EVE New Citizens Q&A

When I first started playing Eve about a month ago, just like any other MMORPG player I was under the impression that running security mission was a legit way to climb the ship ladder. Boy was I wrong! Mission rewards at Level 1 and 2 felt like a sick joke by the developers. Finally, kind fellow pilots' donations, mining and mission running helped me scrape up enough isk to buy my first BC to run L3 mission. It got blown up in three days when I foolishly went to 0.4sec to run a mission.

Finally, got another BC to run L3 missions; with the hope of making enough isk to buy a BS for L4. According to my calculations, I need to run 250+ L3 missions (mission reward+bounty, excluding salvage since salvage at L3 is another sick joke for the most part) to afford my first Battle Ship. A battleship which will probably get blown away within the first few L4 missions since I hear rats scram you at L4. Then back to square one.

Never fly anything you can't afford to lose they say. Wise words. Except the truth is, if you are a mission runner like most normal MMO players who came from other games, the first few MONTHS you really can't "afford" to run anything other than a Cruiser. It pretty hard to do L3s on a Cruiser. If you can do L4 on a T1 cruiser you get to post it on YouTube.

Anyway, I hope developers will one day fix this poor design choice. At this moment, it seems Eve is only for people who've been playing for years and got tons of isks, or people who are crazy enough to buy and sell Plex on top of paying the monthly sub. As for people like me who are neither - grind 250+L3s or find something else

250 L3's is 250 000 to 500 000 LP, which equates to 190m to 1.3bil depending on the faction. You also get close to a million each from bounties and completion + the 150-350M from 15 storyline missions you are getting in form of implant, bringing the total from 590M to 1.9bil fror 250 missions.

If your goal is to just grind missions, you are missing a massive portion of EvE and I highly suggest you go and do other things (exploration, lowsec ratting, nullsec, wormholes, trading, scamming, piracy, suicide ganking for profit) to make money in a more interactive way.

Also, if you are planning to sit in a battleship without proper support skills and weapons leveled up, you are flying straight into your death; just because you can sit in it, doesn't mean you can be effective with it.

Edit: 590M is more than enough to get a L4 capable BS.

It's like a dog chasing its tail, isn't it? Well, no.

Your progression is a little fast. From frigates to destroyers to cruisers to battle cruisers . Then to battleships next month? Then capital ships the month after? Then after six months a burnt out bitter vet already?

I've been playing for a bit and I almost never fly my PvP BC, and rarely my PvE BC.

If you concentrate on cruisers you will be able to do all h-sec anomalies and some of the h-sec signatures (the others with a T2 cruiser). If you loot and salvage, and sell the products you'll have a sustainable income. Ice mining, now, is very lucrative.

In PvP your only hope is to fly a frigate and get lucky but there will be no income in it for you.

Eve has many facets. Look into a few and enjoy the discovery of it all.

Although there is some hyperbole, problematic assumptions, and disregard for variance in your post, OP, I recognize what you're saying, and it's basically valid. The missioning grind is constrictive, and dangerous to your desire to continue logging in.

I'm sure there's ways to alter your missioning path and habits, so as to ease the progression up to L4's. I don't know that means. But even if I did, I doubt I'd suggest it.

I suggest stop doing missions, at least as your primary gameplay. That kind of content just not what this game excels at. Frankly, it sucks.

Instead, what you should do is find an active, organized corp that's been around the block, and knows what they're doing. Learn from them, do what they do. It probably wont be missions. Try looking toward Null-sec. Null is, in my opinion, the epitome of Eve, and there's not really a minimum SP required to participate and play there.

This TBH, running missions solo is predictable and can get boring after a while. Friends are what makes Eve, and there's plenty of fun to be had running things like lvl 4 missions with friends in frigates and logistics support.

However Eve has so much more to offer than the PvE.

