All About EVE Online

History Alert!

“Go West, young man, and grow up with the country” as writer John Soule’s stated in his 1851 article for the Terre Haute Express, an Indiana newspaper. This quote would later be popularized by Horace Greeley and served as the mantra for nineteenth Century American migration. This quote has been used for decades and even a century later it is still used to urge people to go out and build their future.

 Now in the time of EVE this quote can still be used to urge young pilots to go out and find fame and fortune in the untamed universe. Well not the entire universe is untamed, maybe just less tamed than the rookie space of your tutorial agents. If you did all the career tutorials you have already made several trips out of this home system, which on most cases is the highest security space in EVE. The opportunities in one system are severely limited.

 

Why should I “go west,”?  Where should I go?  What should I do there? 

Why should you leave the safety of rookie space? Simply put, to make your fortune, to become a powerful player, to explore, the options are almost endless. In lower security systems you will find more player, better ore, more agents and adventures. These can lead to you making friends, finding or creating a corporation, learning new skills, etc… Now I should note that I am saying lower sec space (lower than 0.9) not low sec space. High sec space is space with security rating of 1.0 to 0.5. Low sec space is rated 0.4 and lower, even though 0.0 is sometimes referred to as zero space. Low sec space you will not have CONCORD coming to your rescue if other players attack you. If you travel to 0.8 or lower space and do mining you can expect NPC rats to attack and again CONCORD will not help against NPC rats. The lower the sec level the larger their ships will be. But staying in high sec space and mining, I have never seen anything bigger than a frigate come after me in a belt.

One of the biggest problems effecting rookie space is the miners. More than once a day I read where some new rookie is looking for Veldspar in a belt but all the belts are mined out. This is partly to do with macro miners (a third party program that will mine for you while you are away from keyboard, even while you sleep). Macro mining is illegal in the game and if are found out to be macro mining, you can be banned from the game. Some are ISK farmers that are looking for safe place to mine without pirates, and again ISK buying and selling is illegal and could lead to you being banned. Some are just players that don’t want to risk their precious barges while watching tv instead of watching the game (ok, sorry for the rant). But this leads to an over mining of resources in rookie space and very little opportunity for you to grow. The point is that as you travel down to lower security level systems you will encounter more and different ores. Check out my article on “Ore to Minerals” to see what minerals you get from different ores. These new ores and minerals are needed to manufacturing and can be a great source of income to a player.

Another reason to head out is that once you do all the tutorials (even all the ones in other systems and with other the races) you cannot do any more missions with these NPC agents. Going to other systems allows you to go to other stations, find new agents, do more missions and improve your standing with the local Faction, not to mention that some of these missions are very profitable. Feel free to review my article “Call My Agent” for more information on finding an agent.

Now the last two questions, where should you go and what should you do, I cannot answer for you. Where you go and what you do is entirely up to you. That is one of the great things about EVE online, its freedom. Freedom to go where you want, do what you want, not jump through hoops.

So as EVE grows, we need to expand and to explore new territories and whether we are the ones boldly going into the abyss, or supporting them with mining and manufacturing of ships, ammo and equipment, we must step out in our own way to find these resources, the fame, the new worlds, all those things that we cannot find in rookie space. So to update the quote, Go Out, Young Pilot, and Grow Up with the Universe.

P.S. One last thing I want to point out is to keep your clone updated and once you find a place you like and want to call home see about moving your clone there or at least close by. Check out “Send in the Clones“.

And until next time, Fly Safe

Reggi Mental

Training has gotten a lot easier in the latest update on EVE Online. Before you would start training a skill and when it ended start the next one, if you where online to do that. Otherwise when the training ended your character did nothing until you came back. And if EVE happened to be doing a update at the time that took longer than expected, well you just had to wait. Or if you where smart you changed training for one that would take a few days then either switched back when you got on next or just let it run. You don’t lose anything for interrupting skill training so its not a problem switching back and forth between skills.

Now we have the ‘Queue’. That means that if we have a bunch of small skills running from a few minutes to a few hours we can queue them up, as long as they will start in the next 24 hours. The last one can end well beyond 24 hours. And if I need to train something real quick I can just add it to the front of the queue. All praise the Queue.

