EVE New Citizens Q&A

I know that EVE is not a flight sim, and i'm more than happy about that, but what then is the manual flight control thing for? I am probably missing something, but in combat it's not really of any use, it's not like you can shake a lock or dodge incoming fire..or can you?

What does everyone use the MFC for? and are there any acceptable evasive manouvers (not ECM)?

Thanks in advance

Thanks! I'll check that link out.

Thanks Cara!

Small ships don't have the equipment slots to install a full tank (armor or shield repairer, 2 resistance modules, armor or shield extender or damage control or another resistance module). Thus, small ships are forced to use a "speed" tank (also called agility tank or sig (signature radius) tank).

Because the big guns of a large ship can kill a small ship in one shot, it's absolutely critical to not stand still or move directly towards the aforementioned large ship, so frigate pilots can't afford to rely on the game's movement engine (approach, orbit, align to, etc.), because the game's path-finding is bad and results in multiple instances of your ship slowing down to 0 speed in order to turn or realign.

Thus, small ship pilots tend to "manually fly" a lot, double-clicking in space every second or two in order to manually adjust their trajectory.

Big ships, there's a lot more "sit there and let your tank absorb the damage", although for PVP it's critical to keep the correct range and use any speed advantage that you can.

As far as the Evasive Maneuvering skill, skills in this game have hyperbolic names. Infomorph Psychology, for example, you're not taking a full psychology course in order to be able to jump to a new clone. Empire Management - you're not an emperor just because your corp can have 1000 - 2500 members, 80% of them inactive or alts. And so on.

I wish people would talk about angular velocity rather than transversal velocity. It's simpler and it's what actually matters.

A good way to practice manual piloting for survival purposes is take an assault frigate into a L4 mission and either just practice survival by manual piloting in the rat furball, or survive and clear the mission assuming you have got the dps. While it isnt an endevour that will line your pockets with isk, you will learn how to keep damage from different ship classes at a minimum.

Just remember that unlike rats, players will manually pilot in order to effectively return fire on you, and that medium and large neuts are extremely common high slot utility items.

Outside of it's usefulness or lack there of, I'd like to comment a little on the historical context of it's development.

Prior to manual flight controls I used to hear a lot of new players or potential new players that were coming from other PC games that use keyboard strokes for movement about how to do so in game. When you would tell that there was no way to do so a lot of them were instant turned off without even trying the game. It is what they are used to and Eve's lack of it I think scared them off to a point.

I believe the Eve devs probably got some similar feedback to what I was hearing and felt pressure to bring keyboard controls for movement into Eve.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the introduction of MFC to Eve might be more of a gimmick than a development intended to make serious changes to the way that game is played.