EVE New Citizens Q&A

Player corporation have almost nothing to do with npc empires except in faction war. Since "last time", EVE is owned by players now! Huge coalitions now watch over every activity and dictate what everyone gets to eat and how they play.

Good info above. New Eden is indeed most influenced by other players, rather than the Empires, which is what makes it such a unique game. Joining a player corporation is a great way to interact with all kinds of other people and open up doors to activities in-game you may not have even thought of. If you're interested in joining a corporation, here is a very nice guide on how to find the right one for you.

Oh you'll lose ships. It happens and sometimes there isn't a thing you can do about it. The nice thing is that capsuleers have clones. Take each ship loss as a learning experience and you'll grow much faster than if you just allow yourself to get frustrated. Especially if you decide to take a PvP route.

Just always keep in mind that EVE is a sandbox and you choose your own path. If you ever find yourself asking "What am I supposed to do?" try instead asking "What do I want to do?". Boredom and creativity can lead to some very interesting things and good stories to tell down the road. Like someone who bails on their ship in an asteroid belt and sits closeby in their pod. When someone gets too curious and leaves their ship to board your old empty one, warp in and steal their ship and make off with potential profit. It's all up to you and what you can think of.

To comment on Cara's post (its a good one), joining a player run corporation that has like minded individuals can really help out and guide you in the game. That guide will help out. Don't be afraid to bow out of a corp if it isn't to your liking. This isn't like other MMOs where you join a group and run dungeons at a preset time. Things happen 24/7, everyone plays on one server, and there is so much variety, it make take time to find a place to settle down.

The below is not exact, but will serve as a rough guide for how it all works based on my experience.

High Sec: High Sec is in the center of explored space. It is controlled by one of the four empires (Amarr, etc) and has all the benefits of high security status (.5 and greater) space. A player run corporation or entity can not conquer a high security system.

Low Sec: Low sec is in general a "band" around the high sec systems. It is a transition between high sec and null sec security wise. There are gate guns and station guns that will engage you if you start a fight, but generally cruisers and up can tank them just fine. Some low sec systems are part of the Faction Warfare (battle grounds / border regions between the four empires) and can be conquered for an empire by player run groups that belong to that empire's faction warfare. Conquering a low sec FW system doesnt affect anyone not involved in Faction Warfare, but is important to understand if your intending to get involved in FW.

Null Sec: Null sec is in general a "band" around the low sec systems and is in general conquerable by player run groups. The player owners of a null sec system can determine what happens in that system (ie who has docking rights, etc). There are no "NPC" security measures in null sec. There are no restrictions on game mechanics in null sec either (ie bombers, bubbles, etc).

Corporations: A corporation is the smallest "unit" of a player run organization. They are generally formed around a purpose, though that purpose can be pretty much anything from "lets have fun with a few buddies" to "lets be a mining corp" to "lets the biggest baddest pvp crop you ever saw". They are found in all areas of New Eden from High Sec to Null Sec.

Alliances: Corporations band together to form alliances. Typically, the alliance level is what most people recognize when speaking about EvE player run groups. For instance, Pandemic Legion is an alliance.

Coalitions: Alliances band together to form coalitions. These are the mega groups of EvE. Currently the most famous ones are N3 and CFC.

Ships: In general people will pick the best ship for the job. Your race imposes no restrictions on what ship you can fly if you train the necessary skills. As such, it is very common to see fleets that mix the various empires as the players have picked the best ship for a specific job.

You'll find that's the trick here as well.

There are two things that matter for the high sec empires. If you take missions that require you to fight against Amarr for example you will lose standing with Amarr. If you get to a standing of -5.0 or lower with Amarr and go into their high sec space the police (but not CONCORD) will attack you. Decline missions against empire factions if you don't want this to happen.

The second thing the empires do is related to your cargo. Don't fly into CONCORD space with combat drugs in your cargo for example, it will end extraordinarily badly for you. Basically don't fly in high sec with drugs at all. By all means do drugs (in EVE only of course) but just like in real life (theoretically), not in front of the cops.