f13.net

Hey gang,

So on a whim last night I picked up EVE to play with a few of my friends who have been really in to it lately. I played for a few weeks several years ago, so basically I am a total newbie. I have just under 1 mil skills points. I am hoping some people here can answer some questions for me.

Basically, I like combat, I dont really want to focus on mining or anything like that, although I wouldnt mind doing a little bit of it. I would like to fly a smaller very very fast ship. Probably DPS or support or both. My current character is Amarr Cyber Knight, and I seem to have lasers in all my ships. I think I can fly t2 Frigates (not totally sure).

Since my skill points are so low, I would have no problem rerolling, especially now that the character creation seems to have totally changed. Ok, on to my questions:

1) I would like to fly a VERY fast  smallerish ship. What ship should I go for?

2) I like the idea of a covops ship, is that compatible with the above, and if so, what race and starting character should I be?

3) I heard lasers are not very good these days. Should I go for something else?

4) I am hoping to make money ratting, and to do PVP with you guys once I get set up, if any of you are still playing. Can I make money mostly ratting?

I have read multiple newbie guides, but its hard to tell what information is still valid and what has changed.

Thanks in advance gang. I really want to give EVE a good try this time.

1) Interceptors

2) Electronic Attack Frigates combine cloaking with PvP utility, as do Stealth Bombers.  Neither is quite as speedy as interceptors, but you can still get them moving pretty quickly.

3) Lasers are fine, although they're not great against certain types of NPCs.  Projectiles might serve you better in that sense, especially if you're looking to hook up with us down the road.

4) Yes, though it's not the best income in the game.  I've managed to mostly support myself through ratting and running missions for a few years now, although you will never be a multi-billionaire.

Do you know what group your friends play with?

If you like speed go for interceptors and then interdictors. Dictors are vital in any 0.0 fleet. Minmatar are the speed kings, but Amarr are excellent.

Anyway in order

1) I would like to fly a VERY fast  smallerish ship. What ship should I go for?

Stilettos are one of the best interceptors, and that leads to the Saber, the king of the dictors.

2) I like the idea of a covops ship, is that compatible with the above, and if so, what race and starting character should I be?

The Cheetah is the fastest and most versitile Covops frig and is Minmatar also. And The hound os one of the best stealth bombers.

3) I heard lasers are not very good these days. Should I go for something else?

Lasers are pretty good. They have excellent tracking at a long range, and are very good for sniping. Artillery are good for a HUGE Alpha.

4) I am hoping to make money ratting, and to do PVP with you guys once I get set up, if any of you are still playing. Can I make money mostly ratting?

If you want to make serious money ratting then see about joining up with the guys in 0.0 and learn how to run anomalies. Doing it in high sec and low sec is basicly pointless. You could also see about wormholing.

Im going to sirbruce this.


Are they any good at combat? I'm still really new so I dont know what Interceptor "means". Fast and fragile? Good frigates for combat?


Ok, Ill keep that in mind. What about missiles?


I don't think they are playing with anyone right now. They only started about a week ago, although they both have characters from previous plays. One is a hardcore miner type guy, the other guy is trying to train up PVP skills also.



What roll in combat do Stealth Bomber play?


I dont know what an alpha is. What type of weapons go good with the Stealth bombers or Interceptors?


What style of ship is good for ratting or this wormholing? Is a small fast combat ship any good for this, or do I need like a battleship for the higher level missions and stuff?

Interceptors are good at combat.  Each of the four races has two of them, one good at catching hostile ships and another that kicks ass in combat.

Missiles are great for PvE, but less useful than guns in most instances of PvP.

Stealth bombers, on the other hand, all use torpedos and bombs regardless of race.  They do extremely nice amounts of damage but are also incredibly fragile and often work only in specialized gangs.

Alpha means the volley damage of guns, as opposed to Damage Per Second (DPS).  Alpha damage is important if the thing you're fighting repairs itself quickly or is able to get away after surviving one or two volleys.  Artillery, the long-rang projectile weapons, have extremely have alpha values but a lower rate which is great in some situations.

For killing NPCs past the l1 and l2 missions, you're generally going to need a battlecruiser or battleship.  Later on you can do this with advanced Tech 2 or Tech 3 cruisers, but for the better part of your first year you won't have the skills to make it work without using a larger ship.

Offered Morph a nice specialized Caldari character to play. Up to him if he wants to use her :)

Interceptors main job is to go really really fast and tackle the enemy with a warp scrambler. They use their speed and agility to avoid getting hit. If they get hit, they die. They are designed to hold the enemy in place allowing bigger and slower ships to kill them. They are not as vital in 0.0 warefare as they once were, and Armour HAC gangs tend to kill them before they get in tackle range, but they are still very much needed in a balanced fleet. They are also good at gate camping with fast lock times. Note the Minmater Frigate Vigil can be made to go nearly as fast at 1/10 the price - makes a good way to practice it.


Missiles are used nearly always in PvE because you can easily modify the damage based on the targets lowest resists. However, Drakes, the Caldari Battlecruiser, are used in PvP Drakefleets en masse as well. This makes training for a Drake a very good PvP AND PvE ship.


Covert ops are not designed to fight - they act as scouts. They move forward of the fleet to watch for ambushes or trail enemy fleets to keep tabs on them. They also can use probes to discover ships hiding or ratting in a system allowing the rest of the fleet to catch them. In a fleet action they will observe the enemy fleet and act as a warp in for the friendly fleet to engage the enemy at the best terms. You never get on a kill mail, but every fleet needs a few of them. Helps to be happy to fly by yourself and watch a hostile Titan in a enemy POS for hours at a time.

Stealth Bombers are covert op shops that fight. They often act as bombing wings - a FC will act as a warp in for a wing of bombers (one squadron at a time)( who come in cloaked, decloak, drop area of effect bombs, and warp out. 8 bombs each time can kill 100's of enemy battleships at one stroke. It requires precise planning, flying, timing and execution where the bomber pilots all follow the FC's orders exactly. It's the closest the game gets to Death Star Trench Runs.  Bombers can also jump through covert-op Battleship cynos and ambush enemy ratters and do large amounts of high speed damage to lone targets - aka Hit'N'Fade attacks. However they are extremely fragile, more so than interceptors.


Lasers are pretty good these days- the 0.0 fleets are often made up of Laser firing Amarr HAC's. They are also very nice in that you can get in a BC/BS/Dreadnoght and go AFK while the fleet shoots a Station or POS without worring about swapping ammo. PvE missiles or projectiles are slightly better.

Interceptors- Tech II Small guns of whatever type fits on the ship. DPS isn't really a requirement- speed (MWD) and agility is more important. Bombers- Bomb launchers and Torpedo Launchers, and using Covert Cloaks.


Making money ratting is very easy in 0.0. It's not the fastest way to do it, but it's straight forward. You want to be able to fly a Battlecruiser though, though you can rat in the lower level encounters  in a frigate/cruiser and not have to share them because everyone else will be running the higher level ones.


Any of the level 2 Battlecruisers (Harbinger, Drake, Hurricane) can rat in 0.0 - they can both have the DPS to shoot, the tank to fight and the cargo old to grab the loot. Also they are all good PvP ships which is handy. You can rat in smaller and faster HAC's later.


Don't be afraid of joining us out in 0.0 if you're worried about being a newbie. Goonswarm has the best wiki describing everything there is to know about the game and depends upon and lavishes praise, ships and money on newbee's (unlike some other alliances), though it's understandable if you want to play with your friends. You'll never be rejected from coming on a PvP op in a tech 1 frigate either.

Thanks for the great little write up Comstar.

What would you suggest for me to do to get started. Currently as I said I am an Amaar Cyber Knight, and I have rank 3 in most of the learning skills. I think I have Frigate 5. I currently have a Rifter, Predator, and umm, like 2 other ships.

Should I reroll my guy, or should I continue with this one?

What ship should I plan for in the short term / long term? I am really feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I need a short term goal that could also work towards my long term goal.

Copy from my eve bio :

Morfiend deserted me  after 2 days of his trial.
That bastard!

This happens to be one of the guys I reactivated EVE to play with. I guess last time it didn't go so well.  :awesome_for_real:

Just play my character and hop in a Crow interceptor, Falcon recon ship, Cerberus HAC, BS 5 Raven with T2 missiles, Manticore stealth bomber....

