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Short-term v long-term goals.

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Huiri Shiyurida
#1 - 2016-01-22 18:02:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Huiri Shiyurida
Hi. Old 2011 player with very little experience, back to try again. The game looks very different but feels much the same, as much as I can remember in a few days' trial playing. Except exploration, which I quite enjoy by my early estimation.

So... I know that the social aspect of the game is pretty crucial, as many players keep telling me. I'm working on that, trying to find chat channels, guides, and use other player resources. I suppose I would call 'finding like-minded pilots' a short-term goal.

In terms of gameplay, the short-term stuff is easy. Do all the tutorials. Do the epic arc. Pilot a Heron effectively, make some ISK. Get evemon, get a skillplan, and remap. The opportunities yielded some extra cash, which is handy for skillbooks, so thanks CCP.

The long-term stuff is a little hazier. Round out core and fitting skills. Unlock the Buzzard. Try alternate professions. Master the Heron and scanning techniques. Learn manual piloting tactics to avoid being caught. Learn how to map wormholes, and how to calculate position with d-scan. Figure out anomalies and combat sites, and skill into appropriate ships. Master the Buzzard. Visit Eve's landmarks. Write fanfiction from an informed perspective. Maybe one day, build a supply depot with others and play outfitter to some ruthless pod pilots.

Basically, I know 'train everything to 3' should be on my agenda, but it seems like setting goals is key for me to maintain interest. So... if you also have an idea of what I should do or am not doing in terms of prioritizing, the advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.
ISD Fractal
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#2 - 2016-01-22 18:36:06 UTC
Finding a corp to join is important as the social aspect of the game is what kept me playing back when I started. I'm not sure if that falls under the social aspect of your post as you didn't mention it explicitly.

I wouldn't remap right off the bat because your priorities might change the more you play, unless you're 100% sure you know what you're doing. You might find something that you want to do now is not something that you want to do in the future. It happened to me and it happens to many people. Also, for the first bit you'll be training skills from different categories, making a remap more difficult.

I think you're on the right track so far in terms of planning. I'd recommend experimenting in different play styles if you can (and give it a good shot before dumping it) to really help you find what you like and don't like in the game.

Have fun, try all the things, and remember that ships are just tools - don't get attached to them. You will lose ships and it doesn't matter. :)

ISD Fractal

Lieutenant

Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)

Interstellar Services Department
Ginnie
Doomheim
#3 - 2016-01-22 19:12:12 UTC
Personally, I wouldn't just train in everything. First, decide what you would like to do (i.e. missions, mining, industry, etc.), then review the EVE University website (e.g. Mining 101) to get an idea of the applicable skills. For the mining example, the applicable skills are about a third the way down the page.

If you want to run missions, explore, etc., then pick a ship (or type of ships) you want to fly and review the Mastery skills. Not all of the Mastery skills are necessary or critical really, but its a good guide for skills in general. You will see a lot of cross over between ships. For example, Amarr ships all list the armor skills and those are critical to have if you want to armor tank.

It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.
Memphis Baas
#4 - 2016-01-22 19:17:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Memphis Baas
Some people (kids, for example) can come up with involved, convoluted plots in their minds, and basically write an epic saga worthy of Oscars from just playing with a few lego blocks (EVE ships are a lot like legos). I can't do that; personally I need friends or a corp / guild to come up with goals and plans, which I'll happily follow and help accomplish.

Good corps will keep you busy and enjoying the game. They are hard to find, but this is why everyone here recommends joining a corp.

Your plans all involve mastering the various pieces. At the next (corp/alliance) level, EVE is about being either sneaky or blunt at conquering space, making a name for yourself, paying back those SOB's who destroyed your stuff last time, and making sure that big alliance over there gets killed because they're assholes and deserve it. Grandiose plans. Politics.

