we know exactly whats what here.

[Venkman]

Well I've started as a Fighter (Minmatar Brutor)- Darneaq this time because it'll take another 8 hours for "Darniaq" to become available again. I'm over some gawdawful distant away, so will work my way over.

I don't want to just be fodder with whoever's camping you guys. So I'll get me some skills, a better ship and equipment, and come in gun's ablazin' ready to contribute.

Of course, I have no idea how long any of that shit takes...

[Morfiend]

Well I've started as a Fighter (Minmatar Brutor)- Darneaq this time because it'll take another 8 hours for "Darniaq" to become available again. I'm over some gawdawful distant away, so will work my way over.

I don't want to just be fodder with whoever's camping you guys. So I'll get me some skills, a better ship and equipment, and come in gun's ablazin' ready to contribute.

Of course, I have no idea how long any of that shit takes...

Darniaq,

You could come hang with me. I got some ISK from the guys, and fitted a ship, and I have been ratting (hunting NPC pirates) in Kizama, which is a .7 sec space a few hops away from Neesher. Im going to try and start doing some agent missions here in a little bit. Also, that first agent story mission is FUCKING HORRIBLE time sink piece of crap. Honestly, I bet they lost a ton of subs because of that first series of courier missions. It really does get more fun once that first set of missions is done. MY advice is to get a shuttle as soon as you start the story courrier missions, since its all fed-ex quests up to the last one he offers, and shuttle go WAY faster so it cuts down on the time spent traveling.

I dont know if you can send tells in this game (I havent found a way to yet) but my guys name is "Morfiend Ce" like you, my name got locked down. So "Ce" stands for "C" as in my third character. My RL friend also just started a character, so maybe the 3 of us could go kill shit together after a day or two.

[Reg]

The main reason it's a good idea to do that first set of storyline missions is that it gives you the faction you need with your race to talk to other agents.

[Furiously]

and it gives you a nice bit of seed money from selling the implant.

[Venkman]

Sounds good Morphiend. I'll check up on ya tonight. I'm 28 hops from Neesher though, so I don't think I'll be over there this evening.

I am going to finish up with my first Agent here. Well, actually, going to get started with them. Did the tutorial for a bit last night. Damned glad I did. Even what little I knew is obsolete! In the meantime though, I've been training the relevant level 1 skills as fast as I can (nothing like background operations ;) ).

Talking directly to someone, iirc, is a matter of finding their name and then opening a chat session with them. This opens a separate window. Think of it like on-the-fly custom chat channel creation, 1 to many people.

Now, I have some quesitons:

• Is there any limit to the number of skills I can train? The online manual seems to imply that the only limit is time. Therefore, what does my Total Skill Points value (and those stated by others here) show? Just the total amount of skills I've learned? Basically, could I just train every skill, making the only important thing the order in which I train them?
  
• Can I do said 28 jumps entirely on auto-pilot? Like, if I wanted to fly from Heimatar (Minmatar Brutor starting area I presume) to Neesher, could I set autopilot for the safest route and go to bed?
• Is there any way to send ISK between characters? My prior character has 95k ISK on him, and while that ain't much, it looks like it may be enough to more quickly upgrade my ship and equipment.

There'll be other questions, but I'm trying to dig through these forums to see if they've been asked already.

[WayAbvPar]

    * Is there any limit to the number of skills I can train? The online manual seems to imply that the only limit is time. Therefore, what does my Total Skill Points value (and those stated by others here) show? Just the total amount of skills I've learned? Basically, could I just train every skill, making the only important thing the order in which I train them?

You there is no limit- you can only train one at a time, but there is no upper limit on what you can train. Skill points value is just an indicator of how relatively experienced your character is. Even that is a bit off, since you could highly specialize and become very effective at one thing with only a million SP or so.


 

  * Can I do said 28 jumps entirely on auto-pilot? Like, if I wanted to fly from Heimatar (Minmatar Brutor starting area I presume) to Neesher, could I set autopilot for the safest route and go to bed?

If you are still in the n00b corp and your entire route is in .5 or higher space (no red or red/yellow dots on the route) you should be ok flying AFK. There is a very slim chance that someone would gank you just for grins, but that is incredibly unlikely (since they would get pwned by Concord milliseconds after killing you).

    * Is there any way to send ISK between characters? My prior character has 95k ISK on him, and while that ain't much, it looks like it may be enough to more quickly upgrade my ship and equipment.

Same way as talking to the character- look them up in people and places, then right click. 'Give Money' is an option there.


Also- if you need a loan to help get started, there are lots of folks that can afford to send you a spare million or so. Give me a holler in game if you need some extra cash- it makes life a lot easier early on when you are buying tons of skills.

[Venkman]

Thanks man, particularly on the offer of cash. I'm still on those Level 0 skills that take an hour to train. When do they start costing ISK?

[squirrel]

Thanks man, particularly on the offer of cash. I'm still on those Level 0 skills that take an hour to train. When do they start costing ISK?

You'll have to start buying skills on the market soon. ie. you'll want something like Tactical Shield Manipulation which costs about 185k on the open market. Open the market browser and scroll down to Skills and you'll see all the different skills, of which you have small subset to start out with.

