EVE New Citizens Q&A

I've been playing about a week now. Probably have about 40 hours into the game. I have done the tutorial missions and I just started the Sisters of Eve missions. I've been doing a lot of reading about career paths in Eve. In regards to missions, I have even read that some don't believe that they are worth doing. Some warn not to get to comfortable in hi sec because that's not where the real game is played.

The reason for this post though is to find out what some of the senior players in this game do when they log in. For players who have been in the game for at least 1 year:

1. How often do you play?

2. How much of your time is spent PVP vs PVE?

3. Please list some of the things you like to do in game. ie ratting, pvp, mining

4. If you are at liberty to to do so, please list specifics about the things you chose from question 3.


I am still very undecided about what I want to do in game. Currently I am working on cybernetics to 5 and with the help of plex, I want to buy some occular implants. I would also like to do a remap but I feel like there is no sense in doing that until I have a clear direction of what I want to do in this game.

I originally thought that I wanted to mine but after just 2 days in hi sec, filling my ore bays and running back and forth to station, I was already a little bored. So maybe mining isn't going to be my thing. Maybe it is my thing but perhaps not in hi sec? I don't know but I'm hoping that after reading about some of what you guys like to do in game, maybe I can gain some insight.

Weekends usually with the odd weeknight thrown in. I usually stick around for no more than an hour if there isn't much activity in my area... but if things are really active I'll play for about 3 to 5 hours with breaks here or there.

Of course... there are times when I'm just burnt out on EVE or something more interesting is happening in my real life. It isn't uncommon for me to not log in for a week or two.


Most of my time is consumed with PvP and finding it. I will only PvE if...

1. Nothing better is happening.
2. It's lucrative.
3. I'm out of money (again).
4. It might lead to or result in PvP
5. All of the above.


Mostly PvP. I shoot stuff with fire and things go boom.

However I also run Faction War complexes (to get fights, **** off my enemies, and earn Loyalty Points (which I can later use to buy sexy Faction ships to either use or sell for money)).

I'm also not above occasionally mining. Usually I do it because I want to trap people and kill them (my mining barge is combat fit) but, more often than not, I find myself carting loads of decent ore back to station (because no one attacks me anymore )

My main source of income comes from using a secondary character to haul much needed ships, equipment, and supplies down into low-sec. I then sell said stuff at a slight mark-up to my allies (because most people are willing to pay a bit extra for convenience).


Faction Warfare has a "capture the flag" system where you basically orbit "buttons" inside pockets of space for a set amount of time.
Each complex's nature depends on whether the system is hostile or friendly to your militia. Those that are in hostile space usually have an enemy NPC that you have to kill and "capturing" the site will put that system more at risk of being taken over by your faction. Complexes in friendly systems are/do the opposite.
For each site your "capture" you gain LP (Loyalty Points) which you can use to buy sexy ships, implants, ammunition, etc from select Loyalty Point stores in select stations... which you can either use or sell on the open market.

Beware that these sites can be seen and entered by anyone and everyone... making them points of conflict between the various militias and neutral outlaws alike. And if an enemy captures too many complexes in a friendly system they can "flip it"... turning the system hostile to you and denying you docking rights in any station.


Mining is... as you said... horribly boring. And in high-sec the only way you can churn out a decent profit is if you can mine on an industrial scale. So you either need to find friends or go to more risky places and find more quality/valuable ore.
However, I should note that I'm no expert on mining. I just do it for giggles and PvP.


Trading is pretty simple. Buy low, sell high. You can get away with doing this in places where there is more need for certain products. In my case, I sell stuff to my own comrades at slightly higher prices because I KNOW they need them (they die a lot) and are too lazy to get them themselves.
This, more than anything, is within reach of any newbie. But it also has more risk as hauling ships tend to lack the ability to defend themselves and often are targeted for their phat lewtz (even in high-sec). To get around this, get friends (especially if you are moving large shipments to low-sec) and/or get a Tech 2 Blockade Runner (which can cloak and run gatecamps).


Hope that helps.

And always remember 4 things...

1. This is a multiplayer sandbox.
- Whatever you do affects someone else in EVE. Even something as mundane as mining.
- By the same token... other people can affect you just as much... for better or worse.
- All ships, tactics, and mechanics affect all players equally. Whatever people use against you, you can use against them!

2. Don't worry about skills too much. They are not the end-all-be-all thing in the game.
- Knowledge and interpersonal skills are rewarded FAR more than anything else.
- Once you have all your "core skills" up to par, total skill points become a[n almost] meaningless metric. They just mean you can do more things. Nothing more.

3. Find a corporation (or group of people) that suits you best.
- it doesn't matter if you are super active or not so active. There is a group out there for you.
- remember that "trust" is a valuable commodity here. The more time you spend building that trust, the more opportunities that open up.

