EVE New Citizens Q&A

After awhile of playing EVE i started to question wether it was possible or not to compete with veteran EVE players that have accumulated millions of SP. Can we?

This seems to be the only problem I'm having with the game, having to deal with the fact that regardless of how many hours of hard work I may put into a day at this point, the only reward will be minor ISK (because of having the lack of skills) and having nothing to spend it on. Is this a time game?
With EVE not having a levelling system this seems reasonable, but PvP against those with the SP seem to be the ones ontop.
My corp has been extremely helpful and I'm quite amazed by their kindness of helping a new player, this is quite rare from other MMOs I've played. My mass QnA bombardments on them have made me stay by knowing whats to come, and what isn't. I'm very excited for the future of my career in EVE yet disapointed in the SP time. Allthough I do understand why it's like this.

You CAN catch up (sorta)

You'll probably never catch up in raw SP but you sure as hell can catch up in specific areas. This is cause every skill tops out at level 5. As soon as you train a level 5 skill you now match everyone else in the history of EVE that trained that skill too.

There is all the concept of "player skill". This is the magical thing that shows it self whenever some noob comes over with $1000 in PLEX, buys himself a character off the char bazar and then guys a T2 battleship and gets his ass handed to him on the first day. "Player Skill" is the thing that no amount of SP will help with so you can gain an advantage by just going out there and doing it. Learn the tactics and the tricks like dropping safespots mid warp that you can double back on to avoid getting caught on a celestial or baiting someone into aggression so that they cant dock or jump. Knowing how to fit your ship fits into this category as well.

If you're really good with making ISK you can close the gap a bit by using faction/deadspace/officer modules and you can train faster with implants (a full set of +5 attribute implants will run about 500 mill)

Other than "meh, can't fly that T2/T3 ship yet" the drawback to having low SP is much smaller than people think (or use as an excuse to not get involved).

EVE is about WHAT you know and WHO you know. Understanding game mechanics, having experience (by having tried before and failed) and possibly having the right type of friends (the ones that get **** done) is much much MUCH more important than something as silly as SP. You have to realise that most people, and thus most EVE players, are non-effort idiots resulting in them never really becoming any good at stuff. Their only solution to problems is more people, more wallet and bigger ships but that doesn't necessarily work in EVE.

If you're willing (and capable) of putting in effort to learn and are willing to actually DO stuff, TRY things (and quite possible fail the first few times) and thus gain invaluable experience you will be a better player than the vast majority. This goes for pvp combat, market transactions, not getting ganked and everything else. All you have to do is stand out amongst the sea of mediocrity and you'll do more than fine in EVE regardless of you SP. By having that attitude you'll soon get picked up by proper corps (not the zombie "we do whatever" kind) and you'll be introduced to new types of gameplay, more elaborate and vastly more interesting than what the majority does, even though they might have 4 times your SP.

Back when I started playing in 2005 I was dumb as a brick and just as ****** as every other newbie, I asked around what would be doable on lowish SP that's helpful to a fleet in a tactical way and I learned about covops frigates. I trained for those (took like 2 months back then) and started to learn about probing, then I found myself a small pirate corp who could use a scout and took it from there. Not long after I was in 0.0 alliances and was "the scout", something most ppl think is only for half-afk alts but if done properly is far more valuable and they picked up on that. A small little ship, still no clue on how pvp actually works and still low SP but this idiot contributed to massive 0.0 fleets doing their thing.

The guys around me had so much more SP and experience, much bigger ships and billions in their wallet. Yet they still needed someone to scout and help them with tactical stuff, which can easily be done by a newer player IF that player isn't stupid and put in the effort to learn about the game.

Don't let this "I'll never catch up in SP" hold you back, it's just not necessary.

Also, don't be tricked into listening to what the Beta players say is "totally awesome." You'll never get anything done if you change your skill training plan every time some vet tells you to. Pick a race of ships, pick a size class, pick a weapon type. SPECIALIZE.

You never get anywhere as the guy that does lots of stuff half-assed. Trust me, I know. I've spent 3 years just cramming skillpoints into random junk, and after 3 years I can fly lots of stuff. The trouble is, I can't fly any of it well. Also, I (the person behind the keyboard) am not familiar enough with flying anything to really be good at it.

