Crime & Punishment

I think I know exactly which corp you need to join

Seriously though, you aren't an Erebus pilot for PL (maybe (-.-), your response to Tau was a bit too well organized for a week old player)
Throw caution to the wind and have some fun in this game you pay for!

So, a few things I wanted to say:

1. This is a PVP game, blowing up ships is THE FUN in this game. That's what they're there for. You don't play chess to babysit the pawns or make them line-dance, or pretend that the rook is a bouncy castle; you move all your pieces and get them into dangerous positions and sacrifice them to achieve checkmate, which is a win of the game for YOU. The winning king isn't going to live happily ever after, lording over 2 kingdoms. It's the same with EVE, you can roleplay if you want, but ultimately it's a PVP strategy game and the spaceships are pawns and bishops and knights, to be sacrificed for your entertainment.

So you're at step 0: gathering the pieces (ships) so you can put them on the board and play a game. Don't "avoid as long and as often as possible" because the only way you'll learn is to play the PVP.



2. Most of us started as solo players, but making friends is easy, because everyone is interested in the game. Again with the chess analogy, if you log into a chess forum, all you have to say is "hey anyone want to play against a rookie?" and you'll get plenty of matches. Nobody cares where you are, what you do, and what kind of person you are, and nobody is risking more than 30 minutes that may be wasted trying to play chess badly. Your goal shouldn't be to stay solo.

And the main reason for finding a group is this: this is a sandbox game, means you're given some toys and expected to find your own way of playing with them. And, let's face it, you've found mining, the absolutely most boring activity in the game. As a kid, a simple doll was sufficient for HOURS of entertainment, but as I grew up, my own invented stories can't really entertain me; they may entertain others, but I already know all the details. So I need to participate in a group, so that the group's plans and goals and stories can entertain ME. That's what a good corp gives you: organized operations, FUN. Someone else (typically the CEO and the directors) does all the work to organize something, and you just participate. They often reimburse your ship, if you lose it. You just get the pure fun out of the experience, no other losses.



3. You may play however you wish, AFK if you wish, but the game is designed a certain way, and if you play against that design, others will take advantage. You want to play chess against 10-year veterans while watching TV instead of concentrating, that's fine, but I'm not sure you'll win. We're trying to help with the advice in this forum, so we'll likely point out how the game is intended to be played, with the understanding that you can do whatever you want, as long as you don't blame us for the consequences.

Well, not really! This why I am doing a lot of reading. To find out what is the high-hanging fruit (for me) and how to get there.
Mining is the best activity for now.

The only thing that bothered me (and that's why I started this topic) is that there are people who will go out of their way to prevent me and others like me (clueless noobs). And why?

Because:

and


And I said before, thanks to CPP people like me still have a chance to get out of the Eve's nursery, despite the efforts of some to watch it burn.

I'll just add that CODE players are not by any neans soread out throughout all of hisec. You're unlikely to meet one. That said, you should take reasonable precautions when you mine. Ventures are fast and you can cheapfit one that'll have a chance of getting away, but they're not for afk mining anywhere.

Procurers. Ask for a tank-fit on Help channel. You'll be fine with that, probably.

A good nullsec corp that welcomes noobs and is part of an alliance is your best bet though. CODE don't go to nullsec because they get killed.

Just accept the risk that comes with afking, maybe it will pay off, maybe it won't

Playing the game actively is always going to make you more isk/fun per hour than afking.

Prime example is exploration is by FAR the most lucrative activity in terms of sp to isk ratio when a newbro is starting out.

It has been said a million times before - but to reiterate - it is easy not to be ganked mining in HS - just fly a tanked skiff or procurer and mine in a less popular system. Although ganking gets a lot of press, the chances of actually dying from a gank are very small and can be reduced to essentially zero by the above two suggestions. OFC anybody can potentially be ganked at anytime, so its best not to go around being an asshat thereby drawing the wrong type of attention to yourself, but apart from that - with minimal precautions there is simply no reason why a player cannot go through their entire eve career without being ganked.

Believe it or not I am a "week old player"! Did I mention that I am reading a lot ? And I consider myself pretty good at reading between the lines.

I am part of that born in USSR generation that got burned a lot in real life (famous Perestroika and the nightmare that followed). I guess it transfers into the game space too.

^^^^ THIS is a correct view ^^^^

CODE is a great deal of puffery and that over exaggeration drives the fear mongering. I tried to explain this to them in a different thread but their players don't understand how much damage their propaganda does to their own position. So, you just let them fly as they will. You just need to do as Tipa says, educate yourself and fly smart.

AFK mining is dangerous, yes, but you can still profit from it if you do it correctly. I, personally, don't do it. I may be reading up on something else or building a new fit at O.smium.org, but I'm watching my Dscan and actively listening to for warp ins when my eyes aren't focused on my ship. I also rarely mine alone, and having a corp mate doing the same thing is having two sets of eyes and ears constantly staying alert.