While I am taking about training, for those that are new to EVE, I want to share a little tip with you. Open up you character sheet, and in the skill area select the ‘settings’ tab. Then select the following settings:

‘Only show my current skills’ – this only shows those skills that you have trained or started training, not all of the skills available or just the ones you have finished.

‘Highlight partially trained skills’ – this will turn those skills that have been interrupted yellow and you can find then easier when you want to restart them.

‘Only toggle on skill group at a time’ – well this one is up to you but I like this one because it just less confusing when going through my skills list.

And finally back in the ‘Skills’ tab, click ‘Open Training Queue’ select ‘My Skills’ from the drop down menu and uncheck the ‘Skills that Fit Within Queue’s Timeframe” box.

One last thing, a reminder to all, at the time of this post we are just a day out from an extended downtime. This is for a small patch that comes out from time to time so it’s a good idea to set up you skill queue for a few days worth of training. Time to set up those level 4 and 5 skills just in case.

I hope you found this helpful. Please subscribe to my blog for future posts and if you have any question be sure to comment and I will try and get back to you ASAP.

Until next time, Fly Safe

Reggi Mental

Character generation is a lot easier now in EVE Online. Before you had to pick one of four races, Amarr, Caldari, Gallete and Minmatar. Then choose your ancestry, bloodline and gender. Then one of 3 professions, Business, Military or Industrial. And those has 2 subdivisions, Standard and Elite. Along the way you had 5 “Attribute” points to place in Intelligence, Will power, Charisma, Memory, and Perception. Each of these changes had different skill sets and different bonuses, so you had to play around and try and find the right set of things to give you what you wanted. That of course was if you knew what you wanted. As a new player to EVE Online you did not know what to do. Which race should I pick? What skills do I need to do what? What did that skill do? These where the common questions every new play would ask. Of course you got to play with your appearance a bit and change the background and enter you characters name.

Now the new character generation is simpler. You still have to pick a race, ancestry, bloodline, and gender. You still get to play with your features and background. But the professions and extra attribute points are no more, at least not in the generation process. Now you get the chance to try each profession at the same solar system. You have 2 free attribute re-mappings to move points around. You also learn skills at an accelerated rate, up to a certain point. All these give you the chance to experiment and see where you want to go and what does everything do. You get the chance to play the game before really determining who you are.

As for any advice i can give you about the first few chooses (Race, Ancestry, Bloodline and gender), no one is better than another. Each race has their own version of each ship. They use their own type of weapons. They have their own history. And gender does not effect how well your ship performs or how much damage your weapons do (as you can see your attributes do not have things like dexterity or strength). So which every you choose will work. Granted once you get in you will run into other players who have their own biases and opinions, but there is no one better race.

As for profession, well you will get a chance to dabble into each one. I would say do each of the career based tutorial missions. You will get ships, weapons, ammo, equipment and skill books along the way. There will be a chance to do a Mission Arc at the end which will give you a good test of what you have learned and a chance to travel around. Maybe along the way you will find friends or a place you want to call home. Granted this last mission arc is a tough one and you will most likely need to ask for help, don’t be afraid to. EVE is loaded with both good and bad guys. You need to be alert but don’t be paranoid either. More often than not you will find good people who just want to help and have fun.

Ask others for help, either in doing a mission or about a piece of equipment or even how to do something. There are alot of people out there and I am sure you will find someone who will give you a hand. Remember we where all newbies at one point. And again this is why I am writing these articles too. I Have been playing EVE for almost 2 years now, and I am still learning stuff, but I also enjoy helping others. If you have any questions go ahead and make a comment, I will do my best to get an answer to you (and others) ASAP.

Until next time, Fly Safe

Reggi Mental

The tutorial missions are the best place to start in EVE. Not only do you get the chance to learn in a semi safe environment but you will gain some great stuff that you will need later on no matter what your profession turns out to be.

There are three professional tutorials, Industrial, Military and Business. Each tutorial has 10 parts. Some actions or missions are similar others are a complete unique thing. There is no special order to do these missions, but I think the following is the best way: Industrial, Military and then Business. At the end of the each tutorial you are given directions to another agent in another system for a mission arc. This is a long and detailed mission which will take you to each of the four races area of space. This will also challenge you and what you have learned but it can be done. But that is for a later article.

