FoH guide to EVE Online

[Celebrindal]

I am writing this guide as a reference point for the people on FOH, so those who have not had a chance to play the game (but want to), can get a little jump. I know when I started playing a couple months ago, I spent a damn long time reading and researching everything I could find out about the game.

The truth is, it is not too late to start playing EVE. The people who have been playing for years do have a lot of skills, but that means they are proficient in flying many different things. It will only take you a few months to get really efficient in flying one type of ship, in which you could very much possibly own the older character.

Don't forget to join the in-game channel FOH.


Let's start on Character Creation. **Update** Revelations has made my character creation guide obsolete.

Please use this guide as a reference to creating a new REVELATIONS character with 800k+ sp.

Okay, now that you've made your character, you will want to do the Tutorial. Be warned though, it is boring as hell. I tried to introduce my brother to the game and because he was not ready to spend the time on actually learning the game through the tutorial, he never bothered to continue playing. I really recommend you doing the tutorial once though, it helps grasp the basic knowledge of the game.

After you finish your tutorial, start doing a few Agent missions. This will be the most efficient way for you to make money at this time. You will need the money (ISK /credits) to buy skillbooks and upgrade your ship/modules.

Video guide to finding Agents in space

Skills

You start out with a base set of skills, but you are going to need more. You will find Skill Books in the market. You don't need to buy everything, because it's impossible to train everything, especially at this point because a lot of skills have prerequisites. Learning skills are important for whatever you choose to do in the game, because it raises your attributes, which means you train faster. Days faster eventually. It sucks to train them, because you feel like you get nothing accomplished in training them, because you don't get to use a shiny new turret or shoot harder etc. But, if you are going to play this game for more than 6 months, you will fall behind in skillpoints and lose a lot of time in training skills you could've trained faster if you started your learning skills early.

You don't have to do them all now, that's actually inefficient to a new player, because you will want to have some sort of fighting power before you get bogged down upping your attributes. I would suggest taking the basic learning skills to 3 as soon as possible, 4 in the next 2 weeks. This is the most efficient route to train your learning skills:

Instant Recall(memory) 1
Analytical Mind(intelligence) 1
Learning(all stats 2%) 1

Repeat that same order until lvl 4. I recommend not training Learning to level 5, ever, because it's not an efficient boost in attributes for it's time. After you train those to 3 or 4, train Iron Will(willpower) and Spatial Awareness(perception) to 3 or 4. These skillbooks can be expensive, so you might have to save up a little before buying them all at the same time. Stick with buying the first 3 mentioned, if you can.

*Update* - You now only have to train your learning skills to level IV before being able to train the advanced version of that skill. That will make training your learning skills more efficient, because you will have an extra +4 to your attributes before you train the Level one skill to lvl V.

The downside to playing EVE can be training skills. You cannot queue up your skills and just let them train, you have to manually train a new skill by logging in the game. This can suck because you might not be home to train your skills and if your skill training is completed, and you aren't online to train a new skill, you will lose time and it will take longer to train. You actually have to use strategy in this, and you eventually mold your life around training skills. Haha, I know I do.

Don't train a 2 hour skill if you know you won't be on in 2 hours to train a new skill. It is important that you continuously train non-stop, or you just lose time. With my starter skill set, you will actually have 2 skills that you can continually train for quite a few days if you don't think you will be able to make it on in time to train a new skill.

Now, the best way to know when your skill is going to finish training, and to actually plan out how you want to train your skills, is a program called EVEMon.

This is a screenshot(F' mspaint) of the program. you can clearly see when my skill is going to be up, and I can plan accordingly to train my next skill.


Here is a list of skills that you really should have in your character sheet, that have no prerequisites:

Drones, Electronics, Engineering, Mechanic, Missile Launcher Operation, Navigation, Science, Social and Trade.

All of these can be bought through the market and you should buy them as soon as possible. You don't have to train them all right then and there, though. Here's a tip: After you buy a skill that you can train, but you don't want to start training it right now, right click the book and train it anyway.

After the skill is put into your Character sheet, you can go back to training whatever skill you wanted to train, by right clicking and training the old skill. It will ask you to abort the old one, and don't worry, you won't lose any skill points for aborting. Also, make sure you check your character sheet before you buy one of these new skills. You may already have one and therefore don't need to buy it.

After you get those basic skills to level I, II, or III, you unlock quite a few new skill books. I’ll go over a few of them that are useful to train early.

Electronics

• Electronic Warfare (electronics I) – Operation of ECM/ECCM systems. 5% less cap need for ECM systems per skill level. This skill is the win of EVE at the moment. If you can out jam your enemy in pvp, they are basically dead. ECM jams your opponents targeting system, where he cannot target anything for 20 seconds.
  
