EVE New Citizens Q&A

Cynos, highsec hauler to deliver stuff to your pirate main, anonymous forum and bounty poster alt, Jita market agent....

If the character can do what it needs to passively, without being logged in, then yes, there is a point.

At your stage simply focus on your main.

If you join a corporation where it would be dangerous to travel in high sec (because they're always wardecced) it can be nice to have a neutral alt who can shop for you.

there are semi-passive forms of income, such as planetary interaction. you set it up once then log on once every two days or so to reap the benefits.
then there are people who prefer lean, focused chars. for example you may want a character who is very good at running lvl4 missions and nothing else. you have him learn all necessary skills (15 million SP or so), put him in a ship and only log in when you feel like doing missions.
then there are forum alts for people like myself who would rather not expose their main to being ganked for some overly blunt criticism they provide on the forums.
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I have a second character on my account... used to have it's own but once it got trained to a level where it could make me isk I transferred it over

I need the 2nd character because I know what's going to happen... I'll stay on the straight and narrow and then one day I'm going to fall off the wagon and massacre an obedience school for kittens and be at -10 again

My "main" character here is a "criminal" and thus cannot enter high security space to get replacement ships and supplies. So I use one of character slots on my account to create a "hauling alt" to ferry replacement stuff to my main character (and take expensive loot away to trading hubs).

The last character slot is used for an alt that "finds" and spies on people. She watches people, sees what ships they fly, and what they do with them. Very good for marking targets and figuring out what their weaknesses are.

And yes... you do need to pause training on your "main character" for a small bit. But skill specialties like hauling (industrial ships) and "spying" are not huge "timesinks" relative to other professions.

If you ever find yourself saying something like this, then the answer to your original question is a firm, capitalized "NO".

Like, not even slightly. Don't do it until you know why you should do it.

Two of my three chars sit in trading hubs and do station trading.

Basically, as some have pointed out through examples, they are good for characters that fill roles your main character cannot (either due to affiliation getting in the way, or needing to be somewhere different to where your main is based), and fill a role which does not require extensive training. The second bit is key, since it costs you training time on your main character to train these guys up, but if a role only needs a million or so sp, its a waste to pay for a second account, when you can just spend a month or so training them then switching back to your main.

As examples, certain duties only need a baseline of skills, which once trained, the character need never train another skill. Such roles as Market Trading, Industry, certain combat roles like cynoing, and yes, even mining (although that is much longer before you hit the cap), all have finite skill-levels, where once they have hit a point, you can't spend more points in that avenue. Both back-up characters on this characters account fill that role.

- the first has training in industrial ships, the relevant skills to use the modules fitted on that industrial, and the market training skills. In all, this took a couple of weeks of training time off my main character, now she never needs another skill. This is due to my Alliance - I can't easily move around in high security space due to enemies (both player and faction police), and therefore can't get to trading hubs, so she does that for me, and ships things I need to the border of my alliances space, where this character can collect it..
- the second flies Stealth Bombers. Again, ~month training time for all the skills needed for flying bombers. He serves as a recon alt, often being many regions away from where this character is located.

This is about where I'm at as well. I think Aralyn, as well as many others, have gotten it spot on. I had one character for about a year, he can fly a few things, and has basic skills since I was new, and never really knew what to make of myself. I didn't give the game a shot and missed out on a lot back then. Then I created my "main" who has almost nothing compared to the rest of the universe but can be versatile, if not very specialized. Enough to keep me busy doing missions up to level 4, mining, transporting a few things but not in any fancy ships or with higher level fittings. The bonus to the alt still being around is if my main's corporation is ever at war, I have an way to ferry supplies about and keep things running.

Recently , I've discovered PI and manufacturing and such and I don't want to clutter up a skill book that is so all over the place I can't make sense of it. lol Plus I've decided I want a persona to specialize in something idle that I don't have to be logged in for. So I've opted to start a third and she will be specialty to those things, as well as being able to pilot some of the freighters to really move goods around. Once she is skilled enough, I'll go back to training as needed on my other pilots and just see where the world takes me.

I've been in EVE for nigh six years but have been in and out of playing for nearly half of that, and half-assed my skills for most of that time. lol I finally learned to use skill-planners and they've improved my feelings about what I'm doing. Right now, if you're still relatively new, you may want to play on a main and learn a bit before jumping to an alt or two. Get a hang of it and a feel for what you want since the universe in EVE really is your playground. I am finally treating EVE less like an immediately gratifying (I know, I'm sorry to even say the word here) WoW, and more like the long-term, in-depth, thoughtful entertainment that it is. Since I'm in it for the longer run, I shall be much happier not worrying about a few days here and there in training time or who's doing what. I guess I'm trying to relate an acceptable need for alts through personal experience but not an immediate rush to get them