Skill Discussions

Race has no effect on learning anymore, since attributes are the same for all. If you're skilling up an alt, and doing it on a second account (which you will have to, in order to train it as the same time as your main), then the main thing is just to group all your skills so that you can get the most optimal mapping with the least remaps.

In order to make the best plan, you should download EVEMon and plan out all the skills you want to have when this alt is fully trained, then reorder them by the attributes they depend on to get the most training in the least time. The downside to this is it means you will have a period of time where the alt is not training much that is useful to you, but if your goal is to get him "done" in the shortest time possible, and you don't care about using him for a few weeks to start out, you'll get to where you want to be quicker.

In practice, I tend to train new alts by going with an Int/Mem map to start, and then switching to Per/Will. For a miner, if you want to train all of the T2 crystal skills, like "Veldspar Processing" and the ten or twenty or so others, then you may want to burn another remap by swapping to Mem/Int in the middle, to get all the industry and mining skills done. If this is going to be a dedicated miner and you will probably never train him again, then it's worth using the third remap. If you mean this to be a second main, and you might want to train other stuff later, you may want to save it. Either way, I tend to always end with Per/Will, because it's likely to be optimal for either weapons or more ships (haulers, for example), which you might want to train after his main skillset is done.

Other than that, it's just a matter of lining up all your skills so they best fall into the remaps you have chosen to use. If you only want to use two and save one, then plan on training all your core and industry skills on the Int/Mem map, and then swap to Per/Will to train up your mining frigate, mining barge, and exhumer. Drone skills can just be thrown in at the end of the Int/Mem or Mem/Int maps, since it's not worth remapping just for them.

The major skills you want to make sure to train are (just pulling this off the top of my head):

Core Fitting Skills

Engineering V
Electonics V
Mining Upgrades V

Other Basic Stuff

Shield Operation / Management III (or better, depending on how much time you want to put in)
Energy Systems Op / Energy Management III+
Navigation / Evasive Maneuvering III+
Warp Drive Operation III+
Mechanics III+

T2 Tank Skills

Hull Upgrades IV
Shield Upgrades IV
Tactical Shield Manipulation IV

Mining and Industry

Mining V
Astrogeology V
Science IV / Metallurgy IV (required for T2 crystal skills)
Refining V
Refinery Efficiency V
Veldspar Processing IV (and all other ores you want to be able to mine)
Ice Harvesting V (if you ever plan to mine ice)
Gas Cloud Harvesting V (if you ever want to do gas, which with the new frig is apparently a thing again)
Deep Core Mining II (if you ever want to mine Merc, which you probably won't unless you already know you want to)

Drones

Drones V
Scout Drone Operation V
Gallente / Minmatar Drone Spec II
Mining Drone Operation V
Drone Interfacing V
Drone Navigation IV+ (if you plan to use mining drones a lot)
Drone Durability / Sharpshooting III+
Combat Drone Operation III+

Hull Skills

Mining Frigate V
Mining Barge V
Exhumers V (should be the last thing you train)

You can wait to train Mining V until your Mem/Int remap if you use one, but you'll have to get it to IV I think in order to inject Astrogeology, which should be trained on Int/Mem.

If you plan to use +5 learning implants, then train Cybernetics V before anything else to get them in as early as possible. They're probably not worth it for an alt you're going to train as a dedicated miner though, since +3s are about 1/10th the price. Even if you only plan to use +3s, you might want to train Cybernetics V anyway since it's required for the high end mining hardwirings.

If you plan to fleet this alt with your main to grind up standings (for perfect refine), then you should also train Social IV+ and Connections IV+ at some point.

Mining Frigate III
Mining Upgrades I
Mining IV
Science IV
Astrogeology III
Industry V
Mining Barge III

Mining Upgrades IV
Mining V
Astrogeology IV

Refining IV
Refinery Efficiency II
Scordite Processing IV
Plagioclase Processing IV
Kernite Processing IV
Omber Processing IV
Pyroxeres Processing IV


Some other skills you may need are

Electronics IV (to actually fit what you trained for)
Drones II or III (to fight off rats in highsec)

I may have forgotten something so the posters after me please correct me if you find something wrong with what I wrote.


P.S. since you're new buy atleast +2 implants as soon as you can. You won't be able to afford better right off the bat. Oh and I wrote the skills in order from training first to last. Till you get the last skill done training so much time will pass you will know what to train by yourself already.

Wow... thanks guys!

If he's gonna train for a retriever which is around week long training he could atleast make more isk while he's waiting for training to finish. Mining frig II and III don't take long to train anyway. But in the end it doesn't really matter since you don't make big isk with it. It's personal preference in my opinion. Making ISK for a retriever and it's modules isn't cheap for a newbie :)