• Electronics – 5% bonus to CPU output per skill level. This is a crucial skill. The more CPU you have, the easier it is to get the best ship set up possible.
  
• Propulsion Jamming (electronics III, navigation II) - The first thing you need if you want to start PVPing. With this skill, you can equip the scrambler and the webber mods.
  
• Signature Analysis (electronics I) - -5% bonus to ship targeting speed per skill level. This skill, in my opinion, is very necessary in pvp. The faster you target them, the faster they go down, and lowers the chance of them getting away.

Engineering

• Energy Systems Operation (engineering I) - This recharges your capacitor 5% faster per skill level. Your cap is very important to your survival. With no cap, you cannot shoot, warp and you’re basically a sitting duck.
  
• Energy Management (engineering III) - This is 5% more total capacitor per skill level. The more cap you have, the bigger the amount you recharge per tick.
  
• Engineering – 5% bonus to the Powercore power output per skill level. This is a crucial skill. This gives you more Power output, which means fitting your ship to the best possible setup. Don’t forget skills like this open up more skill trees when maxxed.
  
• Shield Management (engineering III) - 5% bonus to shield capacity. Regardless of your ship, your shield is your first line of defense.
  
• Shield Operation (engineering I) - 5% bonus to shield regen. Your shield recharges on its own, unlike your armor or hull hit points. Although there are mods that are the equivalent to armor repairers for shields.

Gunnery *note – if you are going to rely heavy on missiles, most of these skills are not as crucial.

• Controlled Burst (gunnery II) - 5% reduction of weapon turret capacitor use per skill level. This skill is essential if you flying any ship that does not have projectile turrets on it. Your guns drain your cap and if you’re using other modules while fighting, your cap can take a serious hit. The less cap your guns use, the more opportunity you have to shoot things.
  
• Gunnery – 2% bonus to weapon turret speed per level. This skill is important to max a little later on because it opens up certain mods and skills.
  
• Motion Prediction (gunnery II) - 5% bonus to turret tracking speed. This skill is basically makes you aim better. I will go over tracking speed later in the guide
  
• Rapid Firing (gunnery II) - 4% bonus to turret speed. This does the same thing your Gunnery skill does, makes you shoot faster.
  
• Sharpshooter (gunnery II) - 5% bonus to turret optimal range. The farther your optimal range, the more distance you can put between you and your opponent, which can prove good. I will explain optimal range later in the guide.
  
• Surgical Strike (gunnery IV) - 3% bonus to turret damage. More damage is self explanatory.
  
• Weapon Upgrades (gunnery II)- 5% reduction of CPU use of turrets, launchers and smartbombs. This skill is crucial in being able to correctly fit your ship with the full amount of turrets and/or launchers. I really suggest getting this to III or IV as soon as you start upgrading to a better frigate.

Mechanic

• Hull Upgrades (mechanic I) - 5% bonus to armor hit points per skill level. Get this skill to III or IV soon. Frigates are fragile ships and the more total hit points you have, the better you survive.
  
• Mechanic – 5% bonus to hull hp per level. This skill isn’t that great by itself, because of the fact that if you’re into your hull hit points, you’re probably gonna die. But, this skill is a prerequisite to quite a few skills, and maxing it opens up the Tech 2 frigates, which are extremely fun to fly.
  
• Repair Systems (mechanic I) - 5% reduction in repair systems duration. Regardless of the type of ship you use, this skill is useful. With an armor repairer mod, you can repair your ship in space, which is what armor tankers rely on, but also useful for not having to pay a repair bill in a station to fix your ship.

Missile Launcher Operation *note – if you are going to fly Gallente ships, training missiles is not necessary. However, it’s very necessary for Caldari.

• Missile Bombardment (mlo I) – 10% bonus to missile maximum flight range. A good skill for letting you shoot your missiles farther.
  
• Missile Launcher Operation – 2% bonus to missile launcher speed. This skill opens up larger launchers.
  
• Missile Projection (mlo III) – 10% bonus to missile maximum velocity. This is how fast your missile travels to it’s target.
  
• Rapid Launch (mlo II) – 3% bonus to missile launcher rate of fire. This lets you spit your shots out faster.
  
• Target Navigation Prediction (mlo II) – 10% decrease in factor of target’s velocity. This helps hit your target more accurately. I will go into velocity later in the guide.
  
• Rockets (mlo I) – 5% bonus to rocket damage per skill level. You cannot use ammo without the specific type of skill trained. Rockets are going to be your first missile skill to use on your frigate.
  
