EVE New Citizens Q&A

Just got the game 2 days ago I don't know if the skills I'm planning on training are right or not or if I'm doing anything right but this is a sandbox so I guess there are no "rules" to follow. I was wondering if I could join someones corp I want to get into pvp in this game and would love some tips for skills to train etc and people to talk to thanks :)

This game has A LOT of skills. Instead of skills giving you abilities like in other MMO's, each skill in this game gives you 5% bonus to some stat, and basically you accumulate the bonuses to all these little stats until you become 2x 3x more effective than now. That's how the game is designed; combat pilots typically have 160+ different skills trained.

You can group skills as follows:

- Ship Skills (Spaceship Command group in the Market interface). These unlock new ships for you. You want to start small and build up.

- Weapon Skills (Gunnery, Missiles, Drones). Various ships use different weapons; you need to train the skills for the weapons that correspond to the ships you've picked.

- Support Skills (Armor, Shields, Targeting, Navigation, etc.). Lots of skills to train in this category; they make all your ships fly better.

- Non-Combat Skills - things like industry, trade, corporation stuff, you'll probably train some of these because it's a game and there's loot to sell and income to be made somehow.

In any case, for PVP, obviously you need maximum damage and maximum defenses, to be competitive with the veterans. So, as advised above, that means training for Tech 2 weapons and Tech 2 modules (armor, shields, etc.). Tech 2 modules is pretty easy, as the devs have lowered the requirements for these modules to require various Support Skills trained to level 3, so that's not too bad.

Tech 2 weapons, however, have higher prerequisites, so that means you stick with a ship and its weapons for a bit as you train to Tech 2 weapons for it.

If you can't use Tech 2 items and weapons right now, don't despair, you can still PVP. If you click the info ( i ) button on Tech 1 weapons and modules, and look at the Variations tab, you'll see improved versions (we call them "meta versions") that drop as loot and approach Tech 2 levels in terms of stats. So fit those in your ship and go have fun.

PVP in this game is complex strategy, some of it can only be learned by doing. You can definitely ask questions here and we'll try to answer them, but you should also definitely try to join a PVP corp, maybe a faction warfare corp or mercs or low/nullsec/wormhole. Because bringing a couple friends in T1 ships is often better than trying to solo with a T2 ship.

Thank you very much there is so much to know about this game hopefully if I join a corp I can learn a lot more thanks for the post! :)

I'm doing most of the skills you've listed to V I haven't done anything in drones, shields but I think I'll at least get everything in them to III thanks for the advise how do I go from T1 to T2? do I have to buy stuff from the market? thanks for your help! :)

My basic advice.
Only learn a skill to 5 if it unlocks a critical module or ship. If you are not ready for the ship or module, don't worry about the 5. For now work on getting all critical skills to 3.

To be competitive in pvp you don't need max skills, you do need to really know how quickly evaluate a win-lose situation, which means learning all the ships you are likely to encounter. You also need to concentrate on other player skills that are critical to controlling the encounter to your advantage.

And ewar.

A 15,000 module can trash whatever difference the older player brings to the table strictly in terms of skill points, so the other guy does 50% more damage than you, that doesn't matter if he can't hit you! A lot of older players are a bunch of munchkirns. Concentrate on counter munchkin fits.

Not always. Cap rechargers sure, but T2 hardeners take a level 5.


Once you start flying your cruiser you'll definitely want drones and a stasis web. Bigger guns have trouble hitting small ships. Drones are how big ships usually deal with small ones. In a cruiser you're still close enough to frigate size that you can still hit them relatively well if you web them, but once you start flying stuff with large guns you can just forget about shooting anything frigate/dessy sized that gets close to you.

The skills are hyperlinked to the modules and ships, and viceversa. So if you click the info ( i ) button in-game on a gun such as 125mm Railgun II and look at the Requirements tab, you'll see the skills you need to use that particular tech 2 gun. Same for skills, if you open your character sheet and click the info ( i ) button on a skill, you should see a Required For tab that lists the modules (tech 1 and tech 2) that the skill affects or unlocks.

As soon as you have the skills trained to the required levels, you can buy and use those tech 2 modules or ships that the skills unlock.

EDIT: Whatever skills you don't have listed in your character sheet you'll have to buy from the market, and then right-click the skillbook that you get and inject it in your head. Then you can add the skill to the training queue. The market also functions as a gear encyclopedia; you just open up the market and search for what you want, then instead of buying you can just look at the info ( i ) spec sheets, and / or click the magnifying glass to preview the looks (of ships and clothing).

Skill books are just about the only thing that is sold by NPCs (some skills are sold by players), everything else is either manufactured by players, or looted / gathered and resold by players. So prices vary; be careful when you buy expensive stuff.