EVE New Citizens Q&A

First, let me give you a rundown on myself. I am a 40 yo man that has played just about every MMO and RPG since Ultima Online. I never was a huge sci-fi gamer but I like sci-fi and am willing to give any game a try with the crap out there currently.

I started playing EVE over a month ago.

The problem I am having mainly is there are so many skills, there are so many fittings for a ship, and I feel like I am in some kind of mind f*ck almost every time I log into the game. What do I train? How do I fit my ship? This can literally take me hours to figure out! And when I read up on fittings, you get thirty different suggestions from thirty different players with thirty different skill sets!

I'm not even sure what answer I am looking for, but I have basically trained some mining, up to T1 cruiser in Gallente ships, have some ok scanning/relic/data skills and I like to be able to do different things, like mine sometimes, relic hunt others, pve mission others so I don't want to focus on one thing.

I will try to link my current skills and maybe someone can give me some advice on how to make this game a bit simpler for someone who barely knows the difference in tackling, or a warp scrambler or a warp stabilizer.

By the way, I haven't even touched pvp as I don't feel I am very knowledgeable on what to fit my ship with so I don't get owned and waste my isk.

I feel like I have enrolled into a college course of Spaceology 101 and it won't be for four years until I really learn much!

Before I reply with all my current skills and what skills I am training, is this something I should feel ok to do or would this be a big newbie mistake?

It may not help you much, but I'm a bit over six weeks ahead of you in game and I felt/feel exactly the same way. After a month or so, I remember the same sense of sinking without trace in all the information.

There will be much wiser advice offered here in NCQ&A than I can provide. The best advice given here was to find a good corp - I am convinced this is the best way to stick in EVE, though it has proven beyond my powers so far. (Largely, it should be said, because I'm a fairly finicky role-player, so my fault). Finding out what you want to do is so much clearer when you have corp-mates who can say 'this is what we need'.

Strike out what you know you don't enjoy: for example, after a month I was sure I didn't like Industry, and the time/research needed to be good at Trading is far better spent in the real stock market I'd enjoyed a bit of PvP in faction warfare, so my character is skilling on a path to Assault Frigates after completing most of the core skills suggested already. I'm already getting some ideas about what happens after that goal is achieved.

You're not alone, by any standard. The only thing I'd recommend is to get your T1 frigate and fly into low-sec to be blown to smithereens a few times. It's amazing adrenalin, you won't lose much, you know you're dead meat so the loss is expected. You pick up good skills such as reading the D-scan which are not game trainable skills, but actually far more important for what ever line of profession you choose. I've resigned myself to never winning a PvP fight so if it ever happens, I'll be too shocked to continue.

Heh you have learnt well, I remember when you first started . Good to see that you've settled in.

A good place to start looking at ship fittings in the Eve University wiki. In the channel listing, Help tab, expand that and there should be a channel there called E-Uni Help or something like that. Ask in there for someone to link the wiki, search for Vexor.

For most of the more popular ships they will have a range of fittings, e.g. Low Skill PVE, Full T2 PVE, Low Skill PvP, etc etc. Probably worth spending some time on their Wiki and having a read of articles on tanking and what ever else you are interested in. The Evelopedia can be useful on some subjects but doesn't have lots of listsings of ship fittings.

On skills, there is a site called Eveboard that many people use to show their skills, to get a link, look up Chribba ingame and read his bio.

Apart from that, just keep asking questions and finding things out. The first few months that most people play, unless they are already in some sort of OOG community or are joining friends are going to be a learning exercise.

heh you have skills all over the place, but overall I've done/seen far worse

You may find this useful reading, it covers most of the skills that are useful no matter what you do (some of the skill names may have changed, if they have just ask in here)

You've got skills trained for all races at the moment, something that is only normally done by older players. At this point in the game you're spreading your SP too thinly in my opinion.

Now might be the time to try out all of the races frigates and destroyers and get a feel for them, decide which you like more, invest some SP into that races ships and fly the backside off of them to learn their weaknesses and strengths. Ship class specialisation is a very good way of rapidly closing the gap with older players using the same ships.

If you want more firepower it's worth training the drone specialisation skills when you can afford to, the T2 drones are a whole different world. I'll take a look through my skill book container later today, I may have at least one of the skill books that you can have.



