EVE New Citizens Q&A

First I should mention that I am brand new to Eve(2 days in). I have yet to learn all the acronyms and vocab in this game, so take it easy on me in any responses. With that being said I would simply like to receive some guidance on mapping my attributes, and what skills to focus on early. I have a feeling that if I go wading into this game blindly I will waste more time than necessary waiting on skill bars and leveling useless skills. Eventually I would like to play a healer/support role, but also be able to survive in PVE. So if anyone can advise me on what skills and attributes to give priority I will greatly appreciate it.

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. I'll take a look at the article you posted and stick with frigates until I get the hang of things.

Aside from the bonus ones, you only get one remap per year, so it's best to have a long term plan before messing with them. You will also be training a wide variety of skills when you are new, testing the waters and finding your interests, so the default mapping should be just fine.

Once you're ready to stick to a long term plan, download EVEMON. It's a third party program that allows you to make a skill plan and will even calculate the optimal remap for your plan.

I'm pretty sure you can get an API while on a trial membership, and that's all you need for EVEMon.

agreed, leave your attributes alone for now.

Take a look at http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Gallente_Basic_Ship_and_Skill_Guide it will give you a good overview of their ships. Also click on the links to the other racial guides to see what they offer.

It has been said a few times already, but I think it doesn't hurt to say it again: Unless you absolutely know what you are doing you shouldn't use a remap now, because it's more than likely that it would be wasted.

As a new player you need to train many different skills which require different attributes. On first glance it might seem as if some of the more interesting skills are to be found in the Gunnery, Missiles and Spaceship Command categories, which all require the same attributes. But if you look closer you'll learn that especially as a beginner you absolutely need to train several very important skills from support categories like Armor, Engineering or Shields. If you intend to do PvE you should also check the Social skills which are Charisma based ... the one attribute that you will set to the lowest possible value when you do your first remap.

Once you have the support skills that are absolutely needed (especially fitting skills, skills that allow you to use T2 armor/shields and some others) which will take at least half a year, probably longer, it might be time for a remap.

What you want to train will determine how you should set your attributes. You can use EVEMon to help you with that.
What you want to do will determine what you should train. You should ask the people you play with about that.

You mentioned being interested in flying logistics (a healer). Unless you participate in fleet combat this would be mostly useless. However, as part for example of a nullsec alliance you'll always find a fleet... that is IF you can fly the logistics ship required. Most alliances use fleet doctrines which require you to fly specific ships. The Scimitar is probably the most used logi ship,followed by the Guardian on 2nd place, Oneiros on 3rd and Basilisk on 4th.

And while I'm at it, here's my suggestion what to train for in case you decide to join nullsec business. It's only a rough outline and you should talk to your corp mates about training priorities.

Start with frigates.
You'll want to fly Interceptors asap - these will make it much easier to move through null and ceptor roams can be a lot of fun. Crow and Malediction (with light missiles) are solid choices here.
Covops should be your 2nd priority imho. Stealth bombers are fielded frequently and don't require that many skills. The Purifier is my personal favorite because of the fitting options.
Some alliances field Assault Frigate fleets (for example Harpy fleet). In that case AF might be your 3rd priority.

What's almost always needed is an interdictor. I'd say the Sabre is most popular here. Plus the dictor is also useful in small fleets and even solo. This makes it a solid choice to be the next ship to train for on your list.

Cruisers are next. Training towards a Scimitar (or a Guardian - depends on what your alliance uses the most) is a good choice now. After that you should train for Heavy Assault Cruisers (HAC). Ishtars are the most used HACs atm (they need good drone skills and despite a coming nerf they might see further nerfs in the future). Cerberus and Zealots are popular, too. (Eventually you'll want to train all racial cruisers to V, but probably not before training into a carrier).

Skip battlecruisers except for what is needed to get to battleships. In current nullsec doctrines you won't see many battlecruisers (although this might change if CCP makes them better again).

You'll need some ranks in Amarr Battleship on your way to an Archon. So this might be next. Besides this, the Apocalypse is the most used battleship in nullsec atm, if I'm not mistaken (but again: ask your corp mates). Training for a battleship doctrine is usually not as important as training for a carrier and/or the HAC doctrines, imho.

After being able to fly frigates, ideally a dictor, logi and maybe one or two types of HAC you should train into a carrier asap. A Carrier most definitely should not be last on your list of ships to train for. You'll need one to be able to move your stuff yourself, when your alliance redeploys. Once you can move your stuff, you should focus on being able to field Triage next and Slowcat last (Triage and Slowcat are specific ship fittings - by the time you're ready to train for a carrier you'll know about it). Atm the Archon is the best carrier (for PvP).

Hope this helps.

Why intelligence?