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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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What to aim for skillwise?
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Guffz
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#1 - 2012-01-11 18:48:51 UTC
Hi,

I'm still a noob when it comes to the game even though I've had my character for a couple years now (I played very minimally on and off). I have a few R/L friends that play that I wasn't aware of, and now I'd like to get into the game a lot more.

Drones/Lasers are the way I'd like to go for solo/small gang pvp, and I'm just curious as to what my skills I should be gunning for first and foremost, and support skills i can build up once my main skills are better. Eventually I want to be running a Myrmidon (I have to cross-train to gallente i know), with decent skills, so I can hopefully hold my own.

I'm also curious as to how I would go about funding myself. I'm currently in an arbitrator with t1 drones. I'm stuck on a few quests due to lack of dps that my drones put out (cant break the shield tank of an npc harby Sad). What's a good area in the amarr empire to start questing, or other good ways for a newer person to make money?
Velicitia
XS Tech
#2 - 2012-01-11 19:59:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Velicitia
Myrmi is nice ... though drones go squish in PVP (unless we're talking about a carrier, which has essentially "limitless drones"* and/or fighters)

An Arbi should be OK for missioning, but you have to take the damage from the NPCs so they don't start shooting your drones... also getting your drone skills up is important.

Ideally these should be 5:
Drones -- +1 drone/level (max 5) <-- get this one to 5 first.
Scout Drone Operation -- 5km longer drone control range, T2 drones (at L5)
Combat Drone Operation -- 5% bonus to small/med drone damage per level
Drone Interfacing -- 20% damage bonus

These don't "need" to be 5, but you'll find having a few levels to be handy:
(Racial) Drone Specialisation -- 2% damage bonus / level (also needed for T2 drones)
Drone Durability -- 5% bonus to shield, armour, and hull HP per level
Drone Sharpshooting -- 5% bonus to drone optimal range per level
Drone Navigation -- 5% bonus to drone MWD speed per level

It's not "questing" here, it's "missioning" -- people will know what you mean, but will ridicule you for it Blink.


*Drone bay on an Archon (Amarr Carrier) is 80k M3 (16 fighters, or 3200 heavy drones) ... a Thanatos has 100k (20 fighters, or 4k heavies). Carriers can launch up to 10 drones with skills alone.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#3 - 2012-01-11 20:02:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Xercodo
First off break yourself of the word quest, it'll get you a mob with torches and pitch forks after you and/or make everyone you ask play dumb going "what's a quest?" just to spite you.

Obviously your first order of business skill wise should be to get T2 drones and make sure to be able to fly 5 of them. For killing Kristan use something like hammerheads. If you really need i can swing out to Arnon and help you though ^^

Next train your armor skills up to at least use T2 hardeners.
Then train shield skills the same way...

"Aren't I going to be using armor ships?"
Yes but a lot of the armor drone boats out there work decently well with shields too, shield myrms are deadly and I've even flown a passive shield tanked arbitrator myself. This also sets you up for possibly flying a Gila or a Rattlesnake as a drone boat missioning ship to help you earning ISK in the "off season"

Intersperse these skills with skills found under the Core Competency section of certificates as those sorts sof skills just make ANY ship you fly easier to use and fit.

For ISK I say finish the epic arc and then find a place that you want to mission in. In my bio i have a spot in Metropolis (Minmatar space) that has level 4 agents of all 4 factions that you could rotate through and i picked Minmatar space cause the native NPC pirate is Angels, and their native e-war is target painters. Guristas have ECM, Serps have Sensor damps, Sansha have Tracking disruptors and bloods have energy neuts and a tracking disruptor here or there.

Since you're a drone boat though you really could go anywhere. The best "laser drone boat" is the navy issue Armageddon.

If you focus more on lasers and get into a Nightmare you could do great in incursions, and a normal geddon loaded with mega pulses and heavy drones is still a major threat in PVP (though small gang tend not to use battleships as much) For smaller ships that might be more applicable to PVP you can look into a harbinger, Oracle, Zealot, Pilgrim and Curse. The last two being drone boats.

More on the Gallente side you have the myrmidon, and ishtar, both of which could potentially have lasers fitted but aren't nearly as good at using the lasers.

For PVP I' suggest using the guns as primary DPS and drones to augment it instead of making the drones the primary. This is because you'd have the potential for being stranded with no drones and thus no means to shoot back with any significant damage.

