EVE New Citizens Q&A

I'm mostly through the tutorials now (just have advanced military left), and I would like to get any comments that anyone would care to offer on what I'm prioritizing for my skill training plan and attributes (and thanks in advance to anyone that takes the time to do so!)

FWIW, I did do a lot of Googling and trolling through Wikis, but it seems that maybe there has been some huge changes in how Eve has set up the rules for skills and attributes and that maybe lots of those changes were recent. Before creating my character I spent a fair amount of time reading and working out a plan based an outdated article I found on Google - turned out to be a complete waste. I also looked at:
https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Citizens_Useful_threads
but everything skill training specific was listed as outdated.

Anyhow, here's what I have in mind:

I'm thinking that I'll play as a mission runner. I gather that's not really an official occupation (maybe there's no such thing as an occupation any more, at least in game mechanics terms), but I think that still describes how I'd like to play the game.

I'm looking to do more PvE than PvP, but I don't want to ignore PvP. The hacking stuff, exploring, scanning and salvaging pieces of the game sound fun and part of what I want to do. Mining and building, not zero fun, but still sound less interesting. What I liked about the outdated Mission Runner descriptions I had read was that high social skills would lead to higher quality rewards and better missions opportunities from agents.

As such, I've used my first remap to set the following attributes:
Perception: 19
Memory: 17
Willpower: 19
Intelligence: 20
Charisma: 24

I'm emphasizing social and negotiation now, and I'm also thinking to emphasize any other social skills which look they will help me get more fun and more rewards from PvE play.

I'm planning my secondary emphasis to be on combat skills. I'll be looking to keep these skills focused on what I'll actually use, so as to not waste training time. I'm thinking that at some point I'll decide I've advance my social skills sufficiently that I'll use a remap to make my attributes more combat oriented (although does Charisma directly affect my interaction with agents?).

I'm not at all sure if I've used my first remap well, or how that will effect my ability to get interesting missions and be able to complete them.

I've never been good at highly twitchy game play, so I've applied the following strategy in other games and found that to be an effective workaround to my limited reaction and key pounding speed:

1. Emphasize high range weapons. Right now I'm thinking Drones and Railguns, but I'm wondering if I should be looking into missiles. I'm thinking Drones and Railguns because I chose the Gallente faction, and I chose that faction because of something I read about how that faction/race was good for Mission Runners (but I'd now bet that what I read was outdated).
Anyhow, any advice on how to best to implement a skill set that makes long range weapons effective would be appreciated.

2. Emphasize Speed. I don't expect this to mean that I wouldn't go to larger ships within due course, but within each ship class I'd be looking to stay fast. My general strategy is that range + speed means I get to pick the encounters I commit to.

3. Less Emphasis on Defense (and likely go w/ Shields here). Defense would typically be a secondary priority for me, but good to have as much defense as I can, without giving up too much capability on #1 and #2. I'm thinking that shield skill/technology is most complimentary with my #1/#2 (rather than armor), since if I have a speed advantage, I ought to be able to pop out of combat when my shields run low and then back in, after they've regenerated. I've noticed that armor is also reparable, but I'm guessing that shields will mostly regenerate better/faster than armor can be repaired.


One additional question: I'm thinking that in order to get the more fun/challenging missions, I guess I'll want to move on to destroyers and then cruisers expeditiously. If this is the case, then I'm wondering if there are some skills that I de-emphasize / train less, if they are not used in cruisers and above. A possible example would be small hybrid turrets - maybe I only take that to level one, two or three, and instead train other skills that will still be useful with larger ships.

I realize the same argument applies from cruisers up to battle cruisers, I'm just guessing that maybe I'll spend more real world time at the cruiser level than at the frigate/destroyer. And of course the main point is that if I need to advance frigate specific skills to a certain point in order to move beyond frigates, than it's worth it.

Also, any links that anyone has for docs that describe trade offs around early character build decisions, attributes and skill training (that aren't out of date) would be hugely appreciated. I just downloaded ISK, so hopefully that will also help (although I thought i read a comment somewhere that ISK was not up to date as far as skill training goes).

Anyhow, thanks in advance for any comments/suggestions/feedback!

Reathliss

Thanks a ton, Myriad, exactly the type of info I was looking for!

It does suck to reroll, but definitely better to find out now, rather than realize 6 months down the road that I did something pretty stupid.

Yes, I think I'm ok with the reroll. I'm not sure I know what to do with the charisma - leadership is not on my near term horizon.

Does the race/faction choice mean anything anymore?

I chose Gallente because it seemed to suit the Mission Flyer profession I was aiming at. Also, it seems like Gallente has the best drone bonus (which maybe suits my bias towards long range combat).

It seems that attributes don't matter any more, but maybe it's still worth choosing a starting race based on whether the ships line up with your intended play style?

Race and faction mean virtually nothing (only extremely slight differences in low level skills, which you can buy and train very easily) They do affect your character's appearance (including clothing options) and starting location, but that is all.

That's a great post, Tau, that's an especially helpful one for a noob.

I have done my reroll, and as I'm reading up, I think that I want to do some social training (still) for improved standing/LP and generally improved rewards from PVE. I think I'm looking at just 3-4 separate skills there, so shouldn't take too long. To that end, I'll keep my default map while I emphasize training in those skills. From there I think that from my first remap forward, Charisma will always be my lowest priority, so best to get those skills out of the way.

In so far as I understand the system (which is not well, I admit) I think noobs should do a remap pretty early on. Because the clock on the annual remap starts only once you have done a remap, you max the total amount of remaps that you have available by getting that clock started sooner rather than later. Plus you still keep your two starting bonus remaps, so that seems like you can optimize for your first six months of training, while at the same time getting in two remaps + at the end of the year getting in another (for a possible total of four remaps).

One thing that I see a lot that I think is wrong is that remaps and implants only matter to experienced players. As I understand the math, whether you spend 300 days training up a handful of L5 skills vs. 300 days training up L1 - L4 skills, if you have a high degree of concentration on the same primary/secondary the benefit of having an optimal remap can be something like 25% for either player.

Now I get that an experienced player is far more likely to see a "a high degree of concentration" than the starting player, but still, it looks to me like there are a great many support skills that a noob wants, and that they are usually Int/Mem (e.g Armor/Shield tank).

To that end I might go with:
27/17/17/17/21

As you mentioned in your post, I do plan on making Drones a primary weapon system (at least so far), so that's another reason to include something for MEM. I guess you could say that the basis for the above remap is that I'd want to be trying to get a big wad of core/support skills out of the way early (and do so in a time efficient manner), before moving on to more of a combat focus (at which point I'd do a PER > WIL remap).

It looks like combat skills and space command skills are all about PER/WIL, but I think I can de-emphasize those for maybe six months, and that the following skill groups will easily keep me busy for 6+ months:
Armor or Shields
Drones
Engineering
Electronic Systems
Navigation
Scanning
Targeting

If there are core/support skills outside the above group that I should include in the first six months, then I could see doing something more of a "Jack of All Trades" remap in the post, and maybe moving points out of INT into PER or WIL, but I'd like to get specific about what I would use the PER or WIL for. Maybe I'm undercounting the amount of Space Ship Command or Gunnery or Missiles that I'll feel compelled to train in the first 6 months?