Then your goals could be 'have fun' instead of 'wait a month before I can poorly handle 0.0 rats'. Just start PVPing with frigates and cruisers and once you feel more comfortable, you have the skills to do anything Caldari. For PVE, Caldari are awesome and you could start with missions to learn how to handle a spaceship. This isn't Wow, you aren't missing anything on the way to 80. This is a sandbox, and I'm offering you the stuff to make a sand castle instead of clawing at the sand with your bare hands.

Anyway, last time I try to convince ya :)

I'd use his account.   This game is utterly horrible with the real time skill crap.  I'm doing nothing but mining to get enough money to buy a pvp character.  No way I would train a new character it just takes far to long which will just make you quit.

Mine your way to a PVP char? :ye_gods:

Don't they cost a few billion? That's going to take a bit of mining... I'd rather suggest getting skills for a dc2, an mwd, web and warp disrupt and a rifter (for PVP), and salvage 1, tractor beam and cargo expand 2 (for salvaging), and come on up to deklein. It'll take a lot less time.

I have a guy with a Rokh and Raven with o.k. missile skills.   I was trying out missions & salvaging with him but it took me an hour to an hour and a half to finish a lv 3 mission. (less it was a single battle)   Then it would take another 40+ minutes to salvage all the ships with 2 salvagers and 2 tractors.   I was making about 20- 25 million a run and using a ton of missiles to do it.   Needless to say that account ran out last week and it came down to choice of keep a miner account going or him.  I chose the latter. 

I could not stand the combat anyway, it was the most boring I've ever dealt with.   It reminded me of missile command from the 80's but 200x slower.   Watch the little red + signs, target,  fire.  Kill those and  it re-pops so I can kill 30 more ships. Rinse and repeat the next hour and a half.   I didn't even move my ship 99% of the time, not that you actually 'fly' the ship anyway.  The ability to use a flight stick would make combat so much more entertaining.   

Not that mining is anymore 'fun'.   I have three accounts for mining.  One is close to an orca (currently mines in a hulk),  second is in a hulk and my third is a few days from a hulk.    So my plan this time around is to mine, cover my time codes, and save profits to purchase a decent skilled pvp type pilot.   I'm assuming that 'pvp' will be much more fast paced than the pve combat.  Personally, I would like to have a decent pilot to hunt these hulkageddon shit bags next time around as well.

Least that's the 'plan'.  Overall I still feel I don't really know a damn thing about this game. I know there has to be some fun in here somewhere.  I don't do any corps since Morfiend bolted on me first time around and at that time f13 was in a middle of a war.  So I had to wait about 3 months. I did actually wait, however by the time the 3 months was over I had had it with the game and actually left the day I was going to get an invite.  I did look into some other corps to see what it was like to run in 0.0 space but quite honestly they all looked like a second job rather than a fun time.

As for the price.... Yes, looks like it averages 2.0-5 bill for a pvp pilot.   The highest I've seen is starting bid of 50 billion for a 100 Million sp character. So yes, it will be a little while to save that up ;)

So I'm not the uber-noobie anymore? yay.

My advice is just ignore all the fancy ships the old-hands mention. They take piloting skills you don't have, they cost isk you don't have and can't afford to lose and they don't actually do anything useful at this point in your career. The base of everything else is having a decent ship that can do a bit of PvP without being laughed at, generate a revenue stream for you and let you explore the gameplay. And the sweatspot is the T1 cruisers -> battlecruisers because you can be flying one decently in a couple of weeks and they're really cost-effective. That let's you start saving for the next one after you get your current blown up.

Of course if you buy a leet pilot and people give you nice ships then eh, go with it. If not buying a single PLEX to start with can smooth the new game experience a lot. At the start there's a large number of pretty pricey things to buy (skill books, implants, ships + fittings, insurance). It's much easier to skip some of the lower tiers of grinding cash and move into a decent ship for higher level missions so you are earning more money / time.

The PvE is damn boring though, to the point where I need to have a book open during it. It's only fun relative to mining. I'm hoping being a part of an 0.0 space holding alliance is "fun" but I'm not overly optimistic about that.

Empire isn't where the fun is unless you're in a wardec alliance or corporation.  Otherwise, empire exists as a place to grind in relative safety and make piles of isk.  If you get tired of mining and missioning, you could take a look at playing market games and trying to make a profit off of buying and selling.

But otherwise, the staying in empire without a corporation is the surest way to bore yourself out of the game.

Thats what happened to me the last 2 times I played the game. I really want it to be different this time.

So, if I was to create a brand new character for PVP, what race class combo thingy should I do?

The character creation is largely irrelevant. The main thing it generates is a portrait and a name. Everything else you can decide while playing.

I would work towards Minmatar (more PvP oriented) or Caldari (more PvE oriented) battlecruisers because they can set their damage types which is a PvE advantage and have some ships that still show up in fleets and gangs (Hurricane and Drake respectively).

I'd diddled around the game since beta and never could stand to play for more than a month at a time. I joined up with the folks here in Goons in January and haven't looked back. Get into nulsec as fast as possible. Getting repeatedly blown up tackling out here is more fun than anything I ever did in empire.

If someone's handing you a character, that's one thing. But don't take an existing character and "reroll" a new character, they're all the same anyway other than a day worth of racial skills. (Exception would be a really stupid name or a bad reputation.) There's almost certainly something there you can use. If your newbie is Amarr, you can be really useful in a Maller cruiser with a warp disruptor and a whole lot of armor. The fit is on the goon wiki.

In the end, you'll probably be happier if you choose to go with Minmatar ships.  They require slightly broader skill training than other races, but they have no real deficiencies and are the best at a lot of things.

And the Hurricane looks cool.... :)

I don't believe Goon's are recruiting, though "Test Alliance Please Ignore" seem like a fairly noob friendly / active / growing alliance and are goon allies.

Relevant quote from the Goonwaffe newbie drive thread:


E: Also, come play with f13.  We have access to TEST gangs, but we hang out in f13 channels as well.

Ok, stats.

On my older guy, I noticed I have perception really high, like 19, and some of my other stats at like 5 (Charisma). My newer guy I made has like 9s in almost everything.

Which is better?

Stats are only used to determine the speed at which skills train. Each skill will use 2 stats and some stats (eg. Charisma) are very specialized (Leadership / Social skills) and so it is better to move those points into something which supports the skills you plan to focus on. Perception I think is fairly good for combat pilots (gunnery skills?).

Heh, that goon thread was posted today.

So to join -BAT- you need to join goonwaffe but -BAT- people can sponsor or do you guys run your own recruitment? Having to spend three months being an "active" participant on SA.com doesn't hold much allure.

We have our own corporation independent of Something Awful.  It's generally open to long-time f13 posters and people referred by them.

Perception/Willpower are the most commonly used skills, but starting characters get two respecs so you can be a little more fluid at the beginning.  After the second respec you get a new one after a year.

For where to go with ships. Short term, see how quickly you could get into a drake. Long term, look to get into Amarr T2 cruisers, Zealots and Guardians--they're essentially taking over the role of battleship for most fleets in nulsec.

Go here http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=19714.0

I have an Idea, some may think its moki-ish, and that's ok. As a newbie, with the boring grind of learning skills, why not do some simple market trading, play the 1 isk game, with MY isk. Yes, that's right, I will loan you enough isk to be able to afford to buy your ships when you have trained the skills, and after paying me back, you should have alot of isk leftover.

How does this work? It's easy, train up trade to get a few more market slots, then pick a few...5 or so (depending on trade skill) T2 items that have a large (>10% ) difference between buy orders and sell orders. Place a buy order for say....10 of the item and find another item. Check it often via my orders tab and make certain you are the highest buy order (meaning you will pay 1 isk more than the next guy). When orders are filled, immediately place the item for sale and make certain you are 1 isk cheaper than the cheapest seller (so your item will be purchased first). You should make about 100,000 isk or more for each item that you buy/sell.

Whoopie, 100,000 isk is blah. I am currently running 10 items on buy/sell. Overnight my wallet increased substantially. For example, a few days ago I purchased a Jump Freighter for 3,300,000,000 and if I were not going to use it, could turn around and sell it within hours for 3,750,000,000. The more you have to spend, the more you can make. You cannot lose this way, the worst that happens is your (or my) isk is tied up in items as you play the 1 isk game.

This does give you something to do while training the boring learning skills, and does provide some 'passive' income between missions. This is not truely passive, as you do have to occasionally check to see where your orders are in the 1 isk game, but other than that, when the items sell, your wallet grows.

