f13.net forums - How to get started in Revelations

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June 04, 2024, 10:10:43 PM

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Join the F13 chat channel as soon as you have the button available on your UI. Space is no fun solo.
* Click the 'Channels and Mailing Lists' button on the left-hand toolbar.
* Click the 'Create/Join Channel' button at the top of the window that opens.
* Enter F13 as the channel you want to join.
Ask questions! The F13 channel is full of friendly people who will only mock you a little for being a newb. They might even donate a million isk or two to help you start out.
Consider moving to The Forge, in Caldari space. The majority of F13 folks run out of The Forge or nearby. Even without joining the corp you may be able to find folks to gang with. Makes those tough L2 missions and lowsec belts a lot easier.
Consider applying to the F13 corp. To apply, fly to our office at Akora, only ten jumps from Jita, in The Forge region. We have four focuses:
1) PvP Training
2) Bounty Hunting
3) Mission Running
4) Member Support

Viin (Irek Dabry) - CEO
dwindlehop (Dwindlehop) - director of pvp training. organize and provide a safe environment for members to practice and participate in PvP Training, so that all members interested are able to practice pvp tactics and ship configurations. Research pvp tactics and present them during pvp training activities.
WayAbvPar (Antolin Vakalas) - director of mission running. research complexs, provide advice and assistance to members doing mission running, organize and execute mission gangs for complexes and the new escalating path missions found with exploration.
Yoru (Yaeru) - director of member support. provide support to the corporation and members, such as researching POS deployments, how to utilize new features such as exploration, and overall give advice and assistance to members engaging in various aspects of EVE. Also is responsible for dialog with Alliances and other corporations.
Download EveMon to help you plan which skills to train.
Download QuickFit to help you plan your ship setups.

If anyone has other suggestions, post them!

1. Quite simply, most newcomers to Eve will want to choose a Military career. Most of those will want to choose the Soldier specialization.
2. Click quickly through the race, ancestry, and gender options to get to the Attributes panel. Read the details on the Attributes panel carefully because they explain what each Attribute does and give you the ability to select Ancestry and Bloodline with confidence.
3. I recommend a final Perception and Intelligence >= 8. I also caution against attributes below 5 (except perhaps Charisma), but the new character creation gives you the information to make attribute decisions yourself. When in doubt, go for balance.
4. Mouse over the skill list in the bottom of the character creation to get tool tip descriptions of each skill you have. Your specialization grants you most of your skills, but choosing a specialization takes you to your portrait so you can't review your choices. Choose a specialization and click next, then go back from the portrait screen to see what skills you have chosen. The skills that say V are at maximum level, so these are your most important skills.

That's all you really need to know. Try doing the tutorial in chunks rather than attempting to blow through the whole thing in one sitting. It's more of a reference work.

I can hear all the new players bristling and thinking death rays at me. "I won't be a Soldier. I'm an intelligent and thoughtful player capable of making interesting, original characters. Just who does Dwindlehop think he is?" To you, I ask: Are you playing Eve to shoot at things? Then you want to be a Soldier.

Soldiers start with Gunnery V and Small Turret V regardless of race. This means you do great damage as a new character, enough to give you good survivability versus low-level PvE content. You are also less than a day away from getting T2 small guns, which will make you do even more damage; you'll be competitive dps-wise with other players flying frigates for PvP. In addition, Soldiers start with the best Perception of any Career/Specialization combination (Spatial Awareness IV), which means getting into new ships and adding new offensive capabilities is faster.

There are 4 races, with 3 careers, and 2 specializations, for a grand total of 24 different starting skillsets. Your bloodline, attributes, and ancestry only affect your training time, not your effectiveness.

Race Breakdown (in alphabetical order)
Amarr- characteristic of having great tanks. As you might expect, many of their ships are not well-regarded in PvP combat. Still, there are options for the dedicated Amarr PvPer, but it's not as straightforward as the other races. Some of the easiest PvE content because the damage tanking is straightforward.
Caldari - most popular race. Specializes in missiles and railguns for long range engagements. Not the most damage, but a real threat in PvE or PvP. Also lots of debuff options.
Gallente- highest damage ships. Tends towards close range setups, but some ships can pump out the dps at long range, too. Lots of options for the Elite-style trader, too. They have some nasty solo PvP setups.
Minmater- my personal fave. I've read dedicated 20M+ skillpoint Minmater pilots describe Minmater as "Eve on Hard mode." Emphasis on speed and flexibility. Usually ship setups are not very effective without IVs or Vs in the relevant skills. They have the best skirmish ships and invite creative ship fittings. Minmater pilots tend to be PvP pilots. The missions and asteroid belt PvE for Minmater can be a real bitch to tank.

