EVE New Citizens Q&A

The first advice I typically give to newbies wanting to start PvP is to read the Punisher Plan. It's a blog about a guy taking and buying 20 of a cheap frig and proceeding to lose them all in combat and blog about his experiences and what he learned from each fight.

This seems to be the best method to learn PvP in Eve. Eve's combat is less about twitch response and more about skill and practice; which means that keybinds do help, but the F1-8 keys (combined with Ctrl+Shift+Alt) that are already configured in the game are 90 percent of the keybinds you need. So the best way to learn PvP is to just get out there and do it and learn as much as you can.

One thing that's different with PvP in Eve is that, as you said, Eve does have strict penalties for losing your ship. Which is good in a lot of ways because it makes combat meaningful. However, that means that it's hard to learn PvP in big expensive ships. So it's best to start out going out with really really cheap ships and just going at it. Yes, you will die (not just because of this, but you will lose ships in Eve, it's best to get used to it early). However, losing a ship really isn't that bad and you learn to shrug it off and move on. The first rule of Eve is to never undock in a ship you're not willing to lose (don't fly what you can't afford to lose); as long as you follow that, then it's all fine.

And another piece of advice, bigger isn't always better in Eve, this is intentional. The smaller you are, the harder you are to hit, which helps balance out combat and makes it possible to fly what you want, rather than being forced to fly the biggest ship.

And, as to a corp, they can be good, but you don't need them. The biggest benefit to corps is that they provide you friends to talk to, people to do stuff with, and advice when you need it. Most of those things can be had when you're not in a corp too though, through joining the right channel. Which group you would want to hang out with depends a lot on what kind of PvP you want to do. Do you want to be a lone wolf/part of a small gang roaming around looking for targets, or do you want to be in massive (lag filled) fleet battles shooting whoever the fleet commander lists as primary? Which one sounds more interesting to you?

And finally, my most important advice, is never be afraid to ask questions. The only stupid question is the one you don't ask. All the vets remember how steep the learning curve is (and most can provide horror stories about how it was even worse "back in my day") and are usually willing to provide lots of friendly advice and tips that will help you out greatly.

Edit: And some more advice, don't use the percent symbol in any post where you have a link; the forums like to choke on that percent symbol.

Your preferred size of ship will determine how fast-paced your combat is. If you fly around in a frigate hull, you will want lightning reflexes and lots of clever keybindings. In a battleship, not so much.

Awesome community. Thanks for much for the responses. I appreciate it! There is plenty of great advice here, and a lot of it sounds close enough to be well taken. The good news is that I played for most of last summer (about 2million skill points), and have a pretty good amount of skill points. So I can fly a pretty good amount of ships. I like the idea of a sizable ship with a gang of folks who like to take down other ships. I love, LOVE, LOVE the idea of being in an epic engagement with giant task forces, but I don't really think that would be as fun as jumping into a more intimate conflict. It sounds like I will be buying some throw away ships, so that I can practice. I have been killed before, btw --- lol, it was last summer.

I was braving the lowsec areas, and somebody jumped in and interdicted me (I couldn't jump), and then a couple of his buddies just started pounding on me. lol --- it was a fun experience, despite losing my ship, and lots of ISK.

Anyway -- thanks again!!

Your Blade Runner quote makes you pretty cool in my book. ;)

I will certainly check out the link! Thanks again.

Also when you inevitably get killed convo the one who.killed you and ask advice. Eve is one of the rare games where your killer will in most cases help and advise you hoow to either get them back, or avoid them.