How do I get into this? Join us in Bat Country, then convo Mo Ki, its that easy.

So, I really like the look of the Amaar ships. Would it be a horrible idea to go that way over the Minmatar ships, or should I train up Min ships first and then later train Amaar?

Also, as to stats, I understand how they work, what I was asking is would it be better to have fairly even stats at the start or is my guy with the really high Perception and Int better.

Basically, I like the portrait and the name on my newer guy, but it seems like my older guy has better starting skills and stats.

My older guy has Amaar and Min Frigates at 3, and the generic flying skill at 5, along with several gunnery skills at 5, like lasers.

Train both Amass and Minmatar to cruiser 3 and then train up Battlecruisers. That way you can fly both Min and Amarr Battlecruisers and can figure out which you like more.

I'd just go for Amarr. I'm not sure if that's despite or because I'm a Minmater pilot.

I love my hurricane, and hug my hurricane, and call it Dirty Sanchez.

I love mine too, but it's not reimburseable

Amarr is a great race as well, though if (when) you eventually come join us in 0.0 you might kick yourself a bit if you try to rat with lasers.  The rats in our region are not laser-friendly.  Still, don't choose your race based solely on ratting.  It can be done with all four races and you should choose the one with ships that you want to fly.

Ok -- This was my main 'fighter' type account.   How would this guy do?   If I did activate him again what would be the best plan for him to work on?



Attributes
Intelligence: 24.20
Perception:   23.10
Charisma:     11.00
Willpower:    20.90
Memory:       24.20

Drones
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Amarr Drone Specialization
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Caldari Drone Specialization
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Combat Drone Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Drone Durability
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Drone Interfacing
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Drone Navigation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Drone Sharpshooting
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Drones
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Gallente Drone Specialization
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Heavy Drone Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Mining Drone Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Minmatar Drone Specialization
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Repair Drone Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Scout Drone Operation
Total Skillpoints in Group: 650,806

Electronics
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Cloaking
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Electronic Warfare
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Electronics
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Electronics Upgrades
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Long Range Targeting
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Propulsion Jamming
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Signature Analysis
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Survey
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Target Painting
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Targeting
Total Skillpoints in Group: 627,773

Engineering
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) EM Shield Compensation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Energy Grid Upgrades
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Energy Management
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Energy Systems Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Engineering
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Explosive Shield Compensation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Kinetic Shield Compensation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Shield Compensation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Shield Emission Systems
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Shield Management
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Shield Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Shield Upgrades
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Tactical Shield Manipulation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Thermic Shield Compensation
Total Skillpoints in Group: 580,103

Gunnery
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Controlled Bursts
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Gunnery
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Medium Hybrid Turret
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Medium Projectile Turret
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Motion Prediction
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Rapid Firing
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Sharpshooter
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Small Hybrid Turret
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Small Projectile Turret
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Weapon Upgrades
Total Skillpoints in Group: 405,429

Industry
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Industry
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Mining
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Mining Upgrades
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Refining
Total Skillpoints in Group: 701,020

Learning
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Analytical Mind
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Clarity
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Eidetic Memory
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Empathy
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Focus
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Instant Recall
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Iron Will
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Learning
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Logic
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Spatial Awareness
Total Skillpoints in Group: 1,868,315

Mechanic
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Armor Rigging
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Astronautics Rigging
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Hull Upgrades
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Jury Rigging
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Mechanic
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Repair Systems
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Salvaging
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Shield Rigging
Total Skillpoints in Group: 141,741

Missile Launcher Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Cruise Missiles
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Defender Missiles
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) FoF Missiles
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Guided Missile Precision
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Heavy Assault Missiles
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Heavy Missiles
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Missile Bombardment
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Missile Launcher Operation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Missile Projection
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Rapid Launch
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Rockets
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Standard Missile Specialization
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Standard Missiles
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Target Navigation Prediction
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Torpedoes
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Warhead Upgrades
Total Skillpoints in Group: 1,876,785

Navigation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Acceleration Control
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Afterburner
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Evasive Maneuvering
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Fuel Conservation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) High Speed Maneuvering
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Navigation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Warp Drive Operation
Total Skillpoints in Group: 239,765

Science
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Archaeology
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level5.gif) Astrogeology
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Astrometric Acquisition
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Astrometric Rangefinding
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Astrometrics
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Biology
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Cybernetics
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Infomorph Psychology
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Science
Total Skillpoints in Group: 886,714

Social
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Connections
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Diplomacy
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Negotiation
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Social
Total Skillpoints in Group: 191,849

Spaceship Command
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Caldari Battleship
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Caldari Cruiser
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Caldari Frigate
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Exhumers
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level3.gif) Gallente Frigate
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Mining Barge
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level4.gif) Spaceship Command
Total Skillpoints in Group: 1,654,802

Trade
(http://myeve.eve-online.com/bitmaps/character/level2.gif) Contracting
Total Skillpoints in Group: 1,415

Total Skillpoints: 9,826,517
Total Number of Skills: 114

Train Battlecruisers III and get in a Drake - good for PvP (not as good as the Raven at PvE but its cheaper).

Train EW and fly a Blackbird in PvP.

Start training minmatar ASAP for PVP, he's got a pretty solid skillset for it.

/cry, Hurricane's are just so much fun to fly. So which T1 BC's are re-imbursable? Guessing Drake is one of them / it.

Drakes, harbingers and hurricanes are all reimbursable.  Not sure why Numtini thinks they're not.

https://wiki.goonfleet.com/EFT:_Reimbursement_Hurricane

Not sure if T2 guns would be required, but they sure do make a difference to the feel of the ship, and it allows you to hit easily from 10k to 100k.

Just don't do the mistake I did, and stick quake ammo in the guns while travelling with the fleet. Jesus H Christables that was annoying.

Bat Country have an unusually high proportion of pro hurricane pilots, and on smaller gang roams have a tendency to top a lot of killmails as a result.

Have they dropped the "contingent" reimbursement policy? Last I heard nothing was reimburseable unless it was on the reimbursement list for the specific op and hurricanes almost never were. There was a thread somewhere that explained they generally got enough on ops to do antisupport without reimbursing.

Having 3 sensor boosters with scan res scripts doesn't have any part in that, nosirree. :grin:

Alright, I got my old EVE account back and re-upped it for a month to check my old Gallente, and here's where he's at:


As you can see, it's a bit of a mess. Right now, I'm pretty conflicted: do I spend the time necessary to fix this guy up, or do I just strip him of his assets and keep trucking with my more-focused Minmatar newbie I made yesterday?

Team Minmatar all the way.

But then, what do I know.  :awesome_for_real:

I'd keep it, you can probably plan out what you want to do in EveMon and reset your attributes if you've been away for awhile anyway,

Yeah, only problem is I only have a single Neural Remap available, so I have to be kinda careful how I use it.

Morf is a poser - I am the sewper newbie. I just ran through the first tutorial and the first set of 10 military. Now I am training (offline and about to be sleeping...which I love) Frig III. Oh yeah, and I have no fucking clue what I am doing in terms of training and learning and buying training and what to plan on buying in the future. I am however using the goons guide to help out in that endeavor. Hopefully I can rip through the other 4 trainers this weekend and then start moving to other fish while my training fills out. Hopefully I won't go broke in the process.

The tutorials give you a reasonable amount of money, but you will be broke because there's so much to buy.

I think there's also advantages to staying in empire and not in -BAT- until you can pilot a cruiser of your choice. There's a goon scheme for free cruisers for new players and a cruiser gives you a lot more options for generating isk in goonspace.... though I'm pretty noob myself.

Yeah, the advantage to staying in empire until you can fly a cruiser is that you'll probably get bored and quit the game.  Whereas if you come to 0.0, most of the time something is going on and you can make fat isk with your friends.  For instance, I'm about to log in and see if any newbies want to run some Guristas Sanctums and shoot the shit on teamspeak.

Cruiser is a pretty short train with the noob bonus, will probably be done before you complete all the tutorials. But I guess it will train just as fast in goonspace.

Ya  I can't see it taking more than a week to get into a cruiser and if you get that bored that easily Eve isn't really your game anyway. heh.