Don't do what I did.

Oh, and stay away from Mining...

You shouldn't worry too much about SP totals; it will seem very daunting at first, but the big numers are far less impressive. Lets use my character as an example:

I started playing EVE in 2008, and this far I have about 63 000 000 (63 million) skillpoints. Further, because Im fairly combat oriented, the vast majority (lets say about 60 million) are skills that are usable in combat.

I must be badass, atleast in theory? Right? Weeeeell.... Lets look at how many of those skillpoints I actually use when flying a decent ship. Lets say that Im going to get into a heavy missile fitted drake; a very flexible ship that can be used both in PvP and PvE.

19 million of my skillpoints are in spaceship command. This ofcourse lets me use a very wide array of different ships, but the fact is, most of those skills wont give me any bonus whatsoever when flying a ship type that doesn't use them. The drake gets its bonuses from my Battlecruiser skill, which I have at lvl 5 (roughly 1,5 million SP). This is the ONLY ship command skill that will give me a bonus to the drake, so when Im flying that particular ship, Im getting absolutely nothing out of 17,5 million SP.

The drake uses missles, and no turrets. I have roughly 12 million skillpoints in the use of turrets. Although I do get the benefit of my weapon upgrade skills, which consist of about 2 million skillpoints. Still, when flying the drake, Im seeing absolutely NO benefit from another 10 mil SP.

Of the 6 mil SP I have in drones, I will make use of maybe half those in the drake, because it cant make use of most larger drone types. That's another 3 mil SP "wasted" for this ship. And even though the drake is a missile ship, Im not using the full 5,8 million skillpoints I have in missiles. I use maybe 4 million of my skillpoints in missiles for this particular ship.

In the end, every ship I can fly has a calculation like this. Depending on the type it might vary some, but very few ships will make use of more than half my skillpoints. You can "catch up" to me and any other veteran player in many ship types.

And dont forget the flip side of EVEs character system: you can play with the veterans from day one! In most mmorpgs, if you want to play with the veterans, you have to first spend weeks or months grinding levels, then spend weeks getting the basic gear, and THEN maybe you can be useful to your guildmates. In EVE, you can join in high level PvP with less than one million skillpoints, and make a useful contribution!

Think of the opportunities this system offers you, instead of worrying about the limitations. And remember; the only real advantage high SP players will have is that they can use different kinds of ships. So make sure those old bastards dont get a chance to dock up and switch ships, and their only advantage is gone!

As has been said a million times. There only so many SP you can have in any ship type or gun. A 5 year vet can have no more SP in say frigs than a newb who has concentrated there.

It would take less than 2 weeks to get frigate V and small projectile V.

Now a new guy may not have Advanced Planetology or some other out of the way skill. But to say you can never can catch up is your problem not the game's.

seriously, GTFO.

OP -- don't listen to this guy.

give me a beta and ill do the same, is that what your there for?

As others mentioned you should not worry about SP and compare your self to other players SP. Take my self as an example. I have over 50 mill SP but get me in the right situation and you could kick my ass in a t1 frig.
And not just because you might be better at some aspects then i am. For PVP in eve its less about skill points and ships and more about luck and knowing what your doing.

But to give you an example on how low sp players are very valuable. A low sp player can still have skills to fit a webber and a scrambler. You go out with some people and you find a target and YOU pin the target in place making sure he cant escape. Just like that YOUR the reason that the higher sp players could use their dps to take down the target.

Now for catching up. As someone said you cant catch up in SP numbers. It simply isent possible. But if you look at a ship and you go for that ship and stay on that course you can catch up to a person in that skill set and be equal to a person with the same ship/fitting even if they have 100 mill sp against your 5 as an example.

Just avoid doing something halfway. See it trough to the end even if it can be frustrating to sit and wait and knowing you wont be able to get a new shiny toy

Good luck and welcome to EVE

I read in another thread that the average duration of a subscription on EVE is 6 months.

Play longer than that and you're already ahead of the curve.