EVE New Citizens Q&A

What exactly do the attributes do? I know perception aids in skill training time, but what about the rest?

Thank you :)

As said attributes only affect your training times. I'm sure the following is mentioned somewhere in the links provided, but it's still worth highlighting. While every skill gains it's speed from 2 attributes, it's the primary attribute that is the important one to focus on. You get your primary attribute value directly added to training speed(SP/minute), but the secondary attribute gets divided by two before it's added, so every primary attribute point is much more valuable in determining the training speed of the skill.

Nobody has quite addressed the OP original question. The belief that only Perception is relevant to skill training. This is not the case it varies between skills and each skill has a Primary and a Secondary attribute, with the Secondary having half the effect of the Primary.

There are two main ways of increasing your training speed via increasing your attributes (not counting the Celebral Accelerator). Implants and Attribute remaps.

1. Implants: You buy them for isk or loyalty points and plug them into your head. There are 10 implants slots, the first 5 affect the attributes, the latter five affect specific skills of your choosing. The downside is that they are a valuable commodity and are destroyed if you are podded. Also you have to train the skill Cybernetics before you can use them, with better implants requiring higher levels of this skill.

2. Attribute remaps: You get two remaps at the start of the game, then a new one every 12 months after using the last one up. IT IS VITAL YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT A REMAP. Basically you get a fixed base level of attribute points, which I think is 17 in every attribute, then 14 floating points that you can remap. Initially these are mapped eveningly - 3 across each attribute except Charisma which only has 2. You may only put 10 of these floating point into any one attribute, thus the most common remap is one where you place 10 in the expected Primary attribute and 4 in the Secondary attribute of the most common set of skills that you intend to train for the next year.

- Thus it is vital you plan ahead what you want to train before using your remaps. Thankfully, this is made easier by the fact that a significant amount of skills fall into two camps - Intelligence/Memory and Perception/Willpower. The former pairing is used for Electronics, Engineering and Mechanic (the support skills) plus is good for Industry. The latter is used for Gunnery, Missiles and Spaceship Command (the fighting skills).

- Therefore most players have a rather simple choice to make at the beginning, whether to train the Support Skills or the Fighting Skills first? Which ever one you choice, train a few basic skills in the other set before you gimp them with the first remap.

Note:
a. A remap doesn't stop you training particular skills just optimises particular ones at the expense of others.
b. If you don't use a remap you don't get a new one after 12 months. The new remap timer only start after number of remaps = 0. Wait 3 years to use your second remap and you will still have to wait another 12 months before you get a new one.
c. Specialised characters such as Starbase Defence, Drone users, Trading Alts, Industrialists, would benefit from different mappings than the most commons ones listed above.
d. Different people will emphasis different pairing. If you can't decide which way to go, wait until you are sure. A broad catch all remapping is 7 each in Perception and Intelligence, but this is often utilised by much more experienced pilots to round things off once the main things have been done.