That's the stuff that makes the news; how an entire region was lost because someone didn't pay the bills and their enemies took the opportunity to attack, how someone clicked the wrong module and sent his titan, alone, into the middle of the enemy, and the biggest fight that happened because his friends tried to save his titan, how high-sec was held hostage by a group of organized pirates for 12 hours until CCP had to intervene and nerf everything hard, and so on.
Bobb Bobbington
Rattini Tribe
Minmatar Fleet Alliance
#5 - 2016-01-22 19:26:53 UTC
If you really enjoy exploration, good for you! Maybe you've found what you enjoy early. However, just keep in mind that if you do the same thing and only that thing, you'll probably get bored of it, and want to try new things. So it's generally not a good idea to super-specialize until you've tried a few different things.

Just some random advice, join a corp, although it seems you've already figured that out, but try pvp! It's very fun, and you WILL get attacked and lose ships in Eve no matter what you do, so learning pvp can be an invaluable tool even if you only plan on making isk.

This is a signature.

It has a 25m signature.

No it's not a cosmic signature.

Probably.

Btw my corp's recruiting.
Ginnie
Doomheim
#6 - 2016-01-22 19:55:03 UTC
Memphis Baas wrote:
Good corps will keep you busy and enjoying the game. They are hard to find, but this is why everyone here recommends joining a corp.


This is absolutely true. How do you go about finding these "good corps?" My main has been around since 2009 and in all of that time, I have found one player corp that was what I wanted. However, when I returned in October from a two year break, the corp had been dissolved.

The in-game recruitment channel appears to be full of very small corps scattered all over the place that really aren't very active. I've joined several of them and leave within a month because they may start off fairly active, but then quickly tapper off.

The recruitment forum here seems to be full of very picky corps. They are larger and active, this is true, but they want two the three hours of interviewing over Team Speak or whatever before inviting you to join them. I "interviewed" with one a while ago and they wanted a commitment of at least 4 to 6 hours per day...per day...wow. And their ad said they were "casual." Casual my a*.

All I want is a casual corp that won't demand the sun and the moon from me that is active when I'm online. You know a corp with something going on and something to do? Other than mining, watching paint dry in the captains quarters, or whatever...

It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.
Neuntausend
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2016-01-22 20:49:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Neuntausend
There's no blanket rule to follow when you want to find a good corp. I've found a few basic guidelines, though.

First off - forget about the ingame recruiting channel and corp finder. Most of the time, the CEOs and Recruiters spamming their ads there are just trying to "make a corp" without an idea what that corp is supposed to be doing. Instead, just talk to people you meet, either ingame or on the forums. If you are into PvP as well, try talking to the guy who just shot you. With a bit of luck you'll find someone you might consider a decent enough person doing interesting things.
Have a look at the corps you find. Many have descriptions along those lines:

Quote:
Hello we are *randomcorp9580495*. We are looking for members.

What we do:
- group mining with orca boosts
- lv4 mission running
- incursions
- production
- exploration
- pvp
(read: pretty much everything that can be done in highsec)

We are not looking for:
- Pirates
- Gankers
- Griefers

From my experience, a corp with a description of that sort tends to have no goals, organisation, companionship or even an idea of what they are doing. And from the long list of activities, usually it turns out that only mining and mission running are regularly being pursued. Corps like that also tend to roll over and die once faced with a player threat (read: war dec), which will eventually happen. Keep in mind that one corps "pirate" or "griefer" may be another corps "ace pilot" or "fleet commander" - exactly the kind of person they are typically missing to mount an effective defense.

Of course, there are exceptions - typically easily distinguishable by a stable membercount above 10 and a certain age.

Then, there are those corps that demand you play for x hours a day, join at least y "CTA" fleets per month, or even pay a weekly or monthly fee to stay in the corp. Yeah .... steer clear of those. Rigid rules like that usually don't help anyone. But keep in mind, that a certain amount of commitment is needed, especially in smaller corps if the corp wants to get anything done besides mining and "watching paint dry" all day. So if a corp expects you to be active and participate in their activities - that's generally a good thing.

Once you have found a corp that looks promising to you, don't join if they are willing to just invite you without at least a few questions. Maybe you have flown with some of their members before, or you had a nice talk with them. Maybe they'll do a little interview - that's all fine. Just the usual "Oh, you like shooting things. Us too! You are in."-thing doesn't work well in Eve. Again - there may be exceptions, but they are few and far between.

