All things EVE

[Yoru]

Am I the only person that put in the implant instead of selling it? I figured +1 int was worth more than the money.

I got a +1 mem implant when I did mine and plugged it in. That plus a +1 int implant (900k isk, I think) have probably shaved days off my training time by now. The mem/int ones are the best starter implants since they'll shave time off training your learning skills up to level 4. They're worth the paltry 1 mil, especially when you're new, since you probably won't be leaving highsec intentionally for a few weeks anyway. (Unless you intend to immediately go pirating. Or you really really want to see the other side of the galaxy and don't want to take the extra 10 jumps to mitigate the risk of podding.)

I only use the 1mil/+1 implants since I dive into lowsec regularly and therefore need to be able to afford to replace my implants on the off chance I get podded. The profits to be had down there, once you've got a survivable setup, outpace highsec by such an incredible margin that avoiding it hardly makes sense.

[Raging Turtle]

I have discovered that you can blow up pirate stations for extra loot during missions.  woot.

Also, getting the learning skills to IV is a pain in the ass.

[5150]

... but I'm hunting rats in 0.5 space that are worth between 8k-14k each (there are the odd harder spawns of kestrels but them make micemeat out of my destroyer before I get in range),

I found your problem, you're grinding for cash.  Missions >> Pirate hunting in .5+ space by a longshot.  Find a security or internal security agent that's level 1 or 2 (depending on your combat skills) and as high of quality as you can must and run missions with them. Also start training-up connections, negotiation and social to at least level 3 - should only take you a day or two.  The friendlier the agent gets with you the bigger the payouts will be for the same missions.

The agent I'm working on is a -6 quality level 2 agent, but my standing with her is 7.2 - standing and my skills raise her quality to 15. That means I'm getting 60k (for a simple "go here and kill" mission) to 150k+ (for deadspace missions) just as my base pay. The bonuses for fast completion of a mission range from doubling your payout to ammo or materials/ modules you can use or sell on the market.  That's fast cash for killing stuff of an equivalent level to the rats your competing against other players for.  Plus you get the bonus of the bounty for each ship and the components they drop on top of the mission payout.

Now, some missions might send you a sector or two into .4 space, BUT if you pay attention when warping into the area (and are cloaked) you'll see if there's any gate campers you need to be aware of on the way back.  If they start sending you to lowspace on a regular basis you just make an instant bookmark and then not worry about it in either event.

Aha!

Thanks for the tips I'll try them out

[Sky]

I feel it's already paid off since the lvl 4 learning skills weren't quick, and all int-based. And money, pfft. Since I've been working learning up until the last couple days, I don't need money because I can't fit crap onto my ship :) Should be able to get the 4th missile launcher on my kestrel tomorrow. Still wiping out agent I missions easily with the kestrel and up over 2.5 mil without selling any of the drops from ratting (working navy security missions). I should look for a perception implant for the war skills I'll be milking the next week or two. Slooow but I think I can get into a destroyer now if I were so inclined (I do like my kestrel though...sabertooth light missiles ftboom)

[Reg]

If you're taking your learning skills to 4 already then yeah you did the right thing plugging it in. Sounds like you're doing fine with cash too. If you like your frigate then maybe you can skip the destroyer stage and go directly to a cruiser once you have the skills and the cash.

[WayAbvPar]

Ok- stopped in at home during lunch, bought Learning 1, then started learning Iron Will 3 (figure I would do that while I was AFK). Then went to Agent of Interest to see my storyline agent, set destination, and headed out. Apologies if you try to talk to me while I am AFK- I figured I could autopilot the long flight while I was at work.

It sounds like working all the learning skills up to 4 is a good first step- should I mix in other skills as well, or just grit my teeth and do all learning?

[WayAbvPar]

Oh, and another thing- I think I have a crush on my ship's computer voice. She sounds really hot. Nothing like a Brit accent to make me melt. It is why I had to stop talking to Signe on TS- my wife and Righ were getting jealous! 

