EVE General Discussion

First tip: mining is horrible.

It's largely AFK, so you're not playing the game all that much or learning anything about it, and you're competing against armies of bots that spew out ore 23.5/7 and an entire region spitting out minerals at far greater efficiency than miners can do, so your income will be ****-poor.

Stay away from it until they've made it worth-while. Missions are a far better starting point if you want to make money.

However, the best option would be to find a newbie friendly corporation that showers you in dirt-cheap ships and the skillbooks to use them, and then sends you out to explode spectacularly and repeatedly. This will teach you more about the game (both in terms of amount, and in terms of usefulness) than anything PvE-like you could ever do (doubly so since you won't be doing it alone).

Second tip: EVE is not a nice game and it is not a normal game. If you have any experience with other MMOs, you're in for a rough ride because all your lessons and preconceptions from those games will be wrong. If you assume that things should be working in a particular way because they usually do, it's a pretty safe bet that they'll work the exact opposite way, and will be purposefully designed to do so. Contrary to popular belief, EVE isn't all that hard — it's just different from most other MMOs, and it's this complete change in thinking that throws people off.

Also, learn this now: EVE is a PvP game. Everything you do will be done in competition with other players; everything you do will affect them, and they will try (and succeed) to affect you right back in a myriad of ways. If you simply adjust accordingly (again, not that hard — just different), you'll have very little problems doing well.

Thank you Both for the help.

Start with missioning, L1-4.

Mining's easier, but it doesn't quite scale well when you're just a starter character. It's also a dead end one trick skill tree for most intent and purposes. Focus your skills for missioning, as these will become the core foundation when you want to expand it to other areas like incursions, exploration and PVP.

You can always come back to mining if you feel like it later, though for many players, they just build/purchase a dedicated industrial character (which synergizes well with the mining skill tree).

If you are looking to make ISK as a new character then I'd suggest training salvaging. If you hook up with a mission runner who isn't interested in the salvage/loot then you can just tag along on his missions and make some quick ISK. There are avenues to do this (in-game chat channels? I don't know) .. someone can point you to them.

As others have mentioned salvaging is a good way to make a decent amount of ISK when your a younger player,but it can be hard to find someone who is willing to let you salvage their missions.

My only real advice is find a corp. You can do a lot solo but you will find that its a lot easier to get advice and figure out what direction you want to go in if your a part of a corp.
Now keep in mind that it can also be very hard to find a decent corp,especially when your new to EVE and dont know what to look for. I would advice you to read over this thread which contains advice on how to find a corp and what to look out for and things to avoid. It will also give you an idea on how to advertise your self as a potential recruit so that you have a higher chanse of finding a decent place to settle. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=16943&find=unread

Also as others have mentioned,the new player section of the forums is a better place to ask questions like this since general discussion can be..rough on people who ask questions

Godo luck and welcome to EVE!