Doubt I will get bored in empire. I tend to be anal about the tedious tasks until I get them smooth. I did some of the exploration tut missions this morning and had no clue what the hell I was doing the whole time and that was even with reading all the ingame blurbs and wiki info. But that type of shit draws me in and evaporates all my time because I will pick at it until I figure it out or I pass out from all the heavy drinking I am doing to compensate for my ignorance. That said, I am digging the exploration stuff now. Think Industry will be next.

edit to add:

I got the 14 day trial off the main link in the goonswarm recruitment thread but I see Eve is on Steam as well. Any better or worse factors to having it on steam or off? Likewise, if I should want to get it through Steam is there a way?

--additional question: this 21 day trial thing, is that an extra 21 days, or does that count the free 14 I am already on? either way, I might end up staying for a bit and someone might want to throw me a 21-day for the bonus.

I believe the 21-day trial is something you get instead of the 14-day.

Anyone able to send an in-game mail to Sidiri on a basic tackling and ratting fittings list? I don't have access to the GF or BC forums to check out any suggestions atm. BBQ season is calling me away for the evening, but when I get back tomorrow I'll be able to get into a rifter and would like to be as prepared as possible

If someone could handle this for Segoris, that'd be cool.  I'm going to a party in a few minutes and won't have time to myself.

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Tackling_101_Guide

My advice: be fearless, better to cling on like a pit bull and die than to assume someone else has also got a point and lose your fleet the kill. Trading a frigate for anything (even another frigate) is always good because fleets that kill things have more fun than fleets that don't.

When I flew tacklers (and later dictors), I treated them as disposable munitions.  Frequently the warp scrambler or bubble blower was worth more than the rest of my ship put together (including the hull).  Tacklers of any kind are built to die, you should fly them that way and build them cheap so you can stockpile spares and jump back into the fight (I've been the victim on more than a dozen killmails in a single fight).

--Dave

I was wondering if you'd gone and swapped out the tracking computer on the roam today.

If we're starting this sort of shenanigans I may have to resort to scan res rigs.

Hmm, according to EFT 3 boosters and 3 scan res rigs will lock a cruiser in less than a second, overheated on a 7 second cycle we could probably get a second volley off while the drakes first volley of missiles are still on their way out of the launch tubes....

I hope one day I will know what the hell this means.  :awesome_for_real:

I think for a guy who just came back from 12 hours night shift work (me) , the info just can't be digested at all.
Like...when creating a toon - they didn't even describe the stat points whatsoever. And the microscopic fonts are making it even harder to go through the tutorials. I increased the font but when I start opening multiple windows, the monitor just seemed a hell lot smaller now.

And yeah, fuck the PVE. I can't stand it. It's almost no different than mining asteroids, except they shoot back and you press more buttans.

Interest. diminishing. rapidly . Just tell me how to make a suicide super tackling jihad in very noobish terms so I can get a vet to /ragequit b4 i /borequit

Yeah, Eve gives me an eventual headache on my new high-res 27" monitor... and the option to configure game fonts between 9 *or* 12 point doesn't really help.

Stat points are used only to determine the speed for training skills. Whereas most RPG people expect the names to mean they do all sorts of things.

And yea, Eve PvE really is pretty bad to average. The only reason to be playing the game I've found are industrial for those who like crafting, playing as part of a player driven space empire or playing it because it eventually becomes almost free.

My rifter setup in delve was2x nanofiber internal structure I's, one overdrive injector system 2 (you can go for 1 instead to save money), 1mn afterburner (or mwd, not really sure), warp disruptor 2 (you don't really want to skimp on this one, as it gives you 4km extra range which can be vital), and a stasis webifier 1. I sometimes became creative and put stuff on like a small nosferatu and 2x 200mm autocannon 1's, but they're not really that necessary. The nosferatu would be to give you more cap (as you'll run out eventually), and the guns (if anything) would be to whore more emails. Killmails for the killmail throne. :grin:

Ok, it's important, imo, for you to join a corp such as Bat Country asap, although I have no say who gets accepted into the corp.  You can be an effective killer with a frigate, a guide can be read here: http://www.rifterdrifter.com This can be set up within a few weeks

It's hard being new in 0.0 but I'm sure the guys in Bat Country would help you as much as possible, also Goonwaffe have heaps of tutorials for new pilots.  If you like mmos then eve is worth persevering with.

This is a Hurricane. There are many like it but this one is mine.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/318368/cane1.jpg)(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/318368/cane2.jpg)(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/318368/cane3.jpg)(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/318368/cane4.jpg)
(apologies I don't have any good screenshots, shit just dies too quickly around this ship  :why_so_serious:)

The Hurricane is a battlecruiser, a medium sized ship that is around about the sweet spot in the current meta game.

The 'cane is normally fitted as a projectile artillery platform, projectile artillery has excellent alpha (damage per volley) but mediocre DPS over an extended period. The Hurricane also has plenty of room for sensor upgrades, which is critical to improving your scan resolution - this determines the time taken to lock a target.

Alpha + scan resolution together mean the ship is excellent and locking a target quickly and getting a big hit on it - often enough to flatten a frigate in a single hit, and a cruiser in two or three. This is important because...
 
(a) As soon as anyone realises they are going to lose, they will try to warp or jump out. Fast lock time and huge alpha is the next best thing to actually getting them tackled.
(b) Killing shit with a massive alpha strike before Drake pilots can even target it (so they don't even get on the killmail) is the moral duty of every right thinking citizen.
(c) Some key enemy ships (bombers, interdictors) are designed to warp in, drop their bomb or interdiction bubble and gtfo as soon as they can. The primary role of a Hurricane will be to protect the fleet by killing these key small ships before they do what they need to do (or worst case to destroy them before they warp out so they can't do it again).
(d) In a large fleet alpha is more important than dps anyway, since no primary target will survive more than a couple of volleys from a 200 man fleet, and killing guys before their logistics (healing) backup gets going is critical.

TGR is saying he has fitted three sensor boosters to his hurricane (reducing the time he needs to lock a typical target from several seconds to a couple of seconds). I'm calling shenanigans and pointing out that for this to fit, he must deviated from the standard alliance fittings (we have a wiki with preferred fittings for every ship in the game) and removed the tracking computer (the tracking computer increases his range and/or accuracy, but honestly isn't very necessary on a small gang roam).

Then I'm suggesting that if we really want to 'go there', the next step would be to use 'rigs'. Rigs are a special type of module that are a bit more expensive than normal modules, and which cannot be removed once fitted. I'm suggesting fitting +scan resolution (for reduced lock time) rigs.

This would get our lock time for a cruiser sized target down under a second, compared to a Drake taking 5 seconds or more (a Drake is another battlecruiser and the most common ship in Goonswarm fleets, it is chosen primarily for its excellent engagement range and for its incredibly strong shields - a Drake can take twice as much damage as our Hurricanes and heals more effectively because of its resists). But the drake will be even slower than 5 seconds to do damage, because a drake uses missiles. Missiles give the pilot a choice of damage type, and have certain accuracy advantages, but their big disadvantage is travel time, a heavy missile travels at approximately 5km/s, whereas artillery hits instantaneously,  this means a drake can't even start doing damage until maybe 9 seconds after the target appears on your overview.

Back in our hurricanes, we completed our first volley somewhere in the 1-2 second region, and we are preparing to fire a second time, ordinarily a skilled pilot will take around 8 or 9 seconds to cycle the 720mm Howitzers you would generally use on a hurricane, but we can do better than that, we can overheat! Overheating pushes modules to overperform, but they take damage and eventually burn out as a result. In the case of guns, overheating makes them cycle faster, and would get us two volleys before the Drakes can even get on the scoreboard.

Resulting in killmails like this (note how the damage is distributed)...

https://killboard.goonfleet.com/km/479843

Join Bat Country, and you too will understand all this arcane bullshit before long.



PS. The other thing I mention there is EFT - which is an out of game tool for designing ship fittings. There are plenty of threads around listing the various tools you'd be wise to download (EFT for ship design, GTS for navigation, EVEmon for skill planning, and of course jabber and teamspeak for comms).

As Trigona said. In most MMO's you can have fun soloing and exploring. In Eve you need to be part of something bigger for your actions to have any meaning and satisfaction to them. And the -BAT- guys seem to have absorbed much of the noob friendliness and not taking it too seriously ambience of the goons without some of the more retarded aspects of goon culture.

No stat points are involved when creating a character.

Everyone starts with even points across all stats, you then get two attribute respecs you can use in game, and another one every year. Don't worry about till you know wtf, but for most people the best plan is....

