EVE New Citizens Q&A

So, I've been playing a little less than a month now.

I decided (for better or for worse) to try to focus on building fitting and core type skills first, and remapped my attributes around Intelligence and Memory to learn those faster.

When I first started, I thought research and science-related stuff sounded really interesting. I got some BPOs to work on, but it turned out there were no research slots open that weren't weeks away (well after my trial would be over at the time). So, the whole research path seemed... not tenable as an actual career for a new player since there's nowhere to actually do it that wouldn't likely just get me killed and lose me the things I was trying to research.

I was informed I could get a Player-owned-starbase, and effectively have my own research place. So, that's just a matter of earning money I thought. However, I can't actually do it without joining a corporation or making one, which seemed stupid. So, a corporation was made. However, I can either put one in a place where anyone can destroy it (and I won't have any combat skills), or in high sec.. but that requires faction, lots of faction. Even after I get the faction, apparently someone can just declare war on me and destroy it when I'm offline/out of town for a couple days. I figured I might try to get the faction anyway, fine.

Since I'm avoiding combat-related skills for the time being while training; it seemed like it might behoove me to focus on missions/work that didn't involve active engagements. I hear about miners being ganked all the time, so I decided to go for distribution missions which would serve the dual purpose of building faction standings which are necessary for getting a base.

So, the actual faction boosting missions (Storyline) require that I complete 16 missions, which is somewhat time-consuming but whatever. So, I finally get these storyline missions, but they're "encounter".

It seems... odd? I don't know, I imagine some sort of conversation like this:

"Natalia, you've been a great pilot! You always get the goods delivered on time!"

"Thanks, I do try."

"I see you've upgraded your Industrial hauling ship with cargo expanding rigs and nanofiber as well?"

"Yes, I'm really focused on being an efficient distributor."

"Great, great.... well, since we appreciate your efforts so much, we'd like you to take your hauling ship and go clear out these 33 battleships, 8 battlecruisers, etc."

"..."

It's like if the U.S. called in an Amtrak Train Conductor and sent him on an assassination mission to prove himself.

You get the impression from the career agents in the beginning that you have these separate options as far as how to play. If distribution (and mining missions) force combat on you in storyline missions (which are the actual missions that matter for faction standings), then it seems like you've effectively forced everyone to do everything. I assume the reverse is also true and combat focused pilots can stuck with missions involving hauling huge amounts of stuff regardless of the sort of character they play (if it's not, it's imbalanced, but it seems stupid either way).

The research bit is different, it apparently just isn't meant for people that are solo or new?

So, is the take home message that you just need to be able to do everything, or go-screw-yourself? I get that there's a random element to what mission you might get, but 16 missions is a pretty large time commitment for a "maybe it'll be a mission that's possible" dice roll.

I see where you are coming from and from a certain point of view it may seem strange. The joy of EVE Online is that it is a challenge and is not an easy WOW-type game to play. It is cruel, or maybe crueller than the real world.

Personally I think for new players now PI (planetary interaction) is probably a good thing to get into first especially as the market in PI goods is very strong atm. A number of other careers economies have been hit with the ugly stick. A long term view to train up to fly a vessel used in Incursions may also be a good choice. Jumping into heavy industry or R&D first of all is not a good way to earn ISK. Some other avenues such as mining ore and exploration are no longer good sources of income.

Choose your career wisely.

Either way, a player who has chosen a non-combat career is still being forced to do something totally unconnected with it.

He must either train combat skills which he has no desire to do or look around for help, which doesn't necessarily mean being in a player corp but is still an unjustified hindrance.

Any logical analysis would agree with the OP.

I consider myself an industrialist, but I don't avoid combat completely. I think that every industrialist should have some combat training, enough to say pilot at least battlecruiser efficiently. EVE is a PvP game after all, and wars do happen.

As for the BPO stuff, the OP could have purchased copies (BPC) or hired someone to do the research for him. Heck some people do research free of charge. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2911218#post2911218

My first BPO were researched by waiting on 9 day queues (yes, you can find queues this short in hisec, if you bother to look). Later I took stuff to be researched to Curse in a Covert Ops ship. I now have 3 hisec large POS.

As for hauling, I started out by doing that as a profession. I now own 6 Charon freighters.

Hire someone to run the combat mission for you.

This is a multiplayer game, and encourages networking with others of different skill sets.

If you'd like a hand from me or someone trustworthy, get in touch. Since i contacted you through the new players forum, i am not allowed to scam you.

o/

Where did I say that the OP has to join a player corp. Take Arnon, plenty of helpful people around that that help complete strangers (new players) with the SoE arc.

* See Keno's reply to proof my point *

People who think that interacting with others = joining a corp are the ones that don't know what they are talking about.
Currently, I'm in my own little corp while my 2 alts are doing fun stuff (RvB), this doesn't mean I don't interact with others.

EVE is an MMO, not a single player game. If you find interacting with other people a hindrance, you might want to reconsider your idea about a MMO.