The Drake is a Lie
Kilrayn
Caldari Provisions
#4 - 2012-01-11 20:04:00 UTC
Since you plan on ending up in a Myrm, Id recommend starting with drones, and you probably start flying gallente hulls to get used to them. A vexor is a nice cruiser to start learning with. As far as making money, train up for a salvager and ask your friends if you can tag along with them in some missions. This will also build your standings with that npc corporation and give you access to higher level missions while you simply salvage.

"Music is a mysterious thing. Sometimes it makes people remember things they do not expect. Many thoughts, feelings, memories... things almost forgotten... Regardless of whether the listener desires to remember or not." - Citan Uzuki, Xenogears
Poetic Stanziel
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-01-11 21:58:45 UTC
Get EVEMon for sure, and play around with different skill plans, based on all the advice you get here and elsewhere.
Salpad
Carebears with Attitude
#6 - 2012-01-20 15:34:35 UTC
Guffz wrote:
Hi,

I'm still a noob when it comes to the game even though I've had my character for a couple years now (I played very minimally on and off). I have a few R/L friends that play that I wasn't aware of, and now I'd like to get into the game a lot more.

Drones/Lasers are the way I'd like to go for solo/small gang pvp, and I'm just curious as to what my skills I should be gunning for first and foremost, and support skills i can build up once my main skills are better. Eventually I want to be running a Myrmidon (I have to cross-train to gallente i know), with decent skills, so I can hopefully hold my own.

I'm also curious as to how I would go about funding myself. I'm currently in an arbitrator with t1 drones. I'm stuck on a few quests due to lack of dps that my drones put out (cant break the shield tank of an npc harby Sad). What's a good area in the amarr empire to start questing, or other good ways for a newer person to make money?


Drone Interfacing is so good a skill, everyone should train it to 4, and you ought to train it to 4 now and to 5 soon. Each level makes all your drones (possibly excepting Sentries, Fighters and Fighter Bombers - I know nothing about those) cause 20% more damage.

Tank is always relative to tank HP regain.

Imagine that your drones are doing 100 DPS, 100 HP worth of damage per second. The NPC you're shooting at has an HP regain ("thank") of 95 HP per second. This means your effective damage is 5 HP/s. If the NPC has 1000 HP, then it'll take you 200 seconds, or a bit over 3 minutes, to kill it.

If you train Drone Interfacing to level 1, then your drones are doing 120 DPs, and since the tank of the target is unchanged at 95 DPS, your effective damage is now 25 DPS. Instead of needing 200 s to kill it, you can do it in 40 s. Five times faster.

The NPC "harby" you're talking about has more tank than you have gank. Maybe your gank is 100 DPS and its tank is 130 DPS. In that case, if you train Drone Interfacing to two, your DPS becomes 140 DPS and your effective DPS becomes 10 DPS.

All weapon systems in EVE have such a damage-increasing skill, although none are as good as Drone Interfacing, For missiles (including Rockets, Torpedoes and so forth), the skill is Warhead Upgrades, and it gives a +5% damage bonus per level. I honestly don't know what skill it is that improves the damage of those silly laser-güns you're using, but there is one (and I'd be surprised if it isn't somewhere in the Günnery category).
Nisa Darksoul
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#7 - 2012-01-23 14:27:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Nisa Darksoul
Salpad wrote:


All weapon systems in EVE have such a damage-increasing skill, although none are as good as Drone Interfacing, For missiles (including Rockets, Torpedoes and so forth), the skill is Warhead Upgrades, and it gives a +5% damage bonus per level. I honestly don't know what skill it is that improves the damage of those silly laser-güns you're using, but there is one (and I'd be surprised if it isn't somewhere in the Günnery category).


Lazor Guns require

(S/M/L) Energy Weapon - more damage per shot
(S/M/L)Pulse/Beam Laser Specialization - more damage per shot
Controlled Bursts - use less capacitor (read ammo) when you shoot.
Sharpshooter - shoot at longer range
Surgical Strike - moar damage per shot
rapid fire - more shots per second
trajectory analysis - slightly more range on lasers, tons more range for projectiles. adds to falloff (the amount past optimal where you still do some damage)

finally, if your ship has bonuses to lasers, then you wanna train the specific ship command skill up as well.
ariana ailith
Dukalin
#8 - 2012-01-23 15:08:21 UTC
level 5 everything, eventually :)