EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi, I just finished the military story quests (Gallente) with a friend. I tried this game about 3 years ago, but I got bored very quickly with mining (also a lots of bot users there). This time I don't wanna make the mistake of diving into this game blindly, ending up in a boring dead-end profession. What I'm looking for:
- We would like to have interactions with other players (-> mining and trading seems really boring to me)
- We would like to engage in fights
- I'm a newbie, so Hardcore pvp is probably not for me, since I would lose a ton of ships and I don't have the funds to replace them (or is it feasible to do PvP for a living as a relatively new player?)
- I don't have a problem with doing missions, but I don't wanna feel like playing a single player game.
- Our initial plan is to play as mission runners for some time and then switch to bounty hunting. Is this viable ? Is it possible to do this switch within a reasonable amount of time?
- If not, do you have any Ideas what we could do?

I read some tutorials and downloaded evemon, so I'm not totally lost, but I'm still pretty unaware how pvp works, how I can find a fitting corp. etc.

edit: I did the short personality test and it came up with: http://www.eveonline.com/sandbox/fleet-commander/

Well your idea of doing missions for awhile is probably the best to start with. Yea they get boring quickly and are mostly a solo enterprise, but it is a good intro to game mechanics while increasing your SP and ISK. Until you get both those up a bit there isn't very mush else to do unfortunately.

Incursions meet the player interaction you are looking for and are one of the most profitable things you can do. But you are probably a ways off from being able to do them.

Bounty hunting? Do you mean going after player bounties? If so then no it is not a viable thing to do really, the bounty system is really rather broken ATM. If you mean NPC bounties than yes, ratting in 0.0 can be fairly profitable but is also generally a solo operation. However aiming to play out in 0.0 is a viable goal for you. It will allow you to PvP and you could probably find some good groups to train you. You will need to be able to use a T2 fitted Battlecruiser first (T2 mods, t1 rigs and meta guns/launchers are fine), so you are probably looking for around 3m SP (in the right places) before you could survive out there. Wormhole living will give you both group PvE and some good PvP but it will probably be even longer before you could survive there.

You could always fit a cheap Rifter (probably less than 1m isk) and head out and try and find some fights to self train yourself in PvP. It is near impossible to do PvP as a "living." The vast majority of players do some form of PvE to fund their PvP. Larger alliances have ship replacement programs (SRPs) and will replace your ship losses on alliance OPs.

I would look into something like EVE University (use the People & Places tab search function in game)or RvB. They can provide you as a new player with PvP opportunities as well as people to help teach you the ins and outs.

My advice:

1) Train up to a ship that can do competent pvp and generate a reasonable mission income. Typically, a BC. Think of income alts later when you know that you will actually keep on playing.

2) Get into pvp now. Start in cheap throw-away frigates. There's things in PvP that are best learned while you are still in cheap ships. Player skill matters a lot, and the sooner you start learning them the better. Do not get into a hurry to get into a "bigger ship". A small ship with a competent pilot and a good fit is worth more than a big ship with a muffin for a captain and not enough support SP to fit it properly. PvP in EVE is complex and there's so much to know... I'll rather get a total noob in a frigate and the will to learn than a battleship pilot who never flew as part of a fleet before.

3) Faction Warfare is a good place to start. Get into a militia, spend some time figuring out who the best pvpers on your side are (hint: not necessarily the ones who get most kills or talk about it most; especially not necessarily those who like to spend their time telling you about their awesome skills). Be respectful, find out how to get into good fleets. Join a player corporation inside the Militia if that's what it takes. Listen to advice. Don't get discouraged when you get blown up and confused and probably also yelled at. Go back to the people you flew with after operations to ask for what you could have done better.

4) Take time running missions in hisec if you run out of isk. When you run missions, read up on them and mission fits, and learn to optimize your mission ship for them. This not only gives you more income, it also teaches you to think about ship fits situationally, a skill that will be a lot of use later.

5) Once you think you have some clue of what you are doing in a fleet in Militia, start thinking about looking for a corporation that you really fit in. (If it happens to be the one you are in, that's fine, but do not be shy of switching.)

6) It is hard to make a living from PvP. It is possible, but you need a competent group. Most PvPers do missions or trade or PI or something to generate a steady income. For now, concentrate on learning PvP and worry about whether you can live on it later.

7) Bounty hunting PvP is unfortunately currently not viable. You can be a pirate hunter though if you like, or similar stuff.

Generate income first so that replacing any frigate + fittings will be peanuts. That will come faster than you think, so don't fret. :)


As far as I understand it (someone correct me if I am wrong), it's like this. The bounties might look big for you now. Fact is though that the system is broken, because anyone with a bounty higher than their clone cost can just have a friend gank them and share the profit. That caps the realistic bounties to a couple of tens of million, and even though you probably now think that's hell of a lot of money, it isn't. Given the effort of locating someone and finding them in a position where you can kill them, that's nothing. You cannot shoot someone in high-sec just because they have a bounty, so you have to get them either in low-sec or null-sec. Catching them while they are travelling some route would be the best option, but that would mean you'd have to know when they are there and wait around a lot. Catching them where they live causes the problem that their friends also live there. You can do this stuff for fun, but in the end, it will take you so much time and cause you so many ship losses that it is not a viable income. Some people do have higher bounties (for vanity, mostly ;)) but they know they do, and they will especially not let you catch them easily.


Those can all do it. Mining in high-sec is the worst of them. Trading is where the big money is, but you have to have big money and/or knowledge of markets to really get into it. Missions are good money if you put your mind to it an progress to higher levels. Exploring works too. Then there's planetary interaction stuff, and you should look to research agents at some point (license to print isk, though sadly not very much of it). Production can work too in the long run (buy a blueprint, buy minerals, make stuff, sell it).