4. Do what you want and have fun.
- If you don't like what you are currently doing, do something else.
- What you can do is limited only by your imagination (and the EULA).
- You don't need to grind for anything (and not have fun) in this game. Use your brain to think around a problem and/or MAKE it fun.

I suppose that Max has become something of a 'Gentleman Farmer' now. He has a small POS in high sec and the only real goal I have is to ensure that I do enough to pay for its monthly fuel needs.

In his time he has done just about everything to do in Eve, from Mission running/ratting to being a director of a medium sized Corp/Alliance which was involved in the BOB (and friends) vs everybody else war. ( I might have been on the 'losing side' but that is one thing that I am not bitter about. It was the best gaming experience that I have ever been involved with, in any game.

One other thing that does affect my game play is that me, the player behind Max is also one of the more senior players age wise, having just retired from work I have more time for Eve.

How often do I play?
I try to get a couple of hours in, in my AM (I am GMT based) and a couple in the evening most days, though I tend to not play at weekends.

How much of my time is spent PvP vs. PvE
That's a hard one. On paper Max is a PvE/Industrial character. But, while his POS is in high sec, he mines regularly in WH systems, and it is specifically placed to make a number of null sec access points available, where he can then be found doing a lot of deep null sec exploration.
If Max gets caught by a dedicated PvP ship he is toast, but that is a big part of what he does. Also, he is not averse to 'chasing off' fellow Explorers from particularly juicy looking exploration sites. This has led to a couple of ‘interesting’ fights. Think handbags at dawn as none of us were in particularly combat efficient ships *chuckles*

Things I like to do in game
Exploration (mainly in Null sec, though I do try to keep my home system neat and tidy too), WH system mining (I build the odd Battle ship at my POS) High Sec mining (Usually semi-afk while I am doing the ‘chores’ around my house, a bit of level 3 mission running, (though now, only enough to keep my Faction POS charters stocked up), chat with friends in game, and my friends list even includes a couple of guys who were on ‘the other side’ during the ‘Great Delve Bun fight’. Help friends out as needed and as I am able too. Oh! And not forgetting all of his PI that need managing now and then.
Developing new skills! Yes, after 7 years even Max can find new things to learn. One by-product of him spending more and more time exploring in Null sec, he is bringing home a hell of a lot of T2 Rig salvage. Rather than sell them on I now have Max finally dipping his toes into T2 manufacture.

I think that the main thing with Eve is that it is whatever you decide you want it to be. Unlike other games, you don’t have clear and defined classes, you are what you are. Want to be a pirate? Go attack other players. Want to be a bounty hunter? Wait for CCP to finally fix the bounty system, and then go hunt bad people. (Sorry, couldn’t resist the dig)
As I said; in my mind I have Max as the Gentleman Farmer type. There is no class or description of the type, just an idea in my head. Because to me he fits those criteria, the veteran who has been in the thick of things in the past, but who is now a gentleman of independent means so does what he wants to do when he wants to do it.

(A) Correct

(B) *Ikahn slaps the noobs hand with a ruler*, NO! BAD NEW PLAYER! NO! BAD BOY! *Ilkahn pets the new clone head in a reassuring manner*

(C) Sees that tough love from B has brought sense into the new players head.

In serious reply. Do not jump past your points of knowledge in this game. Take time to learn what the mods do and how things react. Simply rushing up the ladder in the skill tree most often renders players facing serious losses of very expensive ships needlessly. Just because you can fly it doesn't mean you should. This game is about sinking time into it as well as building personal relationships with other players.

Trust me when i tell you that shiny ships die fast and Capital ships even faster when opportunity arises.

Ask for a link to their killboard or look them up yourself. If they never lose any ship and never kill any, they don't really play the game or are very very specialised. You can further use evewho to found out what members they have and follow their references. If a corp is newly founded their killboard wont reflect anything. Their members will leave traces tho.

This guide will help you when you are looking into joining a corp, i would advice you to read it

Since im a bit distracted right now i will write a proper response to your first post later

1. How often do you play?

Around 2 hours per day, sometimes more.

2. How much of your time is spent PVP vs PVE?

It's about 75% 25% leaning towards "PVE" or stuff for corp.

3. Please list some of the things you like to do in game. ie ratting, pvp, mining

I like to PVP, but I have to pay for that. So I basically just try to make enough per month to plex both my accounts and to afford the ships I lose.

4. If you are at liberty to to do so, please list specifics about the things you chose from question 3.

I station trade mostly, run some POCOs, and if I'm strapped for isk I run RLD's.

