So, I started playing EVE Online

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Just what it says on the tin. I've been playing about 3 weeks, Gallente, trying to go into EWAR, just bought a Celestis cruiser, but can't afford to fit it out yet. Currently flying a Maulus frigate for missions, a Venture for mining, and a Nerus for salvage. I have a few friends playing and trying to get a corp going, but that hasn't really come together yet. If anybody has tips or advice for me, I'm down to learn.

[bilateralrope]

Find someone who has a lot of experience and is willing to help you. I suggest you find a faction warfare corp that accepts and trains new players. Or maybe give Eve Uni a try.

Some tips:
- Never fly what you can't afford to lose.
- Keep local visible at all times.
- Major trade hubs are Jita (Caldari, the big one), Amarr, Dodixie (Gallente) and Rens (Minmatar). Almost everything said in local there is a scam.
- If someone wants you to use the trade window for trading, it's a scam. Use contracts or the market.
- Always take the time to read the entire contract before clicking accept. Especially if it sounds like a really good deal at first glance.
- A Maulus is a bad choice for missions. It's an EWAR ship, and EWAR doesn't work against NPCs. EWAR is more for PvP. Go for a ship with weapon bonuses.
- You characters race doesn't matter. You will be training for ships from multiple races. You will have different ships depending on what role your flying that day.
- Get hold of EFT and Evemon. Those programs will help a lot.
- If you're going to PvP, stick to frigates for a while.
- Sell your Celestis. If you're PvPing, it will pay for a few frigates. If you're mission running, it's a useless hull.

My character name is Hesod Adee, feel free to ask me any questions.

[Crossroads Inc.]

"Never fly what you can't afford to lose."

THIS above all, remember THIS!

[Borgholio]

Been playing EVE for about 7 years, I'd be happy to offer advice.

First, don't try to start a corp yet. Join a big one that can help you get started. EVE University is definitely a good choice of a corp, they specialize in helping newbies get started. An alliance you can join that is great for pvp is Red vs Blue. They give constant pvp and will train you too.

As far as your personal goals, you need to decide what you want to do in the long run. Do you want to mainly be a miner, builder, explorer, mission runner, pvper...etc? Which skills you spend the most time on will depend on what you want to do. If you want to focus on ewar for pvp, my advice is to not bother. A pure ewar ship is useless in solo pvp and large fleet pvp. It is only useful in small fleet pvp sometimes...so it's a niche area.

My in-game character is Borgholio and I'm mainly a miner / entrepreneur so I can show you the ropes of making the money you'll need to fund pvp if you go that route.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

"Never fly what you can't afford to lose."

THIS above all, remember THIS!

Already got that part, also, already lost a Kestrel and an Algos

Been playing EVE for about 7 years, I'd be happy to offer advice.

First, don't try to start a corp yet. Join a big one that can help you get started. EVE University is definitely a good choice of a corp, they specialize in helping newbies get started. An alliance you can join that is great for pvp is Red vs Blue. They give constant pvp and will train you too.

As far as your personal goals, you need to decide what you want to do in the long run. Do you want to mainly be a miner, builder, explorer, mission runner, pvper...etc? Which skills you spend the most time on will depend on what you want to do. If you want to focus on ewar for pvp, my advice is to not bother. A pure ewar ship is useless in solo pvp and large fleet pvp. It is only useful in small fleet pvp sometimes...so it's a niche area.

My in-game character is Borgholio and I'm mainly a miner / entrepreneur so I can show you the ropes of making the money you'll need to fund pvp if you go that route.

Starting a corp was not my idea, but rather the other people I'm on with, a couple of whom have been playing for a few years. They also want to jump straight into faction warfare, which doesn't sound like a good idea just yet. But I'm just a noob, what do I know?

So, EWAR is mostly useless? That sucks, it sounded like fun. A couple of my friends are getting into exploration, which also sounds interesting, but from the way their cruisers get worked over, I'll need a better ship before I can go.

[bilateralrope]

Starting a corp was not my idea, but rather the other people I'm on with, a couple of whom have been playing for a few years. They also want to jump straight into faction warfare, which doesn't sound like a good idea just yet. But I'm just a noob, what do I know?

So, EWAR is mostly useless? That sucks, it sounded like fun. A couple of my friends are getting into exploration, which also sounds interesting, but from the way their cruisers get worked over, I'll need a better ship before I can go.

Jumping straight into FW is a good idea. Especially if your friends have some experience at PvP and are willing to help you learn. FW often sticks to frigates, which are cheap, while FW throws a lot of ISK at you.
Guide to FW plexing (the ISK maker)
Site that will help you spend the LP for the most ISK. Use the buy prices to decide what you'll buy with your LP.