1) Complete the tutorial.
2) Learn to fly a rifter. (join ops)
3) Learn to fly a Stabber (joins ops)
4) Respec to int & mem.
5) Train learning skills, fitting skills, some supports.
6) Respec max perception, rest in willpower.
7) Learn to fly everything.
8) Never think about attributes ever again.


As for pve, fuck pve, complete the tutorial and pod yourself to Deklien. Also, join the F13 channel (use the little speech bubble icon in your chat window) and bother people with questions.

Not just on that roam, all roams the past few months. We end up gatecamping, and the first to lock and set off a volley wins.

I've actually been wondering if I couldn't swap the MWD out for a disruptor, but I keep coming back to the fact I still want that maneuverability, and I tend to be more than 24km away from them when they pop up, so I've decided to just ignore that thought and go with the setup I have. Its default setup (scan res scripts and shortrange ammo) means I hit out to 50km quickly and hard, and is perfect for gatecamps like this, where we meet up with less than 10 guys at a time.

Absolutely correct on b). Bat Squad Supremacy! (...or something :grin:)

As to the bombers in c), just one minor detail here. If I'm not mistaken, if you kill the ship before the bomb goes off, then you've saved the fleet from 1 bomb, which may or may not be vital.

And as to deviating from fleet fits, I don't really see it as shenanigans. I don't really care if I get reimbursed on small roams like this or not. The hurricane is fairly cheap to replace, which is why I want to hug it and feed it and call it george.

Actually, I see my setup as more or less perfect for the sort of work we usually do on roams like this, since we stay within 50-60km of the gate and just punch them in the face. If we were going for fleet fights with 200+ in each fleet, then chances are I would swap not one but TWO of my sensor boosters with tracking computers with tracking speed, and set the sensor booster to targeting range, for swatting quick flies out to 90km. I hope I'll get to test this setup out at some point.

But yeah, I have minmatar BS 5, and I haven't really flown minmatar BSes all that much the last ... well, year, really. I'm more or less stuck in my hurricane, I love it so much. I die almost every time I'm primaried, though, so it does have its disadvantages.

I don't know. I kinda like the tutorial and the PvE aspects. Its slow enough to learn all the intricacies without the frustration of getting into a fight and not knowing wtf to do before being killed. Nothing defeats my interest in a game more than having to know 800 things at the get go and never being able to learn and apply them before being fed my own ass on a plate. I dig the slow pace - esp since learning skills is continually going on.

That said... holy shit is there a ton of shit to learn. I think I'll start writing a dummy's guide to Eve.  :why_so_serious:

It took me three months of playing Eve to fully realize how little I knew about playing Eve.

(http://www.eve-pirate.com/uploads/LearningCurve.jpg)

You want a newbie's guid to Eve?  So happens I got your newbies guide to Eve right here; Poluketes and I just finished updating it for the current situation:

http://cdn.goonfleet.com/newbies/newbieguide.pdf

That file is giving me a lot of problems when viewed in a browser, embedded fonts missing, image data. I updated to the latest reader and still the same. Seems to be ok if downloaded fully and opened directly.

You mean Minnies aren't the joke fleet anymore? Man it HAS been a while since I played.  It used to be said they were only good for their HAC, IIRC.   Man, I might have to return.

Hurricane is arguably "best of class" (as mentioned, the Drake has better survivability), Sabre is unquestionably the best of the dictors (unless it's a major fleet action, then you want cheap like the Eris), the AF's and BS hold their own.  Their carriers/supercarriers kind of suck, though.

--Dave

Thanks for the PM Sir T, the link Stabs, and Endei: I'm getting the same errors as numtini on that newbie guide :(

Wherever Minmatar aren't the best at a job, they're one of them.  Pretty much every single T2 hull is useful in some situation, and their capitals are highly regarded now.  Forget what Mahrin said, the Minmatar carrier is actually pretty good.

Rightclick, save as, open as a normal pdf-file. Works fine.

The only reason it was looked at with suspicion is that it has a bonus to repair rate but not repair capacitor need. This combined with its lower capacitor means it can be run out of capacitor faster, but in a fleet fight it can be argued you want as much repair coming in as you can.

Aside from that, comparing the Nidgogger with the Thanatos you have less drone space, more shield, less armor and more structure. Its basically a wash and no reason to sneer at it.

Well, the Nidhoggur's bonus now is to repair amount.  So it has an identical slot layout to the Thanatos and makes a better remote-repairer, but has 12.5k less HP as you mentioned.

Minmatar are best carriers now.

Supercarrier sucks though.

None of this really matters if you are starting training right now, because by the time you are flying the highest level ships, CCP will have nerfed and boosted half the ships in EVE and the meta game will be completely different.  

But best...

Frigates : Minmatar
Ceptors : Amarr/Minmatar/Gallente
Covops : Minmatar
Bombers : Minmatar/Anything really
Dictors : Minmatar (best) / Amarr (15 Million cheaper)
Cruisers : Minmatar
HACs : Amarr/Minmatar
HICs : Amarr/Minmatar
Recons : Situational
Shield Logistics : Minmatar/Caldari
Armour Logistics : Amarr
Battlecruisers : Minmatar/Amarr/Caldari
Fleet BS : Amarr/Caldari
PvE ships : Caldari
Suicide Gank ships : Minmatar
Carriers : Minmatar
Dreadnaughts : Caldari
Supercarriers : Gallente (omg)
Titan : Amarr

These discussions of carrier bonuses are especially pertinent for a thread entitled "super newbie"

I think I will go ahead and credit myself for the influx of new players to -BAT-.  :drill:

The key point newbies should take from this discussion is to train Caldari if your long term wish is to fly t2 drakes and satisfy the temporary whim of the directorate, or train Minmatar if you are edgy and enjoy fun.

Also none of it really matters because you can cross train in a month (especially now that nobody uses battleships).

There is a 30 day plan on the wiki that has you doing useful shit in 6 different ships you should probably consider before committing to any long term direction.

Edit: actually, the real key point is train whatever you like, this isn't wow, you aren't committing to stare at a rage meter or set of health bar every day for the next two years. Nothing is set in stone. But do look at that 30 day skill plan on the goon wiki.

Drakes have some massive advantages for noobies irregardless of goon strategy. They're really tolerant in terms of fitting skills, they're tolerant of encounter range, they're excellent for ratting in goonhome (having an income is nice) and they're perfectly acceptable on fleet ops with pretty much the same fit as you PvE in (something not true of canes). The monstrous tank also means you have a fair amount of time to run if you're facing more than you can handle.

Though if I wanted to make sure I was on a kill-mail then you want a hurricane... and guns are also a bit more satisfying. Watching your missiles slowly floating towards the enemy doesn't match the "bang - pop" of a hurricane taking out a frigate.

hngh  :sad_panda:

I'd blame Endie's post for my return, though if you influenced that post then grats to you sir!



I'm sure he could care less  :why_so_serious:

Once I can see through the tears...

Though I am impressed that the syntactic squabbling has its own wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless)

Quick question since people have mentioned Minny ships.  Is arty still inferior to AC's?  I remember when I played arty was considered only good for high damage alpha, and only against ships smaller than a BC.  Is that still the case or has arty improved at all?

Arty got boosted. It's the best alpha by a long shot  :rimshot:

Whats arty?

Also, why do people call Alpha, Alpha? Why not call it Burst? Is there a difference?

Originally a Navy term for throwing every available aircraft into the same attack, picked up in Multi-Player Battletech to describe firing all weapons at once (so optimizing your Alpha meant using slow-cycling weapons for maximum impact, then dodging while waiting for them to recycle).  If there's only going to be time for a couple of weapon cycles before a target is destroyed, slow cycling weapons will "pre-load" more damage.

--Dave

*reads and ponders*

Arty = Artillery, the long-range projectile weapons used by Minmatar and Angel ships.  The best volley damage in the game, but suffering from a very low rate of fire.  They're great in highly laggy situations where there's a long delay between volleys anyway, and for suicide ganking where you only have 10-15 seconds to kill the target.

Merusk's christmas present:

(http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8939/holyraven.png)

Getting hacked.. the gift that keeps on giving.

The Hacker earnt that for you? nice!

Yeah it is. 

Of course, the problem with a ship like that is after 2 years away you're too damn paranoid to undock.  I was mentally convinced that going anywhere in it, even a .8 system, I was a big, juicy target saying "Blow-up my Isk, make me cry."

I've read too many of Slayerik's gank threads.

