EVE New Citizens Q&A

I've played EVE before, but never for more than a few days before I quit. This time, I got the free Venture ship and started mining, and I'm able to make ~1.5-2million isk/hour from that on just veldspar/scordite starting from nothing, which is significantly more than I could make last time I played. My problem now though, is that as far as I can tell, the only ships better than this are the mining barges and exhumers, which I could afford in a day or bit more than a week respectively if I played a lot, but I have to wait weeks or months to learn the skills to use them?

Am I missing something here? I'd really like to keep playing the game but from what I can tell it's all just waiting for skills to train, at least as a miner, which is what I'm most interested in doing.

"What is there to do in this game all day?"

Interact with other players as soon as possible. Socialize and attempt to find a group of players you get along with.
Typically, - mining is a false promise. There is some early isk, but at a certain point for most (not all), the isk income slows down. Compared to other forms of isk generation.

ISK, ingame currency, - can be accrued in space via various forms of PVE (player vs. environment) combat with other npc's. The isk gain from this kind of PVE generally and gradually scales far in excess of typical mining activities, despite the relatively easy, early income gained via mining. Note: odds are you'll find mining easy isk early on, PVE combat with NPC's will be lack lustre and initially go nowhere fast.

Note however. Eve is ~not~ a Questy/PVE centric game with a second 'pvp' server somewhere else.

You share a sandbox with other people who enjoy playing the villain, making your life miserable and generally doing harm unto others for fun! Be this in space or in various social interactions as they relate to the game. Corp thefts, espionage and various forms of trickery!

Simultaneously within this same harsh world you should try to carefully find a group of good friends you get along with, enjoy shooting at other players with & perhaps as well, NPC's with which to mutually earn ISK, Eve's currency.

You may, once you've earned some isk, if you enjoy financial affairs, spread sheets, and the art of trade, take to the market buying various items at low prices and selling high within various stations.

Put another way, if you ever wonder what else there is to do in eve, refer to this:

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/

The above link, will equally outline the degree to which i'm over simplifying things as much as missing the vast expanse of other pursuits within eve that might keep you occupied throughout a play session.

Everything that happens to you in EVE, good or bad, is because of something you did or didn't do.

That includes boredom.

In EVE, content is created by players. You can either create your own content, or look around for it. It is much easier to both create content and find it with the help of friends.

Find an active corp with people you like. If you don't like that corp, then find another. There are many good corps in EVE (and sadly many bad ones too).

How to find the corp that is right for you - Version 3.0

Frustrated with corps, finding right one for me?

Interaction with others, in every way possible. It's an MMO sandbox and while you CAN of course stick to yourself and do solo PVE stuff you're not really experiencing much of EVE at all. So if you start asking yourself "wtf am I doing" then the answer should probably "stop trying to play solo, find ways to interact with others by working with them or against them.".

if this weren't the Q&A forum I'd say that there's spouting drivel across the forums as a means to waste time, but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

I also suggest interacting with other people. I was a lonely carebear when I started off, too scared to head into lowsec, but I met other people and it was good.

Uhm, yes.

What you are missing is....that you can do what ever you want.



Don't like mining...don't mine - loads of rookies fall for the trap that they MUST mine. Sure as a new player, mining vs a level 1 mission, mining pays better. Though with mining you quickly cap on income while missions grow a bit longer.

Also, you do not have to do missions either, there are many many many ways to gain ISK in your wallet. Hell, if you are creative, you might even find an entire new way to do it...



So in the end...1 thing must be done while playing EVE, have fun. As long as you can tick the box "Did I have fun playing" with a big yes after a game session, you played EVE the right way. If not, find another thing to do in EVE that will make you tick that box.



p.s. If you are already thinking those are longs waits...then you will not be cut out for EVE anyway.

Mining is one of the least "active" activities in EVE (and generally also one of the least paying ones), hell....watching grass grow or paint dry is more exciting.

Okay... I can see a bit of a perception/viewpoint problem. Here is my usual skillpoint spiel.


How does the skillpoint system work?

- All skills cap at level 5. No matter how many years you have played the game, you cannot exceed that limit. And lower tier skills (ex. [Racial] Frigate) are very quick to train relative to more advanced skills.


- (*this is the important one*) Only a limited number of skills affect any one ship, module, weapon system, and specialty at any given time.