I agree with solai, missions are one choice but there are many sources of Isk mining, pi, industry, exploration, ratting, whs. Ultimately eve is a game that focuses on the pvp aspect and despite havering pve content there is only 3 regular forms of pve rats/missions, incursions, and sleepers so they get repetitive quick. As for null being the null being the epitome that's a matter of opinion personally I find null easy and predictable.

Just FYI, all but the very hardest L4's can be soloed in a battlecruiser, and even they can usually be blitzed. Just make sure you use eve-survival to know how to avoid triggering spawns too early, and be prepared to lose a couple of ships as you figure out your tactics.

"The Scope" - nice NPC corporation.

- You don't know how to run missions efficiently - not a shocker for a new EVE PIlot.
- You didn't know not to go to lowsec in *ANY* ship while trying to earn. Again, not a shocker.
- You don't know how to appropriately value efforts for starting players.
- You don't know how to sell what you get to make better income for the same effort...

So on and so forth.

Learning how to do things in EVE takes a bit and is best done by "knowledge transfer" from others who do know how to do what you're trying - meaning other players yet you sit in a starting corporation pretty much "alone" trying to figure everything out by yourself.

Such an approach is why we lose so many newer players. EVE "is a brutal world!" - Yet EVE is a social game.

If you aren't socializing with others in this game world, the odds are high that you'll be out of here in a few weeks to a few months; shopping for your next game.

Exploration got killed? If anything, it got so easy that the market is now flooded with the products of data and relic sites. Even with that in mind, you can make some decent isk once you know what loot you are looking for and it is also so much more interesting than highsec missions. If a boring grind is the problem you have with this game, you are just being risk averse and you need to just jump into the shark tank.

As someone that played other MMOs before coming to EvE (like most of us I assume), I would recommend a few things.

1. Forget everything you learned from the other MMOs. EvE breaks from them in several very important ways.

2. Dont think of ships classes in EvE like leveling or gearing in another MMO. A bigger ship is NOT a better ship by default. Instead, think of ship classes in EvE like character classes in other MMOs. Each one has a part to play with strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, rushing to get into the biggest most expensive you can fly is not only a bad idea but its also causing you to miss out on a lot of the EvE mechanics.

3. Based on point 2 and to answer your specific question, dont be dead set on getting into a BC. You can run missions in other classes of ships. And if your happy flying frigates / cruisers (and learning how to fly them), you have to grind that much less to support said ship choices. Besides, a huge factor in ships is how you fit it which is based on in game mechanic knowledge / skill points / etc. So even though your in a BC, you are probably not flying it effectively due to being very new to the game. Others have mentioned this already, but there are other ways to make ISK as well besides just missions. See point 4 below about playing EvE with a group, most of the newer player friendly ones will help you figure out how to grind ISK effectively.

4. Dont play EvE alone. If you are dead set on doing it, then very well and I hope you have fun. However, in my experience there are two types of EvE. Playing EvE by yourself which can get old fairly quickly, and then playing EvE with others which can be one of the most addicting / fun gaming experiences you ever had. Look for the established corporations that welcome new players (Brave Newbies, EvE University, Red vs Blue) and pick one to join. There are several threads detailing the differences between them, if you have questions ask them here and people will be happy to provide information.

5. Understand that in EvE everything has a consequence. That is what makes the game. Null sec space is conquerable. If you die, your ship is destroyed along with what is in it (besides that which is dropped / looted). Space stations in null sec are conquerable meaning if you store everything in them you can be "locked out" if your corporation / alliance looses the station. Most of the market items are either produced / acquired by players. It goes on and on. Its that very nature that can make EvE seem so intimidating yet so rewarding at the same time. What you do in game matters.

6. EvE combat is very complex and deep. PvE in EvE teaches you the basics, but does not translate to an in depth PvP knowledge. I am assuming that at some point you will want to try PvP. It is extremely rewarding and awesome from a gaming perspective. You will die a lot at first. Fly cheap ships. Join one of the above newer player friendly groups to help you get started.