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21: Further Training

Learning about Career Path agents

Now that you've covered the basics of capsule piloting you are ready for some advanced training courses. Each course covers a particular area of specialization such as asteroid mining or advanced combat tactics.

These courses are taught by agents located not far from here, and they'll give you a chance to try out different professions before you decide where you want to specialize first.

When you're ready, request a new mission from me, and I'll explain how to prepare for it.

Click next when you've accepted the next mission.

23: Additional reading

Learning about clones

[ Image - medical facility icon ] Avoiding death is a skill that can take some time to master. Thanks to the modern wonders of cloning technology, however, if you die, you are reborn at your registered cloning facility and a new frigate will be issued to you.

Be aware that unless you have invested in a high-grade clone, you will lose a percentage of skill points based on the quality of the clone you have and how many skills you have. At some point during this week, you will want to click on the Medical button on your station interface and upgrade your clone.

Click next when you're done reading about clones.

Learning about corporations

[ Image - corporation icon from neocom ] Many capsuleers choose to leave their training corporation behind and join a fully capsuleer-run corporation. This will give you the support and expertise of experienced pilots who can teach you the ropes far more quickly than even I can.

When you are ready to join a capsuleer corporation, you can go to your Corporation window from your Neocom on the left, select the Recruitment tab, and search based on a number of criteria.

Click next when you're done reading about corporations.

Learning about skills

Skills train in real time, even when you're not actively playing. Pilots can gain new skills and abilities in anything from a few minutes to several weeks depending on the complexity. Skills also allow you to specialize in a chosen career path, making it much easier for you to quickly catch up with older capsuleers.

You begin with some basic skills, and can utilize skill training to improve upon them and gain new ones. Skills continue training even when you are logged off. As a result, it is a good idea to train short skills while you are playing and switch to longer ones before you disconnect. If you want to switch skills, you can do so by starting another skill training.

To determine which skills you need to train for a particular item, right click on it, choose "Show Info", and go to the "Prerequisites" tab. Both primary and secondary skill sets need to be trained. A green checkmark indicates that the minimum requirements are met, a red X means that the skill has not yet been trained at all, and a yellow circle means that you have learned part of the skill but do not yet meet the required level.

Click next when you're done reading about skills.

My initial comments are regarding the current content:

• Through this tutorial, CCP have introduced the bungee label which is pretty cool, but then all the illustrations depict interactions with the overview. Perhaps the illustrations could depict interacting with the object/bracket in space, or the bungee could be connected to the object in the overview in addition to being connected to the object in space? This might help reinforce that the overview and the brackets and the object in space are all related.
• When I started the tutorial, I was not in a starter system. I wonder if there is scope to have Aura direct the pilot to the nearest starter system before beginning the bulk of the tutorial?
• In 04: Getting Your Bearings, "Explaining the Overview", Aura introduces the new pilot to the overview (it's the spreadsheet thingy on the right), then asks the pilot to click next, "when you're comfortable with the overview settings". What about "when you're comfortable identifying features in space with entries in the overview"?
• I would provide the pilot with the weapon and the stack of ammo, instruct them to fit the weapon, place the ammo in the cargo hold, and then do the reloading thing in space. Ammo that magically appears in the cargo hold is incongruous with the remainder of the tutorial (items magically appearing in the item hangar is fine)
• I appreciate that training skills and queueing skills are separated by other activity.
• CCP should consider making the default display for the character sheet "Skills available", just my opinion
• in 14: Target Practice, the pilot is asked to click "next" when "you've finished repairing your ship". The catch is that Aura applies both shield and armor damage, but the pilot is only given one type of repair module. Perhaps, "click next when the repairer has finished repairing it's defensive layer"?
• When ticking the "auto resize" box, the window will reshape itself leaving the menu in place.
• The tutorial step about the inventory (22: Long-Distance Travel) comes far too late in the exercise. In the preceeding steps Aura has given the capsuleer various modules which appear in the Item Hangar, so the capsuleer has had to find them.
• I am not sold on the utility of using green text to avoid orange-text-spam. Italics or bold were invented a long time ago to address the issue of drawing the reader's eye to certain phrases in a block of text. Any different coloured text is likely to make the new player look for a hyperlink.
• In general, the pacing was decent.
• There are a number of links in the New Player Experience category of the Evelopedia which would be usefully inserted into this tutorial sequence.

One feature I'd really like to see is guidance at the Career Agent stage based on the results of the Personality Test. For example, recommending people who are interested in piracy or any of the in-space pew pew careers head to the combat and advanced combat agents first, while directing the folks interested in mining and industry to the business and industry agents first.