• Standard Missiles (mlo II) – 5% bonus to light missile damage per skill level. You can fit a regular missile launcher onto your frig, and with that, you will need this skill for the ammo.

Navigation

• Acceleration Control (navigation III) – 5% bonus to afterburner and microwarp drive(mwd) speed. For maxing your speed, this skill is useful
• Afterburner (navigation I) – 10% bonus to afterburner duration. This is a crucial skill. The Afterburner is a module that is fitted to the ship which gives it a 100%-135% speed bonus.
• Evasive Maneuvering (navigation II) – Makes the ship more agile. This means that you turn sharper and faster. When you get a bigger ship, you’ll see how bad the ship agility is.
• Fuel Conservation (navigation II, afterburner II) – 10% reduction in afterburner capacitor needs. This is a useful skill, because if you are going to use your afterburner, you don’t want it sucking up your capacitor when you need it for other things.
• High Speed Maneuvering (navigation IV, Afterburner IV) – Operation of Microwarp drives, 5% reduction in cap need per skill level. This skill is money. This is the upgrade to your afterburner, making you ship go 500-550% faster than normal. The downside to it is your ship size is larger, making you easier to hit, and the capacitor drainage is a lot more than your afterburner. It’s still a very useful skill.
• Navigation – 5% bonus to ship max speed. Speed can be crucial in war. Especially if your ship is smaller. You need to out run your enemy’s guns.
• Warp Drive Operation (navigation I) – -10% cap drain per level, while warping. This is good for smaller ships, because depending on the distance you are warping to, it helps to get there in one warp.

Science

• Cybernetics (science III) – Allows use of cybernetic implants. Train this skill to level I. Implants can be very useful in reducing your training skill time.
• Informorph Psychology – Train this to level I when you get a chance. Not very crucial, but when you join a corp or an alliance, this can be very very useful between jumping back and forth from 0.0 to Empire space.
• Science – 5% bonus to blueprint copying speed. Get your Science to III for Cybernetics. This skill is more useful to the mining/production part of the game.

Social

• Connections(social III) – 4% bonus to positive standing toward friendly NPC Corporations. This skill is useful if you know you’re going to be doing missions.
  
• Diplomacy(social II) – 0.4 bonus to effective standing toward hostile agents. What this does is help you get missions to factions that you do not have a positive standing to. Usually missions from other races.
  
• Social – 5% bonus to NPC standing increase. This skill is useful to those who want to dedicate to mission running. You can gain quite a lot of cash and reward through doing missions, and these skills help increase that gain.

Spaceship Command * It is important to note that each skill level you train in any ship class increases the innate bonuses of said ship.

• Destroyers(sc III) – Skill at operating Destroyers. Once you get some cash under your belt, and want to breeze through level 1 missions, I would suggest training for a destroyer ship. They basically turn it into easy mode. I would only use these for level 1 missions, though.
  
• Spaceship Command – 2% bonus to ship agility per skill level. This skill is useful in bettering your agility and it is a prerequisite to all ship flying skills. Getting it to IV soon is a good idea.

[Celebrindal]

Edit - I will be writing up a guide on 'Your ships and you', talking about the different races ships and which path each will take you down on.


Posting links here for now, so I don't forget them. They're all useful to look at, so I suggest looking through them if you're playing EVE.

http://wiki.goonfleet.com/index.php?title=Main_Page - Goonfleet's wiki

http://eve-griefer.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=111 - scanner guide

http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g27.asp - missile guide

http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g26.asp - gun tracking guide

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingamebo...hreadID=179069 - pos guide

http://eveinfo.com/offers/ - Agent offers

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingamebo...=305662&page=1 - Mining guide

http://evefiles.mysterious-mysteries...try_guide.html - science & industry guide

[Celebrindal]

I will continue when I can. I've got some work to do today, and will be trying to continue where I left off as soon as I can.

[Celebrindal]

Dun dun dun...

[Celebrindal]

Not spamming, I know that the EVE threads blow up and I don't want important stuff falling off the front page.

Also, feel free to give advise, opinions, etc.

[Celebrindal]

more space

[ZyrKx]

Some more useful links.

http://www.evegeek.com - Calculators for damage, tanking and mining, along with some mission info.
http://www.fluidorbit.co.uk - Ore Map, find out which systems have the best ores to mine.
http://eve.grismar.net - Wiki with some useful info and a bunch of tools, most of which work in the in game browser
http://www.eve-central.com - Market search engine

[Dom Devore]

New player creation stats coming soon

A thing for new people to be aware of is that as soon as Revelations (Kali 1) hits Tranquility (projected for the 28th of nov) new players will be starting with around 800,000 Sp's and aproximately 1-2 L5 skills and some various L4's. If you don't want to wait until then, you can of course make some isk with a character until then and then start a new character when it hits and Xfer the isk if your current character has less skills than the starting chars.

