EVE New Citizens Q&A

if something blows up its actually gone, no "ill just re-spawn at the graveyard with all my gear" mentality like in other mmos. this is what makes the whole industry side of this game so profound due to the constant demand for new ships and equipment to replace those lost in battle. you will often times hear people say that the number 1 rule in eve is to not fly what you cant afford to lose and that's good advice for people at all skill levels.

when you buy a ship on the market it has been packaged, you must assemble it to make it usable and re-package it to sell it when the time comes.

if the damage notification that pops up when you hit the target is larger then before then the problem is most likely that you are moving on to stronger enemies in your tutorials.

as far as your isk total, there is an icon on the neocom (left side of the screen) that looks like stacks of greenish coins and a biz Z next to them. that represents your wallet. you can click this to see a detailed overview of your transactions or just hover over the icon for your current balance.

To add to that, the important thing with that 50% chance is, random is random. It's not that 50% of your gear will survive. It's each item has an individual 50% chance of survival. While not likely, everything might survive. Or everything might be destroyed. Just over time, it'll average out to 50%.

This is true of all the chance based mechanics. Which is why you'll find people complaining about drop rates after new versions are rolled out. They're just having some bad luck. The numbers are still just as random, you just don't hear from the people having good luck. People are designed to look for patterns, even where there are none.

Assuming you still get a civilian blaster on a Velator, you probably bought a railgun, and are probably running into tracking issues (or something else) which is causing you to miss on some of those shots.

If you did purchase a railgun, double check that you are not too close to the enemy (i.e. fly near the outer limit of the "optimal range" -- if it says you have a 12k optimal, then fly at 10-11k, or even a little into falloff).

If you purchased a blaster, double check to make sure you're not too far away. Unlike railguns, you want to be pretty close (like 2km or less) because blasters don't really have a high optimal range, and have terribly short falloff.


You can build ships ... but it's not something you want to get involved with as a very young toon. Manufacturing in EVE isn't as simple as other MMO games due to a few factors. You can end up spending MORE isk to build a ship than it's selling for on the market. You're better off just buying ships from the market for now.

With that said, if you're going to be running missions a lot, pick up blue print originals (BPO) of your favourite ammunitions from the market. (don't use contracts -- those are generally just blue print copies (BPC), and are limited in how many times you can use them). Worst case that I've seen is that you'll break even on cost to build vs. cost to purchase.

Once you get a handle on that, you can expand your manufacturing to things like ships if you wish.




ISK balance is in your wallet (icon looks like stacks of money). Assuming your ship was blown up within the past two hours, you can usually go back and get *some* things.

When you dock in your pod at the station where you have some ships already, you won't get a rookieship.


Raiguns deal less damage than blasters, but have bigger optimal range. Antimatter charges decrease your optimal range by a half.


You can lock objects by holding a Ctrl key and clicking on them. You can select objects in a 3D view or in an Overview window. It's much faster. You "steer" your ship by left-double-clicking in a 3D view. This is called "manual align". Your ship will head in the direction you pointed.


Drop is random. Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes not. You can find some really expensive stuff in a wreck, junk or nothing at all. If the wreck icon (reversed triangle with a dash above) is filled, it means there is something inside. Be aware, looting a yellow wreck will give the owner and his player owned corporation members a legal kill right on you for 15 minutes. Read warning messages carefully before you do something stupid. There are some missions, where you won't get any loot at all or only one enemy ship drops something. Very important rule: EVE is not like any other MMO. Don't expect it to behave like one.

Check out the Market to see all available ships you can buy. When you see a blue information icon beside the ship name, click on it to open "Show info" window. You can check there it's power grid output, CPU power and various other parameters.
Note: in EVE, bigger does not mean better! Bigger guns are slower and you may not be able to hit some targets at all. Read module description, check it's attributes etc. before you buy it.

Can you clear up the ship difference for me? IE pros/cons of different types of ships. The frigates are small and fast shipsi guess thats their plus. Im guessing the cruisers are much bigger and have more power, module slots, cargo capacity etc but would have difficulty outmaneuvering a frigate? Im guessing that transport ships are also of a different class because one would need a big ship to store large ammounts of cargo on it etc. Like what are the most general classes and their uses?


EDIT: Is there an NPC vendor in which i can dump all the crap that ive collected on my missions? Low level blasters, shield repairers etc.

The Atron - while fun to fly - is perhaps not the best ship for L1 missions; try flying a destroyer instead.
In fact, if you have done all of the tutorials, you should own two of them.
Check out this link for some fittings, especially the "Mission Basic" one.
You also might want to fit a salvager for additional ISK from salvaging the NPC wrecks.

