EVE New Citizens Q&A

And the forums ate my post for some reason so I'll give you the summary of it.
1. No, called farmers
2. Algos, drones, day 1
3. yes
4. FW in itself is PvE
5. No
6. Ts3, mumble

And that's the short version of what I was writing when the forums ate my post for some bloody reason.

At its core taking a system involves sitting your ship inside an FW complex (plex and not be compared to PLEX which is the 30 day game time so plex !=PLEX) for 10/15/20 minutes while killing a respawning NPC every 2 minutes and praying that some hostile player doesn't come in while you're killing the rat. Sure you can get PVP this way but it's not guaranteed that someone will evict you from your plex.

That's how you bump the occupation meter you see in FW space by 0.7% per completed plex. Take note you need 100% contest rate to shoot the ihub to flip the system to your faction.

Of course you can do the opposite and just roam around FW space and invade other people's plexes and kill them. This would entail not earning as much LP as the former but it sure as hell beats the mind numbing LP grind. PS you get LP for killing enemy militia.

Ironically the best way to get LP is doing the Fw L4 missions.

1)
I have heard of the existence of role-playing corps, but don't have any names for you. So someone else will have to answer that. But not everyone switches factions. Corporations actually tend to stick with their chosen faction, farmers who switch are most often in the NPC FW corp.

2)
Destroyers
You might want to rethink the destroyer specialization. Destroyers aren't used all that often in PvP, outside of some specialized tasks. They are glass canons. Their main problem is that anything they can beat, they cannot catch. While they excel at killing frigates, said frigates are faster than them and can usually just flee. Cruisers, OTOH, will mob the floor with destroyers, so you should not engage them. Which is why frigate and cruisers are both more popular than destroyers. But even though rare, sometimes destroyers are used, especially in FW, due to small plexes not allowing cruisers.

At what point should I start seriously looking for a Faction Warfare corporation to join?
As soon as you can fit a MWD and a Warp Disruptor. Everyone loves another tackle, so get a fast frigate (e.g. Atron), slap on those plus a bit of tank and get useful. For skills, you should talk with your corp - depending on what ships they usually fly they should be able to guide you. (This will also be a good test - if they cannot guide you, don't join them.)

3)
You definitely don't have to mine in EVE, it's even relatively poor income.

4)
You may be able to sustain yourself just with FW PvP income - you get a little bit of LP from killing other players, plus you can loot them. Depending on your win-loss ratio this might be enough. However the more lucrative parts of FW are PvE - there are FW missions and you can run "plexes", which means orbiting an object in space ("button") for a couple of minutes. I don't find them that horrible because they are all in low-sec and you always have the lurking danger of other players.

There is also the possibility to use Planetary Interaction to make some ISK almost completely passively - it should be enough to pay for frigates. But it requires some research into what pays well, which you may or may not find fun.

Some companies do make ISK with corp assets (e.g. moon income, renting, POCOs, ...) and reimburse all ship losses. But that's more common with null-sec entities than FW corps.

Finally, selling a PLEX should buy you some 100-200 frigates or 50-100 cruisers. By selling 1-3 PLEX a year you'll have enough ISK to sustain a normal PvP habit.

5)
At first, you should do PvP in an empty clone (i.e. no implants). But Cybernetics 1 is still a good idea, as it allows you to use +3 learning implants and you can use jump clones to only use the implants when you aren't playing for a few days.

However, in low-sec (and high-sec), you should almost always be able to flee with your pod intact once you get the hang of it. (Unless you get unlucky with lag.) So, implants can give you a huge additional edge. But you should only worry about that later: implants can be horrible expensive and at first you will lose your pod due to beginner mistakes. Note: a in null-sec, pods are not safe and almost only used by capital pilots. (If your ships is worth several billion ISK, your pod might as well.)

6)
I've heard rumors of some people using the in-game voice chat, but every fleet and corp I've ever been involved with used a third party program. Teamspeak is the most common one, but Mumble and Ventrilo still get their uses as well.

FW can be fun PVP if you find an active FW corp. I've seen FW systems with dozens of kills an hour.

1.) Don't know about Gallente FW RP'ers. I think Ushra Khan is an amarr FW RP group though.

2.) Training up a catalyst is very quick (blasters + gallente destroyer). Training up an algos is a bit longer (need drone skills). It is also a very good idea to train EWAR and support skills (shield, armor, navigation, and engineering skills).

3.) If you are very good at PvP, you can fund your ships via PvP. Luckily, many of the PvE and PvP is somewhat combined for FW as you capture plexes, earn FW LP, which can be converted to ISK. If you take the time to do FW Missions (PvE), they can be extremely profitable / hr. Some people just buy a plex to pay for their ingame stuff so they never have to PvE, which is perfectly fine too. $15/hr is 2 hrs at a ****** job, or less than 1 hour at a decent one. You rarely make that much isk/hr in game. And for the love of god, don't mine for isk... that's usually atrocious income.

4.) PvE comes in different forms in EvE. You need a form of income to resupply your PvP ships. This could be running scams, manufacturing items, incursions, missions, mining, market PvP, ransoming people, suicide ganking people, stealing from corp mates, and more. Find something that suites your tastes, so it isn't tedious.

5.) You should probably aim to get some attribute implants, which increase your training rate. For PvP, there are several implants that help.... extra damage, improved damage application, extra HP, extra speed, and more. They come in ranges, usually from a 1-6% boost. Use what you can afford to replace. When just learning, I'd stick to 1, 2, or 3% implants, which will still be expensive for you to replace when you die.

6.) Most serious PvP oriented corps use Ventrillo, Teamspeak 3, or Mumble. Nobody uses the ingame voice service.

Thanks a ton for the replies everybody! I'll take all the info about skill training priorities and implants to heart for sure- Though I am disappointed to hear that Destroyers aren't quite as good as I'd hoped they might be. I've really loved the look of the Algos ever since I saw the diagram and art of it in EVE Source.

I'm definitely going to stick to my plan of being a Gallente FW loyalist, both for the PVP and PVE aspects though; I think there might be some fun for me in sticking up for my empire of choice long-term. Will probably wind up flying smaller frigates and their T2 versions for the foreseeable future so I don't have to worry so much about the costs of keeping myself supplied with ships.




This group sounds exactly like what I was hoping to find. I'll have to see what the minimum requirements are to join! Thanks!

- FW is no different from Battlegrounds in "that other MMO which shall not be named" where in the end you get rewards for your actions, so in a way it makes it possible to make money with a form of PVP. Personally I'm not a fan of it because it's contrived and feels fake to me, but that's just my opinion.

- destroyers are a bit binary in that they are hard counters to X but are hard countered by Y so whether they are good or not depends if you're fighting X or Y.

- there certainly are ways to make cash with PVP, this mostly involves shooting&looting (ganking, wardecs, mission busting, even can flipping still), ransoms/extortions or infiltration&stealing.

So yes, if you want to you can make it work with a minimum of PVE.

Quick note about FW:

Off Grid Boosters are ubiquitously used throughout the FW zones. If there is one broken, overpowered, and completely imbalancing mechanic in EvE, Warfare links from Off Grid Boosters is that mechanic. Sadly, you usually need to access to your own Warfare links to even the playing field. If you find you are being completely overwhelmed by your opponents, this is likely the reason.