Skill Discussions

Every once in a while I get EVEmails from players asking for advice off-the-record. I've always answered these mails to the best of my ability, but this time I thought it would be fun, and more productive, if I stripped the player's identity from the message and posted it for more players to weigh in.

A Dear Abby column, of EVE sorts.

The Skillsheet

The evemail

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Dear Anon,

I like that you understand sacrifice by way of delayed gratification, and you'll be happy to know remaps and the attribute system are being considered for adjustment. The latest thread was closed by ISD after it became repetitive, but here it is.

There are some painful bits, where I train skills that are out of attribute. They're usually emergency level 1 skills, or a level IV or V prerequisite to enable an emergency skill level 1. However. I don't find myself doing a lot of emergency training because most of my pilots are near-perfect in at least one ship. I use those right now, and my skill queue is for other ships in the future.

So basically, most of my skillqueues are long-haul level Vs, with a strict adherence to attributes. I tend to flop between Intel/Mem and Per/Will one year at a time.

If my advice is to be congruent with my own skill queue strategy, it would be: Train into ONE primary ship, so that you can be happy while sitting through min-maxed skills for a year at a time.

I do this in phases.

This character is an example of Phase 1 (50m SP). She has all supports to V, plus a near-perfect Falcon, and a great Basilisk. Everything else I want is training to IV. She'll spend her time in Falcons or Basilisks in the meantime.

Phase 2 (60m SP) is switching to Drones and training them all to V. After this phase I will consider her Basilisk "perfect."

Phase 3 (75m SP) is flipping to Per/Will and doing Spaceship Command and Gunneries to Spec IV.

Phase 4 (90m SP) is remapping back to Intel/Mem and training the level V skills from phase 1. My skillsheet is an example of a character in Phase 4.

Phase 5 (110m SP) is remapping back to Per/Will and training all gunneries to V

Phase 6 (140m SP) is Willpower / Perception to train all T2 ship skills to V

Phase 7 and 8 (160m SP) are Intel/Mem or Per/Will to train anything subcap not yet trained to V. This character sheet (not mine) is an example of a character at the end of Phase 7 and 8.

If you have one remap to burn, I would suggest using it on Leadership or Drones, if you can't hold out the rest of the 12 months after training them. I'm assuming you want to use the command ship for its leadership boosts at some point.

If you have anything you'd like to add, or if you want to send me your proposed skill list, EVEmail them to me and I'll add them to this thread.

I like how you have set phases.

Phase 7-8 is a bit of a pain as by that stage you will run out of full year attribute plans to follow. This is one more reason why the suggested removal of attributes will come in handly for all players regadless of SP.

This is the queue of another character in phase 4. Support character. Spaceship Command and Gunnery / Missiles have been skipped.

What you basically have are Intel / Mem skills that will never have to be revisited. In other words, best get everything in now, lest you end up with an awkward out-of-attribute train later on.

It depends on how much of a train you can stomach now, compared to leaving the Vs for later on. 7 and 8 can easily become awkward.

Character is currently at 110 Million SP. After this year of Intel/Mem she'll have nearly two years of Per/Will to go, but that is due to her life as a support character. DPS was never a priority so it will be added last.

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This is a completionist-type of skill plan, and it's mostly disconnected from day-to-day gameplay. In fact I don't plan to fly most of the ships in the game, as far as I can tell. But training this way is good for the lulls in gameplay where nothing changes.

Of course, interrupt long-term plans for something you'd like to fly soon.

I have another character training all target painting skills to V, which is disproportionate for a character with fewer than 50 million SP. But to get her in a "perfect" ship that I'm happy with, I'm rushing the target painting.