EVE New Citizens Q&A

I know that this game can be rather difficult starting out, so I wrote this guide to detail a few things that players really aught to know.

I'll start with warnings

Warnings

Warning 1:
Do not take from yellow colored cargo containers. The yellow color indicates that it belongs to someone else. Taking from it means that you have stolen and the player that it belongs to then has the ability to shoot at you without any negative repercussions towards that player.
Some older players like to place yellow colored cargo containers out in front of newbie stations to attract unsuspecting targets. A player can have their account suspended for several days for placing a yellow can in front of the newbie station with malicious intent toward new players, but it still happens on occasion anyway.

Warning 2:
Scams are perfectly legal in this game so long as they only involve in-game currency (ISK). A popular scam goes a little something like this:

“Player in Local chat channel” > I’m quitting this game! I don’t need my money anymore! Send me any amount of ISK and I’ll triple it and send it back!!

You send the player ISK but he never sends anything back.
In short, never give anyone any money unless you don’t expect to get it back.


Security Level

Each solar system in EVE Online has a designated security level or rating of safety. This rating of safety is represented by a numerical value ranging anywhere between 1.0 and -1.0. This number is fixed and cannot change.

All systems that have a security level of 0.5 to 1.0 are considered “High Sec.” In high sec, you are protected from other players by the police entity of the game known as CONCORD. If a player attacks another in high sec, CONCORD will warp to the battlefield and blow up the aggressor before he can fire a second shot. There are exceptions to this rule such as when a player steals from a yellow can or in the case of a corporate declaration of war.

All systems 0.1 to 0.4 are considered “Low Sec.” There is still a CONCORD presence in low sec in the form of stationary turrets near stargates and stations. If a player attacks another near one of these turrets, they will open fire, though only with a bare fraction of the firepower seen with high sec patrol ships. If a player attacks another anywhere else in the system, CONCORD will not come.

Note: Attacking players in either high sec or low sec lowers the aggressor’s personal security status. If that becomes too low, they will be branded as an outlaw and won’t be able to enter high sec without the local navy shooting at them. There are ways for a person to redeem themselves, though.

All systems that are 0.0 to -1.0 are considered “Null Sec.” There is no CONCORD presence in null sec. If a player attacks another while in Null Sec, CONCORD will not come and the aggressor’s personal security status will not be lowered.
The use of special weapons and ships is permitted in null sec. Things such as bombs from stealth bombers, Warp disruption fields, and cynosural fields are quite common, to name a few.

Also, Null Sec is where major player corporation alliances wage war over the sovereignty of solar systems. These wars could encompass thousands of players. It’s not uncommon to find fleets of hundreds of players fighting over a solar system when you stumble across a null sec battlefield.

Note: Capital ships (The largest ships in the game) and cynosural fields can be used in low sec as well as null sec, but not high sec.


Map

Every solar system in EVE Online is scaled to size. They use Astronomical Units (AU) as a unit of measurement which roughly equates to 150 million kilometers or 90 million miles. This means it could take days to travel from a planet to its moon or months to get from one planet to another depending on your speed. Thank God for warp drives!

The systems are connected in an elaborate network of constellations by the stargates. You can’t travel from one system to another using only sub-warp acceleration or even warp drives. Not only would it take years, but the system is not designed that way. You must use the stargates.

To access the map, push F10. Do you see rings or do you see dots?
If you see rings, you are looking at the map of the solar system in which you are currently residing. The rings represent the orbital paths of celestial bodies around their patron star. There are also smaller rings around planets which represent the orbital paths of the planets’ moons.

If you see dots, you are looking at the map of all stars in the New Eden star cluster. Each dot on that map represents a solar system that you can travel to and explore, save around 200 of them which are reserved for CCP Games staff only. Despite those 200 solar systems, there are over 5000 stars on that map and another several thousand that are not on that map. The stars not on that map can be found on the other side of wormholes.

Professions

Before I begin to explain, it should be noted that when you choose a profession, it is not a binding arrangement. You can change and walk down a different path at any time. If you find you don’t like what you started out doing, switch to something else. That being said, there are many ways to make money in EVE Online. Those are:

Mining
Industry
Combat
Exploration

Mining – Mining is a good source of income for the new player. It’s constant and there will always be ore. But it’s also repetitive and a bit boring.