I have written up the tutorial missions and given a storyline over view of what you need to do and then some trick, tips and instructions to get them done easily and as quickly as possible. On this page I will show you what you will gain by running each tutorial. You can do the tutorials of the different races as well and there is more than one location for each race. That means that you will have 3x the amounts here and for each race. Ships and weapons

 

Industrial Tutorial, “Making Mountains from Molehills”:

 

• “Overdrive Injector” module
• “Expanded Cargohold” module (2x)
• “1MN Afterburner” module
• “Miner I” module (2x)
• New Frigate Ship
• New Industrial Ship
• Frigate BPC of 5 runs (minus 1 if you need to build for the mission)

 

The Frigate, industrial ships and the BPC for each race are:

Race	Frigate	Industrial	Frigate BPC (Batch size)
Amarr	Tormentor	Sigil	Tormentor (1)
Caldari	Bantam	Badger	Bantam(1)
Gallente	Navitas	Iteron	Navitas (1)
Minmatar	Burst	Wreathe	Burst (1)

 

 

Military tutorial, “Cash Flow for Capsuleers:

 

From Aura’s Tutorial Bonus’s:

Mission 3 of 10	“Civilian Webifier” Module
Mission 4 of 10	“Civilian Sheild Booster” Module

 

From Agent:

• Weapon (A)
• Ammo
• Weapon (B)
• 1MN Afterburner I
• Civilian Deffence Field (Photon Scattering, Ballistic, ? , Explosive Damping )
• +1 Ocular Cybernetic Implant
• Overdrive Injector System I (2x)
• Stasis Webifier I
• Skill book “Motion Prediction”
• Skill Book “Propulsion Jamming”
• Skill book “Shield Management”
• Skill Book “Weapon Upgrade”
• Skill book ” SharpShooter”
• Two New Frigate Ships

 

The Frigates, weapons and the ammo for each race are:

Race	Frigates	Weapons	Ammo (Amount)
Amarr	ExecutionerPunisher	DualLightbeam Laser I (3x)	MultiFrequency S (3x)
Caldari	CondorMerlin	(A)75mm Gatling Rail I(B)Rocket Launchers I (2x)	Antimatter Charge S (2000)
Gallente	AtronTristan	(A) 75mm Gatling Rail I	Antimatter Charge S (2000)
Minmatar	SlasherRifter	(A) 125mm Gatling Cannon I	Small EMP (2000)

 

 

Business tutorial, “Balancing the Books:

 

From Aura’s Tutorial Bonus’s:

Mission 2 of 10	“Social” Skill Book”Diplomacy” Skill Book
Mission 4 of 10	“Contract” Skill Book”Negotiation” Skill Book
Mission 6 of 10	“Trade” Skill Book”Retail” Skill Book
Mission 8 of 10	“Cybernetics” Skill Book

 

 From Agent:

• Skill book “Salvaging”
• Skill book “Hacking”
• Skill book “Production Efficiency”
• Skill book “Mass Production”
• “Civilian Salvager” module
• “Civilian Codebreaker” module
• “Civilian Analyzer” module
• “Overdrive Injector” module
• “Expanded Cargohold” module (2x)
• “1MN Afterburner” module
• +1 Limited Social Adaptation Implant.
• “Miner I” module
• Blueprint copy (BPC) with 200 runs of some ammo depending on race
• New Frigate Ship
• New Industrial Ship

 

The Frigate, industrial ships and the BPC for each race are:

Race	Frigate	Industrial	Ammo BPC(Batch size)
Amarr	Tormentor	Sigil	Infrared S Crystal (1)
Caldari	Bantam	Badger	Thorn Rockets(100)
Gallente	Navitas	Iteron	Antimatter Charge S (100)
Minmatar	Burst	Wreathe	EMP S (100)

 

Fly Safe

Reggi Mental

Ok, yea that’s an old joke but I think it fits for a title. This is a brief overview of clones. In EVE a capsuleer (that’s you pilot) are immortal due to cloning. You are granted a clone ‘Clone Grade Alpha’, at no charge. The problem is the basic clone you get has a limited number of skill points that it can recieve. In other words if you have to many skill points from your training, they will not all transfer to your clone. The basic clone, ‘Clone Grade Alpha’, can only hold 900k skill points. If you have 1 million skill points (or more) you will loose all the skill points above 900k, and will randomly loose skills that you will have to re-learn them.