Once you have joined a corp, keep in mind that there's no shame in leaving if you feel you don't fit in or it's just not the right corp for you. If you do leave, though, try to do so on good terms or if you can't, at least try to take with you as much as you can on your way out. Pirate
Memphis Baas
#8 - 2016-01-22 20:53:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Memphis Baas
This game is peculiar in the following ways:

- Established corps don't need tanks, healers, DPS, or other such classes; if they need someone to fly a new type of ship, their members can certainly train it pretty fast. So recruitment happens based on trust and personality compatibility, not based on what ships you've unlocked with your character.

- The corporation's assets (shared ships, space stations, corporate blueprints for manufacturing, etc.) can be stolen by anyone who gains access by mistake or through guile, so as a result there is a lot less trust in this game than any other MMO.

- There is very little that can't be done solo, in high-sec. Mining, exploration, missions, production, trading... if you do it solo you reap the benefits of your work, but corps have to set up taxes so they can fund free ships and skills to newbies, or so they can pay the taxes required to maintain office hangars and fuel space stations. So, it's less profitable to do high-sec activities as a group than it is solo.

- PVE is designed to be easy, boring, and repetitive, and make you some cash so you can spend it on ships, then take the ships and destroy them in PVP, getting "fun" out of it.

So, as a result, if you want to find a good corp, you need to look at:

- Corps that operate in "dangerous" space (low-sec, null, or wormholes); the stress of having to defend your stuff creates camaraderie between the corp members and basically keeps the corp together, and fun. Also, the "danger" from enemies attacking provides lots of entertainment and provides goals to achieve, in terms of defending or conquering space.

- Corps that have unrealistic expectations (commit for 6 hours daily) or are extremely lax (we don't care, just join and then do whatever you want) probably suck. Either they'll exploit you and profit from your work, or they're just glorified chat channels with no planning or organization. What you're looking for is a sense that the corp has some security and won't accept just anyone, but they aren't crazy and realize that people have jobs and kids and won't be able to play for so many hours.

- Corps that try to do everything rarely succeed, mostly because "I'm a PVP'er why should I pay taxes for the mining division of this corp." The corp should have some focus (we live in wormholes, we're pirates, we only do mining, or we specialize in frigate manufacturing), and obviously that focus should match your interests.

- It's nice if the corp has a website, or even just a private forum is sufficient. The API system lets websites interact with the EVE database to grant you access to the corp-only parts of the site as long as you're a member of the corp, ingame. A website helps the corp organize its members and communicate, and because it's 2016 and by now there are several "free guild website" services out there, you're pretty much looking for a corp to have one.

So, unfortunately, you have to use the tools that are provided, the corp search tool in-game, various recruitment channels, and interviews, to weed out the bad ones from the good ones.

Final piece of advice, most of the large 0.0 alliances have "newbie recruitment" programs by now, and are much more friendly to newbies than they used to be. Read the alliance websites to see what their newbie wings are called, and consider them along with all the other corps you're considering. Keep in mind, though, that you won't be able to "join" the actual alliance; they'll probably say that recruitment is closed. You can, however, join one of the corps IN the alliance; some of their corps are more newbie friendly than others, and may actually recruit.
Kharaxus
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2016-01-22 21:22:02 UTC
Huiri Shiyurida wrote:
In terms of gameplay, the short-term stuff is easy. Do all the tutorials. Do the epic arc. Pilot a Heron effectively, make some ISK. Get evemon, get a skillplan, and remap. The opportunities yielded some extra cash, which is handy for skillbooks, so thanks CCP.


This.

An extension of the above is anywhere and everywhere you look in Eve - but there are a LOT of options.

I tried WH space and got bored, and lost my WH stuff - as somebody else said, "pay your bills".

Good corps aren't that difficult to find. I've noticed a lot of corps with "starter" corps prior to you merging with the main body of an alliance the starter corp is in. Its a reason for people to keep an eye on you until THEY find a good fit for you in the alliance.
Kharaxus
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#10 - 2016-01-22 21:30:08 UTC
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=465451&find=unread

An example of how focusing on one element in Eve, and the results of many hours and hours of practice involved, can help you with "exploration", or anything else in Eve.
Droidster
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2016-01-22 23:07:29 UTC
Focus. The ships of each race have strengths and weaknesses: Caldari PVE, Minmatar PVP, Gallente Industry and Exploration, Amarr All around. You need to pick a focus then train up those ships.