[Hoax]

Signe's a brit?  Does she have a raspy smoker voice too?  If so I might have to do something drastically stupid like play EQ2 or something 

[Jamiko]

It sounds like working all the learning skills up to 4 is a good first step- should I mix in other skills as well, or just grit my teeth and do all learning?

I was told the following (assuming you plan to play for a good while):

Basic

Learning - 2% lower training time per level
Analytical Mind - INT
Instant Recall - MEM
Spatial Awareness - PERC
Iron Will - WILL
Empathy - CHA

First, get all these to 5, starting with INT and MEM (because INT and MEM govern the rate at which learning skills train, thus having INT and MEM at 5 hugely speeds up the process). Alternate them like so: INT 1, MEM 1, INT 2, MEM 2, etc.

Advanced

Logic - INT
Eidetic Memory - MEM
Clarity - PERC
Focus - WILL
Presence - CHA

Get these to 4, training them to 5 is unnecessary since the time cost versus benefit ratio would require you to play for about a year just to start paying for itself. Additionally, once you train your basic INT/MEM skills to 5, you may want to get the advanced INT/MEM skills to 4 right away BEFORE doing any other basic or advanced skills, just to speed the process even further.

----------

Personally, I trained stuff I wanted/needed to 1 or 2 while playing and dropped back to the learning stuff when I logged off. That way the longer skills trained over night and I could daisy-chain small skills while playing. Note, I have not got any advanced learning skills yet and thus I am probably not advancing as fast as I could be.

[JoeTF]

I was told the following (assuming you plan to play for a good while):

You have been told right. If you get sucked into EVE and assume playing longer than 1-2 months, those skills are a must be. I would look for some implants, too. In the edn, as a newbie you don't have to risk your pod (read: leave the Empire. I'm not counting getting killed by -10 pirates, because getting killed by -10 pirate after finishing your trial is fucking lame). 

[WayAbvPar]

The farther I get in the Player's Guide, the more impressed (and intimidated) I become. Do we have an over-arching goal for the corporation? We are small, but we have some catass types that might help us do more than more casual types. Is there any particular role that needs filling? I have a buddy from work starting tonight as well, so there will be one more drone for the hive.

[Reg]

Jamiko's post about the learning skills is right on. Still, I really wouldn't worry about getting them past 3 or 4 in the first month. There are a crap load of other skills you need to survive and have fun that should take priority IMO.

I got by fine for my first 3 months with learning skills at 3 and 4. I waited until I was into my first battleship before I dedicated a solid month to training them all up to 5 and taking the advanced learning skills to 4. It was incredibly boring but definitely worth it. If I didn't have a ship big enough to entertain myself with level 3 missions I'd have died of boredom.

[Viin]

We are trying to take over the universe, obviously.

[Krakrok]

I bought all the skills that had no or minimal requirements. They all seem to give ~+5% whatever and take only ~10-20 minutes to train (with learning 3-4 anyway).

[Yoru]

I pretty much did what Jamiko said, with the exception that I paused when I got int/mem/learning to 4 and brought will/perc to 4. Then I went on a bit of a skill-romp, getting myself situated properly with cruisers, indys and mining stuff such that I can, on any given night, go missioning, mining, hauling or ratting as I please. Now I'm looking down the barrel of another long learning skill haul, taking my learnings up to 5 and training the advanced learnings to 3 or 4.

Only exception is empathy; I'm not using the social skillset much, and I'm mostly content with my trade skillset as is, so it's gonna get the short end of the training stick for a while.

My learning regimen follows the Eve Guide's closely: for each n, train up mem n, then int n, then learning n. I need to run the numbers through FFET's ECM, but I'm currently planning on doing the advanced stuff differently: take Mem to 5, then buy Adv Mem and take it to 3, switch to Int 5, buy Adv Int, take it to 3, train Adv Mem to 4, train Adv Int to 4, train Learning 5, then take up Will/Perc/Empathy as needed.

The reason for blitzing Mem is that I think that getting those 3 points in Adv Mem will speed up getting Int 5 sufficiently to offset or overtake the advantage of training Mem 5, then Int 5, then going into the advanced skills with a similar plan to the standard learning skills.