Career and specialization breakdown
Military - do you want to shoot things?

Soldier - all around good combat character
Special Ops - generally a PvP focused character

Business - for engaging in economic games (spreadsheets in space)

Entrepreneur - you are a space trader like in Elite
Executive Commander - you are a space bard

Industrialist - for making things

Prospector - bore yourself through mining
Engineer - bore yourself through production and crafting

Military is a great career choice, and Soldier is a great specialization.

The other Military specialization is the Special Ops. The skills Special Ops give your character are race dependent. Here they are, in order of decreasing utility:

Special Ops

Gallente: Gives you Drones V and good drone skills. Sets you up to train Drone Interfacing right away, which means you will be doing awesome short range damage in a Vexor cruiser. Good for PvP or PvE in my estimation and a strong alternative to the Soldier option. Particularly nice when you have assistance in getting into a cruiser as soon as possible.
Caldari: Gives you Missile Bombardment V, increasing your range by quite a lot. You'll be able to breeze through a lot of early PvE by being too far away to get hit for substantial damage. Also useful for certain frigate PvP setups with rockets, but you'll need quite a few more skills to get into those setups.
Minmater: Gives you Afterburners V and Navigation V. These are speed skills. Buy Micro Warp Drive I and train High Speed Maneuvering I to go very fast. Get into a Rifter and you have a hell of a low sp pirate PvP character. Be aware that a lot of people you attack will have Small Turrets V and Gunnery V. Consider finding a friend.
Amarr: Gives you Energy Systems Operation V (bonus to capacitor) and a long list of IV skills, including Energy Emission Systems. This is definitely a PvP directed skill setup, but unfortunately small nosferatus and energy neutralizers are heavily outclassed by their medium variants. I can see a duraMaller cruiser setup being helped out by this skillset, but the old faithful bleeder Punisher would probably do better with a Soldier's skills.

The Business career can also be for players who want to fly around in ships, but without all the great damage output of the Military. Business gives you the choice of Entrepreneur or Executive Commander. The Entrepreneur specialization focuses on Elite-type skills, if you want to try to play the game as a trader, buying low and selling high, and trucking your goods from system to system. It's not for everyone, but there is a segment of the playerbase which enjoys that. The Executive Commander specialization is flawed. You get Leadership V and some warfare skills, which sets you up to be a Squadron Commander and a space bard. You also get some useful support skills; Caldari get Electronic Warfare IV, for example. However, Executive Commander gives you Corporation Management V, which is 256,000 skill points which no one will use on their trial account and few will use within their first year. Better to give yourself a high Charisma, get a Military career, and train the Leadership skills yourself if you want to go the route of space bard or commander. If you want to be a CEO of a mid-sized corp but still have a very low Charisma, Executive Commander is tailored exactly for you.

The Industrial career can choose between being a Prospector (mining) or a Engineer (research). Neither is good for someone new to Eve. They make good alts. I believe the Entrepreneur is better suited for people who like crafters as primary characters than either Industralist specialization. As a Prospector, you will be able to fly a mining frigate and get raw materials to produce items. As an Engineer you can produce items and perform research on your blueprints. As an Entrepreneur, you can use your starting trade skills to build up an isk base to buy raw materials and already researched blueprints. While you do that, train the skills to produce items efficiently. Once you have produced items, the Entrepreneur will find it easier to sell them with his high number of market orders.

The new character creation has a great description of what each attribute means. Here's the quick attribute breakdown, in order of importance for a new player.

Attribute Breakdown
Perception- without a high perception, you will want to shoot yourself training for high level ships and guns/missiles. Skills requiring perception frequently improve your offense.
Intelligence- lots of the nifty ship roles require Intelligence to train for them. Skills requiring intelligence frequently improve your combat survivability.
Memory- needed for drone skills and for learning skills.
Willpower- secondary attribute on lots of primary perception skills. Helps on gang skills.
Charisma- influence on NPCs for trading and mission running. Helps on high level gang skills and player corporation skills.

