EVE New Citizens Q&A

So, I am twenty eight days into my trial period, and the decision to subscribe or give up has to be made. My character has just past the 1m skill points mark, and I have been blown to tiny pieces ten times, nine of them being podded as well. I have joined a player corporation, in faction warfare and moved almost entirely into Minmatar lowsec.

What was I looking for in this game? As noted, after 12 years in Ultima Online, I hoped to find a sandbox environment with some of the early community of that game. I enjoy storylines and being part of a greater narrative. I’m not into level grinding and owning ever greater ‘things’. I do like people and building a virtual community. I haven’t done any more than look at other MMOs than UO but it has run out of people, and those very few left are spread over fifteen or so servers.

After my first post here, I was given some good advice, which has helped me connect. Just after, a helpful player contacted me a took me on a mission where we managed to make a first player kill. This was particularly interesting, as we had a debrief after, where it was clear that I had barely contributed, doing only 300 points of damage, and thus understanding the tactics we had employed, gave me useful direction to make changes to the skill plan I was forming. It was also enormous fun - the majority of 'battles' where I have been destroyed have been over very fast. They have tended to happen on gate camps (not much fun) or ambushes by experienced pilots (short but exciting) that have appeared and then smashed me, following up by podding me before I was quite aware what was going on. I was pleased, in passing, that we did not pod the fellow we managed to kill. Not entirely sure I see the point of it, but each to their own.

I was also emboldened to ask some searching questions of the corporation I had joined, and that has led to several more excellent training roams and a stronger feeling of belonging.

I know very well that I cannot survive long in lowsec, but have determined to keep trying. Faction missions are not really an option, as they seem to take one through the camped gates wherever one starts, and this is tiresome. Similarly, plexing alone is a non-starter as quite rightly, some opposing militia will find and kill one. I have therefore continued to do some missions in hisec, simply because I have to earn some ISK to pay for the lost ships and equipment. The advantage is that NPCs allow me to try out what one might call personal skills - i.e. how to fly manually (approaching with a spiral rather than straight at ‘em, for example) without insta-death.

I have found it interesting that I feel much less concern about losing pods and ships than I did if I lost my character in UO to random players. (It was never a problem within RP wars, but what was known as Player Killers - PKs - tended to ruin one’s day a lot).

That is not to say there is no impact. For an example, the other day our corp CEO invited me to a training run. I was some distance away, so travelled over to base, getting ganked to oblivion at Ammamake. That really annoyed me, since it meant I had to refit and start all over again - this time travelling 15 odd gates the long, safe way round. Considering that, I nearly packed it in and called it an night. However, I don’t get to meet with corp mates in my timezone often, so I kitted up and flew the long way to the system where they were plexing.

We had a good time for a while, learning new things and testing our (minimal!) skills with the D-scan (as an aside, it’s very useful to have an experienced set of players calling out what they are seeing, and why it’s important, when we newbies are just looking at an ever changing list of things, recognising one out of every ten ship names as those of which to be wary). We warped out at danger, and finished a couple of novice complexes.

Then a Jackdaw and Svipul appeared and we got out of Dodge, but tentatively went back a short time later. This time, they appeared again and I screwed up my exit, and was blown up in very short order (and yes, noble reader, you guessed it, podded). I found myself laughing with the utter absurdity of it all - my own flustered screw up, and the idea that the missiles they’d used probably cost more than my entire ship! It was a good night to die.

In short then, there have been several times when I was ready to give up and seek something less frustrating. However, I have seen enough of the community and possibilities that I have subscribed with the six-month package. I enjoy lowsec space, despite spending much of my time there as a cloud of gaseous rust and grilled biomass. Hisec is currently a necessary boredom - I can see why it may be designed this way to encourage people to explore further, so I will offer no further views save that I am considering buying and trading a PLEX to have the ISK to sustain losses rather than do the dull stuff.

I have embraced the first immutable law: that the moment I use any sort of implant, corpsedom will occur within the hour. I feel certain there will be many more such axioms.

Thank you to those posters here than gave me such useful advice, and to those kind individuals who eve-mailed me to offer training.

I do have another question: What kind of frigate specialisation would be most useful to a variety of fleets? I may not have the capability to be an out-and-out assault pilot, but if EWAR or Logistics were useful and fewer people available with those specialisation, I might think in those terms.

Oh, and the thread title? An early piece of advice my colour sergeant offered us as we started at Sandhurst was: “The most dangerous thing on the battlefield is a subaltern with a map.” In other words, a little knowledge is lethal - much less so to the enemy than us.

This almost sounds too good to be true, an actual newbie with the right attitude.

For PVP fleets you have a few options that don't take very long to train for, as you already mentioned there's ECM and logi but those aren't necessarily used in frigate form much. If it's a pure frigate only fleet then it makes sense of course but on the whole it'll be kinda limited even though it would good practise. Frigate roles in various types/sizes of fleets that are useful are Tacklers (fast frigs or interceptors) and covert scouts, if you fly Minmatar that would be Slasher -> Stiletto and the Cheetah (a Bomber is always handy to have as well). You always need more tacklers and you always need more eyes&ears.

Covert scout especially isn't so much about skill points, it's about you being able to work on your own while being part of a larger fleet. Finding hostile fleets, conveying intel, working with the FC, providing warp in points and bounces, scanning for targets and many many more things. It's a completely non-dps role, full support mode, but if done right (if you get good at it) VERY important for the fleets you're with. But I may be biased as that is how I started out in 0.0 many years ago :)

Wonderful to hear you're staying! If you're interested in E-War, definitely take a look at the Maulus, one or two Mauluses in a fleet can swing a battle. They are bonused for Sensor Dampeners, which can be scripted either to increase an enemy's lock time, or decrease their lock range. Generally you'll be using the lock range damp scripts. When flying a Maulus, you're going to be looking at trying to shut down/disrupt the enemy fleet's logistics pilots or their own E-War Wing. Logistics ships usually fly at a distance from their friends, trying to stay away from danger, forcing them to either move in closer, or mess up their repairing capabilities can and will swing battles. It's an incredibly fun frigate to fly in fleets, I laugh like a psycho when I damp things, more fun than being an 'F1 monkey'.

DAMP ALL THE THINGS.