[Morfiend]

How much gameplay is there in EVE for some one who is really only interested in combat? I heard it totally sucks if your ship is blown up. Is there a way to stop this happening if you are a combat heavy player? Or should I just not even consider playing EVE?

[Reg]

If you join one of the many PvP corps you can get into combat almost immediately. You'll still need to make money to replace your ship losses but if you join one with access to 0.0 space you'll be able to go to all the best mining spots and that's very easy money. Plus, if your ship is destroyed defending your corporate  turf most established corps will replace it.

You'll be playing the cannon fodder role for a while but even in a tech 1 frigate you'll still make a real contribution during fleet battles.

[Merusk]

I haven't bothered with any of the learning skills past level IV yet and I don't think it's worth it for most noob characters..  I'm still training all the basic combat/ upgrade stuff (Being a Minmatar means you tend to become a generalist.. some ships are armor tank, some are shield.. )  As a result I'm only just starting to hit level 4 skills that will take 10+ days to train. Previously I didn't see an advantage to it based on the bonuses Character manager was showing me.

As a concrete example, I'm training Engineering V now so I can get assult ships. Engineering uses int and memory, which I have at 15 and 12, this means it will take me 6 days 7 hours to learn from IV to V. Having int and memory at 5 and the advanced skills to even level 3 would have saved me 1d 10 hours.

 However, just training int/mem from IV to V would have taken me 7 days 3 hours each, for a total of 14 days 6 hours.  For a 1d 10h "Gain."  The min/ maxer in me says "WRONGO, no advantage there!"

Now, if I were training Battlecruisers from IV to V, that's going to take me 39 days.  Raising just one skill by 4 will shave 5 days off the training time.  That's getting closer to the time I think it would be worth it.  (Or I could do like I did to get it from 3 to 4.. set it when I cancel and there it is when I come back. Heh.)

[Der Helm]

If you join one of the many PvP corps you can get into combat almost immediately.

So, is the f13 corp one of thoose ?

[gimpyone]

We don't have the resources in place yet I think.   

[Cougar]

I haven't bothered with any of the learning skills past level IV yet and I don't think it's worth it for most noob characters..  I'm still training all the basic combat/ upgrade stuff (Being a Minmatar means you tend to become a generalist.. some ships are armor tank, some are shield.. )  As a result I'm only just starting to hit level 4 skills that will take 10+ days to train. Previously I didn't see an advantage to it based on the bonuses Character manager was showing me.

As a concrete example, I'm training Engineering V now so I can get assult ships. Engineering uses int and memory, which I have at 15 and 12, this means it will take me 6 days 7 hours to learn from IV to V. Having int and memory at 5 and the advanced skills to even level 3 would have saved me 1d 10 hours.

 However, just training int/mem from IV to V would have taken me 7 days 3 hours each, for a total of 14 days 6 hours.  For a 1d 10h "Gain."  The min/ maxer in me says "WRONGO, no advantage there!"

Now, if I were training Battlecruisers from IV to V, that's going to take me 39 days.  Raising just one skill by 4 will shave 5 days off the training time.  That's getting closer to the time I think it would be worth it.  (Or I could do like I did to get it from 3 to 4.. set it when I cancel and there it is when I come back. Heh.)

Except, the sooner that you train the advanced learning skills, the more impact they have on your entire future of skill training. Barring a freak cloning accident, you cannot lose skillpoints. Shaving off a day for a 7 day investment doesn't help with that single skill, but how many skills are you going to train in your career? Taking the advanced skills to level 4 *Will* pay off... assuming you play for more than a month or two.

The trick is to approach it from a balanced perspective, if you do nothing but train learning skills for a month and a half, you are going to be really bored when you don't have a basic skill set to equip your ships that you want to fly. Taking all of the base learning skills to 4, min/maxxing the short +5% gainers while playing and training the V's over night (especially if you don't end up playing the next day) would be an excellent way to not only increase the breadth of skills that you know, but speed up your overall character advancement.  I have not yet had my coke this morning, if this is jumbled, I appologize.

