EVE New Citizens Q&A

Each thing I list is a mistake I've made mostly in the beginning:
1. If you plan on doing pvp which most people do eventually then don't start your character's name with a number or a letter at the beginning of the alphabet. They should tell you this in the tutorial in my opinion. After you make your name it is yours forever. CCP won't let you change it unless it is offensive. If you made the same mistake as I did I'd suggest starting a new character and erasing the old one or make it a cyno alt or something. The reason is that NPC's target alphabetically so every time you attack a pos even if there are 100's of people the first people to die are the ones alphabetically first. With lag most of the time I didn't even have the chance to warp out before dieing usually within seconds. As far as PVP goes its basically the same idea. In fleet combat facing 100's of ships of basically the same type and same distances you are usually told to target and kill the first 4 people then rinse and repeat. The targeting window is usually sorted by alphabet so people at the beginning of the list die first and people at the end GREATLY increase their chances of living. Sometimes they change it up and kill in reverse order so I made my new character with a name in the middle of the alphabet. I noticed a HUGE difference in how long I lived in fact most of the time I lived. I went from "man you die too much why do you suck so much?" to people saying "wow you are excellent at pvp here are free ships and isk do it some more.

2. Most corps are gonna want you to have fully T2 trained for battlecruiser (home defense), battleship close and long range T2 fully trained for fleet combat, and ultimately fully trained for capital combat. You may want to train for a blackbird to start with since it only takes 2 weeks to train so you can have a nice role to fill but even a frigate can tackle and are cheap to loose. In my opinion I'd first train for a battlecruiser fully t2 trained so you can help out for home defense and go out on roams them train for a fully T2 fit battleship for fleet combat. Most big crops will want you to be capital trained since most territory control combat is in capitals.

3. The next big mistake I made was trying to mine in 0.0. It takes a long time to train for a properly fit hulk so in the meantime you will need to just wait or try to use a battleship. If your corp does big gangs then you could get by with the first mining barge though if the tank disconnects then it will only take seconds for you to die. In my opinion I'd just wait till you can take a hulk in. You will need a standard setup with an expensive shield booster use eft to make sure you are cap stable and can tank the rats. If you can't tank rats then you will be reliant on others and that means long wait times. You will also need a ship to scan for the grav sites that are the best places to mine. It is much easier to have an alt who can fit a full can in his cargo to transport the ore to a station otherwise if you try to do it yourself you will have to figure out how to pick up the ore without instantly dieing from the rats which is a hassle.
Not all stations can process ore so it may be a big issue trying to figure out how to transport all the ore you have mined to a station that can process it. Using a freighter in 0.0 is very dangerous. The next problem is now its processed how do you use it to make a profit? You can make it into stuff but for me that took too long to make a profit. It took around 3 weeks to make a ship that sold for 200m. In that same time I could have mined ABCM's for around a billion isk. A lot of corps/alliances will promise that they will buy your ore for a good price but for me this always fell through. I never found a group that would pay you well for the time you spent mining. The market is always bad for minerals also meaning you will take a huge loss if you try to sell it in 0.0. My next solution was to try to bring it to jita in a cloaked transport. This can cause you much grief and cause your hair to grey prematurely. I made huge profits this way but also found there are many ways for a cloaked transport to die even though it can travel cloaked.
The best way to get minerals to jita is to use a capital to jump it to lowsec. A rorq is useful to a miner but can only transport mining ships and industrials while carriers can transport anything smaller then itself. This becomes useful in that it can transport pvp ships. You may wander why you need pvp ships as a miner? The idea is that you are taking precious minerals from your corps space what do you offer in return? They may offer that you mine for countless hours to donate ore to them to make ships. They may offer that you get free ships but in the end you should NEVER die in a mining ship. If you are setup properly to tank rats and watch local and be ready to warp to a safe pos when needed. Don't ever warp to a station because it is going to be bubbled and you will die before your ship comes to a complete stop from your warp in. My point is that being able to do pvp will make you look more useful to a corp. Participating in pvp and mining in your down time between pvp battles can offer you a lot of fun and still make a huge profit.

4. This brings me to my last point and one of my biggest mistakes and headaches. You can make it in 0.0 without a capital to transport ships and supplies but it can be a huge headache. If I could go back in time and start over I'd just train for a carrier first right from the start then when I was ready to go to 0.0 I'd have a way to bring stuff in and out. This would be a bit boring in the meantime waiting to train but in my opinion riding myself of so much grief trying to get stuff in and out of 0.0. You also will want a second account that has cyno alts. If you don't then you will be reliant on others to cyno you in and out.

