EVE New Citizens Q&A

Usually just being able to listen on comms is all you need. Or be like me and get in trouble everyday for not being on them. IMO mandatory comms is for afk-netflix-watching-miners

You've been given some great advice by some stalwart EVE players. They were a big help to me when I first started a couple of months ago. So I understand the 'shiny new' experience. Many of the veteran players don't understand the modern new 'EVE' player experience. They can try to think it out, but in the end, it's really hard to know what to do with the massive numbers of game mechanics and systems.

Each 'profession' tends to have it's own mechanics and it's own followers, some more fanatic than others.

You have already seen a lot of different "EVE is like this..." statements in just this thread. Trying to tie all those statement together can sometimes give you a headache. I'll try to help you with some things that helped me... A LOT.

Don't worry about a corporation so much. Very socially adept people jump right into them and feel at home. More soloist sorts might like to be more comfortable with the game and how it works first. That's perfectly fine. Soloists tend to be more adapt at failing and flailing around to find themselves and which way is up. Social sorts like to ask and be instructed through interaction. Again, no problem either way.

You have a lot of purchased ISK and a good ship already, but getting the hang of fitting that ship is really a chore. You can look up pre-packaged fits for the Astero, but you need to understand why that fit works if you ever intend to change it and optimize it for how you fly. This is where friends help. So, if you prefer words on a screen the forum pages for fitting can help you out a lot. Find a good fitting site and toy with different fits, you'll get the hang of it after a few trials and errors. NPC's make great trials. Players... not so much. You might die so fast you don't even know what system was dragging you down. NPC's generally scale with your ability. If you're in over your head, you can usually get away from standard NPC's... not so sleepers, so be careful with that Astero in wormholes!

Understand that the entire game is PvP. I have mondo respect for Memphis and the other vets here, but the game is NOT just ship to ship PvP. As was stated before, there's an entire 2/3rds of the game being missed with just ship to ship PvP. Resources/Industry/Marketing is the other part and it too is PvP. You are always in competition, it's just not all slinging slugs, light and high energy weapons at each other. Some players NEVER LEAVE DOCK! You don't even need to own a ship to play EVE but you are still fighting PvP. EVE is PvP, but that non-ship to ship combat PvP is often referred to as PvE, it's not, but relatively speaking it is as far as this game is concerned. Don't get stuck on it.

Lastly, my best advice is to have fun and not CARE about anything that may happen to your character... it's not you. Get blown up, I mean, grab your rookie ship (this is if you don't have expensive implants) fly to a null sec system and open fire on a ship 10x your size. Yup your ship is gonna die, practice getting your pod out, but when you realize that death is temporary, like most MMO's, then going ship to ship isn't as scary. The only reason the vets don't worry about it is that they've lost a thousand ships and it's ho-hum. Never fly what you can't afford to lose- this is the #1 rule of EVE. Try new stuff all the time, do it YOUR way, it doesn't matter if it's 100% effective or efficient so long as you have fun. Corps may not like that concept, but find one that does.

A word about gender. What you are as a person means nothing to what you bring to the table in EVE. There are coalitions of women in EVE. You can fly with almost all female players if you like. My advice to you is to find strength within yourself. EVE can crush people that can't adapt to the harsher play style of PvP the game has. Women have as much, if not more, strength internally than Men do. Find yours, don't care about talking over comms and creeps, you are giving them WAAAAAY too much power. The best way to deal with a stalker is to spotlight them and punch them in the nose (metaphorically speaking), never let creeps become stalkers. Stand up and take on all comers.

This is EVE... make it YOUR game.

Just some advice... newbie to newbie.

I am not a PvPer. However I know enough about this game to give an idea of how this works.

In other MMOs you need to get decked out in the best gear and be max level to even have a chance to do halfway decent at PvP.

In this game you need to understand the game very well to have a chance to do well in PvP especially solo PvP. Once you learn the game you can do well solo even on a low skill point alt.

So if getting good at this game requires knowledge that is gained from experience. If you can emotionally handle the losses then just getting a bunch of cheap ships and going out and PvPing solo is probably one of the fastest best ways to learn the game. But you need to be able to step back and analyze each fight to see where you could have done better and learn from each engagement.

The reason that most people can't do that is because the long string of losses is too much for most people's egos to handle. If you can do it that way then it might not be a bad way to learn.

So other PvPers have recommended recording engagements and playing them back at slower than real time speeds.

The thing that you have to understand is that there is no running back from the graveyard in this game. Each time that you loose a ship you have to buy and fit out a new one.

In WoW people can do not so well in a BG and find some way to convince themselves that they are the king of PvP. Any game with a quick and easy re-spawn mechanic can aid players in glossing over the losses and punctuating the wins.

