EVE New Citizens Q&A

I canceled my two accounts a little over 3 years ago (Summer of Rage, anyone?). I gave all my stuffz to in game friends and sold my two mains to a friend because I was done. But just like Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III, I find myself being pulled back in. Both of my mains were miners and honestly I found mining to be somewhat therapeutic. I never really explored PvP very much, I just docked up when a red was in system. All that being said, I'm looking for some advice as I jump back in and specifically want to learn to fight.

When it comes to play style in most games I tend to play a ranged character or straight up infantry. I've never really understood the concept of kiting, so I'm not sure that going the ranged route would work for me in Eve. I did have an alt that trained stealth bombers and enjoyed being cloaked, but I'm not sure that's a viable route to go either. Can some of the vets give me some direction on what race would be most beneficial to my play style and what PvP role I could fill based on my play style?

Also, when I originally started out, I trained all the basic and advanced learning skills before anything else. Later, I found some information recommending what skills all pilots should train:

Core Skills for all Pilots

Engineering - To maximize the power core.
Electronics - To maximize the CPU.
Accounting - To minimize transaction taxes
Controlled Bursts - To minimize weapon turret capacitor need
Energy Management - To maximize the capacitor capacity
Energy Systems Operation 5 - To maximize the rate at which the capacitor recharges
Evasive maneuvering - To increase ship agility/maneuvering
Hull Upgrade - To maximize armor strength
Long Range Targeting - To maximize targeting range
Mechanic - To maximize hull strength
Motion Prediction - To maximize weapon tracking speed
Navigation - To maximize sub-warp speed capabilities
Rapid Fire/Launch - To maximize weapon fire rate/missile fire rate
Sharpshooter - To maximize weapon range
Shield Management - To maximize shield capacity
Shield Operation - To maximize the rate at which the shield recharges
Signature Analysis - To maximize targeting speed
Spaceship Command - To maximize ship agility/maneuvering
Surgical Strike - To maximize weapon damage
Targeting - To increase the number of targets that can be locked
Trajectory Analysis - To maximize turret accuracy
Warp Drive Operation - To minimize capacitor need for initiating warp

Secondary Skills for most pilots

Fast Talk - To increase your standing with Concord
Social - To increase your standing with all NPC agents, corps, and factions
Multitasking - To maximize the number of targets that can be locked
Drones - To increase the number of drones that can be controlled
Combat Drone Operation - To maximize light and medium drone damage
Drone Durability - To maximize drone hit points
Drone Interfacing - To maximize drone damage or mining yield
Drone Navigation - To maximize drone micro warp drive speed
Drone Sharpshooting - To increase drones optimal range

Anyone care to comment on these? The theory seems plausible, but I'm not sure how they would work out in practice. Any insight provided would be greatly appreciated.

If you do not want to kite, I'd generally look toward training into Gallente and/or Amarr ships. They are generally slower and tougher than Caldari/Minmatar (although this is far from a hard and fast rule).

My suggestion is to do the following:

- First, do all the tutorials from one agent. It's a refresher course on the game.
- Second, do the Sisters of EVE epic arc. This is slightly harder PVE content and again will serve as a refresher. It will also build you up a couple of tens of millions of ISK.
- Third, get into factional warfare, and ask around in your militia for corps that accept newbies. FW is often quiet (in which time you can earn ISK) and also often nonstop PVP. Use your ISK to buy 10 or so well-fitted tech 1 frigates.
- Fourth, learn from all of your mistakes.

This.

I made that mistake as a newbie, I kept thinking 'oh, I'll get into PVP at 5m SP. Wait, I'm not ready, let's redo it at 10m.'

What shook me out of it was my then-corp being AWOXed by a 12-hour old Catalyst pilot. The Catalyst pilot had accepted a mercenary contract to take out the Raven Navy Issue of a corp member, paused training their main for a day (this was before dual character training), and got an alt into our corp and (with the help of their main providing neutral remote repair) blew up a billion ISK ship, looted a couple hundred million in drops and claimed 300m from the person hiring them.