Miscellaneous hints:
You probably want to choose attributes, choose an ancestry, and then go back and change your attributes to adjust for the bonuses your bloodline does or does not give you.
Make alts. The trader and miner alts are quite useful now out of the box to support a combat character.
Make alts. Try a Soldier in several different races to experiment with different ships, or a Solder and a Special Ops of the same race to give you a flavor for different ship setups.
Race, Career, and Specialization only give you skills. Ancestry, Attributes, and Bloodline only change your attributes. They don't affect each other.
If you want to play with unconventional ship setups, you can still be a Soldier and train up the required skills yourself. Just because you start out using a cookie-cutter template doesn't mean you are locked into a path. You'll get a lot of options with a background of great damage per second.
Turrets represent generic offense, both short and long range.
Drones are close range offense.
Missiles are long range.
Electronic warfare, weapon disruption, propulsion jamming, and energy emission systems all give you secondary offensive options in the form of debuffs.
Shield and armor related skills (including repair systems) are not healer skills; they are critical skills for combat characters, improving your effective hitpoints and survivability (like equipping armor in a fantasy MMORPG).
Navigation skills improve your speed, influencing travel time and at high levels can reduce the damage you take (like dodging in a fantasy MMORPG).
The "healer" equivalent is called Remote Armor Repair or Shield Emission Systems and is not widely used.
Spaceship command and ship selection (including frigate and cruiser skills) will also greatly influence what you are capable of doing.

Wow thats a lot. Good job Dwindle. :)

Q: "I just made a new character and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. What skill should I train?"
A: You made a Soldier, didn't you?

Train Energy Systems Operation, Energy Management, and Energy Emission Systems for more capacitor. Train Propulsion Jamming for slowing your targets down or preventing PvP targets from fleeing. Train Racial Frigate IV no matter what. Gallente and Minmater should train Hull Upgrades. Minmater should also train Repair Systems.

You should train Engineering and Electronics as needed to fit more shiny modules onto your ship, but in contrast to pre-Revelations Eve new characters should have enough skills to fit their ships out without too much difficulty. Don't immediately train Engineering because older guides tell you to do so.

Q: "What skills do I need to run a cruiser effectively?"
A: You need one of medium-sized guns, medium drones, or heavy missiles at a minimum (excepting certain easy level 2 missions which are better done with light missiles, small drones, and small turrets). Energy Systems Operation, Energy Management, Energy Emission Systems, and Propulsion Jamming (Target Painting for Caldari) at III or IV is a nice goal. Hull Upgrades IV is good for Minmater and Gallente; Amarr already start with it. Caldari need Tactical Shield Manipulation, and should consider Shield Upgrades IV. Cruisers are so much slower than frigates that most cruiser pilots feel the need to fit an Afterburner or Micro Warp Drive (High Speed Maneuvering I).

Q: "I've done a good chunk of the tutorial and I'm ready to fly. What is there to do in this game?"
A: Get a loan from someone in the F13 chat channel to purchase a Rifter, Punisher, Merlin, or Incursus depending upon your race and insure that ship. Head to 0.5 space to hunt pirate NPCs in the asteroid belts or run combat missions. Head to 0.4 space and hunt players or bigger pirate NPCs in the asteroid belts. Head to Akora in The Forge and join whatever gang F13 has going. You can equip your frigate with loot very effectively, so don't waste too much time shopping. Get out there and shoot something! You'll want to buy lots of shiny skills, but do try to save up enough for a second ship. You'll appreciate having a second ship in your hangar after your first one explodes and you can jump back into the action immediately.

Don't try to fit a Kestrel as a noob, the other frig is much more friendly. Kestrel is one of the most damaging frigates in the game, but it is hell for a noob to fit. It takes skill.

Thanks hal. After I wrote that I felt a little funny because most folks are going to have Gunnery V and Small Hybrid Turret V and won't do that good in a Kestrel anyway.

As a bonus for reading this post, I will reveal that the Weapon Upgrades and Advanced Weapon Upgrades skills affect missile launchers despite being located in the gunnery skill tree.

Also, due to the Tristan's two turret, two launcher high slots, I'd lean towards the Incursus for SpaceFrogs.

Quote from: Tragny on December 04, 2006, 12:47:49 AM

Also, due to the Tristan's two turret, two launcher high slots, I'd lean towards the Incursus for SpaceFrogs.

My blaster/rocket setup works quite nicely. Tristan has more cap than Incursus and firepower is firepower.

*Sigh*. I've got to start training some of the nasty jamming stuff. I've spent too much time on drones. I'm not well suited for PvP at the moment -- I need to fit a Nos at the very least, and refit for three waves of scouts.

Right now, if you pop my drones, I'm screwed. I've got three 150mm popguns on my Vex, and depend entirely on 5 scouts or 5 mediums for firepower. Cap is a problem for me at times. (Right now I'm training Engineering and Electronics skills -- my setup has me maxed out on grid, and the drone rigs I want to add sooner or later have penalties to cap).