I am going to make a poster like Mulder had in X-files. Only I am going to shop an Eve Battleship in and under, the words: I want to UNDERSTAND.   :why_so_serious:

The number of ships required to down something like that in high-sec before getting concorded would make you a pretty unlikely target. Barring doing something daft like wandering around with a cargo-hold full of plex's :)

There's a scary number of really pimped out mission ships in empire.

Quick question.  What is considered the "better" HAC for Minmatar these days?  It used to be a Vaga's, I believe.  Someone mentioned Vaga's are more for small gangs while Muninn's are better suited for fleets now.   

The Vagabond is an up-close, hit you in the face then run away kind of guy, while the Muninn beats you with a 12-foot pole and you can't do anything.

Like 5 or 6. Not sure what Hakim's is worth, but quite the gift! If you guys find the ships, we'll kill them and make millions BILLIONS!

Or watch as everything that's worth anything is destroyed when he dies, and you make nothing. :grin:

In game Eve Mail I received today.


This game's amazing.

Morfiend Va (http://eveboard.com/pilot/Morfiend_Va)
Currently working on a bunch of lower level skills and learning skills. I am debating if I want to just sit him for a while and bring his learnings up to 5/4 or leave them at 4/3. Going to take like 12 days or so to bring them up to 5/4 if I do it now, which newbie training time, and while I am still specced in to memory. I think I am probably going to do that, as it will be better in the long run.

Alex Vaunt (http://eveboard.com/pilot/Alex_Vaunt)
My original character, from before they changed the character creation. I think I am going to try and get him in a Cruiser asap and bring him out to 0.0 while Morfiend Va trains learning.

Any advice for me, anyone see anything im missing? Yeah, Alex's learnings are not to great. But he is specced in to high perception, so his learnings take forever to train.

Top guy, bug a vet to help you get +3's in ASAP.

Other advice, use my account. You will be awesomely self sufficient in Deklein in a Raven - and can fly any cheap ships you want (with actual great skills). Two accounts is the way of Eve.

So is the refer a friend 21-day thing still up and running? I will prolly end up subbing to the game next month and I recall whoever give out the 21 day thing gets something in return if the new guy ends up subbing. I'm all about spreading the love.

I still have a few to hand out, but you'll have to start another character if you do that.  The trials only work on fresh accounts.

That won't be a problem. I consider this 14day trial guy a test dummy anyway.

See, I knew to watch out for guys like you!  :grin:

Just wanna say thanks to all the help. I'm starting to get into the game more. I'm still at work, but at least when I get home I'll be able to put on some basic afterburners and shield recharges for PVE thanks to training queue.

Is there something a duo could do in Minmatar newbie space? Both myself and rk47 are there currently. Anyone have any ideas, would be nice for us to group together and actually do something.

One thing that was popular with the goons for a while was join corporations that will take anyone then kill all your corpmates until you get booted. This can work well with 2 ppl and you can play it off as a newbie mistake quite a few times if you are clever. Otherwise, you can bore yourself to partial death (it's much more fun with a friend) on missions. Just pick someone with something ripe in their lp store to sell and medical facilities at one of their stations and hopefully a  research agent or two (someone who knows mini's cam recommend some npc corp to mission with.

Jihading (joining a corp to kill its members with impunity) is even more fun if you can get someone who isn't in the corp to hang out in a logistics ship and repair (heal) you while you take on a dozen people with 500x the skillpoints of you.  The first time some idiot flying 200m worth of shit fires a volley into the repper and gets concorded is magical.

I seem to recall it's possible to stay subbed by paying with ISK.
Is this legalized or another form of in-game currency exchange?

You buy PLEXes for 300-350m, and you use them in exchange for 30 days of gametime.

OK just asking because I can't seem to have any fun blasting PVE stuff while waiting for skills to train. Then it hit me, maybe i shd set a financial goal with the seed money samson gave me. Buy low, sell high thingy seems so easy with the in-game market UI. I'm thinking maybe train up to pilot those huge industrial shits to haul cargo around with afterburners on while training skills should earn more credits than busting missions right?

I'm getting ready to head out to 0.0, with one of my characters. Can anyone tell me if there is anything I should do before I come? I should be able to fly a tackling frigate well for PVP, and also I could fly a salvaging destroyer to help make isk. I am going to start training up Amaar Cruiser today, so hopefully I can get in to a Harbinger for ratting soon.

You have Gurista rats where you are, a harbi is gonna suck. Sorry to be a downer.

I believe it can rk47. I've seen a lot of people claim they make an awful lot of money taking advantage of local price differences or even manipulating the market. It might be more lucrative but less reliable than missions.

In my (noob) opinion there's lots of ways to make money in the game. Apart from PvP which is generally revenue negative. More important is to find gameplay you can get some enjoyment out of and see if that gives you some goals to work towards. For example hauling stuff could easily lead to larger, stealthier or more durable freighters. Playing the market can be a goal in itself, and the industrial system is pretty deep if the PvE isn't to your liking.

Otherwise you can let the skills train offline, do the minimum PvE to afford a ship you are willing to fly and lose and just look for fights :)

Morfiend, the only important thing to do in Empire is the tutorials and spending what money you have on stuffing skill books into your head. There's various ways to get yourself into a ship and flying a tackler is enough to get you into fleet PvP... though possibly for short but glorious durations :)

Okay, since I pretty much have nothing but Iron Will 4 and the first three ranks of Focus to get, I'll be essentially done with the Learning skill set for the present.

Now, I need to figure out where next to go with my character, who's pretty much gonna stick with Minmatar ships, graduating to a Stabber next, followed by a Hurricane, and from then I can decide which longer-term paths I want to follow.

So here's my current skill setup (just pretend Iron Will 4 and Focus 3 are done:


One thing I do know is that I'll be working on getting Drones to 5 off and on while doing everything else.

Electronics and engineering to 5. More cpu and power = more stuff on your ship.

Drones to 5, Heavy drones and drones support skills to 3. That will give you fast tough drones that are useful in all number of situations, not just PVE. You NEED drones 5.

Erratic maneuvers to 4, if you can spare the time 5. You may sneer at it but turning faster means you get into warp faster, or at least it used to. I regarded this as the best skill I ever trained up in my newb days

Weapon upgrades to 4. Gunnery support skills to 3 minimum.

Since you are going Minmatar its no harm to buff your missile skills up as well.

That should keep you going for a while.

And when should I bump up Minmatar Frigate to 4 and get ready for Cruisers? When all those support skills are done?

I could use some info as to what to work on or, possibly more importantly, what skills I should buy to add to my list and get to level 3 before working on level 4+. Currently, while I'm just working on getting things to 3, I have empathy, instant recall, iron will, spatial awareness, rockets, warp drive operation all going to 3 and Minmartar Frigate going to 4 just to make sure I have something training in case I can't login tomorrow. FWIW, the roles (https://wiki.goonfleet.com/Ship_Roles) that look appealing to me are elec warfare/support or max gank
Current skill list:

What, you haven't already?

Learning and advanced learning skills to 4 as soon as possible but learn some fun stuff along the way.

Skill towards cruiser or battlecruiser hull ASAP since ratting in the -BAT- cave in anything smaller isn't too productive. That gives you a starting isk stream to fund all the other stuff. Of course if you're going pure industrialist you might have different priorities but I've no idea what they are. There's advantages to working towards a drake because it's a strong PvE ship and appreciated in fleets atm. Being able to optimise drake skills and fit all the stuff for a "fleet" ship will keep you busy for quite a while (even just going to 4's). From there you can branch out as most of the specialist roles (logistics, ECM, intercept, cloak, PvP) are best done on a frigate or cruiser hull. For DPS / capital ships you can move up towards battleship / carrier. Of course by that time you'll have access to the wiki which is pretty impressive.

Don't learn rockets high... they're regarded as being broken due to the very poor numbers they have. And nothing other than frigates uses them anyway. Avoid getting 5's too early unless they're a pre-req.

My noobie view of things :)

Well, no.

Get cruiser 3 then BC 3. waiting around for them while youa re training the other stuff will bore you insane.

So here is my character, I know I'm probably all over the place so feel free to laugh.

http://www.eveonline.com/character/skilltree.asp?characterID=860772998 (http://www.eveonline.com/character/skilltree.asp?characterID=860772998)

Can't access that page Wasted.  Off the top of my head you should have your learning skills up to L4 as much as possible and then go to https://wiki.goonfleet.com/Main_Page and check out the public content.  The good thing about eve is that very few skills are a waste of time, so even if you're adopted a shotgun approach, it's easy to start to focus.  One character I set up for a friend was based on the ship he wanted to fly.  I looked up the skills needed for the various modules the ship used and set up a training path based on that one ship. 