Here are some other things I've learned that every new player should consider:

• Use a 3rd party app like EveHQ (best IMHO) or EFT (Google them) to test out fits for your ships before running out and buying modules for it. Doing the calculations before buying the stuff using the info screens takes way too long and you're gonna screw up somewhere.


• Training for Hybrid Rails and thinking they'd be great for PVP. They aren't. IMHO the best in order are Projectiles, Missiles, and Blasters. Projectiles and missiles don't use capacitor, unlike Hybrid turrets. When you get your cap neuted dry by multiple pvp'ers (which you will) and have no cap boosters, you simply can't fight back with anything other than drones.


• Not doing enough research before hiring someone to do a job for you. If you don't, you will get scammed. Even if you do the research, you're likely still going to get scammed. Trust nobody completely, especially without collateral assurances of equal or higher value given to you before sending them the ISK. Problem is most nobody will trust you enough to give collateral.


• Learn the game mechanics inside and out. Be especially sure to know what tricks players use to get you to aggro them, thus giving them permission to blow up your ship.


• If you just joined a corp, do not put any of your assets in the corp hangar unless absolutely necessary, even if the CEO demands it. Chances are is if it's mandatory, you're going to get your stuff stolen, or someone will infiltrate your corp eventually and find a way to steal the stuff that was in there.


• Do not fall for Goonswarm recruitment scams. The only way to get into the Goons is to be a member of the SomethingAwful forums and get invited. Always do a huge amount of research on any corp you join before hitting that "Apply" button. Corp members can shoot you with impunity and Condord will not protect you against them.


• When going into lowsec, ALWAYS use a forward scout that jumps through first, alone. Make sure it's a very fast and cheap ship. Shuttles or most frigates work well. Use an alt with no implants (in case of smartbombs).


• If you are in a PvP battle in lowsec or nullsec and you know you're going to die, preselect a celestial object or station in your overview and spam the crap out of the warp button until you see your pod go into warp after your ship blows up. Your pod will be in warp before it can be targeted 99% of the time unless you are inside of a warp disruption bubble. If you stick around in your pod for even a second or hesitate, you can kiss your pod and your implants goodbye.


• Buy implants as soon as you can afford them. They will dramatically speed up your training, even if they are just +2's. Get Cybernetics up to @ least lvl 4 quickly so you can use the +4 implants or the named ones (Slaves, Crystals, Snake, etc) that'll give you a bonus to a specific ship attribute (armor, shield, speed, etc). Powergrid hardwiring implants are very useful for making very tight fits before you have the Advanced Weapon Upgrades skill.


• Get jump clones as soon as you can. They require 8.0 standings with the faction that owns the station you want to install the jump clone into. Jump clones make things so much easier, especially if you travel between nullsec and highsec.


• Don't go into wormholes as a noob until you know exactly what you're doing. Getting stranded only requires a single mistake, and the inhabitants of "Unknown wormhole space" are almost always very hostile to uninvited guests. The laws of wormholes is that there are no laws. Concord will not be there to help you.


• Learn to use scan probes early. You can make tons of money scanning down complexes to run. You never know when you might find that 1 Billion ISK Pith shield booster at a hidden complex. You will most certainly be doing a very energetic happy dance when you do.

1. Repeat after me: It's not a mistake, it's a learning experience. Or a Really Good Time™

2. Search is your Friend: In the upper right corner of all windows that contain some sort of inventory, such as the Items in stations, corporate hangar arrays, ship maintenance arrays, etc., there is a blank box. Turns out it is a SEARCH box.... wow makes it so much easier to find stuff! Seriously didn't realize that was a search box for well over a year... I probably lost 3 months of game time just scrolling through my items trying to find that one thing I was looking for.

3. "Fly before you buy." Take some time to get to know the people in a corporation a bit before you join. Ask to fly with them on missions/mining/pvp/other ops for a few days before you send in your application.

4. Real Capsuleers Don't Cry... at least not in public. Sure it sucks when you get ganked, scammed, whatever... avoid crying about it in public (local) chat... avoid crying about it at all. Those tears just feed the punks.

5. Set your drones to "passive" in high sec. Aggressive drones love to target trigger ships in mission spaces... and can cause all kinds of unfun things if you are silly enough to afk jet-can mine near pirate bases...

6. PVP is essential to a well-functioning market. Contribute to the economic health of Eve by blowing stuff up - and getting blown up. Fit out a dozen cheap frigates and head into lowsec and go crazy fighting whatever you can find. You will lose every one of those ships remarkably fast, but omg the rush and hands-on pvp will teach you more than all the blogs, videos, advice, and research in the universe.