I wasn't online at the time but when I heard about the incident later and saw that a character with well under 100k SP could do a billion ISK in damage, my mind got out of the 'I'm not ready for PVP' trap.

I then went and lost a Myrmidron horribly, learned from it, lost an Enyo horribly, learned from it, then discovered my love of the Vexor, and started looking for fights. I won some and lost some, but even the losses were more fun than the PVE I had been doing previously. And when you get a ridiculous win that noone expects (like my solo Sleipnir and no-Omega high grade crystal set kill done in a Vexor) - those are the memories that make EVE fun.

Welcome back to EvE.


On jumping into PVP.
It really depends on what you want to do, different people have completely different PVP styles.

A. Faction Warfare. Lowsec faction warfare areas are a great way to get into PVP. You'll have access to militia chat can lead to fleets of varying skill and success. It can also be a good way to make some ISK while in a PVP environment (capturing FW duengons). Plus you'll find plenty of people flying T1 frigs with varying levels of skills. The downside? in 1/2 of empire space you'll be attacked by the opposing faction's navy. Plus your standings will drop with those factions.

B. Lowsec - Non-Faction Warfare. This doesn't limit you to faction warfare systems, plus you'll have twice the targets IN a faction warfare system. The key here is getting to know the locals and developing some friends, and learning from the guys that are killing you. Most pirates are pretty good dudes when they aren't podding you. There are always exceptions.

C. Nullsec - Find a corp / alliance that accepts new pilots. Become a hero tackle for a bit, and run with incredibly large fleets. There's good money in null sites. This tends to be more structured but with larger organizations there is generally more fleets / other bits going on. All of these corps are going to want a full API and do an interview to make sure you'll fit in with their organization.

D. Highsec - There's lots of opportunity here from joining a wardec corp to turning suspect in systems and hoping for a fight. There is high player density in highsec, so you'll find folk everywhere. The key is convincing them to fight in a manner that doesn't involve concord reducing your ship to rubble.

E. Wormhole Space - No local, and you have to love scanning. But you can lurk the great unknown solo with a cloaking device and jump the unsuspecting or join a corp that's already established. There can be a high skill point barrier here (and in Nullsec pending corp).

As far as the skill plan you've laid out?

If you are aiming for PVP I don't see some of the core skills I'd like to have like warp disruption, sensor compensation (to counteract ECM), and armor layering to reduce the mass of plates (should you happen to buffer tank).


There are infinite possibilities for PVP interactions in EvE limited only to your creativity in getting another player to engage you. The most successful PVP players understand the psyche of the players they are going after and know the strengths and weaknesses of their and their enemies ships.

Good luck!

There are only three necessary skills for pvp.
*Cpu Management 3
* Navigation 2
* Propulsion Jamming I

Now you can fit a point. Go find something and kill it.

On the subject of skills, Tau put together a list of all the new skills and changed skill names here in post 3 :

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=285597&find=unread

You will probably want to add the racial Sensor Compensation skills to your todo list, and Thermodynamics as well.

Thanks for the info. I was leaning more towards low/null roams, but I'm willing to explore Faction Warfare as well.



As an atheist and an "typical" American, your telling me I should choose the French or the religious zealots? This is going to be interesting. I'll definitely do the tutorial again as so much stuff has changed.



Already have a lead on a newb-friendly PvP corp. And I think that was why I never got into PvP before - I never felt like I had the skills needed to do it, but I think this time I'm just going to jump right in.



I've been listening to a few Eve-centric podcasts and its stories like this that have made me want to get back in.

He was probably referring to the confusion about whether or not you actually have to train combat drone operation, or if scout drone operation suffices.

This is correct. Scout Drone Operation is being split into three skills and should probably be maxed before the patch based on current information.