Plan your training. Use a skill planning tool.

Be objective about what things you are passionate about, and focus on those things. Don't try everything. It is much better to be good at one thing, than mediocre at a lot of things.
SurrenderMonkey
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#12 - 2016-01-23 00:15:38 UTC  |  Edited by: SurrenderMonkey
Droidster wrote:
Focus. The ships of each race have strengths and weaknesses: Caldari PVE, Minmatar PVP, Gallente Industry and Exploration, Amarr All around.


What's this bloody nonsense, now?

"Help, I'm bored with missions!"

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
Memphis Baas
#13 - 2016-01-23 02:16:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Memphis Baas
Somebody gave him wrong information.


All races can do PVE, it's too easy. You look up the mission, you fit the resists, you pay attention to kill the triggers last, and eat a sammich as you stare at the screen.

Industry is more along the lines of the ORE (not Gallente) mining barges, Orca, Rorqual, and otherwise all races have industrials, transports, and freighters. Some freighters are big, others are agile, which, believe me, matters when it takes your ship 60 seconds to turn itself and align to the next gate.

Exploration, each race has some ships that can use probes, and now we also have the ORE exploration ships.

Otherwise, certain ships are really good for certain niche roles, but it's on a per-ship basis, not "all Caldari" or whatever other empire's entire lineup. It's a matter of what the rest of the fleet is flying (shield vs. armor), what composition of ships you have in the fleet (logis, ewar, DPS), and what exactly you're trying to kill.
ergherhdfgh
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#14 - 2016-01-23 12:07:26 UTC
Droidster wrote:
The ships of each race have strengths and weaknesses: Caldari PVE, Minmatar PVP, Gallente Industry and Exploration, Amarr All around.

Hey there Mr. 2004 Character that info is outdated by about 4 years or so. With all the ship rebalancing all the races are pretty much the same in ability to be able to do various things. They still have a different flavor but it's not like it used to be.

Want to talk? Join Cara's channel in game: House Forelli
Neuntausend
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#15 - 2016-01-23 13:58:01 UTC
True. Used to be Caldari were crap for PvP and Gallente were crap for almost everything. But that has changed a lot. There are excellent ships for about every purpose in all the racial ship lines. Except mining - that's still firmly in the hands of ORE.
Angel T Hunter
Republic Military School
#16 - 2016-01-23 14:13:00 UTC
train fitting skills and core skills. after that. skills for the type of ship you want to fly
Cara Forelli
State War Academy
Caldari State
#17 - 2016-01-25 22:29:39 UTC
Based off your interests, I think Signal Cartel would be a group to look into to find like-minded pilots. I don't have any personal experience with them but I know they are exploration focused.

Droidster wrote:
Focus. The ships of each race have strengths and weaknesses: Caldari PVE, Minmatar PVP, Gallente Industry and Exploration, Amarr All around. You need to pick a focus then train up those ships.

Ignore anything this poster ever says and you'll probably do just fine.

Want to talk? Join my channel in game: House Forelli

Titan's Lament
Huiri Shiyurida
#18 - 2016-01-26 15:01:50 UTC
I appreciate the advice from everyone. I lost a little training time due to recovery from surgery but am back to work on those short term items. There seems to be a soft floor for a lot of corp recruiting so I added 'hit 2M SP' as a sort of milestone to start looking for a corp.

I will just let the trial run down and take it from there. o7
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#19 - 2016-01-26 15:35:45 UTC
Talking to the locals helps if you're pretty much settled down in an are. It's hard to get to know people when you're always moving about.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#20 - 2016-01-26 15:39:08 UTC
Ignore the floor and ask anyway. The sp floor is really to weed out spies. Often if you are enthusiastic enough many corps will take you on, or maybe recruit you into a training corp.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
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