7. Killboard stats are meaningless. They can be fudged, faked, padded and ultimately do not mean a damn thing. You are not a fail player for losing ships - you are doing your bit for the economy while getting better all the time. A player with 5,000 kills and 25 losses is probably a mission ninja/gate camper/ganker and completely worthless in a "real" fight where another player with 50 kills and 75 losses may actually be a cunning killer who you have no chance at all against.

8. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD do something. For example, I should never have jumped into a wormhole when I was only 11 days old (see my very funny fail :) ). I also shouldn't have flown a battleship when I still couldn't fit medium guns - much less large! I won't mention that ill-fated ransom I once paid either...

9. Before every patch, export your fittings and overview settings. Sometimes patches break those things...

10. NEVER put all your eggs in one basket. Always have spare ships safely tucked away in high sec somewhere.

11. Avoid flying with real-life family members... try as you might, eventually that line between real life and Eve life is going to get crossed in embarrassing, ugly, dramatic ways that lead to Things We Regret™ Suffice to say... it turns out my never-met-in-real-life corp members are far more trustworthy than my own real life brother...

And of course, as already advised... don't fly what you can't afford to lose

1. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.

2. You'll meet lots of people who think internet spaceships are serious business. Don't listen to them, it's a sure fire way to fail at 1.

3. Don't start to specialise until you've tried a bit of everything. What you think may look like fun before you start, may actually turn out not being so great (this was my personal big mistake, 2 months wasted shooting at rocks).

4. Play however you want to play, and find a corp that shares your playstyle. Ignore people who think your way is somehow inferior, they're just jealous of all the fun you're having.

5. If you choose to pursue a career shooting at people, killmails are nothing but a good way of seeing what you just blew up. No-one that matters cares about your ratios. Just chuck yourself in and see what happens.

A mistake that I've made was skilling up to be able to use battleships and thinking you'd be all powerful and could complete every mission with ease.

I went from a Thorax to my first Megathron and lost it the same day in a level 3 mission due to lack of skills and bad equipment.


Note to new players: Every ship receives a bonus for certain weapons, increase your ship skill level to benefit from it. Don't use weapons or equipment that aren't meant for the ship you're flying.

Silly Things!

1 - Trusting a Goon
2 - Getting Scammed and then trying to unload the scam on someone else.
3 - Flying a Carrier in low sec without a support fleet.

Make friends, my best advised.

As a noob I recruited more noobs. We formed a friendship and a kinship as we all learned the aspects of EVE together.

All of my former noob friends are still my friends in the EVE universe today.

Make sure you don't fear what is around the next corner of the universe. Try it all, but don't get in a hurry.

I have run missions, I have listened carefully to a large fleet FC in hopes he would keep me alive. I have followed FC's into situations where I knew there was nothing but death and I went anyway. It was all fun.

Despite what others are saying. LEARN TO MINE.

Miners in 0.0 have real courage. Taking a ship made of glass into a belt with rat battleships takes skill and courage.
Not to mention... When you are fried from combat and just want to relax and be social. Mining is far better than spinning in station or sitting in front of the mirror to admire the breast you gave your female avatar.

And last but not least. Don't think making a female character is going to get you an ounce of sympathy as you make that jump into low sec. By the time I figured that one out. I was well invested in this toon to start over.

lol, and don't forget to read this post before applying to goons.

For me, was learning to focus my tank. No armor and shield mods on same ship.

One of the things that took me a long time to realise:

Eve is more than the game client.

Whatever you are into, use the internet. Off the top of my head:

• Missioning? Google "eve damage types". Consult eve-survival.org
• Wondering what to train next? Use an out-of-game application like EveMon or EveHQ
• Mining? look things up. (Or, better yet, don't mine)
• Looking into exploration? Google the name of the site you just found.

Whatever you want to do, look it up on the internets. Someone will have written about it - learn from their failures.

When hauling cargo always check the quantities of the buy order, as well as the price.

Always make sure you have skills to use that new module/ship you are excited about. Nowadays there is no excuse - right click->show info->Prerequisites.

Everybody and I mean everybody has rage-quit at one point or another. That's just a part of EVE. Fights are not meant to be fair, and you are supposed to die like a good boy. It's not a choice. Of course eventually you will find out how to be the one doing the killing and then it gets better.

PvP will find you, no matter where you are.

All players are lazy. This means opportunity if you are just a little less lazy.

The first billion isk is the hardest one to make.

Some mistakes that I have made:

1. I skilled up to fly a Purifier without even considering my core skills.

2. Setting up a POS in null sec with a friend with only 4 million skill points. ( do that and you will not want to see another bubble for a long long time because that is where you will be spending most of your time )

3. Going on a roaming op in a Purifier without bothering to fit a cloak.

4. Like item number 1 not starting my core skills.