As for EWAR being useless, it has it's uses. I ran with a dual sensor damp condor for a while and felt like all the times I lost my ship were because I made a mistake. It's just that you need some way to kill the enemy.

[Borgholio]

EWAR is mostly useless but like I said, it's a niche thing. In solo pvp, too much EWAR means less ability to tank or use damage mods. One exception is the scorpion battleship which can fit EWAR, decent damage, and a buffer tank.

EWAR is useless in large fleet combat because its all about damage output. You win fights by killing the enemy as fast as you can...there's no time for EWAR.

EWAR is best used in small fleet combat where you can lock down the target and keep him from fighting back, or better yet - lock down members of the opposing fleet so they can't hit you. Unlike in large fleet combat, you have time to jam the enemy while you take out his buddies.

Faction warfare is not fully developed yet. Wait until DUST 514 is released to jump in. Exploration, especially in wormholes, can be dangerous, but fun and very profitable.

[bilateralrope]

EWAR is mostly useless but like I said, it's a niche thing. In solo pvp, too much EWAR means less ability to tank or use damage mods.

Unless you use the EWAR as your tank like I did with my condor. If they could lock me, I died quick.

Faction warfare is not fully developed yet. Wait until DUST 514 is released to jump in.

Dust was released a while ago. Its effect on FW can be ignored unless you're trying to flip a system, which is not something I think a small corp can do on their own.

As for FW development, I don't think CCP has any plans to change it.

[Borgholio]

I'll admit it's been awhile since I last read up on DUST and FW, but as I understood it, they had plans to integrate DUST into FW and Alliance sovereignty to the point where all three aspects played upon one another...unlike now where they're effectively separate with some small interactions.

[InsaneTD]

They might be waiting for valkeries release before doing that.

[White Haven]

EWAR is useless...wow, pull the other one. Seriously. That's cute.

Moving swiftly on, EVE University is one option, another is Red Versus Blue, if you want to just dive into combat head-first. You'll earn some blind-spots with RvB, specifically ECM and nullsec mechanics, but nobody, nobody fights more, period.

[Prannon]

I've been in and out of EVE since 2009. I'll definitely say that it's probably the best game (for what it is) out there: sandbox, big world, players-make-the-content type game.

Lots of good advice in this thread on getting started. Join a bigger corp that welcomes new members. EVE-U is a good one. RvB is another good one. Those outfits will take anyone, from what I understand, and you will have a good time fighting and dying in a horrible ball of fire.

Some don'ts:

1) Don't make your own corp. You don't know the game yet. If you want to do that, wait until much much later when you understand the game mechanics, have the basic skill points down, and have some relationships built up.
2) Don't go to null sec yet. Unless it's Providence. And even then try to avoid. Null is full of a bunch of shoot-it-if-it-moves people. I know because I'm one of them.
3) Don't mourn your ship losses. The sooner that you adjust to losing your ship regularly, the better off you will be.
4) Don't get hung up on the length of time required to train level 5 in something. If you're in it for the long haul, stick them level 5s in there and go to town. Especially engineering V, electronics V, the cruiser Vs, the tanking Vs, the propulsion Vs, and the gunnery/drone Vs. Work out your specialization once you've got those down.

[bilateralrope]

4) Don't get hung up on the length of time required to train level 5 in something. If you're in it for the long haul, stick them level 5s in there and go to town. Especially engineering V, electronics V, the cruiser Vs, the tanking Vs, the propulsion Vs, and the gunnery/drone Vs. Work out your specialization once you've got those down.

I'd suggest he sticks to getting the skills to 4, and only goes for 5 when he knows why that skill will be a good thing to take to 5.

[Borgholio]

Not too long ago they redid skills so that it's much less likely you'll need to train to L5 to get the next tier skill. Most have been downgraded to L4 or L3 now. Battleships for instance, now you only need L3 to move to Dreadnoughts instead of L5. You only need L5 skills for a certain situations or if you just want that extra 5% at something.

[Prannon]

That's a fair point, but what I was originally thinking was that he should try to get at least a few of the various cruiser Vs. They're the key to the T2 cruisers, which are the most flown ship in the game.

[Borgholio]

True, but as a beginner I'd suggest try out all the T1 variants first to see which hull form he likes best. It won't take that long to train everything from frigates to BS. You never know, he might fall in love with the Battlecruiser hull...in which case a Command ship might be more fun to fly than a Cruiser.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Thanks much, guys. I'll look into EVE Uni and RvB, maybe see if I can get my friends on board. We're mostly night-shift gamers, don't know if that'll cause issues or not.

4) Don't get hung up on the length of time required to train level 5 in something. If you're in it for the long haul, stick them level 5s in there and go to town. Especially engineering V, electronics V, the cruiser Vs, the tanking Vs, the propulsion Vs, and the gunnery/drone Vs. Work out your specialization once you've got those down.

