Skill Discussions

I just started playing. The game is incredibly overwhelming but insanely addictive and I can see myself playing for years (wish I had started earlier). My question is training Cybernetics V and then buying +5's worth it this early on? I have +3's now and will be finishing Cybernetics IV tomorrow night. I am not worried about the ISK investment for the +5's as they aren't very unreasonable. I also have the Cerebral accelerator online for the next 33 days. Any response or advice would be wonderful!
-Sin

I found +5s hideously expensive, because I was a lazy sod and never made enough ISK to be able to afford them.

Depending on your income/playstyle, start with +3s and upgrade to +4s later on, preferably for INT and PER first. CHA isn't that important, so can be kept at +3, if at all.

If you're into PVP, make sure you have at least one Jumpclone. Put the cheap Implants in your PVP clone, and the expensive ones in your station-sitting clone; so when you log off for a longer period of time, jump to your station-sitting clone and train faster that way. Remember, clone-jumping can only occur once every 24 hours.

Define "worth it". If you're not worried about the ISK investment, then yes, you'll get that extra 90 SP per hour and you'll gain an advantage from that.

Just remember that pods aren't indestructible, and you're not operating with any garauntee of safety, even in hi-sec. What you might find worthwhile is creating a jump clone or two with cheaper or even no implants, so that if you want to do something risky, you can jump out of your expensive +5 clone and operate in a cheaper one.

One thing I would definitely warn you against is the "+5 trap" - where people get so obsessed with their SP/hr and their expensive implants that they become totally averse to taking any risks or using a jump clone with lesser implants. Becoming obsessed with getting a few more skillpoints, they lose sight what they're training those skills for, and they forget to actually have fun.

Your skills are a tool to achieve your goals with. They're not the only tool you'll need, and they're not themselves the goal.

now thats a quality answer!

i will contribute to this thread saying this: Whatever implant clone you have its an investment that goes with the character.
Get yourself a +4 first to give a head start then make a second clone with a +5. Learning clones really worth the time and increase the value of the character . The money you will be giving , you can take it back since clones with implants raise the value of the character. You can even win some money because of the fw nerf and implants (dont know if they have stabilized i upgraded all characters that didnt have a +5 clone when they where selling like 80 mil the +5 implant ) .

You can discover the difference on training time using evemon

They're more "worth it" the earlier you put them in, obviously. As others have pointed out, the real "cost" to them is that if you PvP you run the risk of losing a $200-500m investment. This is why people often set up two clones with +5s, one that has only Per/Wil implants and one that only has Int/Mem. Since most skills will rely on one or the other of those pairs of attributes, you just swap to the clone that matches what you're training, and you only risk half the loss you would if you had all four implants in, where two of them are probably not needed at any given moment.

The one "cost" people often miss is the training time for Cybernetics V itself. The time cost of training the skill means that it will take about a year for you to reach SP break even on getting the implants in your head. So, if you don't plan to be playing (or training) at least a year from now, it's probably a complete waste of time and ISK. The other thing about this is that the better your implants are, the more time it will take for +5s to pay off; so going from +4s to +5s will take even longer to break even.

That said, I use +4s in my main, which I have been playing for a while and intend to keep playing for a while. I will probably get around to putting +5s in about a year from now, when I switch back to an Int/Mem map. I have used +5s in alts that I train up just to sell, because I can roll the cost of the imps into the sale price of the toon, and they're a good selling point for a character that might be someone's new main and will continue to train for a long while.

maybe you should consider getting two accounts. one 'test" account where you train anything you want and just try everything out and another focused account where you concentrate on +5 implants, then the core skills like electronics, engineering etc. and then branch out to whatever you found most fun on your test account.

My advice is get 4s and wait until your accelerator dies THEN train for 5s if you want. Otherwise the 5s would waste the time from your accelerator. You have to keep in mind that cybernetics 5 takes 15 days. If you have evemon see how much time it takes before your 5s start paying back.

Example
Maruader 4
Tech 2 Artillery 4
Controlled bursts 5
Motion Prediction 5
Rapid Firing 5

Takes 177 days with all +4 and The appropriate remap.

Adding all +5s Makes it 171 days. And with a perception will power remap cybernetics 5 takes 17 days.

With plus 3s this would take 183days and cybernetics 4 would take 2-3days. So really it takes ALONG time before cybernetics 5 gives you pay back. Other uses for all +5s would be say your doing marauder 5 but also want mission running skills which take charisma bonuses. Well then it might be helpful.

Over all though DO NOT CONSIDER +5 until the accelerator is gone.

P.S. Get EveMon from the appropriate eve online thread. This helps map things out and see if things are worth the time.

The end.

Maybe that is just a completely random example you just made, but I'm wondering why anyone would pick that skillset.

Controlled bursts V with T2 arty but marauders only to IV?

Projectiles and Controlled Bursts in the same Package doesn't make any sense, whereas Marauders only remotely makes sense if trained to V and you're a roleplayer unwilling to crosstrain for a pirate ship for RP reasons.


Anyway - not meaning to derail the thread. If you're really using the pilot a lot (i.e. it's your first character and you don't have isk in overbundance), it's not worth it.

For an alt I made, I trained it, but that character didn't undock in his first year and I planned to use high grade pirate implants on the character later on anyway since isk doesn't matter to me anymore. Largely depends on the purpose you're using it for. If you stay in high/lowsec it's quite unlikely you'll lose your pod if you know what you're doing, if you plan to move to null, it's quite likely you'll lose it eventually.

Also, considering you're using a mac, you should read this article - it's a bad site posting utter nonsense 95% of the time, but according to mac users I personally know, this article holds some truth.