A Little Request

semioldguy

I am a new player to Eve Online. I know that I can find information on what to do in the early stages of the game in a lot of the posts on this board or on the Eve website. However, what I am requesting is for someone who is experienced enough in the game to compile a bunch of information about getting new players started in the world or Eve. If someone were to compile this guide all onto one post it would be very helpful to the newcomers of the game. Perhaps we could even get it stickies to the top of the forum for convenience. Though it is just an idea.

thinguy

www.eve-i.com is a great resource and a very helpful and active forum. Check out their tools and databases as well.

Desalus

http://www.eve-online.com/guide/

That should help you out...

Knightblast

Great references in the links.

A few points of my own --

1. Try out various aspects of the game first before settling down on what you would like to focus on. That is, try your hand at agent missions, mining and (if you can) manufacturing, trading/transporting, bounty hunting rats, piracy -- and see which kind of gameplay you prefer. I would take several days to a week experimenting like this until something grabs you more than the rest, and in the meantime focus on skilling basic skills, especially the learning skills, because training them up reduces the training time for other skills.

2. Once you have figured out which type of gameplay you want to focus on first, this will give you direction in terms of skills to focus on. You'll need good overall piloting skills, and regardless of what you choose to focus on you will need navigation and high speed maneuevering, some decent weapons skills, engineering and electronics. If you wish to mine/manufacture, train mining up to level 4, train indy ship skills and get Miner IIs and try to work your way towards a good mining cruiser. Either sell the ores, train refining skills and refine them and then sell, or keep them if you want to save them to build things (short term you will need to sell to raise some cash). If you wish to bounty hunt, focus on frigate skills (at first), weapons, high speed maneuvering (for micro warp drives), electronics and engineering for ship modules. If you want to run missions, you'll need to have a more versatile ship that can fight and carry things around, and hi-speed maneuvering can speed travel around gates and stations.

3. If you are interested in PvP, plan to spend a good 2 months skilling, perhaps 3, before you get more viable. In EVE the results of PvP are mostly based on your character's learned skills and your ship (and its modules), rather than a twitch-type player-side skill, so if you go in with few skills and a poorly equipped ship, you will likely get smoked, regardless of how smart you may be tactically. Be patient and in 2-3 months time things will be better and you'll have a shot at running those gate camps and so forth.

4. The death penalty in EVE is significant (lose some skill points, lose your clone (expensive to replace) lose your ship (hopefully you insured it!) and all of its modules (not insurable)) so it's best to avoid death if you are carrying any valuable cargo or modules. Avoid death by avoiding lower security systems (below 0.5) altogether for a while until your skills are higher. Don't rely on CONCORD and the sentry guns to save you at gates in 0.1-0.4 space -- they can be gamed, gate campers know how to do it, and you run the risk of an expensive death.

5. Always, always, always have a skill in training. When you are going offline, set a skill to train that is longer than when you will next be online, so no time is wasted.

6. Always have a clone -- update it regularly. Always have your ship insured if it is expensive enough that replacing it from your bank account funds would be a significant burden. Do not travel into systems that are 0.5 and below without an updated clone and insurance.

7. Get to know how to use the map. It has very useful filters that tell you how many ships are in a system and how many ships have been destroyed and/or pilots killed in a system recently. Especially if you are travelling to space that is below 0.5 in security, do check the map before heading out, and keep checking it. 8 ships in a backwater 0.3 system could be a mining party, or it could be a gate camp. If there are ships that have been destroyed there recently, most likely the latter. Knowledge is power -- use the map for safer travel through EVE.

8. Look into joining a Corp when you are comfortable. EVE gets boring after a while when you are soloing, and there is little one-to-one interaction (often) outside of Corps because of the nature of the game (unlike other MMOs, you don't just walk up to someone and start talking to them). Try to find a corp that focuses on game play you like, has active players who play in your time zone, and feels fun to play with.

9. Try to find a base of operations that is close to where you find yourself playing mostly, and stockpile your stuff there. Many players have a trail of assets in 10-20 places throughout EVE and it is a pain in the butt to track it all down and retrieve it at some point. Try to choose a place that is convenient to where you usually hunt/mine/agent run, etc., and also close to some major space lanes to save time when travelling to other parts of EVE.

10. Don't be afraid to invest the time to learn the ship skills of another race. Some race's ships are better at certain things than others.

11. Have fun and try not to let EVE become a second job (it can easily become that!).

Ne08P

My advice would be to join a corporation that helps newbies out. Because EVE has a steep learning curve this is always a good thing to do, you don;t have to stay with them forever but until you know the basics etc, try it out.