As to 0.0 access, the easiest way for a new corp to obtain access is to find an alliance that has access to 0.0 and join them (which won't necessarily be easy, as they will want you to benefit them in some way, usually territorial defense - new corps might have trouble contributing, perception or reality). But 0.0 is really a place for the self sufficient. There are no skill books, no real market, no basic equipment. Either yourself or the corp you are in needs massive amounts of trivial blueprints (ammo, basic modules, frigates, indies, cruisers, etc), the ability to get minerals to make all that trivial stuff, the ability to relocate when something bad happens, and ultimately the ability to defend your assets. And that isn't even talking about POS operation or maintaince :)  0.0 is where the game become extreemly fun, IMO. There is a barrier to entry, but it isn't insurmountable... and if you don't want to live in 0.0, taking day trips for pvp fun is easily within anyone's reach - as long as they are willing to lose whatever it is that you are flying!

[Sky]

With my int, I'll probably be going into research at some point.

As far as learning vs applicable skill, as I've said, I went to basic learning 4s and now I'm working enough stuff to load up my ship and grab a cruiser class ship. Then I'll dip into advanced learning for the bulk of later skill learning, when it'll save me days instead of hours. Sure, I sacrifice a few days overall, but I can actually play the game.

There's something about actually being able to play the game that calls to me for some reason. Goddamned min/maxers.

[Jamiko]

I was tempted to restart my character once I started learning how things work, but I just decided to keep plugging away.

I realized all those decisions when starting grant you skills and if you choose something with the same skill twice it gets you level 2 in that skill when you start. It is quite possible to roll up a character in the beginning with a lot of the skills you need to be able to play for a month or so while training learning skills. I have a guide somewhere for rolling up a good quality character somewhere, if anyone wants to see it I'll dig it up.

I look at my character's stats and wonder what I was thinking, but in reality I'm able to do everything I want to just fine. I started out mining and dropped that for mission running. It's nice to know I can go back to mining at any time if I choose to, and my combat skills are more than adaquate for the missions I'm getting.

EVE is definately one of those games that "the more you learn, you realize that there is even more left to learn". I'm constantly discovering new ways to do things, faster ways, shortcuts, etc. Heck just yesterday I realized you can drag and drop the modules located at the bottom of the screen so you can have the F keys the way you want them. I assumed they could not be moved.

[Sky]

The newbie help has a cool trick for finding agents available to you: sort the starmap by 'my agents'. Mouse over to get the lvl/qual stats. Very cool!

I started with my caldari frigate boosted, kinda wish I had taken a race setup with more perception, but I'll get over it.

[Soln]

Before I moved to my new house over Xmas (and ended up losing connectivity for 2.5 weeks) I rerolled my main ("Soln") to a Caldari and am just training Learning.  Almost to 4...  Haven't even left the starting station yet 

[Merusk]

Except, the sooner that you train the advanced learning skills, the more impact they have on your entire future of skill training. Barring a freak cloning accident, you cannot lose skillpoints. Shaving off a day for a 7 day investment doesn't help with that single skill, but how many skills are you going to train in your career? Taking the advanced skills to level 4 *Will* pay off... assuming you play for more than a month or two.

Well absolutly, but I'm thinking short-term here because all my skills have been short-duration until recently.  Adding-up the time I would have saved in training thus far I may have saved 5-6 days, total.  I only have two skills to V and one 'advanced __' skill (turrets).  I finally have all my base skills and I'm only just working things up to level IV.  After I get Assult Ships and I can have fun in those, I'll be back to long-term thinking since everything I need to train will be a IV-V or one of the tier 4+ skills that take hours just to learn level 1.

