Skill Discussions

I'm new to the game and wanting some help, my goal is to be able to fly amarr ships only (for now) and get up to cruiser/battlecruiser. I want to do pvp/pve and do exploration also. So what skills do I need?

This is a very generalised list. You may have to use your noggin to work out an decent order and weigh up pros and gains.

For the PvE bit itself to fit a decent Amarr ship:

Engineering. You'll need that PG go straight for 5 and don't hang around too long

Energy Management, Energy Systems Operation and Energy Grid Upgrades You'll soon find Amarr ships eat up cap so very quickly, these are must have skills, make sure they are all at least 3 and maybe push to 4

Repair Systems, Mechanics, Hull Upgrades Amarr Armour tank, and they do it very well, again very essential skills. I'd recommend training all to 4 asap as you'll be able to use tech 2 Medium armour repairers and standard Armour Hardeners.

Gunnery, Small/Medium Energy Turrets, Controlled Bursts, Motion Prediction, Surgical Strike Yes there are more supports than this and I recommend you get those as well but if your looking to save time, those to 3/4 asap. The others can sit at 2/3 at your digression until you have some spare time.

Drones, Drone Interfacing, Scout Drone Operation In my eyes, not only are tech 2 scout drones a must, it's one of the most bankable skills in the game, no matter what race you fly, a full set of tech 2 light scouts is generally always an option.

Jury Rigging, Armor Rigging, Energy Weapon Rigging Rigs are expensive but damn, they make a huge difference to your output. Well worth getting these and using rigs. (Bro-tip, use contracts to see if you can pick up some pre-rigged ships, often you'll save money on the rigs, your mileage may vary)

For the PvP bit:

Same as above but other skills of note are Energy Emission Systems, Propulsion Jamming, All the Navigation Skills First one allows a Nos/Neut in the utility high you have on many ships, Prop jamming is to stop targets running, and speed WILL be a huge factor in a lot of fights, being able to haul ass, control ranges etc are very very key concepts.

For the Exploration bit:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Exploration_guide

There are many guides out there, do some digging it'll cover skills somewhere.

If you want an idea of what ship to fly to practise PvP, I'd reccomend the Punisher to start with once you can fit a T2 tank. I wrote quite a big article on the Punisher in my blog if you want to check it out :)

http://seraph-minayin.blogspot.com/

People say minmatar is the hardest to intially start up on. I, among a few others, think thats stupid as its amarr; minmatar ships have a decent amount of base powergrid and dont have capacitor issues. (Dont even bring up the "mixed weapon systems; all the best minmatar ships use guns as bonused weapons)...

For missions (which I assume will be your intial source of income.. BTW the following is also based around getting the core pvp skills sorted);

Amarr dont have a "DPS" frigate thats too viable (unless you count the slicer but thats a bit out of reach for a newbie), so dont worry about gunnery JUST yet (although it should be a consideration); try and focus on learning the basics in the first week and get as many capacitor skills behind you as possible (also the support ones, like afterburner, fuel conservation, etc) aswell as engineering and electronics

The best mission ship you might initially consider is the coercer however (this would require gunnery skills, but again, IMO, there is a more efficient way for you)... This leaves you with the arbitrator, one of the best cruisers in the game... Its weapon type is drones; you will always want to use drones in eve, so its good to get these skills as early as possible. TRAIN DRONES V.. this allows you to use 5 drones at once if you have the bandwidth (I believe an arbitrator can use 5 mediums aswell).

While intiially stepping into a frigate I would get the most basic of standard missile skills and step into the inquisitor to run a few easy level ones.. start training toward drones and amarr cruiser ASAP. The standard missile launchers can also be used on an arbitrator.



Now you have an arbitrator, you can run missions with it, and pvp with it; it is a great ship to do both in.

I would now begin to look into lasers; You will have drones should anything get underneath them, the engineering and electronics skills to fit them, and the capacitor skills to support their hunger. Its not an issue to get into them this late because as mentioned earlier, amarr frigates lack in the DPS department.

Start screwing around with punishers and omens in missions/pvp to get your head around guns; once you are fairly skilled in them start looking at the harbinger to pvp/pve with... another great all rounder.

By the time you start looking beyond the arbitrator though I dont imagine you would need any more advice, so I have just typed to that point. Hope this has given you something to think about.

Sorry to say, but amarr don't really start to shine until you get tech2 ships or in to battleships.

Train your drones early and use the arbitrator to start.

Make sure you can use 5 T2 medium/light drones.
This will help you in almost all your future ships.

Amarr is unfortunately probably the most SP intensive race, as people have pointed out. Your T1 guns are pretty mediocre across all sizes but once you get T2 stuff it's pretty amazing. The Coerecer is a decent enough ship for Level 1 Missions, as is the Arbitrator for Level 2s and the Harbinger for Level 3s. Train up your capacitor and gunnery skills, they are essential to flying Amarr.