EVE New Citizens Q&A

After many years of sitting on the fence I finally decided to try out EVE, I was instantly hooked. I am a big fan of science fiction and I knew the moment I installed this game I would have a hard time taking breaks.

It is for this reason I have avoided EVE, I have had friends who have played other MMORPGs and the issue has always been time commitment.

So I would like to know from other EVE players firstly what exactly the time commitments per week are?

Secondly, I have currently started a trial but I will be moving country in a month (UK to South Africa) would it be worth buying game time now? and in a month leave my character stagnant for months most likely.

That depends on you. As long as you have a few hours in a row per week, you should be fine. With just one or two hours per day you wont be able to enjoy most of the content.



You need to ask your bank about exchange rates. We can't know that.

Start now and log in when you can even to just update skill queue. I've just had a year away from Eve but have still been training.

It also depends on what corp you join up with (provided you want to join a corp, but it is HIGHLY recommended that you do so).

Some corps with lots of organization might have CTAs (Call to Arms) which may or may not require your attendance for anywhere from an hour to 4.
Other corps are more along the lines of collective security/interests and people largely do their own things according to their own schedules.

There as many corps as there are people who play the game. Be selective about who you join up with and/or make connections to get recommended to corps/alliances that will be friendliest to you.

In skill queue, last skill must start within 24 hours. So you can add several short skills (totalling less than 24 hours) and then one long skill at end - but you can't add two skills which both take over 24 hours.

In the beginning "long" skills are probably around few days, so to keep your character training you would need to login at least once every few days to keep skill queue active.

If you don't know what to train and don't have much time to learn at the moment, then you can just train skills required for "Core" certificates. (E-menu at top-left corner of screen -> Certificates, then "Core" group and level "Basic" and "Standard") These are general skills usefull for allmost any ship and having them trained will help a lot.

I find I tend to play in 30 minute chunks when I do play. I've learned what I can and cannot do in a given time frame:

Explore a system with a probe ship: allot 10 minutes for the scanning, with time per site varying.
Run a level 3 (security) mission and salvage: 30 minutes
Run a level 4 (security) mission and salvage: 1 hour
Mine in a hulk: 10 minutes a load (several 'locations' saved to warp right in to a belt)
Trade hub run: 30 minutes
Planetary interaction adjustments: 5 minutes per planet


If I don't have at least the time listed above, I don't do that activity that play period. Now, some of these numbers are extremely general (like the mission times) but they give me a ballpark. I even have a few frigates around in L1 hubs to go blow up something when I just have a couple minutes. I will also run courier missions if I am tinkering with fittings or working on market stuff.

When I know I have larger blocks of time coming up in my life I often move out to low-sec for a while for the added challenge and rewards. I'm a mainly solo player and 'live in the cracks'. Eve is a hobby for me, I don't want it to be a job. Very little of what I do could not wait a week or two if real life were to interfere.

Many of the more respected and decent corporations don't mind if you go away from the game for some time. After all it's a game, the only thing they would like to known this up front.

So let's say you go on a holiday for 2 months and can't connect to EVE. If you let them know up front, usually the good corps don't mind and say "see you when you get back".

Also if you know you can't play every single day and might have irregular game times, let them know that in advance, this so they know you won't be logging on every day and if they find you in odd hours etc. they know why (doesn't have to tell the whole corp that, but if CEO know he can at least explain if there are questions about it).

The biggest problem with almost all corps are people that join and don't log in without telling people, this makes corps filled with inactive accounts and they don't know if you are temporarily not playing or stopped playing EVE completely.

I fully agree with this.
If you are used to leadership positions in other online games,dont make the mistake of thinking that its similar in EVE. Running a corp or alliance,or even just being in a leadership position is much rougher on you then in the standard online games you find out there.

But for time... Honestly it depends a lot on you and your corp. If you are willing to put time into boring research,have the patience to wait until your actually ready before you jump into something new (ship or operation or area) and are willing to listen to advice (note im saying listen,you dont have to follow them ) you will do fine with a limited amount of play time.
Personally i have met people who could only play 3 hours every saturday night,some that couldent play for two months and then played a month straight,and people that play every single day. Honestly i think your better off if you cant play it every day for hours on end.. It helps keep the game exiting and "fresh" and you dont run into the whole doing the same thing every day burn out that many get.

So if i where you i would start now,if for nothing else to get your basic skills going. But i ask you to keep in mind that even if you have the skills to fly a ship it dosent mean your good in it. You need to consider support skills,and ofc knowledge about the ship your flying. When your ready to play on a regular basis start in the smaller ships and build your way up when you feel ready.

Good luck and enjoy EVE

This... This... A THOUSAND TIMES this ^^

Play 3 hours/week, or play 60 hours/week - your skills accrue at the same rate.

The only real grind (to me) is standings, which affect a myriad of other functions in the game, but standings themselves can be modified with skills.

CCP has really distilled this part of the game to a very pure form.

Other people have already made the general points regarding skill advancement not being related to time commitment, but there is also _ISK_ advancement, since you need isk to actually buy the ships you're training for, and general time required to complete certain tasks. So here are some guidelines with numbers:

First few months of skills: You're going to need to log on roughly once every 24 to 48 hours in order to keep your skill queue going. Call it probably an hour a week of time in 10-15 minute daily intervals. You can do this during coffee breaks or something.

Missions: In an underpowered ship (a ship without many of its supporting skills skilled up or a ship in a lower size class than the rating of the mission) a mission will take from half an hour to three hours, with the median falling closer to two and a half. In an appropriate ship (good skills, proper size category) you can expect to spend between 15 minutes and half an hour on a mission. In a fully tweaked ship (optimized for mission running, all skills maxed) you're talking usually 5 minutes to half an hour with the median falling closer to the 5 minute end.

Generally you'll want to make sure you have enough time in a sitting to actually finish your mission, because if you have to leave to do something else and the server reset time happens you have to start over. The general categories are L1 = frigate, L2 = destroyer/cruiser, L3 = cruiser/battlecruiser, L4 = battleship.

Exploration: If you've done yourself a favor and obtained decent skills ratings, finding a decent selection of sites to choose from in high/low sec will take 20 minutes or so, running them another ten minutes to clear grav, radar, etc sites of rats, and then a certain time commitment to extract the loot dependent on the site type. Generally I'd budget a couple hours a sitting for an exploration run in high/low sec.

In 0.0 obviously it's a lot faster to find sites and a lot more variant how fast you can run them due to sovereignty and people picking fights. In w-space you'll find sites faster but clearing them is harder and generally takes longer.

PvP: Finding a fight by randomly darting around low-sec takes about an hour on average in my experience (solo). If you're running with a gang, you'll need another 15 minutes to 1.5 hr to get the gang assembled depending on how punctual your friends are. Note that PvP is going to lose you money most of the time, probably, at least at the beginning.

Mining: Don't do it, man! It's a trap!

Incursions: Probably avoid these until you have a corporate operation organized for them, the management of the corp will organize and determine duration and timing (similar to raiding in other MMOs, albeit slightly less annoying).


I would say that in the first couple months the easiest path for a new player is to dedicate six plus hours a week to missions (so, an hour a two a day on three or four days). That will give you the isk to buy the new ships and modules you're getting as you train them, and get a feel for how you want to manage your grinding isk v getting blown up* cycle.


*Note: for most people, grinding isk is kind of boring after a while and getting blown up is fun, though they may not phrase it exactly like that.