Eve's looses are much more in your face and harder to ignore.

However there is the test server. You can log onto the test server and essentially get free ships and modules. There are systems there that I've heard people duel in so you can pick up 1 v 1s as well as an FFA system. The rules are a little different on SiSi and if you are new you'll have to get your character mirrored. Also there's not many peole on SiSi usually.

However it is a place that you can go to test stuff out for free. Well not free but every module and ship costs 100 isk and if you insure your ship you can make isk with each loss. Of course it all get's wiped each time the server is mirrored but it's just a test server.

Anyway I'm sure some PvPers will be by with better advice on this.

If you're interested in PvP look up Dian Lung.

Thanks again for your wonderful replies <3

Tipa Riot: That sounds really nice! I'll look into that at some point definitely :D

Memphis Baas: I actually like the fact that Eve is much more hostile in the game than other MMOs. I abhor ganking and griefing in other MMOs, but that is because there is simply no point in doing that sort of thing except for making life miserable for others. But here it's expected and you can make money of killing newbies mining or scamming, or whatever - and that actually seem sort of fun. As you can be a bad person and actually get rewarded for it, so it's basically just another way of playing the game and everyone expects it to happen. Now this makes people much more suspicious, and people being nice and helping you out in game actually is the exception rather than the norm. So those people stand out in a much bigger way. But out of game, and in corps (I guess) - the community is very helpful and friendly, and I love that!

Ohh, that is crazy. I don't think I could ever do well as a spy, because it seems so stressful. But it's really unique that the game allows you to do things like that. I totally get that people might be suspicious when the game is like that. Good points about the creeps :)

Lulu Lunette: I can listen to comms, I just don't want to talk on them :) I see that Dian lung is in a women only pirate corp - I'll definitely check that out! :)

hurmurflUr: That seems like a really good idea. The only thing that holds me back from doing something like that at the moment is my implants really (I think you lose them if you die?). I've only lost my ship to pvp once, but didn't lose my pod then. Maybe I should just do that for like a few days and then replace the implants. At some point I'm going to die anyway, might as well get some experience. When I've travelled in wormholes I've tried looking up all the ships I see on D-scan so that I can learn what they are. There are so many ships so I got a lot to learn, but at least I know a few things to avoid :)

Pandora Carrollon: I'm definitely socially adept. But I prefer to do like you say, get some idea how the game works before jumping into a corp. I also enjoy to some extent to just figure out things on my own. I've read a lot on Eve uni for instance, there is just so much good information there. And some things I've just tried and failed and learning from my mistakes like I did with exploration at first.

Good idea about the astero. I read up on lots of different fits and were torn whether to build it just for exploration (like warp stabilizers so I can get away quickly) or build it for both exploration and for killing other explorers (which was what I went with). Felt that paying 100 mill just to get a covops cloaking device and 5 more virus strength felt a bit much, I hardly ever die in my heron anyway. The main appeal is that I can kill other explorers imo. I want to try it out on some npcs before engaging players with it though. I don't really understand how drones work, but I'm sure I'll figure it out after trying to fight some npcs.

Thanks for your advice, really appreciate it :)

ergherhdfgh: Yeah that's what I'm just so tired of. Just about all MMOs I've played in end game, I have to do things that after a while feels like a job. So that you don't need to deal with that in Eve is perfect :D

Sorry! I did not mean to be presumptuous. Just wanted to explain how I felt about socially awkward guys. Yeah I'm sure I'll find lots of nice people :)

Yeah I wasn't polite when it came to that point. I tend to ignore or just laugh away stuff that feels weird, or just imply that I don't like it (which not everyone get :|). Not really a confrontational person, and some guys just think that if I don't tell them right away that they're being weird or that I want them to go away, means that I like it. When stuff really crosses the line I don't have a problem saying something though. There are guys that don't take no as a no though, don't think I really mean it. But I definitely do :(

Yeah I want to try doing that - as long as t he ships are cheap I don't think it will be a problem to lose them. Ego is not something I have a problem with, especially not as a new player. Like 99% of the players in this game likely have both more experience and are much better at the game than me - and I totally realize that. I just want to get more skilled :)

I've seen so much of ego problems in other games. If they die, then they are either outnumbered, outgeared, or their opponents class is OP. It's never about skill for them :P

I saw that she was in signal cartel and as I've heard so many recommendations to join them - I'm seriously considering to do so. The only problem is that I can't do any pvp. So I guess I just need to figure out what to do. I might be able to join one corp and do some things, then leave and join another to experience a different aspect of the game. I don't feel the need to just play with other girls, playing with guys is totally fine - I just don't want to be harassed :)

Never ever talk about (important, recognizable) personal real life stuff in chat, Eve mails, comms, in game or 3rd party tools wherever. Expect every chat, mail being logged and scanned and all comms recorded. Fleet comms will be on YouTube regularly! I always feel ashamed about my BS talk on fleet comms later, I had remembered totally different .