Ex1: You are a newbie facing someone with about 20 million SP... but how much of that overall SP is actually combat related? He/she could be a HUGE industrial player with limited combat skills.
Ex2: A veteran player has just trained up the skill Large Hybrid Turret to level 5. That skill in no way affects the skill Small Hybrid Turret and thus the veteran will be no better or worse than before at the frigate level.


- Getting a skill from level 4 to level 5 only adds on an extra 2% here, 5% there (exceptions apply). If you simply train up all the skills within a specialty to level 4 (which takes ~20% of the amount of time it takes to get those skills to level 5), you will find yourself flying at about **80 to 90%** of the effectiveness of a multi-year veteran with those same skills in that specific specialty at level 5.


- Getting a skill to level 5 is supposed to be a painful train. Many players (yes, even veteran ones) opt to avoid doing it and instead train up other skills to level 4 (again, because it's faster).

Example: I personally have the T2 weapon specializations at level 4. That puts me at a 2% disadvantage in damage against someone who has the same skill(s) at level 5 (assuming we are both using the same ship with the same fit)


- Ships and weapons have been balanced against one another.

Example: A battleship can potentially instapop a frigate... but the frigate can fly very fast, making it difficult for the battleship's weapons to track, especially at very close range... then again, the battleship can deploy drones to deal with the frigate... and the frigate can shoot the drones down... however the battleship might have a Large Energy Neutralizer fitted to nuke the frigate's capacitor power every 24 seconds... in which case the frigate could use a Small Nosferatu that sucks out capacitor from the battleship every 3 seconds... etc. etc.


- High tech equipment (ex. T2, Faction, Officer, etc) will not give a player "I WIN" abilities. It simply gives a player a linear edge at an exponentially higher cost.

Ex1: A basic T1 Adaptive Armor Plating gives ~10% omni-resistance to damage for only a 100 thousand ISK... a T2 Adaptive Armor Plating gives ~15% omni resistance to damage for 1 million ISK... a "deadpsace" Adaptive Armor Plating gives ~19% omni resistance to damage for 15 to 20 million ISK.

Ex2: A group of three or four T1-fit frigates that cost about 500 thousand to 1 million ISK CAN kill a faction frigate worth about 20 to 100 million ISK... provided they are using the right mods in the right configuration and know what they are doing.
https://zkillboard.com/kill/39793460/ (Condors caught me and ground me down... I only had time to kill one of them)
https://zkillboard.com/kill/38239838/ (all the Breechers in this KM were T1 fit... I could only kill two of them before being nuked)


What does this all mean?

- Having more skillpoints is not the "end all, be all" point of the game and there is more to most activities than "get enough skillpoints, open window, click, press F1- F9."
There are a plethora of factors that can decide success or failure and many of them are purely abstract in nature (see: planning, meta-gaming, friends, short-term allies, making deals, psychological warfare, etc).


- part of the idea behind the current SP system is that you can't "powergrind" to success. You MUST learn how to utilize what you have first... which requires you to use your head and be creative.
This helps you later on when you can finally use "better" ships/equipment... because you have hopefully familiarized yourself with the underlying mechanics that "cheaper" ships/equipment share with them.
Example: you may not be able to pilot that sexy Interceptor right away... but that doesn't mean you can't slap together a super fast frigate that does something similar.


- once you have your "universal" core and support skills near or at maximum (which takes about 2 or 3 months of mostly focused training) the gap between you and an older player begins to narrow quite significantly. You can find these skills in the "Engineering" section of your character skillsheet.


- Just because you are limited in what you can do (as a newbie) it does not mean that your contribution to a team is meaningless and/or without weight.
Being a "tackler" or cheapo Ewar-support in PvP might indeed be suicide if you have limited skills and knowledge... but even half-success can mean the difference between catching or losing a target... everyone escaping a bad situation or dying in a fire.
Being a hauler for a mining operation is a thankless and low-skill job... but it allows the group to stay out longer and mine faster without having to be concerned about "running out of storage" mid-operation.

Here we go a short list:

What is there to do all day in eve?

mine
build
trade
haul
missions
exploration
wormholes
make a corp
recruit for corp
run a corp
run an alliance
diplomacy
salvage
pirate
refine
sight see
make friends
scam
steal
lie
infultate a corp with intent to do bad
join a corp with intent to do good
bounty hunt
run plantary interactions
run incrusrions
run DED/COSMOS sites
gas mine
ice mine
station spin

you get the idea

But you should sit cloaked in a bomber.. and then when they're like "he's afk" pop out and blow them orbit low!

Start on youtube