Be prepared to lose a ship if you fully take your attention away from the game. Just call it a cost of doing business. You may roll the dice 50 times and lose 1 ship out of that. If you build up the right ship, you won't lose it at all as Concord will arrive in time to deal with the suicide ganker(s). The build below can handle 3 gank catalysts picking on you at once (41.5k EHP):

[Procurer]
Type-D Restrained Shield Power Relay
Type-D Restrained Shield Power Relay

Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
ML-3 Scoped Survey Scanner
M51 Benefactor Compact Shield Recharger

Strip Miner I (or Ice Harvester I)

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Salvage Drone I x1
Hobgoblin I x5
Hornet EC-300 x1
Light Shield Maintenance Bot I x3

It can also buff the shields of another ship mining with you (or if you a multi-account, cross buff your mining toons) and defend against RAT's as well as salvage their wrecks.

If you can skill into the fit as described above, you can AFK mine in HiSec with relative ease. If you feel more cozy, you can drop one of the power relays and put a mining laser upgrade on it to more optimize the m3 per hour.

A similar build of a Mackinaw is pretty much the gold standard but the Exhumers take a long time to skill into. The ship prices jumps from 40-ish million to 240-ish million as well. So, you'll spend a lot of time in that Procurer before you can hit the Mack.

So, don't sweat CODE or other suicide gankers. Go play your game your way and realize you have a lot of company.

For low level missions, L1 and L2, the income from security missions isn't going to make you rich. If you have the patience to work your way up to level 3 missions the mission payouts get better. Level 4 security missions can pay tens of millions of isk per mission (depending on the exact mission details). There are skills in the "Social" category you can train up to improve mission rewards.

Concord is an NPC corporation that is the main "space police" of the game. Every time you blow up a hostile NPC "pirate" ship, Concord will pay you a bounty for it, including pirate ships you destroy in security missions. The size of the bounty depends on the type of pirate ship you blow up. Small pirate frigates pay a few thousand each. Pirate battleships can earn you a couple of million isk each, but for pirate battleships, the only time you'll find them in hisec is by doing level 4 security missions. They can also appear as random spawns in lowsec and nullsec asteroid belts and other places.

When you complete most types of missions for NPC corporations, you'll not only be paid some isk, you'll be paid with some "loyalty points" which you can use to buy items from that NPC corp and use or sell the items to other players. This creates an extra source of income from missions, using your loyalty points to acquire items you can sell for a profit to other players.

Another way to make isk by shooting at things is "ratting". Once you leave your starter system, as you fly around from system to system you can find spawned groups of pirate ships that you can shoot at (they will shoot back). Concord will pay you bounties for every pirate ship you destroy. You can also salvage the pirate wrecks for items you can sell or use yourself. The higher the security status of the system, the weaker the pirate spawns will be, so the bounties from Concord will be smaller.

For the time being, do NOT shoot at "Circadian Seeker" ships. They show up as red like pirate ships but they are very tough and do a LOT of damage. They won't shoot at you if you leave them alone.

CCP have announced that later this week they will add a new feature to the game. After the feature is added (in a day or two), each day that you log in and destroy an NPC pirate ship (any NPC pirate ship), you will be given 10,000 skill points you can use on any skill you want to improve. You only get the free skill points for the first pirate ship you destroy each day, if you destroy 20 pirate ships in one day, only the first ship pays you the extra skill points,

Keep in mind you will have costs for missions and ratting that can lower your income, ammunition, ship insurance and maybe ship repairs will be the main costs. I personally prefer to armor tank a ship when I do PvE stuff because shields regenerate for free (just dock up in a station and your shield and capacitor will be recharged to full in a couple of seconds at no cost) but armor and hull damage are not fixed for free. By using an armor tank and an armor repairer, I can repair myself with just some time.

The new player owned citadels can also repair all ship damage for free without even docking up if the player who owns the citadel sets the citadel to do that. You just have to get close enough to a player owned citadel that allows "public tethering" and the citadel will shoot repair beams at your ship. Citadels are very new, there aren't many of them in use yet, but over time there will be more of them.



Here's a tip you probably aren't aware of. There are a total of twelve starter systems in the game, three each for Amarr, Caldari, Gallente and Minmatar. You can redo all of the career missions in every starter system and get all of the career mission payouts and free ships eleven more times. You also get a standings boost for whichever faction that system is in. Even though your character is Minmatar, there is nothing stopping you from going to the starter systems in the other three main factions and doing the career missions in those systems. Don't do them all right away. Over time you may find that your standings with one or more of the other main factions are getting worse. You can use the career missions in the other starter systems to help rebuild your standings with the other main NPC factions. As Minmatar, if you do enough security missions, you will lose standings with Amarr. Being able to fly over to an Amarr starter system and improve your standings can be useful, and you can do this up to three times with each of the other main factions (and two more times in the other two Minmatar starter systems).

Blowing up miners is no more than griefing from my point of view - and if you were to join a nullsec corp I'm sure people would be willing to fund your first pve ships, maybe even battleships, after all a few hundred mills is pocket change when you live in 0.0...