EVE New Citizens Q&A

You can buy any ship on the market, as long as you have the ISK for it.

It is a different question though whether a) you can fly it at all and b) you can fly it well.

To see whether you can fly it at all, open the info of the ship and check the "Prerequisit" tab. It will show you the skills that you need to make the ship active and undock with it.

Whether you can fly it well is another question. There is a "Recommended" tab in the ship info that can give you a general idea on what skills you should have to fly it well, but that list is only a guideline and might not include some useful skills or include some that aren't always needed. And beyond skills, you'll probably need knowledge on how to fly that type of ship.

E.g. for mining, the usual upgrade from a Venture is a Retriever.

You can buy and sell it with no skill requirement.
To fly it at all, you need the "Mining Barge" and "Astrogeology" skill. These have their own prerequisites. It takes about a week to train for these skills.
To fly it well - well, that depends where you intend to mine. As long as you stay in high-sec, you should at least get the "Mining Upgrades" skill on top of the required skills. And to get the most out of it, you will want the skills for T2 strip miners and mining crystals. Also, you should have some knowledge on how suicide gankers operate, how to spot them and how to run away, so that you can avoid getting killed.
If you go to low-sec, other skills will be required. (And then, a Procurer might be better for low-sec mining, especially solo.)

Mining ships are special in that way because the minimum requirements include Mining, which already allows you to mount mining laser / strip miners and not be completely useless. Combat ships are different, as e.g. the minimum requirements for a battleship do not include the large guns (or missiles) that you will use with it, so you'll need a good deal of skill in addition of the minimum requirements to fly any combat ship well.

Final warning: this is EVE and you WILL lose your ship at some point. Don't buy any "gorgeous" ship if you cannot afford to lose it. (OTOH, the probability to lose a Retriever in high-sec is not that high, so you probably make the 30 millions back and much more, but there is no guarantee.)

1. You can buy any ship that is on the market / contracts in EVE if you have the money for it.
2. This however doesn't mean you can actually board it (need the skils) or use it (need the skills + appropriate support skills)

3. Mining is nice. Some people hate it, some love it. The basic rule in EVE, if you are having fun while doing "x", continue doing it. If not, find something else to do.

4. Mining will get you an income, but in general it is on the lower ends of the possible incomes (if you look at the long term).
5. Progression of a miner is:

Venture > Mining barge > Exhumers

Mining barge:

Procurer = A mining ships that sacrifices good yield and ore hold for a very high tank.
Retriever = A mining ship that sacrifices good yield and tank for a very big ore hold (Very good solo miner)
Covetor = A mining ship that sacrifices good tank and ore hold for maximum yield (Very good fleet miner).


Exhumers

Skiff = T2 version of the Procurer
Mackinaw = T2 Retriever
Hulk = T2 Covetor

Stop trolling. EVE is a sandbox, let people play their way in it.

I love how everybody hates miners but totallh forget that without miners.....there are no ships build that you can use / blow up...there will be no T2 modules to put on your ship...

J'poll, you of all people should know that's not trolling. I was merely waxing lyrical on one of the other options in the sandbox.

In his own words the OP has completed the mining, business and military tutorials.

That means that he hasn't done all the tutorials (fair enough considering the upcoming scanning changes) but also he hasn't done the Sisters of Eve epic arc or ventured out into the wilder parts of Eve (possibly in a Venture) to see what is there and possibly poke it with a stick.

Yes mining is a much required profession & personally I wouldn't pick on someone for choosing to be a miner because as you so aptly put it I need those T2 modules.

But there is so much more to Eve than mining and someone who has only just completed 'some' of the tutorials choosing to skill into mining barges is in my opinion someone who should at least be made aware of the other things to do in Eve

And yes my personal bias is towards the darker more violent options involving internet spaceship violence and 'MIGHTY JUSTIC BATTALS 'but then I'm a low-sec Pirate so what do you expect?

Note that the skills for industrials are changing in Odyssey (June 4). It will become a lot easier to train them all, eg. level 3 for a freighter. T2 variants will still require level 5 though.

You could buy a few more Ventures and plan your skills around being the best venture pilot ever; sneak into low and null and mine some of each ore in the game, or maybe run the sisters arc in a venture. It is a very capable ship that is well designed to handle that sort of risk. You will probably loose a few in the process, but that potential is what makes it so exciting. And they are not terribly expensive anyway.

Learning the ins and outs of the game in small cheap ships is far more useful than skilling into a bigger ship and then being terrified that you will loose it.

Best of luck, and welcome to Eve