As for the combat skills, you can fly a very basic L4 ship in nearly no time to help with those missions, and as you should know, you WILL need combat skills, no matter what you do in EVE (the only exception I can think of is station trading and not undocking at all), as EVE is basically a PvP playground with some rules to it (high-sec/low-sec etc. etc.)

Nowhere, as far as I can see.

[Edit] I haven't said or implied that you did, so I'm a bit puzzled as to why you ask.

If I've understood it correctly, the Storyline agent you get assigned to, is the closest one to the agent you had your 16th mission with. Regardless of corp, regardless of mission type.

Takes a bit of tweaking, but remember, you need 16 missions with that corp, it doesn't have to be the same agent. So find an agent of your choosing close to a storyline agent of your choosing, and consistently use that one for the 16th mission.

I ran into this when I was trying to run missions with Carthum Conglomerate, I kept getting kicked to Imperial Shipment when the Storyline Missions came up.

I've tried to read up on these sorts of things on EVE University. Part of my problem in initially trying to figure this game out, whether doing faction-related missions or whatever, is that there's a ton of dated info out there. So, what may have been true 6 years ago, 3 years ago, etc. isn't necessarily true now. The made EVE encyclopedia has many of these issues I noticed (which is bad since it's the source you get linked to from in-game). EVE Uni pages seem to be updated more frequently.

I found the page they had on Mission Hubs eventually. It unfortunately doesn't cover all corps, and the method highlighted by the creator in the relevant forum thread seems to have some awkwardness for some corps, or at least I wasn't having the best luck trying to replicate the process for some unlisted corps. I couldn't tell for some corps if I'd be re-directed or not.

If nothing else, I was able to figure out from finding agent locations in-game and checking adjacent constellations if a lvl-4 Distribution agent would send me to low-sec space, which I hadn't been able to avoid with a previous agent. It's figuring out the storyline referral I need to hash out now I guess. It's easier for some like SoE because they don't have many agents/corps, whereas hashing out if there's a closer storyline agent from another corp you'd get redirected to gets complicated quickly with the empires. I was trying to figure out if the lvl-4 Distribution agents for the Imperial Chancellor would send me to the storyline agent for him, since there appears to be just one storyline agent for him. I can try parsing that post again, though it honestly did seem a bit on the complicated side (I understood the resulting notation well-enough I think, though it's unfortunate that the numbered agents notation doesn't specify type).

It's easy to get frustrated by getting sent to a combat storyline I guess because it makes me feel like I wasted time since I can't get my faction boost, and I have to do another 16 missions to check again. The other side of that was the intermittent declining required to avoid low-sec, since I know I'm unlikely to survive any gate camp in a Bestower (required for the size of the loads) even with warp stabs since I'd be trivially easy to destroy as a fat & slow poorly tanked target. There's probably a certain degree of venting going on in the OP.

I've seen the standing repair plan before:
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Faction_Standing_Repair_Plan

Though it seems to have it's own set of issues, namely requiring a certain degree of standing to begin with (faction only, corp won't work), needing either a lot of random combat or a fair amount of cash to buy tags, and some other limitations/triggers on the COSMOS stuff in general. I figure I'll do COSMOS stuff eventually when I have better ship skills, and can do it in groups. Reading the entire COSMOS guide at one point seemed to highlight a lot of time-sensitive AND faction-standing gated connected quests. Though it's possible I'm conflating or misunderstanding some of these tag hand-ins vs. combat quests tied to COSMOS.

I have no problem with PvP in principle, but it seemed wise to have some sort of base of skills before really engaging. My experience so far has seen people in ships that take a very long time to earn (Lokis, etc.) ganking people like myself in Low-sec, and it seems like EVE doesn't have any real barriers to the powerful cutting down the new. From my prior MMO PvP experience (Everquest, Ultima Online, et al.), this would seem to imply I should get some basic skills/equipment that afford me some opportunities to at least escape/evade if I can't engage for the time being.

I realize I shouldn't expect my character to be living the sweet life overnight, and the throttled progression in-game seems like it can be a positive aspect as far as having "earned" certain skills. I appreciate the advice.

I'll look into New Eden Research, and see if I can't get some level of combat proficiency in the pipeline. Maybe that supposed fix to how the storyline missions are assigned will go live sometime.

Are you using the agent finder? It allows you to sort by faction and type of agent. I think the simplest way to solve your problem would be

1. Find a storyline agent you want to work for using agent finder and go to their location
2. Use the agent finder from that station to find nearby lvl 4 distribution agents (of the same faction!)
3. Go to the distribution agent and use agent finder again to verify that the desired storyline agent is the closest

Leave the faction filter on the whole time, as the 16 missions are for the specified faction and it won't refer you to an agent outside of the faction.

Then as long as your 16th mission is with the distribution agent you found, it should refer you to the chosen agent. That said I'm not positive that "mining-storyline" agents exclusively give out mining missions, etc. I've never been too fussed with storylines, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.