EVE New Citizens Q&A

As a shiny faced Noob probably shouldn't be giving advice but I had a problem, did not see a whole lot about the problem and this is how I fixed it.
Problem: No cursor in the client. 1st fix, not the best: Ran in Windowed Mode, but didn't like it as the little ship thingy at the bottom got cut off. Best solution: Run in Fixed Window mode, just as good as full screen, everything is there and the mouse cursor is right there. Full disclosure: Did not figure this out in full brilliant mode, it took a few sessions.
Other issues: Pretty well blew off the whole tutorial thing, instructions too vague and way too linear for my tastes. Converted trial to full, got my little bonus ship, figured out how to actually take possession and now I'm out poking and prodding to see what I can see. I keep a journal, out of game, probably one in game but I'm not there yet, where I jot all the little questions, like where can I get training, how can I keep from getting blown away and have to go back to the beginning and just exactly how does one participate n the chat windows?
No doubt it will all come to me in time, but instant gratification doesn't seem to be an Eve Online attribute.

Do the tutorials...

They teach you the basics of the game and UI.
They also give you a good amount of free skillbooks, ships and ISK (Blood Stained Stars Epic Arc gives roughly between 10 - 15 million ISK depending on how fast you do the missions and if you loot/salvage them)

You start with 5,000 isk. If you don't do the tutorials you will have trouble figuring out how to buy stuff off of the market (because you don't have any cash). Not to mention the tutorials teach you a very basic concept: NPCs will give you money after you do stuff for them. Helpful until you find a 'path.'

Which clearly is one of the best traits of this game.

Also: Do the tutorials.

And do the SOE epic arc.

You can't prevent yourself from losing your ship if the other person really, really wants you dead. You can reduce the likelihood of losing your ship through improving fittings and learning about various game mechanics, but you cannot make yourself 100% all-powerful: Even the largest and most powerful ships in the games (Titans) are vulnerable.

As for having to 'go back to the beginning,' you can mitigate your losses somewhat by insuring your ship up to platinum if you expect to lose it (or even if you don't, really), to get most of the cost of the hull back, and if you train some basics into salvaging, you can make a fair bit of side-ISK from salvaging other peoples' wrecks. Whether you salvage them with or without their permission is entirely up to you. There's a chat channel in-game that caters to new players looking for free salvage, but I'd be damned if I could remember it right now.

Eventually, long-term and dedicated players will have a second character (sometimes on their primary account, other times as a second account entirely) and will focus on a money-making activity such as Planetary Interaction, Factional Warfare, and Market Trading, but that's a bit out of your time just yet (the second account, that is: getting involved in those aspects of the game can be done from Day 1).

If you want to improve and reduce the risk of losing your ship, three major sources of info that I would recommend are the Piloting in Practice section of Failheap Challenge's forum, the Tracking and Spiraling video by Agony Unleashed, and the recorded classes from EvE University.

If you're just looking for information, check out EvE University's wiki. They have a wealth of information that is difficult to rival in any other publicly-accessible site.


Honestly, this is one of EvE's strongest aspects.