Hello everyone !
Since I'm a student trying to make rent, I am giving a try at submitting my guide. I started playing EVE only 9 days ago, but have read and shared so much since then that I thought writing a guide for the starters would really help out.
First of all, you should know that the race you pick at the char creation isn’t so important. Each races have their own bonuses of course, but they all pretty much balance out.
I strongly recommend you follow the tutorial. You will quickly want to get out of your Ibis, but trust me, doing the tutorial missions will give you enough money to get a nice ship. I decided to go Caldari (which have the most powerful frigate in my opinion).
Step 1 – Massing up the dough
What you want as a n00b is to get out of this Ibis as fast as humanly possible. To do this you will need some ISK. Doing the tutorial mission, you can easily make a 1.5M. Do all the missions to get rewards and bonus. The last mission will be an important one, which gives out an implant. You will be able to sell this implant for a minimum of 1M. To know how much you should sell it for, right-click-> show market details. It should give you an approximate price. Then, set up a sell order, and within a day it should be gone.
Take note that all tutorial missions are easily doable with your Ibis, so save up the cash. The good stuff’s coming !
Step 2 – Eve University
Right after you’re out of the tutorial, you will probably need guidance. The best place to go and ask advice is on the EVE UNIVERSITY channel. Open up the channel list, search for channel EVE UNIVERSITY and click join. These people are there to answer all your questions. They are nice and do not hesitate. It was a great resource of help for me. They’re also generous: they donated 2M to me !!!
Step 3 – Buying the right skills
As you may already know, EVE character’s system is based on skills. There is no grinding in EVE: only training. The skills you learn train 24/7. Each skill as 5 levels, and as you go up in the levels, they take longer. The easiest skills will take about 14 minutes to train, and some will take weeks, sometimes months. For 1 skill !
However, there is a fast way to decrease learning time. Open up the market and look in the Skills & Implants section. Then you will find sub-section called learning. Buy Analytical mind, Learning and Instant recall. Learn both to level 2 before learning anything else. It will save you some good time !
Step 4 – Ok now what?
You will have to train the frigate skill of your race to level 3 as soon as possible. Why? To get a Merlin (in Caldari’s case) ! This baby will allow you with two turret slots and 2 launchers, make it the most powerful frigate in the game. This is an expansive frigate, but the money from the implant you sold earlier and tutorial missions should cover for this. Ask around Eve University too: they will help you get your first frigate. Mount some 150mm railguns and standard missile launchers. Shield booster and afterburner help too, but you need to train the skills too before using them.
Tip: BEFORE buying ANYTHING, always click on the blue I beside an item’s name. You will see the required skills (if you see any red, don’t buy them), as well as CPU and power requirement. To see what kind of cpu and power frid your ship has, you can always right-click on it in space and select show info, or in a station, the fitting window will also let you see that. Make sure you can fit what you buy!
Step 5 – So I’m flying a frigate, what do I do ?
Time to seek a corp ! Seriously, you don’t have too, but it will ease the pain tenfold ! Look in the eve-online forums, many corp are recruiting. If not, post about yourself, and a corp might e-mail you in game to seek you out. Corporations is teamwork, and they are many of them. Miners, pirates, hunters… you name it ! Don’t be afraid to look around and join a corp that will match your playing style !
Step 6 – Ok, I found a new Home ! What’s next?
You will have to start aiming at a career path. Mining or hunting? Obviously, mining is more lucrative at first, since lvl. 1 agent missions aren’t lucrative. Most probably your guild will run some mining operation. Take a Bantam (Caldari) with 2 Mining lasers and help them out. They will appreciate it, and later, it will payback.
Hunting becomes really lucrative at level 3 (implants) and level 4 (huge bounties). But before you can do them you’ll need a cruiser, which is many weeks worth away ! You should try hauling for the corp too (get Industrial I ASAP to afford the cheapest Industrial ship of your race, which have huge cargo space and let’s you transport ore for them from stations to stations).
Don’t sit in your frig and do lvl1 agent missions all the time. EVE is so much more than that. Mix it up, you don’t have to do everything alone, nor in team ! Variety is the key to a sane pilot !
Step 7 - Are there any basic skills that are useful and general?
Of course there are ! Here’s a short list of skills you can learn while defining your career path !
• Learning to Level III
• Instant Recall to Level III
• Analytical Mind to Level III
• Iron Will to Level III
• Spatial Awareness to Level III
Note: The skills above are all learning skills, each level of those you train will reduce the time needed to train other skills.
• Frigate to Level III
Allows you to fly a better Frigate
• Electronics to Level III
Increases the CPU on your ship, so that you can fit weapons and modules easier.
• Engineering to Level III
Increases the PowerGrid on your ship, so that you can fit weapons and modules easier.
• Navigation to Level I
• Afterburner to Level I
Allows you to use an Afterburner which will give your ship a speed boost.
• Shield Operation to Level I
Allows you to use a Shield Booster
• Shield Management to Level I
Increases your ships Shield capacity by 5% per level
• Energy Management to Level I
Increases your ships Capacitor capacity by 5% per level
• Drones to Level II
This allows you to use 2 Drones, it allows you to use 1 extra drone per level
• Scout Drone Operation to Level I
This allows you to use Light and Medium Scout Drones. Each level increases the range of the drones by 5km.
Step 8 – I want to go Mining !