1. Depends. Lately I've been very busy but in general reasonably often.

2. Almost all PVP. Faction Warfare generally gives me enough ISK (either though passive plexing while looking for fights or looting) to fund most of my losses. Once in awhile I'll do exploration (in lowsec) for variety's sake, or have to spend time cashing out LP for ISK. I've also done an okay amount of trading on a same-account alt which earned most of the money I'm sitting on right now.

3/4. Mostly PvP. I am a Rifterlings director so I spend some time doing general administrative stuff but more often than not if I'm online I'm roaming the warzone in some kind of ship looking for **** to kill. due to sporadic ability to be online this hasn't happened too much recently, but I used to FC fairly often, leading frigate roams around the warzone or into nullsec. The latter is pretty difficult as there are larger fleets with bigger/more expensive ships in nullsec, but this also provides good opportunities if one or two of them are caught away from the pack.

1. Almost daily, though not quite that often the past couple weeks. Real life issues, etc.

2. 70% PvP, 10% PvE (faction warfare / exploration), 10% forum warrioring, 10% running my corp into the ground.

3.

• Shooting things
• More shooting things
• Some exploration (shooting things or hacking things)
• Leading people in shooting things
• Teaching people how to shoot things
• Shooting things
• Trading in stuff to shoot things with
• Theorycrafting shooting things (using Pyfa or other tools)
• Exploding gloriously
• Did I mention shooting things?

4. Well, when you shoot things, you target them and mash the F1-F8 keys. Then things explode. Or you explode. Or both.

In all seriousness, I only play Eve for the solo/small gang PvP aspect. Faction warfare has proven very conducive to that, and I've had a lot of fun shooting up the Amarr, pirates, and anything else in my scopes. Everything else that I do largely revolves around that -- leading/participating in roams, leading a PvP-centric corp, organizing PvP activities, teaching people about PvP (here in NC Q&A, my blog, or in-game), et cetera. I am a pretty big noob when non-PvP areas of the game are concerned.

Normally I think people do more PvE than I do, but that's probably because I have some shenanigans I run on my alt that give me a pretty steady income of ISK.

I don't know if it's your thing, but I definitely recommend trying to get into PvP (piracy, faction warfare, wars, sovereignty nullsec, whatever). The depth of fights in Eve is pretty astounding, and the resulting adrenaline rush from a good hunt, fight, and kill is pretty amazing. Just remember to not fly what you can't afford to lose.

So, the real response.

I have been playing for over 7 years at this point, and i feel like i have tried everything i wanted to try. Been in 0.0, been in empire, been a director, been a co- CEO in an alliance, been in the bigger wars (another person from the BOB war as someone mention earlier), been a grunt, been a pet, done mining, done PVE, done PVP, been involved in enough drama to make a soap opera that lasts for years...
However, i have never been a CEO and i refuse to be one

Now however you basically have to drag me kicking and screaming out of the station.
Sometimes, quite often actually, people ask me why i still play since i dont actually play the game anymore.
But there is so much more to EVE then shooting stuff, mining, trading, building,exploration and so on. If you move beyond that there is a whole new game, and this one is even deeper and more involved (in my opinion).
The politics in EVE is mind blowing, the amount of work you have to put into a corp to make it successful makes many people run screaming in the other direction, the pressure you deal with when you have to question recruits, potential allies, enemies and neutrals alike is always a thrill (ok sometimes it can be quite annoying but still, nothing is perfect ).

Those are the things i do now, i deal with the politics (granted im done with 0.0 politics, and there are certain entities im not allowed to speak to because we had some disagreements ), try to get around to talk to all the members on a regular basis, be available if im needed for something important, solving small issues like roles, pointing them to the right person, answer hate mails, and yell when needed. But thats also my job in EVE, and even tho i will often be heard swearing about how much i hate it, EVE would have nothing for me if i dident have the responsibilities i do and that i had an illusion that at some level people do appreciate what i try to do for the members and the corp.

But of course sometimes there is downtime, or i just dont feel like dealing with corp stuff. Those are the times i will be posting on the forums (or i will juggle 7 convos at the same time), or i will sit and help answer questions in starter systems just to kill time and have some fun

But here is my advice for you, dont let your self get burned out. Take breaks when you need to, dont think that you have to log on every single day. Dont set other peoples need before your own, even if you end up in a leadership position.
And most importantly, enjoy EVE while your still young. Being a bitter vet might sound cool, but i think a lot of us miss undocking and feeling exited thinking about that new cruiser, new missions, or new adventures.

Also, even if you should not trust anyone in EVE, you can make friends here. Some of my best friends are people i met trough EVE, and some of them i still talk to out of game even if they haven't played for nearly 4 years. Dont cut your self off from everyone just because you might loose some pixels by trusting the wrong person