EVE New Citizens Q&A

I would urge the OP to check the link in my sig, one of my guides talks about how to make isk in eve, another explains how newbies aren't useless at all. And the others might help you as well.

It has it's good & bad times. It's mostly about speculation & following whats going on within the game. You can make some huge profits just by reading to forums regularly.

No, whoever thinks that their way is the only way to play a MMO is stupid.

Some of us are just naturally independently-minded. If EVE was so structured that being in a player corp was the only way to play I wouldn't be here. Now that I am here the last thing I want to do is put myself into a position where any internet bully-boy CEO can force me into PvP combat that I don't want by wardeccing my corp.

Also, did you not bother to look at the result of last month's survey? The majority of EVE players do it solo.

Playing a video game of any sort is a very personal activity - why the hell would I want to do it in circumstances where I have to share that with others?

I like how people keep refering to the survey after they failed to read it properly. With that said, I really love solo PvP on my main, especially when outnumbered.

Playing solo or being useless to a fleet before Xmil SP isn't that wrong, EvE is full of paradoxes.

The game has solo content and the whole tutorials pretty much teaches new players how to play EvE solo with the PvE focus, but it's really difficult to offer new players some tutorials other than PvE, I can't really think of any way to take newbs along some PvP content within tutorials. Which leads to new players easily sticking to solo PvE.

As for being useless in fleets, it all depends on the kind of fleet and therefore the kind of corp you join. Many people will say you can help tackling in a barely trained frigate, but don't tell you a flight or warriors II will eat through your hull long before you become a threat if the "FC" leading the PvP op isn't picking the targets correctly or just goes in Tama or Rancer for PvP thrills every friday night while the corp mostly runs missions.

There are laid-back corps where a new player can join ops and help, but truth is, many corps become very concerned with their e-peen at some point and start being picky, adding pre-reqs to apply for the corp and end up filtering new players out.

It's just the nature of the people playing the game, despite how casual losing a ship is, most people don't like losing and seldom engage if they don't outnumber the others 3:1 with off-grid booster alts and capitals because they're afraid of seeing their corpmates leave if they lose too often, somewhat leading to a form of elitism where you can only apply to laid-back corps while you skill for T2 tank and guns.

But laid-back corps also means various activities, further gimping new players' skills just like tutorials do with industry, exploration, trade and combat, delaying even more the moment you can pass the mandatory T2 fitted drake and tengu prereqs to join most corps.

There's a lot of cursing at people playing solo, but hey... how many people fund their PvP with NPC alts plexing L4s or C1/C2 anoms? you can't blame players going solo if the game provides solo-content and teaches new players the basics through solo content.

Also, you can't blame new players for thinking they'll be useless in fleet until they trained T2 guns... small gangs skirmish isn't that common and when the odds seem to shift, it's not unusual to see hotdrops of backups turning gudfights into blobs with engagement ranges of 100km.

There is room for new players, but it's very difficult to find it when you don't have close friends to get you in, because you're new, know no one, might be a spai, awoxer, drama-queen and thus you get the cold shoulder quite often.

Thing is, a new player needs guidance and support from the vets. But in the heat of a battle, FC can't give hints and tips to the newb in his rifter, so it falls down on the newb to figure what they can do and shrug the loss of their ship early during the battle. Because crossing the battlefield to tackle the primary will often lead to frustrating losses or neverending rush from already blown primary to almost blown secondary to make use of their 5km point and 10km web in a 100km+ engagement.

The amount of ISK you can make solo in missions, varies with the social skills, the level of the missions and security level of the system the agents are located in. Further, low-sec/null-sec/w-space pay proportionnally more, but with a security risk. This can be further improved if you join a player corp, if you find one that can provide a decent atmosphere and take you along in lul-sec plexing, ratting, mining, etc. You might then afford to use faction ships in fights, that would provide a compensation for low skills and thus have a use in fleets.

So yeah, EvE can be played solo, though others can enforce PvP on you. And yeah, a newb in his rifter can turn the tide of a 1vs1 fight, but will hardly provide noticeable help in larger fights.

Highlight on the important part, you don't really qualify as newb, J'Poll
I didn't say a new player is useless, but they need to be taught in order to find their place in a fight, just joining an op with a rifter won't work most of the time if they don't even know what to engage. That can be explained after the fight, but preferrably before, in a safe environment like SiSi indeed. Then again, it depends how the corp works and how they treat their new members, which often leads back to finding a proper corp that actually trains newbs and this is one thing that forms the steep learning curve of EvE.
There is a point where you need to be patient while you train necessary support skills to reach new levels of ships or mods, where you need to find a proper group of people to play with (already a difficult task) that can make your time online more pleasant, that can give you hints and directions on how to improve. Then you can really begin to enjoy the game and have fun if you managed to get through this wall.

If PvP is what you want to do, go to the 'Militia' button in pretty much any station and click it.

There will be an option to enlist in the Militia. Click on that and you instantly join the NPC Militia corp, which is the 24th Imperial crusade for Amarrians. Expect people to call you a 'spy', and don't expect a lot of help at first. However, hang around and fly around, and keep an eye out for people looking to recruit into their player corporation.

As others have pointed out, it only takes a few days to train up well enough to be a 'tackler'. Like football, a tackler is a fast ship that can get close enough to warp scramble an enemy to stop them from getting away. Without a tackler, all of the DPS of the big, skill intensive ships is pretty much useless, since their target can get away.

It takes about three days to fly a Punisher well enough to be a helpful tackler in a fleet fight.

Punishers are a cheap ship, and easy to replace. If you get them insured before you undock, and your ship gets destroyed, you should get enough money from your insurance to buy and fit another Punisher. Stick to small, fast, cheap frigates and try to have at least five fitted frigates ready to use (and lose).

Some people say that EVE is not a solo player game. I'm not sure this is true, BUT it's very difficult to be a PVP pilot and play solo.

You should really consider joining a player run corporation. Most player run PVP Faction war corps will give you free ships, modules and training. They do this because:

1) They have an industrial/ logistics division to back them up, and
2) they expect you to lose a lot of ships in faction war.

You can make a lot of ISK, very good ISK, by running Faction war missions. This is probably some of the best ISK you can earn in EVE as a newer player. You will also earn Faction Loyalty points which you can cash in for skillbooks, implants and other goodies to either use or sell.


EVE University is a good corporation to join. They give you free skillbooks and training in everything from PvP and Pirating to station trading.