Long training times don't really deter me, since they train while I'm sleeping or at work. In fact, I'm just about done training Industry up to 5, so I can get a Retriever and make more money mining. Drones will probably be next, its already at 4.

I'm Dukeraoul Chanlin in game, BTW.

[bilateralrope]

We're mostly night-shift gamers, don't know if that'll cause issues or not.

It probably won't. Every Eve player except the Chinese plays on the same servers*, so you'll just be playing in another countries primetime.


*The Chinese government doesn't like its citizens playing MMOs on the same servers as everyone else.

[Borgholio]

EVE is on 23:30 / 7 and there are always people on. There are two "Prime Times" which is pretty much the end of the business day in Europe and North America. Prime Time is when you get the most activity and the biggest fleet fights, but there's always someone on even in the middle of the night.

[Mr. Coffee]

Thanks much, guys. I'll look into EVE Uni and RvB, maybe see if I can get my friends on board. We're mostly night-shift gamers, don't know if that'll cause issues or not.

Go look into RvB if you want to learn PvP. Go look into EVE-U if you want to continuously get your shit ruined by people who know how to PvP. Seriously, EVE-U is great at training you to be a miner or a carebear, but they're piss useless at teach anything resembling fighting other players. I used to have a blast slaughtering those guys whenever they came out into low-sec/null-sec.

Christ, now I'm tempted to resub...

[Borgholio]

Yeah Eve-U is not the best PvP training corp but they're a good place to start. Many PvPers need to go carebear to a bit to pick up cash for their ships anyways so it's a good thing to learn.

[TheFeniX]

What is PvP like in EvE? Target, hit buttons, and wait for cooldowns? Are their firing arcs? Are their stats to stack, certain weapons only viable in PvP vs PvE? At the higher levels, is it a long drawn out slug-fest or a burn every CD you have and blast him/her before they blast you? Do you have to grind loads of PvE to be viable in PvP? Is there any distinction between the 2 at all?

WoW PvP was supposed to be slowed down, and it is.... in BGs and Arenas where PvE gear gets downgraded. However, open world is still ruled by raid gear. Not that WPvP hasn't been dead for ages, but it's extremely tiring in WoW. But I got a taste again and I like it, at least in BGs.

EvE might be an option after the new year when the new house is finally finished (hopefully) and I am definitely not opposed to huge brawls in outer space.

[Borgholio]

PvP is pretty much targeting and hitting buttons on the surface, but there actually is more to that. There are no firing arcs but there is tracking speed (smaller turrets can track smaller targets at higher speeds than bigger turrets, for instance). You also need to worry about range since it affects tracking ability as well as the ability to warp scramble (snare) opponents. This is with smaller fleet or solo combat of course.

In large fleet combat, it's basically you obeying the commands of the fleet commander. For instance, target *insert victim name here*. Switch target to *next victim*. Interdictors, bubble those captital ships. All Battleships - align to *target*. And so forth.

It's not the same kind of combat as in WoW or EQ. There are no "levels". People with only a few weeks in the game can fly a battleship fit to fly in a fleet. There are a few cooldowns but not many. Mostly you just activate your modules (weapons, armor / shield repair, webber / warp scrambler, etc...) and let them run. They just keep going until you turn them off, they run out of energy (which doesn't happen if you have good enough power generation), or you die.

Fleet fights are not huge brawls. They are epic, chaotic melees. I have personally flown my dreadnaught in battles where there are literally 500 people on EACH SIDE. And since they made changes to the server architecture to allow practically unlimited numbers of combatants, fleet fights have literally tripled in size. They recently had a few battles where the total number of ships in a single system was pushing 3000.

It truly is a sight to behold.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

Thanks much, guys. I'll look into EVE Uni and RvB, maybe see if I can get my friends on board. We're mostly night-shift gamers, don't know if that'll cause issues or not.

Go look into RvB if you want to learn PvP. Go look into EVE-U if you want to continuously get your shit ruined by people who know how to PvP. Seriously, EVE-U is great at training you to be a miner or a carebear, but they're piss useless at teach anything resembling fighting other players. I used to have a blast slaughtering those guys whenever they came out into low-sec/null-sec.

Christ, now I'm tempted to resub...

I think I'm going to try to avoid PvP for now. Not permanently, I want to get into it at some point, but I need a new PC, as my current one just takes a complete dump if combat gets too intense. That's actually how I lost my Algos, got into some shit, realized I needed to warp out, but got blasted to pieces while my PC bogged down trying to bring up the wheel menu, all I could do was sit and watch.

[Borgholio]

Yeah, reaction time is important in saving your ship. Go attack asteroids. They don't shoot back as often.