EVE New Citizens Q&A

It really depends what you're after.

If you build your own ships to PvP in then yes you will pretty much be in a cycle of build ship, fly ship, loose ship with hopefully the odd kill in between.

You obviously don't want to mine or become a marker pvp'er but have you considered exploration as a career rather than just 'I enjoy exploring' <- Yes it is an officul carreeer ;)

It's an excellent solo career, lets you see the universe without being a member of a corp & brings travel, adventure & girls

*I may have lied about the girls............

then again are you sure you want nothing to do with corporations?

For example I'm a member of R1FTA - however we are mostly a corp purely for social reasons & the odd '**** I've tackled a Moros NO IM NOT F**** KIDDING' moments.

The rest of the time we fly solo or in small gangs.............

Eve is a sandbox, anyone that tells you that you need a corp to survive is full of sh1t

However it all depends on your goals

It is possible to "solo" in EVE... it just won't be easy and there will be things you cannot do by yourself.

This is especially true when you are first starting out. Your character and player skills are at a level where you won't be able to take on more experienced players head-on... which means your only defenses are "laying low," diplomacy, and gaining allies.
That said... it's actually quite easy to "lay low" and avoid danger if you know what you are doing (which is a trial and error process) and diplomacy and allies go hand in hand, relying more on a player's interpersonal skills than anything else (making it an easy "skill" to master if you are not an asshat).

With regards to corps and alliances... there are as many of these as there are people and all have their own missions statements. Some will be "hardcore," having mandatory ops and requiring you to perform certain activities/roles... others really don't care what you do or where you do it, as long as you contribute in some way... and still others could care less what its members do, all the member are there just for social reasons.
Even though you have stated that you wish to run solo and "learn the hard way" I still recommend you find a corp (preferably one of the latter two types I mentioned)... because it'll make things infinitely easier when you run into the proverbial wall (and you will at some point).

Now... with your specialty... it sounds like you are doing both mining and "exploring"... don't do this. Pick one specialty at a time and master it before moving off to another one. EVE rewards this practice more so than those who pursue a "jack-of-all-trades" route early on.
My advice is to abandon mining altogether (it's soul crushing and I get the sense that you need a bit more stimulation from your games) and focus on "probing" and explortation.
Find "backwater" (see: lightly populated) systems and try finding different sites to hack, salvage, analyze, or destroy. The high-sec sites are generally pretty easy but are subject to high competition and low rewards.

If you need a ship... use your isk to buy ships and mods.

That's not true. People who think that simply have no initiative nor imagination.
It's up to you to think out of the box.
You can very well survive solo and earn enough income, everywhere. But it will take some time to find your own way.
As for corporations, there are many different kind. They are not all null sec blobs. In fact the big majority are not.
It's fine to play solo, but a corpo where you feel well is even more fun, and multiplicates the possibilities.

Now, i must tell you something very important to not give up : You will soon face the problem of the skills. Not enough skill do to this or fly that, and you have no other choice than to put the skills in the queue and wait weeks and months.
If you do nothing interesting while waiting, you'll get bored and disheartened and quit.
If you always do the same thing the same way you'll get bored.
If you always do it alone it's even worse.
You can already start a lot of different activities, not in an extremly effective way maybe, but enough to get the feel and see if it's your thing or no.
Have a look here : http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/
Try new things and meet people, even if it's not what you had planned, you'll learn much more while waiting for your skills to unlock.

Really the thought of playing solo in eve leads to the biggest reason people quit eve is that they can't play solo, this is a misconception. Yes it is good to meet people join corps/alliances and interact socially, but you can still act independently. The thing to remember is that corp members are there to help you, even if you move to null and just rat you can hang in comms or channels and chat, it also allows you to know when fleets come up or people to do incursions, whs, escalations that solo pilots can't handle alone.

If you have further questions or would like any advice feel free to mail or pm me in game.

Problem is doing lots of things early means doing them badly. I did much the same as you say early on but having specialized a lot since then i can very clearly see the error of my ways. You're not supposed to know exactly what you want to do in week one, but all the same if you stumble upon something that sparks an interest grab it with both hands and be the best you can be at that before moving on. I'm not suggesting all 5's before moving on, just give specialization a shot.

Only gets better from there.

It is entirely possible for you to, as a solo player, scout out a wormhole system and quietly move your own station into it, living out of that and hunting Sleepers. Yes, your bolt-hole might be found and destroyed ... but the odds are, by the time that has happened, you'll have exported a very nice chunk of change.

It is entirely possible for you to form a one-man corporation, and get standings in 0.0 Providence, joining defense fleets and destroying raiders.

It is entirely possible for you to make a living as a solo predator in Venal, or Curse, or some other area of "NPC 0.0'. Yes, you may be hunted down by the blob, and forced to spin in a station for hours (or play an alt).

It is entirely possible for you to, as a solo player, to have your own list of friends and blues, who know you'll lose ships having their back.

Yes, being part of a big corp in a big alliance is the easy road. But it isnt the only one.

EVE allows for different styles of gameplay and players, while the majority enjoys hiding behind numbers and being a tiny cog in the machine, being "significant" (while on a personal level contributing almost nothing to that "significance") there's also players out there who want to get ahead on their own merit, follow their own rules and want their personal input&effort make the difference. It's certainly not the easiest way to play EVE (that's why many choose not to, while making cool excuses for it) but it's very much possible and you can succeed just fine.

In fact, many well known players ARE well known BECAUSE they did it differently and (mostly) alone. To be good/successful/well known in EVE is about putting in the effort to get GOOD at what you like doing and having the right mindset&personality. Note how it has nothing to do with having massive SP, wallet or ships. Find something you enjoy doing, whatever that may be, and get GOOD at it and it'll be successful and profitable and you'll do just fine.

At some point you'll run into people who have that same mindset and you might even team up with them, even if only to have a chat and possibly exchange intel. EVE caters to all who put in the effort to get into it. You just need to find your own little niche in regards to play style and accept/enjoy the fact that it takes effort to succeed.

Chribba is a testament to the single player making his own way in EVE (even if he has a dozen alts xD)

Personally I say you can just go do stuff like marketeering to make big money without needing to cater to a large group to do it for you. Use that money to do as you please. Get into the groove of how low/null areas work. Pick your fights wisely and make a name for yourself as one of the few true solo pilots out there.

Or maybe become the leader yourself. Start a small group of loyal friends that you can count on and you'll soon have the essence of a small gang which most people find is the most fun PVP wise.

It is possible to play EVE solo, without joining a corporation, and have fun doing it. It just takes a very special, and very unusual kind of person to pull it off.

For most people, if you play completely solo, without regular interaction with a group of friends, you will quickly get bored and quit. EVE truly lacks content for solo players. PvP is the only exception to this. If you run missions, you will find that you are running the same missions over and over again. If you run exploration sites, you will find the same. If you mine roids by yourself, the rocks all start looking the same, and before long you are talking to your alts, and it all goes downhill from there.

The only reasonable way for most of us to play this game is in player corporations. That is not to say that you can't do your own thing. Most corporations in the game offer content to their members who want it, but don't object to members who want to go off and do their own thing. You will find that even solo activities are more fun if you have a group of friends to talk to about what you are doing.

Take everything you read on the forum with a pinch of salt. Whatever profession or position about that profession you can imagine, you'll find someone unironically willing to profess it.

So the question you need to ask is not, "Can I survive in 0.0 solo" but "How can I survive in 0.0 solo?"

As a first step, I would direct you towards NPC space, which has the all-important NPC station facilities you'll need. That's not to say that you'll have to spend all your time in NPC space, only that you'll realisitically need to base from it.