For PvP a rifter is excellent, they are usually free for goonswarm and are effective and fun to fly.  Here is a useful guide http://www.rifterdrifter.com/rifter-pvp-guide/

yeah i got all learning to level 5 and most advanced learning skills to level 4.  Its one thing I know I did right

Wasted, there's a lot of people keen to see you join us in BAT, what are you waiting for?

You cant link to characters on that page. Use this site http://eveboard.com/

Wasted, once you are in game, at least join the f13 channel, so you can chat with people from here. In your chat window, click the little speech bubble icon on the top right, and then enter "f13". That will join you in chat with us.

My character, point and laugh!

http://eveboard.com/pilot/Cavort

Guys, hate to break it to ya but Wasted is an OBVIOUS 04 spy.

;)

Hey come on. I was an obvious 05 spy.  :grin:

Your learning skills.  :uhrr:

You need to grab the t2 learning skills.

ok here is a link that hopefully works http://eveboard.com/pilot/Burroughs (http://eveboard.com/pilot/Burroughs)



Damn, 6 years as a sleeper agent completely blown on the first day, I told them I didn't have high enough skill in Spying for this job!

You're Gaylentte specced. Do yourself a favour and start training amarr. You will save yourself a load of heatache and horror. Oh the stories I could tell... *starts sobbing quietly in the corner*

I'd learn the advanced learning skills to at least 2 at some point, but you're also very close to a basic drake, which will let you slot right into a lot of fleets soon.

Someone link that newbie guide that some worthless bastard put together, with the newbie training guide in it.

It's almost intentional! Like I had this guide I was following!  :why_so_serious:

Advanced learning skills? Hurrr? I've just been following EveMon's suggestions on which learning skills to slot in to save time. I put together a training plan to get into a basic level drake along with the learning skills to support it... it's about done now though. I still need to train up a couple skills so I can fly a rifter (note total lack of Minmatar craft skills!) but once that happens I will start flying rifters in ops to get a feel for things (don't really want to blow up drakes on my first day)

I'm actually in a drake now but suck at ratting. I'll probably up my fittings to the awful fittings threads so someone can tell me where I'm screwing up.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Gallente right now.

I am still the major newbie, but from what I read you really want to get the learning skills to ranks 4/3. Meaning your tier 1 learning skills to 4 and the t2 to rank 3.

You dont need to bother with Charisma.

Looks like the goons are doing another WTF 101 op on sunday. I am going to try and attend, any other corp newbies should also. I am still hazy on EVE time, but it is listed at 2030 EVE time sunday.

Eve time is GMT isn't it?

Yes, Wasted.

I know that we've recommended Hurricanes to a lot of you new guys who are starting out Minmatar.  I'd just like to reiterate the point with this evening example of how to kill something before most of your 20-man gatecamp can even get a lock:

Purifier (http://batcountry.7mph.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=5359)

 :heart:

I got my minmatar pilot in a hurricane a few days ago, and its really nice. Even have it cap stable with a MWD active (not sure if this is unusual or not).

Since minnie guns use no cap to fire, minnie ships tend to have extra cap floating around for things like MWDs.

Welp, looks like I'm going to have to take a break for a while. Just got a new job this weekend, and the hours are pretty rough: 12 hours per day, six days a week. That plus mounting bills means MMOs get cut from the budget and I go down to DSL. I'll probably be back once my hours go down to something manageable and I get my bills a bit under control.

Congrats on the job.

Well, time for me to read this thread I suppose.   For five bucks, I finally succumbed and picked up Spreadsheets in Space off the current steam sale.

What's your character's name?  Join our in-game channel aptly named "f13".

Try and join -BAT- / Goons or TEST, Eve as a solitary PvE experience is dreadful.

I don't think it would hurt to stay in your newbie corp until you get a feel for the game.  Once you start to get bored you can join Bat Country or another corp.

Just be aware Eve is a game of scams and keep your eyes open.  When I was in my wormhole corp I saw a nasty one while watching a wormhole to Empire space.

 Experienced Eve player to newbies:  Let me show you wormholes, they are so cool!
 Newbies: Ok, what do we do?
 Experienced Eve player: Just follow me in!
 Newbies: Hmm, except for the wormhole it looks like any other system.
 Experienced Eve player:  Except I can kill you here without getting Concorded!! DIE!!!!
 

I've played enough games to know that the first thing you do is ignore Local/Global/Barrens.  I'm sitting on the F13 channel as Qormic for now.  After I blow through at least the basic tutorial missions, I'll app to join BC.

Yep, go for BC asap. There really is no point to hanging around empire when you have an invite like that open to you.

Do the tutorials, they're short and give you a decent intro and some free skill books. Running a couple of missions isn't a bad thing either so you don't feel you're missing anything when you leave.

Dont forget the newbie epic arcs they added last year too. They pay out huge isk compared to a normal l1 and are doable in a frigate, at least up until the 20-25th mission mark iirc.

They pay out more than enough to get your first cruiser fitted out and buy all the advanced learning skills which you probably can't buy anymore anyway. :)

Gotta be careful doing the trek out to the mission hub though for the epic arc.   I got ganked in .5 sec space while doing the 16 jumps out there.  =P

Yep, lots of bored people who can throw away ships. Though it's still somewhat unusual for them to kill random noobies.

And CCP is still subsidising the cost of it :/

Probably because I was doing the trek out there in a badger full of newb crap and materials and they thought they'd get lucky with a real score.

No, it's because you joined Bat Country which is at war in hi-sec and you aren't safe there.  I didn't realize you were still planning on running missions or we would have told you not to apply until you were ready to move out to 0.0.  That didn't cost them a ship, it just cost them the two or three rounds of ammo it took to kill you.

Oh, that explains it.

Yes, if you're in goons you need to check for active wars against us. And there generally are some and they will have the major trade hubs (Jita, Rens) well camped because that's pretty much all those organizations do.

I figured out how to log off.

<addition>

I have now mastered the ability to log in and log off. 

Next on the list: spinning a spaceship.

Wow, so... trying to do missions but keep on getting a pop up telling me I am outside the tutorial zone.  Did a couple of mining missions, one kill mission, and now I follow the waypoint given for the next kill mission to scavenge a ship but there is nothing there...  

Think I will join the corp because I am getting nowhere at warp speed.

<Update!>

Ok, getting a bit more fun now that I am back on the tutorial track.  Thank you again for the isk by the way!

Yah.  The tutorial  scripting is somehow really easy to mess up so that it starts triggering false bitch messages at you constantly.   

Alright you nooblar bitches, give me names. I'll send you some money too. (specifically, Oban and JWIV, though I'll throw a few mil at anybody that asks.)

I'm on as Qormic, but between the guild and salvaging, I'm not struggling too badly if there's people who need it more. 

I am fine for Isk, Regel sent me ten million and I am at about five million right now, but thank you for the offer.

 :heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: Awwwww! Soo cute! Can I take you with home and do naughty things with you?

I saw him first!

Ok, this epic mission is starting to grind my gears.  I have tried my missile frigate and took down his shields but then he takes my shields down to zero in about five seconds.  I brought in a destroyer and that barely scratched his shields.  So far, after eight attempts I have yet to take his armour below 99%.  >.<  Time to take a break and let my skills improve I guess.

Thank you again for the fifty million Isk, although not quite sure how I will be able to spend that all any time soon.

I think I spent 10 million replenishing my ammo. Once you get into nulsec, it's like being a sheik in Dubai or something. Your perspectives change and suddenly the Ferrari is just way too plebian to drive.

For the rats, are you fitting hardeners or shields or whatever that protect against whatever type of damage that rat is doing. It can make a huge difference. I don't know if you have the skills for that yet or not. Is this a T2? You probably need a cruiser for that.

But really, PVE in Eve is terrible. If you have skills for a frigate with a point and MWD, head to nulsec. It's really a blast.

The Sisters of Eve Epic Arc (aka Newbie Epic Arc) is supposed to be done in stages. First in a frigate, then in a destroyer, then in a cruiser. It gives you the skillbooks right when you're supposed to advanced. Even then the final boss is hard to take down solo. You have to know what damage type to deal, which means "sucks to be you" if you happen to be Amarr. I managed to trick him into getting close enough to put a web on him as long range ammo wasn't breaking his tank.

