EVE New Citizens Q&A

It's 0.0 because you haven't done anything "good" or "bad."

"Good" has to do with how many NPCs you have killed and "bad" has to do with doing "bad" things to players.

It doesn't take long at all to get to 1.0, just go run some missions.

This will not change when you start paying. Only your actions in-game can change your security status.

Go do the Sisters of EvE epic arc "The Blood Stained Stars".

Yeah that had been bugging me so I checked, this is correct.

Your security status can go from -10.0 (the naughtiest of pirates) to +5.0 (the most fluffy and peaceful carebear). Everybody starts at 0.0 (neutral), and most people keep it at 0.0 or go slightly negative because of the chaotic nature of PVP. Here's a detailed guide on sec. status.

The system is designed to "punish" pirates for unprovoked attacks on victims in high- and low-sec space. Hardened pirates who do a lot of suicide-attacks or piracy will find their sec. status number drop to -2 -3 -5 -10, and will face various consequences as a result, from being harassed by the various NPC police forces in high-sec space, to becoming free-for-all targets that anyone can attack without repercussions.

If you don't wish to be a pirate, you can observe the rules of engagement for high-sec and low-sec space, which include the ability to declare war on other corporations, to challenge people to duels, and to defend yourself if you're attacked.

Null-sec and wormhole-space have no rules and your sec. status will not be affected by any type of combat in those areas. If you restrict your PVP to declared wars, duels, and responding to being attacked, or if you hunt only in 0.0 or wormhole-space, your sec. status will not drop below "neutral."

The game has an extra safety, it's actually called "safety", and you can set it to green, yellow, or red (it's a color button that appears to the upper left of the HUD circle that shows your ship stats in space). With safety set to green (which is the default), you cannot commit piracy or illegal acts - your weapons will refuse to function in illegal situations, and you'll get a warning message. With safety yellow, you can steal loot and perform "suspect" actions that will make you vulnerable to being attacked, but won't lower your sec. status. With safety set to red, you can perform "criminal" acts including attacking "innocent" ships, and can lose sec. status as a result.

As mentioned above, EVE University's acceptance policy is -1.0, not +1.0. Means they don't want you to be a pirate, but if you made a mistake and shot the wrong ship because you didn't know better, that's ok. So if you're still at 0.0 you should be ok.


PS.
Oh, and by the way, at some point someone will place a bounty on your head, for no reason. It's a badge of honor for some people. The bounty system, at this point in time, is useless, and it's mostly ignored by players. If someone places a 100 million ISK bounty on you, first they have to follow the rules of engagement; they can't attack you without reason just because of the bounty. And second, they can only claim 20% of the value of your ship when they hunt you. So if you fly 500k ISK frigates, they can only claim 100k ISK of your bounty per kill. So the 100 million total bounty is just wasted money.