With reference to your Vexor fit: A more conventional low SP fit would be like this

[Vexor] ~ (may be a little short on CPU without CPU management to 4)
4x 200mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannon (Antimatter Charge M)

Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Drone Navigation Computer I
Sensor Booster I (Scan Resolution Script)

Medium Automated Carapace Restoration
3x Drone Damage Amplifier I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I (change for rat specific hardener as needed)

3x Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Gallente are normally armour tanked ships, most of them are bonused for it.
Amarr are normally armour tanked ships, most are bonused for it.
Minmatar are a mixture of armour and shield tanked ships, but not at the same time on the same ship (This is dual tanking, I've done it, bad idea )
Caldari are normally shield tanked ships, most of them are bonused for it.

Always check the ship bonuses, as a rule of thumb more low slots than mid slots means armour tank, and vice versa. There are exceptions to the rules above as you've found out through chance, you get a plus point for not dual tanking it. However this is usually something that is more the domain of older and more experienced players.


Also bear in mind that a ship fitted for PvE is not up to the demands of PvP, 99% of the time you will die if you try; the basics are the same but they have to meet different criteria.

Oh yes, sorry to add to your new player burden but I highly recommend using one of the following 2 programs:

EFT
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=24359&find=unread
or
Pyfa
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=247609&find=unread

Both of these programs allow you to input your character through the API key. Once you've done that, you can fit ships to your heart's desire without any of that nonsense of buying a module and then finding out you're too low on CPU or Powergrid.

Fit tools are great and there is another option that was not mentioned above called EvE HQ. They are all free to download and use so try them all and use the one you like.
http://evehq.co/

Fittings are for the most part personal preference so take this as intended just my personal preferences but I do not like the fits posted so far for a new player. For new players tank and cap are king when you first start flying a ship. Over time you can adjust a fit to reach a balance between cap, tank and gank that best fits your style. I offer this option for you to consider.

[Vexor]

3x 220mm PrototypeAutomaticCannon (ammo type changes from mission to mission see link below to EvE Survival for info)

3x Cap Recharger 1 - replace as desired if you are not having cap issues.
1x Tracking Computer 1 - you can use additional cap recharger here or what ever other mods you want.

Damage Control 1
Medium Armor Repairer 1
Drone Damage Amplifier 1 - can be replaced for a 3rd hardener if you want to provide additional tank.
2x Adaptive Nano Plating 1 - replace with mission specific again see EvE Survival for info or more DDA's.

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump 1
Medium Nanobot Accelerator 1
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit 1

5x Hobgoblin 1
5x Hammerhead 1

Some notes and other thoughts on this fit.
I list this with all T1 fittings, if they are available in your area and you can afford them upgrade these to higher level mods. There is a tab in the show info dialog box on each of these that will show you the variations that are available.

Vex has 60k drones control range with no augmenters and that is more than enough for all level 2 missions. I recommend a 4th gun or a remote armor rep in the empty high slot iof this fit instead of drones link augmenter.

AB or MWD is a nice thing to have but they are not a required item for a drones ship in level 2 missions. Again I prefer tank over any other factor for a new players early fits and they can adjust over time. Since level 2 missions are primarily frigates and destroyers with a few cruiser class thrown in the AB / MWD are of minimal use anyway


Last thing is get hooked up with a new player help group or a good new player friendly corp to help you along. We can provide information and ideas but we cannot help you in game and sometimes that is what is needed.

Post questions etc here and feel free to send them to me by mail in game if you want.



There are many in game chat channels set up fo r

Individual salvager drone is worse than a Salvager I module. A flight of them is better than the T1 module. If you choose to get a T1 Salvager for your high slots, I recommend you also invest in a Mobile Tractor Unit.

Sent some ISK your way btw.

Regarding ignoring salvaging completely; yes, it most likely is a better choice nowadays, especially in sub-lvl4 missions. That one exploration expansion some two years ago crashed the salvaged materials market and my dear Noctis alt became useless outside of wormholes. RIP.

I don't know if this will be helpful to you but what I did was picked a ship(tristan), looked at a fit that included t2 and trained all the skills I needed to fit all those modules. Then I worked on getting t2 drones and then on ship mastery III.

I hope that helps.