[Morfiend]

Now, I have some quesitons:

• Is there any limit to the number of skills I can train? The online manual seems to imply that the only limit is time. Therefore, what does my Total Skill Points value (and those stated by others here) show? Just the total amount of skills I've learned? Basically, could I just train every skill, making the only important thing the order in which I train them?
  
• Can I do said 28 jumps entirely on auto-pilot? Like, if I wanted to fly from Heimatar (Minmatar Brutor starting area I presume) to Neesher, could I set autopilot for the safest route and go to bed?
• Is there any way to send ISK between characters? My prior character has 95k ISK on him, and while that ain't much, it looks like it may be enough to more quickly upgrade my ship and equipment.

Make sure you UNCHECK "Avoide areas with recent pod killings" I had this checked and it was going to take me 60 hops to get to neesher, I unchecked it, and it only took me 20, and that was from the far side of the (World?). Also, if you have this checked some times the autopilot just wont go some where, I was very frustrated with it.

Also, Neesher is kind of the boondocks. Most shit is 5+ hops away to buy skills or equipment. I did find a place thats like 4 hops and has every skill I have wanted so far.

[squirrel]

Also, Neesher is kind of the boondocks. Most shit is 5+ hops away to buy skills or equipment. I did find a place thats like 4 hops and has every skill I have wanted so far.

Schmael III or somesuch. Of course it's in 0.2 sec space ;)

[WayAbvPar]

Schmaeel is pretty dangerous, especially if you are in the corp- the corp that just wardecced us hangs out there a lot. Kulu is the other direction, and in higher sec space (.6 or something), and has most of the same stuff Schmaeel has AFAIK.

[Morfiend]

Yeah, Kulu is the place I found.

[Xilren's Twin]

I attempted to wade through the free trial about a week or so ago and was just very underwhelmed by it all.  Pretty but pretty boring was my imprsssion.  The breaking point was when I jumped ahead one step in a quest and realizing i had to take a 5 hop jump back to my home base, then turn around and come right back to where i already was made me not want to touch it again.  Watching my ship fly just isn't that exciting.

Mining wasn't particularly appealing, nor am I interested in playing the markets/research, so that left me thinking a combat role.  Outfitting ships and space engagement sounds fun, but what is combat like beyond the newbie tutorial?  The intro stuff just seemed to be "lock on target, turn on your orbit at X range, click auto attack on your various weapons and wait." which is about as dry as you can possibly make space combat.

Does it get any better or am I wasting my time?

Xilren

[Nija]

It does get better, but it really depends on which game you are playing.

Eve has a few different 'games', really. Mining and slow-boating around empire sucks, and that's what you're doing.

I'm not really the one to help you unfortunately.

[Hoax]

Combat versus npc's is never very interesting, basically your setup should win the fight for you before it has even begun.  I can blow up npc's for a few hours every day just to have a chance to hang out with the corp and shoot the shit.  But mostly I just lounge around in a semi-afk state waiting for the miners to need cover or for our enemies to make an appearance.

But pvp in EvE is anything but dry, instead it is a strategy extraveganza that ends up making me feel stupid at the end of every fight.  The mechanics are the same as pve but you have no idea what the opponent setup, strategy, trap or plan is.  How you move your ship becomes much more important, knowing the enemy ship becomes key as well as knowing the characteristics of various setups.  Its not twitch and it never will be, but there is a very high degree of player skill imo even if it is fairly subtle. 

Oh courrier missions are of course, the suck, esp in rapid sucession going back and forth like the tutorial.  The tutorial does give you a quick gain in faction and an implant that will net you some easy cash to get yourself going.  Afk space trucking is a nice no-hassle ultra-casual way of making money though.  Combat missions can be fun, belt ratting can be fun, complex running can be fun in the lots of shiney explosions and getting lewtz sort of way.  If you need to have some kind of wierd excitement you could always take dangerous high payout player-generated courier missions, or try to collect on bounties by pod killing pc-pirates.  But those are much more advanced career paths.

My 3 cents.

[Morfiend]

Outfitting ships and space engagement sounds fun, but what is combat like beyond the newbie tutorial?  The intro stuff just seemed to be "lock on target, turn on your orbit at X range, click auto attack on your various weapons and wait." which is about as dry as you can possibly make space combat.

Well, the first time I tried EVE, I went in thinking its was going to be an action game. But this time I went in looking at it like a space sim, and it much more meets expectations. As to combat, granted I dont have much under my belt, but its more strategy than twitch. You have to know what your optimal range for weapons is, and when to fire. You have to use the right kind of weapons for the enemey your fighting. You have to try and keep yourself in the optimal range vs keeping out of theirs. What kind of shields armor do they have vs what kind of piercing weapons.

Its much more than Orbit 500m autoattck. And I can think it only gets better. But like I said I only started a few days ago, and a lot of that time was taken up with the tutorial and the god forsaken newbie missions. I in fact did the same thing you did, with going to the place with out my cargo, and having to turn around and come right back. it sucked.

[Furiously]

You can cheat on those BTW - just buy the cargo at the delivery base if you forget.

Or where it tells you to go to another system. Don't bother. Just warp to another point in that system then come back home.

[Morfiend]

Now you tell me. Fucker.