EVE New Citizens Q&A

I better not start explaining the benefits, and options with alts. There are people in EvE going crazy with alts (usually for ingame money making), but you can play EvE fine with one, maximal two chars/accounts.

Since EVE lets you train ALL the skills and have access to ALL the ships on one character, some of the reasons for having alts disappear. Typically, we consider the following, when thinking about alts:

Reasons to have alts:

1. Anonymity. Posting on forums, trading, infiltration of other corps, theft, certain types of PVP, scamming, these activities may anger other players and it may be better to keep your main character separate.

2. Presence. It takes a while to travel from 0.0 to Jita or other market hubs, and it's a lot easier to just log in an alt to check prices. As another example, super-capital ships are so expensive that it's better to have a dedicated alt to pilot them, than risk even the slightest chance of theft or destruction while you're roaming around in a different ship for fun.

3. Multi-play. Various capital ships require cyno beacons to move around, and it's a lot safer if your own alts provide the beacons, than asking, even friends, to do so. Certain in-game activities are also done more efficiently with a group of alts, for example mining, providing mining boosts, and hauling the ore to station, all at the same time.

4. In-game limitations. Each character is limited to 300-some market orders, 21 contracts, 6 planets for PI, 10 production slots, 10 research slots, etc. If you want more than that, you need alts.


Reasons to NOT have alts:

1. All pilots, whether they be PVE, PVP, industry, etc., will need quite a few of the core / support skills trained. Armor, Shields, Engineering, Navigation, Targeting, etc., these skills are pretty much required no matter what you do, and the more alts you have, the more time you spend training these skills across all of them.

2. The log-in process is cumbersome and it takes time to switch from one alt to the next.

3. Multiple Omega subscriptions / training more than 1 character per account, cost money / monthly subscription fees. These fees add up, and suddenly you find yourself spending $200 - $300 per month on "some game."

4. Because everyone can train every skill, you won't hear calls for tanks, healers, DPS like in other games; EVE is a lot more about your reputation than it is about what ships you can fly. And you can't really build a reputation without playing the game well, accomplishing something, making a name for yourself, and this typically happens with ONE character, because it takes focused effort.

The limit of 3 characters per account has been there from the beginning of the game, 10+ years ago, and I think CCP likes it because it's a good compromise between being able to unlock every ship / do everything with one character, and having to pay more if you want to do "everything" faster (by specializing your alts into different fields from the start).

Thats what I do. This is my forum at. I also plan on training her up for a stealth bomber later.

My opinion of alts is that they are universally used to dodge game mechanics. That's the extent of their usefulness.