Quote from: Chenghiz on December 04, 2006, 09:19:14 AM

Quote from: Tragny on December 04, 2006, 12:47:49 AM

Also, due to the Tristan's two turret, two launcher high slots, I'd lean towards the Incursus for SpaceFrogs.

My blaster/rocket setup works quite nicely. Tristan has more cap than Incursus and firepower is firepower.

I agree, plus missiles are nice. Start off with those and use the blasters at close range.

Quote from: Pig Destroyer on December 08, 2006, 04:55:45 AM

So I made the 34 jump trek to Neesher to join the F13 corp. And in approximately 1 hour after my roles expire from my old corp I will actually be able to apply.

I have not played in nearly a year, and I have about 8 million SP. 90% of that is in Industry-type stuff, but I'm willing to expand into some combat skill, but I have a few questions.

As a miner, is it still pretty necessary to run 2 accounts? 1 miner 1 hauler? or 1 miner 1hauler/bodyguard for lower sec mining? I would love to be able to do my industrial stuff with just one account. I can currently fly the best mining Barge.

As far as combat stuff goes, I have no idea where to even start, yesterday when I logged in I started training Gunnery 4. I have really high learning skills so I could catch up fairly quickly. I am gallente and have Gallente Cruiser 4 trained, any suggestions for a combat ship? Is a Thorax still pretty decent?

Sorry for all the n00b questions, but I feel like the game has changed a LOT since I played.

In-game name is Negation.

Cross-thread post because I want the other thread to die. Why won't you die?

* dwindlehop shakes fist angrily.

Thorax and Vexor are still choice Gallente cruisers. Thorax if your medium hybrids are up to snuff, or Vexor if you have Drones V and some Drone Interfacing. Get Hull Upgrades IV, Repair Systems IV, and Mechanic IV with a quickness.

Devs released the REV data dump. EveMon has released a new version with the REV skills. Hopefully a QuickFit update isn't far behind.

Quote from: hal on December 03, 2006, 09:21:14 PM

Don't try to fit a Kestrel as a noob, the other frig is much more friendly. Kestrel is one of the most damaging frigates in the game, but it is hell for a noob to fit. It takes skill.

Can anyone tell me what the ideal skill set is for a Kest? I have one laying around and wanted to know how to rig it up and what skills I need to do so before I go out and blow it up.

I am at work now. So this is in general. Kessie has very little power grid and very small cap with 4 launcher hardpoints. Electronics, Engineering, Weapons upgrades to get to Advanced weapons upgrades for a start. I seem to remember struggling to get a Afterburner fitted with 4 launchers.

When DW announced the frig gang weekend I hit the forums looking for an uber frig setup. The best I found was a kessie set up with 600mm plate in low slot. No repper , A suicide set up. 4 rocket launchers and a MWD. I kill you before you can burn through my armor. And I could not fit the plate. 4.2 million skillpoints and I could not fit a frigate!! (it needed an aux power unit I believe) Any way it torqued me off.

Not sure if this is the place to post this
Thanks for the good post/advice dwindlehop.
I made myself an acount. Character name is Lukure.

Also thanks for the good advice/help in the F13 channel.

Quote from: jlwilli5 on December 21, 2006, 11:42:16 PM

Not sure if this is the place to post this
Thanks for the good post/advice dwindlehop.
I made myself an acount. Character name is Lukure.

Also thanks for the good advice/help in the F13 channel.

Welcome to space. :)

Uh-oh. Revelations EveMon has a 'merge plan' feature. Select two or more plans in the Open Plan dialog and you can merge them. They get added into separate 'plan groups' so you can sort by fastest skill or fastest plan group. It also gives you a way to select all the skills from a particular plan group and drag them as a group. My productivity was already poor due to the holiday and this is not helping.

That sounds cool, I'll have to check it out. I always am trying to figure out what can be done soonest.

This sounds interesting. I did a bit of forum reading. My question is trading. That sounds interesting to me. I read I could smuggle good and deal in drugs as well.

Now, is it viable to focus on a trading only character? Do you still have to do combat missions to start up? Should you put points into charisma or neglect it like most advice says - even though you are focusing on business?

Bascially, how viable is it to work as a trader and build up a fat wallet just so you have one? I wouldnt mind pvp'ing with the character either, but in cheap disposable ships doing things for the team that need doing - transferring energy or things like that.