Like your mention of being effective, my min/ maxing is about having fun and playing as well as the most-efficent/ uberest path. (Which is why I'm autocannons instead of Arty. ;) )

Now then, on another note I have a question for the vets among us.  I started messing with Level 3 missions last night.  The intys in my first Deadspace mission were chewing-up my Battlecruiser enough it took me warping in and out 3 times to complete it. (The armor repairer just couldn't repair fast enough vs 3 intys and 3 missile silos.  Warp-in target the closest things / blow 2 to hell, warp out and I was already taking hull damage. )   I'm loaded-out with Medium turrets, so I can't imagine what it'd be like trying it in a Battleship with Larges that have an even smaller turning radius.  Is this usual for level 3's, or are there better ships to be trying Level 3 missions with than BCs/ BSs?  Upshot was it was my first million ISK mission (totaling rewards and bounties) and on a quality -15, so I'm planning on running them more often.

[Furiously]

My previous corp always ran the missions with 2 or 3 people once they hit level 3's or so. The rewards/drops made it a good deal for all involved still.

[Reg]

Level 3s in a battlecruiser are really hard. You can do most of them but I would seriously avoid Spy Stash, The Black Market Hub, and and any of the new multipart missions that came out with the latest patch. People tell me that with very high skills you can do them in a battlecruiser but mine just weren't up to it when I tried it and I lost 2 of them before I gave up and moved back down to level 2s while saving for a battleship.

The new missions especiallly should be avoided as the inties in them will actually warp scramble you so that you can't even warp out to save yourself. I know people who've lost battleships in the new ones when they were caught by surprise.

Oh and I don't use large guns when I'm doing level 3s in my battleship. They just don't target the small fast ships well enough. With the little tacklers I often can't hit them even when I've slowed them down with a webifier and have to rely on medium drones to take them out. That's an advantage really because with medium guns my ship has loads of extra power and cpu so I can equip pretty much anything I want in the small and medium slots.

[WayAbvPar]

Is it advantageous to keep different/extra guns around for different missions? Maybe have some faster guns for the swarms, and some big heavy guns for missions with bigger targets (or when you have to blow a base or something)? Or is there usually an optimal build for each ship type that everyone uses?

I finally pulled my head out and unfit (unfitted?) my mining laser and replaced it with a 2nd hybrid gun I had laying around- made quite a difference in my kill rate  :-D

[Sky]

Missiles!

Though I'm still doing lvl 1's in my kestrel. Move along, nothing to see here.

[trotski]

The farther I get in the Player's Guide, the more impressed (and intimidated) I become. Do we have an over-arching goal for the corporation? We are small, but we have some catass types that might help us do more than more casual types. Is there any particular role that needs filling? I have a buddy from work starting tonight as well, so there will be one more drone for the hive.

Consider me a worker bee.  Par told me about this game, and I'm thoroughly impressed.  I'm still working my way through the tutorial, but I'm definitley hooked.  I'm an F13 n00b, so please take it easy on me. 

[WayAbvPar]

The farther I get in the Player's Guide, the more impressed (and intimidated) I become. Do we have an over-arching goal for the corporation? We are small, but we have some catass types that might help us do more than more casual types. Is there any particular role that needs filling? I have a buddy from work starting tonight as well, so there will be one more drone for the hive.

Consider me a worker bee.  Par told me about this game, and I'm thoroughly impressed.  I'm still working my way through the tutorial, but I'm definitley hooked.  I'm an F13 n00b, so please take it easy on me. 

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

[schild]

^_^

[bhodikhan]

Oh and I don't use large guns when I'm doing level 3s in my battleship. They just don't target the small fast ships well enough. With the little tacklers I often can't hit them even when I've slowed them down with a webifier and have to rely on medium drones to take them out. That's an advantage really because with medium guns my ship has loads of extra power and cpu so I can equip pretty much anything I want in the small and medium slots.

Try equipping a couple small guns and use some drones if you can. Drones seem to help me kill the smaller targets. The smaller guns are also quite useful on smaller signature targets.  Same goes for missles. Cruise missles do very little damage on frigs.

If you've got the skills a webifier will slow them down to where your guns can hit 'em.

EVE has some nice options for missions. It's just tough finding the right mix for every situation.

[trotski]

^_^

Thanks Schild, I was looking for an avatar.  :-D