That’s what I did too ! So, I’ll give you some tips… first of all, stay away from 0.0-0.5 sectors. The pirates (commonly called rats in EVE) are though, and you aren’t ready to take them on yet ! I suggest you mine in 0.6-1.0 sectors. This is Empire space, which means if somebody shoots at you, CONCORD will send reinforcement within 15 sec and protect you. This doesn’t mean you cannot die, but you are much, much more protected than in 0.0-0.5 space. So, how do you mine ? Basically, getting to Mining IV asap is a good choice: it lets you use Mining Lasers II, which mine much faster. The usual way is this: you take your mining ship, mine ‘til your cargohold is full. You then Jettison the can (it will stay beside your ship) and keep filling the SAME can over and over. Don’t jettison 1000 cans: one will do.
Tip: mining will be more efficient if your ship is in a stationary position.
Once the can’s filled (or you’re bored out of your mind), open people & places, bookmark your location, return to station and embark an indy (short for industrial ship) and go back to your bookmark to haul (transport) what you mine. You can either sell it at your station or look at the market where you can transport it. Make sure you don’t have 20 jumps to do !
If you don’t have an indy, this is where a corp is always handy ! Call a friend and ask him to do it ! Your next step should be a mining cruiser (Caldari: Osprey all the way) ! A cruiser is a significant improvement (requires Frigate IV and Cruiser I) and will make you loads of cash !
Step 9 – Mining skills
Here is an important list of skills you need to learn (over time) for mining:
• Mining to Level IV
This increases the amount of Ore you mine and also allows you to use Miner II's (which mine more Ore than Miner I's).
• Mining Drone Operation to Level I
This allows you to use Mining Drones (they mine a little extra for you), each level gives a 5% bonus to yield
• Destroyer to Level I
This allows you to fly a destroyer (Calatyst - Gallente, Cormorant - Caldari, Coercer - Amarr, Thrasher - Minmatar) Destroyers can fit 4-5 mining lasers, so that would help you mine more Ore.
• Frigate to Level IV
• Cruiser to Level I
This allows you to fly a cruiser. Some cruisers are good for mining while some are better for fighting. There are some cruisers that have a 20% mining bonus, these include the Osprey - Caldari and Scythe - Minmatar. The higher the level you train the cruiser skill to the bigger the mining bonus you receive for the cruisers above, so if you train Cruiser to Level IV you mine 80% more Ore per cycle of the mining lasers.
• Science to Level IV
• Astrogeology to Level IV
This increases the amount of Ore you can mine
• Industry to Level V
• Mining Barge to Level I
This allows you to fly a Mining Barge which can use Strip Miners to mine a lot more Ore than is possible with a Frigate, Destroyer or Cruiser
• Mining Barge II & III
This allows you to upgrade your small barge for a medium or large barge.
Miners also need skills for hauling their ore from an asteroid belt to a station.
• Industrial to Level I
This allows you to fly an Industrial Ship (Badger, Iteron, Hoarder, Sigil etc). Train this skill higher to fly bigger industrial ships. The bigger the industrial ship the more cargo it can carry.
• Hull Upgrades to Level I
This allows you fit Cargo Expanders to your ships. Cargo Expanders increase the size of your cargo hold.
Step 10 – Mining macro
This forum is already full of information about it. Use it at your own risk and be careful and smart: CCP is tracking auto miners down ! They will make you a shitload of cash, but what’s good about it if you’re banned?
Step 11 – My ultimate goal?
A battleship ! The apocalypse makes an EXCELLENT mining platform, but can also be fitted as an awesome combat ship. Your ultimate mining ship should be a mining barge, which can mount ore striper (also called belt eaters!) which mount tremendous amounts of ore. It will take a while before you qualify to get one, but if you want to go mining, this is your final destination.
Getting a battleship will require weeks of training, and a lot of millions. The Apocalypse, for example, costs around 94M !
The ultimate goals you can set yourself have no limits really. You can do so much in EVE, but the purpose of this guide is to give ambition to beginners anyway
Step 12 – Tips & Hints
A) Don’t train primary skills to get a cruiser as fast as you can. A cruiser without the proper secondary skills (missiles operations, gunnery, drone operation, etc) will be easily killed.
B) Don’t be a proud wuss and ask your questions around. EVE UNIVERSITY or the official forums are a great source of information. EVE’s community is absolutely awesome and friendly. The only stupid questions are the one you do not ask !
C) If you’re really in deep !@#$%^&*, you can always buy ISK on eBAY or online. 50M runs for 16$, and 100M 28$. This might help you out a LOT to start around. You’ll make it back so quick that you can sell it back on EBAY and absorb the fee (at your own risk, of course).
D) I strongly recommend you join a corp as fast as possible. Many, may of them welcome newbies and will help you make your first 100M quite fast.
E) Refer to the basic and general skills list of this guide to help you at first. You should train the long skills while you sleep or while you’re at work and the short one as you play.
F) Always have a skill training !
G) Don’t waste your time raising all basic learning levels to 4 before starting something else ! Raising them all to level will suffice until you reach 4-6 weeks of playing. Then you will be informed enough to know what to do !
Step 12 – Thank you
Thank you for reading this guide. Feel free to correct me or add information. By all means I am no experts. But this should help you get over the learning curve of EVE and then you won’t need any guide: you’ll already be a veteran pilot
I hope you enjoyed this !
Sincerely yours,
Jar0cks
EVE Guide: The ultimate starter's booklet : EVE Online Guides | Free EVE Guides
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