You can get a jump clone so that you can jump out of the pod with implants and into a pod with no or cheap implants and then jump back. You can only clone jump once every 19-24 hours ( time is skill dependent ) but it is an option for not loosing expensive implants.

If you learn how to get your pod out your pod is fairly safe in high and low sec as long as you know what you are doing. Bubbles in null and wormhole space are a totally different story. Also cov ops cloakies are huge in wormhole space. Also I should note that one of the tech 2 recon ships for each race does not show up on D scan.


Just a quick note about stabs: they mess up your lock range and increase your lock time. They are not by any means useless but I feel those considerations are important when deciding how to fit and fly your ship.

There is no "end game" in Eve. Your tastes and playstyle may change over time. You might set goals for yourself and achieve them. But there is no inherent end game.

A few years back CCP introduced incursions and a lot of people seem to be of the opinion that incursions were introduced to be Eve's version of raiding. Without going into a long discussion on how Eve should not and can not have a raiding equivalent, I just would like to make a comment or two on them.

There is no set mechanic around incursion fleets, however communities have risen up around them. What I am going to say here is how those communities operate and now how the game it's self makes people operate.

So the way most incursion fleets work is that you get put on a waiting list which is first come first serve. You wait until there is room for you in fleet then you join fleet and run incursions until you want to leave. Often if the wait list gets big enough to start another fleet then someone will.

I am sure that if you wanted to you could get a group of people to commit to a weekly incursion fleet and make it job like if you wanted but there is nothing in the game that encourages that.

If you get involved in sov warfare or a corp that has assets to protect there are timers. For example you could have an opponent put one of your POSs into a reinforced timer and then that sets a specific time when it comes out and you guys can fight over it. Some hardcore players set alarm clocks for stuff like that.

On the flip side of that I've heard of players getting involved in huge null sec sov battles and then having to leave to go to work and then coming back home after work and jumping right back into the same fight that is still raging.

'Getting your pod out' is esentially make sure that you warp away right when your ship is destroyed so that the attacker doesn´t get to pod you (and kill your implants). Since it's unlikely anyone can kill your ship with one volley it's advicable to align your ship to a celestial when doing a hack. By doing so you will be able to immediatly warp of to the chosen celestial if you spot a threat on D-scan or if outside of Wormolhe Space you see a threat in Local.

Now if you still get ganked by a hidden threat (Stealth Bomber waiting to ambush at a Relic/Data site or something simillar) by being aligned to a celestial you can still ensure that your Pod is saved since it will take time for the attacker to lock on to your small Pod after your ship have been destroyed.

'Bubbles' (or Warp Bubbles) can be placed by players in Null/WH-space (they are forbidden in other areas) and if you enter one you can´t warp away, it's one of the reasons why Wormholes and Nullspace is much more dangerous for Explorers.

On Warpcore Stabs I would say they aren´t worth it ... they make your targeting horrible and can be overcome by Warp Scramblers/Disruptors which most dedicated 'Hunters' will have enough of to catch you. The only T1 exploration Frigate I guess Warpcore Stabs could be worth it on is the Amarr's Magnate since you can have 4 of them in it's 4 low slots.

I choose Nanofiber Internal Structure mods to go in my low-slots since they make exploring sites quicker due to quicker aligning and increased sub-warp speed. The T1 exploration ships are paper thin anyway so the decreased HP doesn´t make much of a difference. When it comes to fit T2 exploration ships or the more versatile SoE ships I guess other options are better though.

when you know that you are going to loose a ship you click something on your overview tab which you often have set up for just such an occasion and spam warp to so that as soon as you loose your ship you warp out of combat.

In 0.0 space ( null and WH ) players can use interdiction spheres which stop things that are inside of them from warping. They look like bubbles thus they are called warp bubbles or just bubbles for short. Interceptors and some T3 cruisers are "bubble free" meaning they don't get caught in bubbles.

If you are really curious jump into a clone with no implants and get in a starter ship and roam around null. You will run into a bubble sooner or later.

I tried exploration in a ship with stabs in the lows. My targetting range was so short that I pretty much had to be in hacking range before I could start targetting and it took a much longer time to target. That kept my exposure time in the site much longer than it needed to be. To me I felt I was better off running the site faster than wasting time with stabs. Of course that was just my opinion.

I was not recommending you try them. I was just pointing out that it is the closest thing you will find in Eve to WoW raiding and requires no commitment and it totally causal friendly.

I'm not telling you to not do them either. I tried them and did not like them. Far too repetitive for my tastes. However other seem to like them.

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it <3