EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello, all.

I received a trial code from an old Phantasy Star Online teammate, and am here to explore EVE.

First, I have some brief impressions:

• The character creator is amazing. I've never seen anything close to it in another game.
• I chose Minmatar because I like the idea of this group of survivors who have carved out their own path with cunning and perseverance. "Our technology may not be the best, but it's ours" is a feeling I get from them.
• Space is surprisingly immersive, with everyone zipping around from star to star and the stations' patrols lurking about.

Second, I had some points that I would like to leave open for players to advise or correct me:

• I have started combat tutorials and am training all my skills equally. I want this character to defend Minmatar and her interests as a patriot. Assuming I will be getting more combat missions, I want to know more about proper training.
• I hear that the whole gameworld is open to everyone from the beginning, and that this makes things a bit dicey for young characters. Scamming was mentioned, and is allowed?
• What roles do the corporations play, in addition to providing us with mission agents? People in chat mentioned SoE, DED, and COSMOS mission agents: do they differ in a significant way?
• I'd like to get more familiar with the setting and history in EVE, is there a good resource for that?

Lastly, some out-of-game stuff:

• As a student, my time can be a bit crunched. I have heard that EVE is forgiving toward players who don't necessarily have extended playtime. Is this accurate?
• I take it there are a lot of blogs by beginners, so adding another one would probably just be a washout. Are there any players I should be reading up on?
• I've got 2 months before I have to ante up... how do I make the most of this trial?

Thanks to everyone who read this far.

There's a whole lot of different skills you'll want for missions, depending on what kinds of ships you fly and how you fly them, so it's kinda a tough question. For starting off though, look at the Certificates part of your character sheet and work towards the Core Competency ones, they're not hard needs, but they're decent guidelines of some stuff that most/all ships will benefit from.

To really get the most out of training I would suggest installing EVEmon, which will let you build detailed training plans and see what stuff is prerequisites. I would also suggest befriending more experienced players in game and be willing to ask questions (because Eve is quite complex and having people to ask questions of helps a TON).

Also note that any char can fly and use anything in the game with proper training, Minmatar characters can use Amarr, Caldari, and Gallente ships and weapons just as effectively (providing they trained the right skills). Unless you are choosing to limit the ships you fly due to RP reasons, there's no reason you can't fly any ship in the game. There's no "forbidden schools" or anything like that in Eve, it's a sandbox.

Yes, the game world is completely open and you will have to be cautious as a younger player. Especially watch out if you try to jump into another system and a warning message comes up, if that happens it's probably best to plan an alternate route that takes you through safer space. Check out this page for an overview of what effect system security has. And, yes, scamming is completely allowed; the best way to avoid it is to avoid contracts unless you know exactly what you're looking for and what it's worth.

Well, those are a couple different things. Player corps are similar to a 'guild' or 'clan from many other games. NPC corps that you run missions for are groupings of different mission agents, doing more missions for them will let you unlock higher level agents for that group.

I'm not sure about the setting/history, I've never been into the RP side of it myself. *shrug*, maybe try googling it.

Yes, Eve can be played with different amounts of playtime, especially because the skills train the same if you're online or not. People with more time to play might get more out of it, but you can still enjoy it for an hour a day (or week, or whatever).

Yes, there are quite a few beginners blogs, but one more is never a bad thing if you feel like journaling your experience.

And what I would do to make the most of it is to get out there and experience as much of Eve as you can and get a feel for all there is to do. This is a great overview of the different stuff there is to do in Eve. You won't be able to do all of that stuff in two months (especially on a trial), but it lets you see a bit of the different directions you can take in Eve.

If you have other questions, feel free to message me in-game (if I'm online, it varies lately due to school and other games) or just post stuff on the forums, there are tons of helpful people (and trolls too) around.

Better quality video from official page: Eve Online: Old Storyline Intro

But yes, that is must if you care about backstory.

Most people don't care enough to stop and chat tho ... but other thant that it's fine.

SoE was mentioned bacause of its "newbie epic arc" - I think you get redirrected to it during tutorials. Sort of an introduction to mission running (altho all that moving around every 5 missions or so gets annoying).

DED, I suppose, are same as COSMOS agents 'cause there are no "usual" DED agents I know of and there were two CONCORD COSMOS agents left in game last I checked. Difference is: usual agents sit in stations and offer you one generic mission after anohther as long as you meet standing requirements, COSMOS agents located in space and offer mission(s) only once (ofc you still need standing to use them too) and usualy increase faction standing along with corp stanidng and give some unique rewards (usually crappy ones anyway). There should be more of that stuff on eve-wiki.

IMO, COSMOS agents is where mission running should have stopped, but devs, apperantly not agree....

Try up everything you can (there are few limitations on tiral acc tho), see if there's somehting you actually like about it... joining corp might help, but indeed could be tough finding good one while on trial account: most corps have "no trial accounts" rule because any1 can create one for spy and it's not guaranteed that you won't have to boot that trial player later 'cause he goes inative.

While the travelling needed in Sisters of EVE Epic Arc might be boring, it does pay a lot more than normal level 1 missions. It has about 50 missions and starts from Sister Alitura in Sisters of EVE Bureau in Arnon. (Search for solarsystem "Arnon" in People&Places).

I'd suggest doing that after Career Agents to get some ISK and mission/combat experience. Most of those missions can be done in frigate/destroyer. Few are harder and you might want a friend or Cruiser there.

Well, "slight" problem here is: it's one of trial limitations - you can't join FW on trial account (if I understood correctly and you have 60d trial account). You might be able to join corp that is already in FW to participate, but I'm not sure about how that would ultimately work out. So, if that won't work and you want into it because of PvP, might try RvB or something instead... or look for some RP corps if you like that stuff more.


I second that... not that you don't need skills and isk at all, it just doesn't matter as much as most people "i need x to PVP" tend to belive. But that comes after completing tutorial and SoE epic arc, ofc - just so you can handle basic ship controls and have starting fund.

Oh, and following certificates to the letter is generaly a bad idea.

Although I have a long lasting grudge against anyone / anything with the word Goons in it's name / ticker, this guy is actually right. Yes missions are good to start and get some ISK. Yes, your core certificates are good to have as it makes your ship harder to kill and also easier to fit. But don't just do that only in your first couple of weeks / months, it will make the game boring very quickly.

I only have 1 suggestion I have to almost every single new player: Do what you like to do in EVE. This is a huge sandbox, you can do what you like (true, some stuff might be hard to do as a starting character, but nothing is locked - unless your on a trial, then you can't fly some ships yet). Don't just do what others tell you to do.

I do suggest that you look for a player corporation. If you didn't know yet, EVE has NPC corporations (which you can run missions for and every new player starts in a NPC corporation and if you leave a player corporation you automatically join a NPC corp of your race.) but it also has a huge amount of Player-runned corporations (other MMO's call these things guild, clans and what so ever). There are even a fair amount of Player corps that are just made to teach new players in EVE how it works (EVE University being one of the biggest and mostly used for it). Also in player corps you will interact more with the people that are in it and learn more from them as you go.

1 advice, don't just join the first corp you think you like. Take you time to get to know that corp (how active are they during your game time, what do they like to do [mining, mission running, PvP, FW], are they hardcore EVE players or RL first guys, all that kind of stuff). There are even corps (and alliances after latest patch) that are only made to do Faction Warfare and the new corp search tool ingame can even let you specify if you want to be in a roleplaying corporation.