Some things every new Eve player should know.

* Number 1 of course is: Do NOT fly what you cannot afford to lose. If you become broke due to a ship loss, it's yer own dumb fault :P
* When in doubt, Right click. Pretty much every available command will be listed depending on what you click on.
* No space is safe space, even 1.0. You can still be attacked and possibly destroyed by other players.
* The Eve-O forums are an endless source of useful knowledge.
* Learning skills are almost a must have, but don't go for them all right off, get some basic combat skills first. No reason to have nothing to do for close to 2 months while they train.
* CTRL + Left click on any object in space or on your overview will attempt a target lock on it.
* Ctrl + Space cancels warp activation. Useful if you're stuck on something while warping.
* Market Hub systems such as Rens, Jita, Ourseulot(sp) can save you hours of running around picking up mods in random systems.
* Be very careful of who you trust, and keep a close eye on those that you do.
* Finish the whole tutorial, and finish it again a week later.
* Remove the ctrl + q shortcut in the settings if you have clumsy fingers >.<
* explore the various viewing settings under the map, you'd be surprised at what you can set it to find.
* Do NOT fly what you cannot afford to lose. If you become broke due to a ship loss, it's yer own dumb fault :P
* There's a 1 week trial and a 2 week trial, google for the 2 weeks trial and double your trial time.

Gametime Cards and account payment options

Figured I'd throw this out as sometimes people avoid MMO's due to credit card issues etc...

Eve has many various account payment options. Everything from Paypal, to direct bank account withdrawl etc... it makes paying for your account easy if you don't have a CC. You can also purchase game time cards from other players for in game ISK (this is allowed by CCP)

You can also purchase GTC's (game time cards) yourself using paypal from a great website http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/ it's actually somewhat cheaper to pay for your account with these depending on what account payment options you would use.

More to come later

[Faille]

Good stuff.
Maybe include a list of corps that accept newbies?

Should also mention there's a #eve on the uberguilds irc network. No one ever says anything, but it's there, and maybe people might find it useful during this downtime.

[WillzZz]

Nice guide. My rl friend finally helped me out last night, after a day of playing or so I had 25k skillpoints. Not bad, I thought. I remade into a Gallente with focus on Gunnery and Small Hybrid, ended up having 266k on creation, with 7/10/7/7/8 from the start , with Gunnery V and Small Hybrid 3. I just kept choosing options that gave me Gunnery, or Small Hybrid, or both.

Basically his advice to me was "Pick something and stack it, disregard any time you may think you save by having something at level 3, and get something to level 4 or 5". Cool to see that he wasn't sending me off the beaten path too, since your guide basically says what he said.

Oh well, just thought I'd chime in. My new Character is "Reverend William", he's a black Gallente dude.

[Wodin]

Originally Posted by Faille

Good stuff.
Maybe include a list of corps that accept newbies?

I've seen a decent number of people with the IVY allliance ticker wandering around, so I suspect Eve University is probably still running.

[Tolanin]

My combat char has an amazing 3 base perc.. whatever you do dont make that mistake! That is my advice ;p Even if you do fuck up badly tho its not THAT bad... a person with 9 base perc will train about 25 percent faster than a person with 3 base.. and the pts in other atributes should help you make some of that time up.. whatever you do tho dont spike cha, cause its worthless!

[Chinaman889]

Do not underestimate the power of:

Weapons Upgrade & Advanced Weapons Upgrade.

I highly recommend that every player should get these two skills maxed, (You can get away with AWU4 as AWU5 has like a month long training time) as they reduce the overall powergrid and CPU consumption of all Turrets and Launchers - meaning you can pack more, and better goodies on your ship.

In conjunction with Electronics and Engineering level 5; by the time you have these 4 extremely important skills, your ship(s) should have no problems equipping all the most optimal fittings possible.

[Taranatar]

I'll go ahead and throw out that just because you don't like you're skilltree, doesn't mean you should make a new character. ESPECIALLY IF YOU'VE ALREADY TRAINED LEARNING SKILLS. The best thing about eve is you can do anything you want in regards to skills. Instead of recreating, just switch skill training.

[arkael]

Is there still a week free trial for this somewhere? I started one a while back but didn't have time to play and never really got into the game.