Industry – Manufacturing goods is important to keep the economic machine moving. There will always be a need for ammunition, ships, modules, etc. This will never change. Manufacturing goes well with mining.
• Planetary interaction is a subset of industry. Planetary interaction is the placing of industrial facilities on the surface of planets to extract resources from said planets and then reprocess them into various commodities. You could either then sell those commodities or combine them with other planetary resources to create other commodities. Planetary interaction is another great source of income for new players. There are no skill requirements to get started, though if you’d like to have a more advanced planetary interaction chain, you will need to skill up in level.

Combat – The combat system of this game is a lovely one unlike any you might find elsewhere. The combat of this game is a lot more than just ‘lock, orbit, shoot.’ But for a new player, that works, so we’ll leave it at that for now. Just know that there’s a lot more game mechanics at work behind the scenes than just that. There are many sub-categories of combat.
.
.

• PvE – Fighting NPCs. NPC pirates each have a bounty on them that the player acquires once the pirate is killed.

o Mission running – Mission running is when you acquire missions from an NPC mission agent. The missions range in difficulty depending on the level of agent. The level can be anywhere between 1-5, 1 being easiest, 5 being most difficult. You can get salvage and loot from the NPCs in these missions.

o Belt Ratting – The act of killing NPC pirates that spawn in asteroid belts. Belt ratting is commonly done in low sec or null sec to acquire the higher bounties. Also, there’s a higher chance that something rare will drop from one of the NPC pirates while in low sec or null sec. Belt Ratting is also commonly used to redeem one’s personal security status if they have fallen below the law.

o Incursions – There is an NPC faction known as Sansha’s Nation. Last year, they began performing strategic raids on populated planets, abducting citizens and forcing them into Sansha’s Nation. Now they have moved on to the next part of their plan: Invasion. An invasion could happen anywhere in any constellation at any time. It lasts for about week until the Sansha acquire what they came for and leave or until we blow up the commanding mothership. CONCORD has offered to pay any capsuleer willing to help fend off the Nation onslaught. And they pay well.
 Incursions are the best money you’ll make from combat. It’s also one of the most difficult PvE features of the game. It’s recommended that you can fly at least a battlecruiser before attempting to participate in Incursions
.
.

• PvP – Fighting against other players. This is generally a better way to lose money than to make money.

o Null sec warfare – Fighting for a major corporation in null sec is an experience like none other. The wars are big, the ships are huge, and the danger is enormous, but you’ll have fun!

o Piracy – The most likely PvP profession to make money with. A pirate holds other ships for ransom, overpowering another player and then threatening to blow them up if they don’t pay. If the other player pays, the pirate will either blow them up anyway and try to catch their pod so they can ransom again, or they’ll let the player go.

o Small gang warfare – Have a group of friends? Go have some fun killing other players. They’re presenting themselves as targets, go give them some ammo in the ass.


Exploration – Think of exploration as a treasure hunt. An exploration pilot uses scanner probes to find hidden sites in space. These sites can be combat sites, or they could be ancient battle sites or abandoned research facilities with rare materials and data. Because of its hit-or-miss nature of find it or don’t mechanics, Exploration can be a bit less reliable than other professions when it comes to money making. But when you do find something, it has the chance of making you very, very rich.
Also, exploration has a role to play in PvP. An exploration pilot makes for a very good scout. Certain exploration ships have the ability to use advanced cloaking devices, and there is such a thing as a combat scanning probe to search out a ship that is hiding in the system. Combat is a good profession to mix with exploration.

It's quite funny how the likes system suddenly brings out the best in people, it's also quite obvious.

New citizens may also find the New Citizens Useful Threads page in EVElopedia quite useful.

W-space can (under certain circumstances and differing levels of both investment isk-wise and investment :effort:wise) make shittons of isk. 600m/hour is not impossible, but obviously involves obscene multi-boxing. I intend to see if the same can be done with incursions, but, as far as I can tell, incursions involve significantly more actions per account per minute.

+1 decent guide though

What ever happened to learning to play eve the hard way by doing it yourself and making your own mistakes.

kh-bump