EVE New Citizens Q&A

So this is one hell of a game you have here,
id heard the stories but wow is this complex.

Cool though ,
looks like there is a lot to get into here once my brain stops leaking out of my ears.
anyway im not usually into mmos, tried a couple but couldn't stick with them.
so i have a couple of questions ,

how do i find stuff in space?
you know like the crap and stuff people leave in mission sites,
ive seen plenty of people complaining about losing things and i was wondering
1) how would one go about finding these things
and
2) can i make money doing so.

if my read on how things operate here i can take these things yes?

also what do player corps like to see in newbies (in terms of utility) i.e. how can i be useful for a group

would finding things be a good place to start and are there other ways to make money with this?

cheers for the time

Hello and welcome to EVE.

Let me start by saying that the most important aspect of EVE is the social aspect. Sure, you can do it all alone but it's extremely tough (especially for someone who's just starting out). You already seem to be aware of that fact since you said you're interested in joining a corp, so let me start there:

Generally, there are many corps out there that are willing to take new people and have no requirements except a willingness to learn and perhaps read a guide and join team speak to make communication easier. Since you've obviously not got a problem with reading guides and even came here to ask questions I think you should not have any problem to find a corp that will take you.

Which corp to join is largely dependent upon what you want to do in EVE: if you're mainly interested in learning the game then a corp like EVE Uni would be worth considering (they are basically like an EVE school and provide lots of courses, both theoretical and hands-on). I've heard many good things about them.

If you're more interested in getting directly into the (PVP) action and are more interested in learning by doing (or also learning by dying) then you will surely also find a corp in faction warfare that's willing to teach you the ropes. I'd check over in the corp and alliance recruitment forum to look for a corp that fits your liking.

Most newbie-friendly PVP corps will provide you with everything you need to start out (including skill books, ships, fittings as well as advice and guidance).

On your other question about collecting lost/forgotten goods: I personally don't have any experience with this (because when I started EVE it was a bit of a different game). I do know that some people make good money by scanning down mission sites of other players (using a probe launcher and probes) and then go and loot and salvage their mission-wrecks. Obviously this can be seen as stealing (if the person intended to go and loot & salvage their wrecks themselves after completing the mission) but there are also people that are too lazy to salvage and they probably won't care. If you want to take this "profession" to a next level (or don't want to have to probe down mission sites) then you can also try and buy the salvage- and loot-rights from mission runners (so they basically bookmark their mission sites and then sell you the bookmarks for a small fee after they're finished).

Do note however, that looting or salvaging an other persons wreck is a crime and will allow them to freely attack your ship (even in high security space) so it might be a good idea to only loot & salvage mission sites when the owner has left. The exception is if the wrecks are blue (which means the owner of the wreck has abandoned it and it can be freely looted by anyone without counting as a crime).

Again, I lack any hands-on experience with this "profession" so I'm sure someone else will jump in on this thread and give you more in-depth information.

Good luck in EVE & see you in space!

good info there Lianara but one point

salvaging wrecks will not flag you as suspect, that aside fantastic post.

I actually have a question about this. I noticed a yellow highlighted wreck next to a gate last night. No one was about so I salvaged it (got nothing) and opened the cargo hold. There was about 24mil of stuff in it, but I couldn't drag the items to my ship. Is there a reason for this? Or was I dong something wrong?

Salvaging is allowed, which basically means you apply the salvager to the wreck and get some salvage materials, and the wreck turns into a cargo canister with the loot inside.

Taking the loot would result in you being flagged Suspect, meaning anyone can attack you for 15 minutes. You have to turn your safeties from green to yellow to indicate that you're willing to go Suspect. The safety is the little button to the upper left of the HUD circle (where your shields, armor, hull, and capacitor are shown).

Basically, 25 million in loot would have been worth it, but you didn't know about turning of the Safety setting. For next time, you'll know what to do, and keep in mind that it helps to have a plan such as docking up right away or waiting at a safespot for the 15 minutes that the Suspect flag timer lasts. If anyone attacks you, you CAN shoot back; typically people won't attack unless they can kill you in one shot, or if they can tackle you with warp disruption, because otherwise you can just get away, making it pointless.

I currently make around 1b per month (on average) by popping abandoned MTUs and scooping abandoned T2 and faction drones in highsec.

This is pocket change to me, especially coming from level 4 mission running, but I find it fun, the ISK is a just an added bonus. Hunting MTUs is very much luck-based, my largest MTU kill was around 400m, of which 300m dropped. I've had a 250m kill, of which 15m dropped.

The vast majority of people won't care that you popped their MTU, my first convo about it was a guy thanking me for popping an MTU he forgot to scoop before handing in his mission, and it annoyed him that it was still out there, somewhere. I did get an 80m bounty on my head from one guy though, which is awesome.

When you attack an MTU, you gain suspect status, which means other players can attack you. I've killed nearly 300 MTUs so far and not a single person has aggressed me, such is life in highsec.

If this sounds like the sort of thing you'd be interested in, send me an in-game mail and I'll help get you started.

Not at my pc at the moment but pix seems to be closest to what I'm thinking about.

There were people complaining about losing their drones and tractor units and it got me thinking.

And yes I'm a grown ass adult with kids so i will probably sell a plex to some unfortunate with more time on their hands than I.
Thanks for the tip there Memphis .

So "exploration" would seem to be the the career for me, or the skillset associated anyway.
now what I'd love to know is how much utility I can get outside of "find the thing" is this useful for pvp corps ?

Also nice link there pix,

MTU's are Mobile Tractor Units; they cost about 8 million and people deploy them in their mission area to automatically gather all the wrecks and loot them.

The MTU drags each wreck to it using tractor beams, then loots it, and this process takes a while, so typically the mission-runner will kill everything then dock at station and report that the mission is complete (this removes all the mission-related structures from space, but leaves the wrecks behind). The mission-runner then returns in a ship designed to salvage wrecks (such as a destroyer with salvagers installed in all high slots), and salvages the wrecks and grabs the loot and the MTU.

The game will flag you Suspect if you steal the loot, and the MTU is only "abandoned" in the sense that the owner took a quick trip to station to change ships. High-sec gameplay clearly allows what Pix Severus is doing, it's actually intended gameplay, just keep in mind that you may not get the benevolent responses that he's been illustrating. Still, if they're stupid enough to leave their MTU there for you to probe down, then you deserve the spoils - finders keepers as they say.

A person wanting to "punish" you for stealing would have to be prepared and bring a combat ship with warp disruptors instead of a destroyer full of salvagers, so that's why most don't shoot (they don't have weapons). They may adapt and shoot if you stick to a single system and do it repeatedly to the same person.

"Find the thing" becomes "find the enemy" when you're out PVP'ing, and given that everyone uses bookmarked locations that aren't near any planet, moon, or station as safespots, "find the enemy" becomes very important. You can easily pair it with "tackle the enemy" by training for the basic PVP modules (warp disruptor, warp scrambler, microwarpdrive, stasis webifier) and fast ships (T1 frigates, T2 interceptors), and make a scouting career out of it, and lots of PVP'er corps will love to have you.

The vast majority of players view other players with 'suspect' tags as bait PvP'ers, and since they are in PvE fit ships, will just leave you alone. Part of the game is human nature and HiSec players don't generally get their kicks from PvP combat. So you get away with this activity.