EVE General Discussion

Hi all, first of all been playing this game for 10 days now and really enjoying it, mainly doing trading so far and making fits to fight off gankers. Honestly, tanking my trade ship against gankers is a lot of fun for me - I've already had one ganker fail and die in the attempt. However, I've been looking at the Corp part of the game and it seems there's absolutely no benefit for me to leave my starting NPC corp and join a player corp, and several significant cons.

Perceived benefits:

• All of the hard benefits, such as refining, group mining bonuses, fleets, etc. don't apply to me as a trader. There's no shared benefits to trading with a group of players and it seems to me quite a number of risks such as pooling money/resources and potentially losing those.
• The NPC corp tax doesn't affect me, as I'm not doing missions.
• I don't need protection as I'm in highsec - Concord is my protection
• Not currently looking to do any PVP
• I can still join a channel and talk in general/get advice without being part of a corp - in fact I'm already doing that.

Cons:

• If I join a player corp I am now subject to declarations of war by anyone who feels like it, meaning I can no longer fly my routes and at least know Concord will blow someone up if they opt to attack me. (By the way - for game lore purposes, why wouldn't Concord come to the aid of a pacifist trader/miner corp who's declared on by pirates?)
• I am also subjecting myself to the risks of joining that corp. I've read about scams where someone in the corp can attack me without impunity and steal my stuff. In addition, if they require my API to join (and most corps seem to) they can now read all my trading records and take my most profitable routes.

I initially had thought it'd be good to band together with some fellow traders for mutual benefit while I'm exploring the PVE part of the game (not ready to go into PVP yet) but it seems to me there are zero benefits and and significant negatives to doing so. Am I missing something or is the corp part of the game totally pointless for me right now? And if so, that seems kind of lame.

Oh, and not interested in making a PVP alt or something - 1 character is enough to manage.

Understood, it just seems odd to me as a new player that the game is built to discourage me from joining a corp, so I wondered if I was missing something. Based on my investigation, it seems there's no tangible benefits and some very tangible cons in terms of in-game mechanics for me.

Well, if you read my original post, you would see I have been tanking against the gankers to make it unprofitable for them to attack me. Seems to me that joining a corp is pinning a giant target on my back - it's not like a corp can instantly warp to me in the 5 seconds it would take someone to gank me. However, they can now declare war on me and there will be zero reason for them not to attack as Concord will no longer take their shiny ship from them if they do.

Well your paying what 11% corp tax being in an NPC corp? so your loosing quite a big chunk of your isk being in an NPC corp :)

What is that lame? You have choosen a profession that requires little cooperation with others. If you just want like-minded people to socialize with there are specialized chat channels for professions like the Hauler Channel or that trading channel which name escapes me now. Perhaps these new citadels will provide you a trading goal (set up and stock a market?) that will require many people to accomplish, but flipping goods by station or region trading is a solitary endeavour.

A corporation in Eve is different than in other games. It is not primarily a social organization, but is primarily a competitive one. It opens the door to more risky and more rewarding game play, but it is not relevant for every profession in this game. If it makes sense, join one, otherwise stay on your own and make social connections other ways.

One other point: trading shares a completely different skill set than every other profession. It also doesn't take that long to get decent trading skills. You could consider getting your trader up and running, and then making an alt to join a corporation to pursue other PvE content with other players. Eventually that alt will likely become your main as you keep training ship combat skills, but you will be able to trade with your first character forever. It's always good to have a dedicated trading alt anyways to offload your PvE booty at the best price.

I did something similar and even though I still make most of my income by trading, I have long since finished training my first character, now trading alt, who still toils away in safety. But now I can enjoy other aspects of the game with my other characters in player run corporations do player corporation-type stuff with them.

Because, in the lore, the fee you pay to Concord to declare war on another corporation is essentially a bribe as far as I know. You are bribing them to look the other way.

They also would not come to your aid anyway, since their purpose is not to protect people. Their purpose is to punish those who transgress the law, not prevent them from doing so in the first place or aid potential/current victims.

You could think of it like this. When someone attacks you and they turn up to exact justice on the criminal, they turn up just to destroy the ship of that criminal individual. The fate of your ship is of no concern to them. Note, for instance, that they do not provide logistics to you while exacting justice upon the aggressor.

I've been playing a few months and what your saying makes a lot of sense for new players. I should have stayed in hi sec but I followed the corp into null sec and everyone else is to highly skilled for me to make even a scratch. Stay in high sec where you feel comfortable.

As gregor correctly pointed out, you have no current need for a Corp right now.

As he also pointed out, we are the content here ,
so once you want to start actually impacting the sandbox in any meaningful way you well start seeing reasons to join a Corp.

Right off the bat you seem like the pragmatic sort so I have no doubt that when the time comes you will realize it.

It's also a good sign that you're aware that joining a Corp will make you a potential target.

Welcome aboard o7

Well yes, you got that quite right.
At the beginning it will work.
However, if you need to fly a freighter, you might want some help from buddies webbing you, so you can warp faster. If you do not, you might fall victim to ganking in bottlenecks like Uedama. No fit can save you. Corp buddies will help.

Except for stationonly traders, corps later in game get more important. Corps in alliances always need something.
I really can recommend a little more cooperation with other players.



I ain't lame, its just another playstyle.
I will not repeat those arguments again since you choose to read arguments you do not like with closed eyes and ignore them.

Just learn to accept other playstyles, they are as legit as yours.

Please note.

Hauling is just a part of it and not needed for station trading.
He also said, that adding another alt is out of question for the time being.

Its good that you are amused and just be it , that you are obviously unable to comprehend me.
I do accept ganking as playstile and i do it for quite a while now.
However that doesn't mean i have to like broken or quirky game mechanics that are massivly abused.
Also i do not see a reason to respect codies since i do not like their playstile, which in my oppinon, relies almost completly on broken gamemechanics and griefing newbies.