Also, if you have not yet done so, you might want to try the SoE Epic Arc, there is quite a lot of money to be had.....

EVE ships are similar to RL vessels. In hisec, combat ships are divided into 5 general classes:

1. Frigates - small, fast, lightly armoured ships with small firepower. They are used wherever speed is cruicial, but they don't deal much damage. Bigger ships (excluding destroyers) can have trouble hitting them.
2. Destroyers - small, moderately fast, lightly armoured ships with big firepower. Frigate killers. They have a (relatively) huge punch, but are not very durable. Their main role is killing frigates, but can also engage cruisers if properly skilled and fitted.
3. Cruisers - medium ships with a decent armour, but small firepower. Can sustain excessive damage for a short period of time. Versatile. There are few specialiased sublasses based on cruiser platform.
4. Battlecruisers - similar to cruisers, medium sized ships that have more armour and can fit bigger weapons.
5. Battleships - large vessels, heavy armoured and armed, but also slow. Heavy hitters.


There is no such thing as NPC buying all the loot from you in EVE. There's Market where you can buy and sell things. You are buying stuff from other players and other players buy stuff from you. There are only few things NPC sell or buy (skillbooks, dogtags, ...) Note that prices are also set by players. EVE Market works just like RL market (but with less suicides).

In case tracking didn't get explained enough, the bigger the weapon the slower it tracks. There are two types of weapons that you will be using (well four but missiles and drones are another matter) to start. Rails are long range guns (think Rifle), blasters are short range guns (think handgun).

Once you load ammo in to the gun (and it can effect the range and damage type) right click on the weapon and choose 'show info' (note this is simpler when you are undocked). The second tab is 'attributes' and there is a lot to see there, but go down to two entries listed called 'Optimal Range' and 'Accuracy Falloff'. You will find the numbers for a Blaster will be much lower than those of rails.

In its simplest form, you will do full damage up to your 'optimal range' (shooting things closer than optimal does not do additional damage and may actually make it harder to hit). Beyond optimal range you start to do less damage. At your optimal range plus your fall-off range you will do up to half damage. At your optional range plus twice your falloff range you damage will drop to zero.

Now back to tracking. With a rifle you can take a slow aim and hit a slow target easily, you can also hit a fast target if it is not moving from side to side very fast (think of shooting someone running at you as apposed to running by you). When you go fire you need to reload the gun and get in back in to firing position, so your rate of fire is lower. A rifle is heavy and long though, so trying to track and hit someone at close range can be hard if they are running in a circle around you.

With a handgun (blaster) you can point it much quicker but your accuracy at long range is poor. The rate of fire is faster though because it is a smaller round and easier to control, but shot for shot you'll do less damage. Sure, that guy can try to run a circle around you, but you have a chance of putting the gun barrel to hit head as he goes by.

So in your case it sounds like you bought a big rail gun (which needs more power as you have seen) but you needed to change your tactics to go with it. With a rail you need to be farther away from the target to get an accurate hit, but when that hit does land squarely you'll do more damage. In level 1 missions you are given a lot of leeway in what you use, as you progress you'll find that you'll get longer range (rifle) or shorter range (handgun) depending on the ship's bonuses and your skills.

Hit the market with some isk and get a couple of each and see how they go.

Check out this flash guide: http://go-dl.eve-files.com/media/0910/eve-tracking101.swf
It will be easier to understand what is this range and turret tracking about.

Each ship can have 0-8 hardpoints. These are special high power slots for weapon systems. There can be turret or launcher hardpoints. Tristan for example have 4 high power slots, 2 of them are turret hardpoints and 2 of them are launcher hardpoints. It means, that you can fit at most 2 turrets and 2 launchers and 0-4 other high power modules (like energy vampires or drone link augmentors).
Drones do not need high power slot, but since you are Gallente, you should train and use them. For Gallente players, blasters are short range weapons, railguns - medium range, drones - long range.
Lasers, projectiles and missile launchers are not Gallente weapons. You can use them (if you have required skills), but most ships have bonuses to particular weapon type - hybrid turrets (blasters and railguns). When you fit lazors on them, you will lose bonuses. Always try to fit your ship according to it's bonuses.

Other weapon types and races:
Energy (lasers) - Amarr
Projectie (cannons) - Minmatar
Missiles - Caldari


EDIT: About Tristan. I'm using 2 blasters and 2 missile launchers (additional skills needed!), but I rarely use it as frigates are not my cup of tea. You can fit a probe launcher and explore sites level 1 and 2, but Imicus is better for scanning (bonuses).