Intergalactic Summit

Capsuleer skill training packages, termed by the SOCT and others as "skillbooks", which are the learning packages that give capsuleers their ship piloting abilities, have become one of the major educational export products, for such institutions as the University of Caille, the Centre for Advanced Studies, and many other agencies across New Eden.

But, are they a dangerously addictive commodity ? We sent an agent to find out.

"I used to lead an alliance, we swept the stars clean of all others", said one man, a Caldari capsuleer. "Now I lurk in my captains quarters, looking up skillbooks and staring at camera drone footage of my ship."

"I can pilot an Erebus to 100% efficiency", said one Gallente female capsuleer. "But I don't own one, I've never even seen one, oh goddess what am I doing with my life ?"

"I do whatever makes the most ISK, and spend it all on skillbooks", said another capsuleer, a wild haired Minmatar. "If I owned any of them, I could fly any Gallente or Caldari ship as well as anyone. But I've only ever flown Minmatar ships."

"Buy skills, train skills, need more ISK, must, train, ggggaaaahh!" said another capsuleer, a deranged looking Intaki.

The addictive nature of skillbooks to capsuleers appears to rival the addictive qualities of Serpentis goofballs to the general population !

"There are no plans to make skillbooks contraband", said a Federal Customs agent.

Time will tell if the skillbook addiction crisis will cause wider social and economic problems.


Gutter Press. There's no skillbook for journalism. Fortunately.

Contraband skillbooks... now there's a pretty thought.

Unlike most, I actually read my skill books!

Still on on chapter six of "Exhumer Docking Procedures For Dummies"... Gotta learn to dock before you fly I guess?

Pursuit of knowledge isn't a sin.

Diana Kim, forever on point.

Halp! I am addicted to studying Biology through a Skill Book so I can get addicted on Combat Boosters!

It's a big cluster.

hello my name is fudface and i am addicted to training skillbooks.

i came to eve as a mineral trader and nothing more, i didn't train anything for the first 3 months i was here. mineral trading doesn't require any skills at all to make a profit, being able to predict trends in the mineral market from the available information alone is enough.

As my career advanced i joined the pixies, who insisted i inject these skillbooks and start training. i had no idea what i was getting into. These skills i was training were for ship guns drones armour shields, my mind was awash. I didn't need a ship with guns and modules, i was happy podding about the universe moving through the green systems and into the deep red systems. i went where the minerals were. i didn't haul i just used the right click and sell. when the local market wasn't high enough to sell i would manipulate the local market until it was at my sell price. However, all that was changing, the thirst for knowledge assailed me, called to me in my sleep. i would awake into the eve world with a desire to train something, anything, as long as my skill q wasn't inactive. The panic i would feel knowing that my skill q was inactive drove me to look for longer and longer training times.

today as i sit before you i am training the amarr dreadnought to level 5, i am max skill for panther, redeemer, paladin, vindicator, and the list goes on and on. gunnery skills drone skills and even illegal drugs. my obsession with training everything to level 5 has led me here to you. ironically my main focus in eve is still the mineral market and the skills i have trained to date has very little to do with mineral trading and there are no skills to train for market pvp.

thankfully i have beaten my addiction to only putting up 24 hours worth of training. now i have over 250 days of training to do before i have to think about it again.

i hope others can learn from my story and avoid the addiction to skillbooks

my 2 isk worth