I just lost a 2 billion ISK ship to an interdictor fleet in lowsec, so yeah, what Numtimi said about being a sheik in Dubai. As for the Sisters of Eve epic arc, I need to try that.

Hahaha, post your lossmail.

Well, I got it down last night with a few destroyers and about five million dollars of ammo.  >.< 

Supposedly when you choose which of the four final paths/races it sets up the npc to resist your chosen race's strengths. 

Another day of training and I will feel comfortable enough to head out to 0.0 space and join the corp.

It's very useful to be able to salvage and or fly a Battlecruiser such as a Drake when you move to 0.0.  This is so you can make some isk without being totally dependent on others.

I've been basically mixing up my time with salvaging and doing some limited E-War/Tackling duty when I can make Fleet Ops.   I tried out mining and thought I was making good money at about a million ISK/hour.  Then I spent about half an hour salvaging and put up a 5-6 million of crap before maxing out my sale slots.  So yes, newbie belt salvaging is a fine way to pass the time while saving up/skilling up for a Ratting Drake.

Fleet ops are also great and it's driving me bonkers that I haven't been able to fly in them more often.   But yah, 0.0 has no missions at all and is completely unstructured.  So be sure to be done with missions before flying out there.

Well, there are NPC missions......

Still got a nice 30 mil-ish SP Caldari account to use indefinitely. All you gotta do is sub her, and be a trusted f13er. PM me.

Just feels wrong to have someone else's account at this point.  I am having fun learning through mistakes.

You can run missions for the Gurista pirates in Venal, the region nextdoor to our home in Deklein.  It's risky because hostiles also live there, but it's not as bad if you're around during the Russian timezone when our allies Rebellion tend to lock down the area.  You can make a killing there if you're good at L4s and don't mind sacrificing your ability to go to empire on that character.

I would but it was lame and poorly fitted.

That said, depreciation's a bitch. The killpost only valued the whole kit at about 150 mil.

Ahh. So you bought it at 0.0 Goon prices.  :grin:

Pretty goddamn close. Jita prices.

Yes, post your lossmail.

So I took the 2 month resub offer and for the time being I'm grinding some missions in hisec to remember how to play, plus I want to build up the LP to get Sisters probe gear.  I'm hoping I can go to 0.0 once I've had my fill of hisec.

I finally got into a HAC, an Ishtar.  Only 24h to tech 2 Ogre drones. Thanks Learning skills! :drill:

Get caldari drone spec IV also, and build up your shield tanking skills.  You'll thank me when you move back to Deklein with us.

Also, crosstrain Minmatar or Amarr soon for Zealots, Muninns and Vagabonds.

Right now I am training my way to torpedos and covert ops so I can fly a manticore.

Have to say that this seems like a very casual friendly in that I can level while offline or afk.

Oh and thank you again for the salvaging tip, it seems to generate reasonable amounts of isk.

Edit ::  This was a graphical request.

11 more days and I can fly a manticore.

It is kind of nice only having to log in once every few days to make sure that the training queue is on track.

Best part about Eve is not playing.

Best part of playing is being on TS and having uncle mittens read (in a dramatic voice) IT CEO porn. :dreamy:

I remember one time on Goon TS I decided to read the US Deceleration of Independence. Some idiot started screaming that I wasn't reading the right deceleration as I didn't start with the "all men are created equal" part :D

It was actually the quietest I ever heard Goon TS as everyone way swept up in the beautiful language of the deceleration, and all the American goons had uncharacteristic pangs of patriotism  :oh_i_see:

Love ya T, but... Declaration. The Deceleration of Independence is what we've been experiencing for the last few decades.  :awesome_for_real:

Goddamit.  :heartbreak:

Got the Caldari drones and beefed up some shield skills.  I had the frigate skills already so I've started cross training into other races' cruisers and medium turrets.

What is the preferred sub-BS ship in fleets these days?

Why caldari drones? Aren't they pretty shitty dmg? I thought gallente were about 10% more dmg being explosion based.

If you haven't joined the corp it is definitely worth doing so, even if you're low skilled.  You can get free frigates and such so that isk becomes somewhat irrelevant.  And the Goonwaffe guide is awesome.  It can help keep you from fucking up stuff early on that might come back to haunt you later. 

Gallente drones d thermal damage, but yes they are slightly more powerful in general.  However, the NPCs in Deklein have such a large kinetic resistance hole that Caldari drones do more effective damage to them.  They also have the second highest damage multiplier of the four drone types.

Drakes and hurricanes are still the BCs of choice, with Minmatar and Amarr cruisers generally being the best for small gang and soloing work.

Hmm, well 10 more days till I can fly covert ops ships.

What's the deal with Planetary Interaction?  I tried looking at some guides and  :uhrr:

Is it a waste of time unless I want to get into it heavily?

I started two weeks ago with a 200 million isk investment and I've made 150 million profit so far.

How much of a time investment though?

So which is worse, losing my Myrm in a L2 or an Ishtar in an L3?  :heartbreak:

Looks like I have reached my previous competence levels.

So, I finally was able to pilot my manticore.  I fitted the ship, undocked from the space station, popped on my cloak, and... nothing.  Apparently I need to spend five more days training cloaking in order to use a covert ops cloak unless I want to crawl through space at thirty meters per second.

Um, yeah.  A covops frigate, recon cruiser, or blockade runner without a covops cloak is a little bit crippled.  That's a pretty mandatory piece of equipment for their proper use.

Both of these are pretty embarrassing.  Were you trying to actually kill a Recon?

The L2 yeah, I just didn't really read the mission, went in guns blazing and got neuted.

The L3 was a perfect storm of incompetence.  The Ishtar has been a complete pwnmobile in L3 to the point where I just salvage wrecks or nap while my drones happily eat all the rats.  So I have one final mission before I get the standing to do L4s and it's the Damsel in Distress.  I say "Cool, I've done this before, just a smash and grab and be done with it."

So in I go, burn straight to the pleasure hub, flipping the bird at Kruul as I fly past.  "Hmm.  I'm getting hit a lot. Oh well."  Launch the drones, and somewhere there's a fuckup and the drones go after Kruul.  Which then spawns a pile more rats.  Annnnnd I'm fucked.

I did do a smash and grab on this mission before.  When it was level 2.   :uhrr:

Oh. The level 4 damsel in distress... yeah, that caused me a few headaches in my Eon.  :oh_i_see:

Damsel in Distress is incredibly easy if you manage your drones' aggro manually, but if you accidentally trigger all the respawns then you're probably screwed.

Love the Ishtar, but I armor-and-speed-tank it, rather than doing shields (which increases sig radius).  I do L4's in it, and as long as you don't get webbed and stay above 500 m/s, it can tank a full room of Extravaganza or Worlds Collide battleships and cruisers indefinitely.  All you have to do is kill the frigates fast, cause they hurt.  And, things go from peachy to dead pretty fast if you lose your speed, so no afk if webifiers are still up, or if you're in a place where you could bump into roids and stuff.

I'm currently dithering on which to put a contract on first (and given my usual luck, promptly lose to some awesomely terribad mistake):  Right now, I'm eyeing either a T2 kipped out Drake or about a week away from having nice little cruise missile and drone Raven.  This would be for ratting - Until I get the hang of tackling and the like, I'm sticking with Rifters for fleet ops.

I'd say drake because it's still a very viable fleet ship, and much cheaper to lose than any battleship. And the missile skills transition perfectly to a Tengu. Which not only rats well but is useful for incursions (unlike the Raven).

Drake and then move your skills to a Tengu. most skills cross over from the Drake and a shield/speed tanked Tengu is a lot of fun in a L4 - more fun than a slow arse BS :)

Of course, one of the fastest ways to burn yourself out on this game is to focus solely on PvE ships and related skills.  Make sure you're spending some time in fleets.  The blackbird is a really easy ship to train for, since you already have most of the necessary Caldari skills.

Fleets are good - I managed to get in a little tackling/blowing myself up/making dong conga lines in 6V, but just haven't had a lot of time to play Eve let alone anything else right now.   So I'm having to content myself with playing EveMon more than anything.    I'm pretty sure I even already have a blackbird sitting in my hangar already to take out on an Op and piss in cheerios when the opportunity arises.