It's very possible to make isk trading as a new char. See Trouble's thread: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8808.0

I wouldn't started with a 3 Charisma, but you don't need to max out your Charisma. The trade skill tree just isn't that deep. You'll want perception to train up for the T2 industrials.

Regarding smuggling, it's possible to make money at it. Right now, you need to join the corp Ess and Whiz if you want to do it, though.

Quote from: dwindlehop on December 01, 2006, 10:58:00 AM

1) PvP Training
2) Bounty Hunting
3) Mission Running
4) Member Support

Well, I just resubbed. I'm tempted to reroll, though my old guy has almost four million skill points. I have no money, and I don't relish the idea of running missions for the next month or two just to get back in to a half-fitted cruiser. You guys do bounty hunting, now? How does that work? As I recall, before I left, it wasn't something you could really do. You frequently saw people with bounties, but you couldn't attack them in empire space, and hunting around in 0.0 for wanted criminals is like searching for land mines with a pogo stick. It didn't seem like something that a newbie like me could even attempt; is that different now?

Quote from: Kail on January 05, 2007, 05:58:37 PM

Four million sp is great to have, and is much harder to come by than ISK. If you need some money, join the f13 channel and just ask there. I can set you up with a cruiser if you can make it down to Hodrold in Metropolis. It's a bit far off, but that's where I happen to be based at the moment.

Quote from: Shapechanger on January 03, 2007, 05:33:01 PM

That's exactly what I did. I had some previous experience in the game but it was limited. I decided I just wanted to trade and went from there. Whether by luck or by shrewd cunning, I stumbled upon a number of good opportunities along my rise to fortune. I went from 5 million to 1 billion in 15 days. I took a break over the holidays once I hit a billion and now I'm using my bankroll to test the waters in manufacturing.

Yeah, re-rolling when you already have a 4 million sp character is a silly idea. :)

Quote from: Kail on January 05, 2007, 05:58:37 PM

With enough gang members, anything is possible. That said, currently no one has volunteered to head up F13's bounty hunting efforts.

In my experience, the folks in the F13 channel can be pretty generous. Try hitting someone up for some seed money.

If you decide to join the corp, we can arrange something in the way of a ship loan.

Quote from: dwindlehop on January 08, 2007, 12:53:45 PM

In my experience, the folks in the F13 channel can be pretty generous. Try hitting someone up for some seed money.

If you decide to join the corp, we can arrange something in the way of a ship loan.

My problem is only partly that I have very little capital; I suspect someone giving/loaning me a ship wouldn't help much. For one, I'd lose it pretty quickly, probably, and then I'd be back where I am now except with added debt to whoever gave it to me.

The main problem is just that I'm getting tired of mission running. That's pretty much all I did when I first played, and that's all I'm doing now. Getting my hands on a cruiser wouldn't change that, it'd just mean I'd be doing it from my level two agent again instead of my level one agent. It's also the reason I haven't rejoined the corp yet; I may want to get into something that we don't do (no idea what, though). So I'm just kicking around looking at all the different things one can do in this game, seeing if anything else jumps out at me. I do appreciate all the help everyone's offering, though.

If you get plat insurance and use T1 unnamed mods, ship replacement is very easy. The corp will give you most T1 unnamed mods for free (certainly all the frigate ones; large nos, for example, are really expensive).

My advice is join a corp, any corp, and get in a gang. Ratting and PvP are more fun and more successful in a gang.

Hey, all.

Well, Yaeru got me into this damn game recently and I'm an instant addict. I've hit that point between the Level I and Level II missions where it's clear that it's going to be a while before I'm going to be breezing through the IIs, so it's time to join up for real, I think. I'm looking forward to working/playing with you guys. See you in Akora!

fOOdini

Quote from: Shapechanger on January 03, 2007, 05:33:01 PM

One thing you should be aware of though, smuggling drugs, while quite profitable, is also very difficult. I myself don't know a great deal on the subject, but from what i've gathered it takes a fair amount of effort to get into and stay in drug running. Regular trading on the other hand is very good for those who are so inclined.

I think the corporation Ess and Whiz have pretty much cornered the smuggling market. At least when I looked into the subject six months ago, that was the situation.

Now, with the introduction of combat boosters that may change in the future (because they are also illegal), but for now you can't really get combat boosters. I get the necessary industrial operations haven't been set up yet.

It's not "smuggling" per se, but running trade routes in and out of an active combat zone in 0.0 can be lucrative, though you'd need to either work out of NPC stations or acquire docking rights.