What you need to do to avoid this is to upgrade the clone. This will cost you some ISK, but it will be well worth it. It is a good idea to check your skill points and those of your clone every week or so (depending on game play and training) to check that your clone can handle the information dump it would receive if you are podded. Also dont try to get the most expensive one you can get, this would be a waste of ISK. Think of it as buying a 3-peice suit for a little baby, that would  fit a 6′ 5″ man. You dont know how long it will take for him to grow into it and what is he going to wear in the mean time? Just get a clone that has maybe a few million skill points above what you are now and upgrade when you need to.

Another thing to watch for is location of the clone.Your first clone location is where you entered EVE. If you have moved from there to greener pastures and have not yet found a home there is not much to worryabout. but if you have found a system you like and have a lot or your stuff there you should look at moving your clone there or at least close by.

There are a few other things you should know about dieing. If you are podded you will be transferredto your clone at the location it is at. You will have lost all your implants. If you do not have a ship here you will be given a lovely new rookie ship again. Will should at this point also purchase a new clone. If you do not purchase a new clone and you are podded again you will be put into a ‘Clone Grade Alpha’ and possibly lose skills (re-read the first paragraph if you have forgotten).

I hope that this information was a help to you. Please feel free to add a comment below and to subscribe to my blog to receive updates. If there is any thing you would like more information on or help with, please let me know.

Until next time, Fly Safe

Reggi Mental

One of the most forgotten area when training a new character in EVE is the Learning Skills. These skills do really only one thing for the character, help learn skills. The speed at which you learn skills is determined by your attributes, the higher you attributes the faster you learn. Here is a brief run down of the learning skills and the attributes they affect.

First of lets talk about skills. Each skill has a primary and a secondary attribute associated with it. The higher those attributes the faster it is to learn that skill. When you start a new character you start off with a set number for each attribute (between 8 and 9). There are 3 ways to change these numbers.

• Remap your attributes
• Implants
• Learning skills

As a new character you get 2 free remapping of your attributes. This allows you to move a certain number of points from one attribute to another. After you use the free remaps any future remap will cost you 500k ISK and can only be done once a year.

Implants will allow you to add up to five points per attribute. The problem with these is the higher the implant the higher the cost, and if you are podded (killed and have to activate a clone) you will lose the implant. Also Implants can not be removed intact. This means that if you have a +3 implant and want to change it for a higher one, the +3 implant will be destroyed and you will not have the chance to save it or resell it. So trying to work your way up the implant ladder will get real expensive after awhile because you will lose the ISK from the previous implant.

Learning Skills allow you to add one point to an attribute per level. There are two levels to learning skills, Rank 1 and Rank 3. You must start with the Rank 1 skills first and get trained up to level 4 before you can start the Rank 3 version. This will give you a max of 10 points to add to an attribute (two skills per attribute, 5 levels per skill). The ’Learning Skills’ gives you a 2% bonus to all you attributes. Below is a chart of each attribute and which Learning Skill and which implant slot improves it.

• Intelligence – Slot 4 – Analytical Mind, Logic
• Perception   – Slot 1 – Spatial Awareness, Clarity
• Charisma     – Slot 5 -Empathy, Presence
• Willpower    - Slot 3 – Iron Will, Focus
• Memory       – Slot 2 – Instant Recall, Eidetic Memory

Intelligence and Memory will be the best ones to upgrade first, alternating between them and Learning and working your way up. As far as Implants my suggestion is to use the +1 limited ones until you are very comfortable in your skills of playing EVE. They are cheap and very very easy to get (almost impossible not to get sometimes).

A good order to the learning skills is get ‘Learning Skill’, ‘Analytical Mind’, and ‘Instant Recall’ up to lvl 3 each, then start the others and alternating them to get all the Rank 1 skills up to lvl 5.  You can interrupt skills if you need to learn something for a mission or piece of equipment and then go back to the learning skills. After you have all the Rank 1 skills up to lvl 5 you can start in on the Rank 3 skills and try for lvl 3 or 4. It may take two weeks to get all skill to this point but it will save you months in the long run.

I hope this helps you understand a bit more about learning skills and until next time, Fly Safe.