All About EVE Online

“Aye Capt’n, she’s jury rigged like a Christmas tree, but a chimpanzee and three trainees could run her…” A great quote from Montgomery Scott (“Scotty”) from Star Trek.

-

If you ever looked in your ship Fitting window (and if you have added or removed equipment from a ship you have), you would have see the high, medium, and low slots. There are also those broken boxes with the round corners, the Rig Slots. This is where you will install rigs for your ship. This is called (and uses the skill) Jury Rigging.

-

Jury rigging allows you to make tweaks (yea, I know I’m using one of those technical terms) to your ship. You can think of them as implants for your ship. You can add rigs to improve certain features of your ships setup. These improvements can make you faster, harder hitting, faster, Improve drones, etc… Rigs are now in three sizes (Small, Medium, and Large) instead of a one size fits all (which are now Large). This means that for smaller ships the price, or the materials needed to make them, has been reduced. The bonuses are not bad, and can really do wonders for a ship with a specific function. The skills need to build and install the rigs are not hard to get or to train and training up in levels also reduces the drawback on a few of them (if not all). This reduction in the drawback is on average 10% per level of the skill trained.

-

With that said I need to warn you of a few other draw backs before you invest time and ISK to this. First you cannot remove a rig once it is put on the ship without destroying it, so it cannot be moved to another ship. On smaller ships this may not be an issue because you can just make or buy another rig. This is where you make a ship for a purpose and fit it for that purpose. You cannot repackage a ship without removing the rigs. This means that it will be hard to transport the ship from one system to another if you move, other than flying it there. There is hopes and rumor that a future upgrade will fix this problem. You need to train for different rigs sets (Armor rigs, Drone rigs, Shield rigs, etc…). Most rigs have a drawback with them, these drawbacks can be anything from using more CPU or Power grid, to lower shields, or slower maneuverability.

-

Over all rigs can be a good thing, but I would suggest waiting awhile until you have a good idea of what you want to do, and what roll your ships will play before you start playing with rigs. There is a saying in EVE Online, “Don’t fly anything you are not willing to lose”.

-

Hope that helped you understand a bit more about Jury Rigging. If you have any questions or comments feel free to post them. Remember to subscribe to the site to get notices of future articles.

-

Until next time, Fly Safe

Reggi Mental

Ok, you have been playing for awhile and have gather a bunch of shi… um… stuff. But your hanger is beginning to look like a bomb went off with stuff scattered all over. Or you have been moving around from system to system and have stuff scatted over 30 systems (ok its only 20 systems) and can’t find that other ship you have. Or maybe you bought something special on the market and it’s not in your current hanger. How do you find stuff? Well this article should give you some ideas on how to sort your stuff and to become a bit more organized (at least in EVE Online).

Assets:

Ok, let’s start with the one problem we all start with. You bought an item off the market either for yourself or for a mission agent and it’s not in your hanger. So you try to buy it again, and again it’s not in your hanger. Well it most likely is at another station, even a station in another system. How do you find it? A quick way to find something you just bought, open up you ‘Wallet’ and go to the last tab, ‘Transactions’ and you are looking for a line in red (red is out going cash, green is incoming cash), the last column will tell you where it is. Right click here and ‘Set Destination’ to plot a course. Remember to check your route to make sure it’s safe. See my article ‘This is Your Auto Pilot Speaking’.

To find all your stuff, simply look in your ‘Assets’ in your NeoCom (the icons on the left of your screen) it’s the icon about half way down that looks like a safe (it’s a safe, trust me). Click on that and your ‘Personal Assets’ window will open up. In the first tab, ‘All Items’ you will get a list of all the systems, stations, number of items, and jumps from your current location, that you have stuff. Click on one of the names and a drop down will open giving you a list of what’s there. You can sort this list alphabetically, by quantity, by group (energy weapon, mining laser, shield boost, etc…), by size (large energy weapon, large shield booster, etc…), or by slot (where it mounts on the ship). The other tabs allow you reduce this menu to those stations in your current ‘Region’, ‘Constellation’, or ‘Solar System’. The last tab allows you to search for an item(s) by knowing part of the name. To set a course for these items, simply right click on the location and ‘Set Destination’ and the auto pilot will set a course. Once there you can use this list to dock at the correct station by again right clicking and selecting ‘Dock’. If you are docked at a station, another tab will allow you to display your items in their categories in station. Items installed on a ship, in a ships cargohold, or in a container will not be visible in this window.

Sort Items:

In your station hanger or in your ships cargohold, you can select how you would like to sort your items, either by name, by type or by quantity (and their reversed order). I like to sort by type, this keeps the types of ammo, weapons, modules, ore, minerals, etc… together.

Repackage:

When you buy an item from the market it is packaged already, and will have a small number on the bottom of the icon picture. If there is no number then the item is unpackaged or assembled. You can repackage most items (modules, secure cans, turrets, drones, etc…). I want to warn you (and the game will warn you also) that if try to repackage your ship and it has been jury rigged (or rigged for short), you will destroy the rig(s). Packaging up a ship will also cause all cargo and fittings to be dropped into your station hanger. Ammo is always packaged with the exception of frequency crystals. Damaged Items cannot be repackaged until repaired (frequency crystals cannot be repaired).

Staking/Unstacking:

You can stack and unstack items. Doing this de-clutters your hanger / cargo window and gives a better idea of the number of each item you have. If you have item icon with a small number at the bottom, this means your item is packaged and the number tells you how many are in the stack. To stack items simply drag and drop items on top of each other. Or right click in the window and select stack all. To Unstack, hold down the shift key and select the item and drag away, a window will open and ask how many items you want to pull from the stack.

Containers & Warehouses:

Another way to organize your stuff is to place in inside containers. This has three problems. 1) Not all things can go in a container. 2) You have to pay for these containers (you can of course sell them when you’re done, or even take some of them when you move) and 3) you cannot see what is in a container remotely, so your asset window will not work with items in a can. There are some advantages too. You can label the can to tell you what’s inside (Hybrid Ammo, Blueprints, Missiles, etc…). You can load most of the cans into an industrial ship for moving to another station (Station Warehouses and Vaults cannot be moved by ANY ship in EVE). Some containers can be anchored outside and Password protected (only in Security Space of 0.7 or lower). If you ever repackage a can all its contents will be put in your hanger.

Fitting Out Other Ships:

You could also use some of your extra stuff to start fitting out other ships that you can jump into for specific jobs (mission runner, miner, salvager, ratter, etc…). You could even have a second ship in standby at another station/system maybe a good idea. There have been a few times that I did a mission and the ship I was in would not work (too big, wrong fittings, etc…).

Reprocess:

You can reprocess your junk into base minerals, but you will only get a fraction of the minerals back. There are skills available to help you get more minerals from them items you reprocess, but it is still only a fraction. This is not the most profitable idea, but if you are desperate for minerals it could be ok. Not all items can be reprocessed (Rookie stuff for example).

Selling:

Ok, you still think you want to get rid of some of this junk (don’t blame you one bit. Then you may want to try selling it. Right click on the item and select ‘View Market Details’ and be sure to look at the whole region. Look for the best buyer (bottom of window). Those in green are within range of your current position. See my article ‘This Little Pilot Went to Market’ for information on the market and setting up your filters. You will want to see how far someone is and at what range they are buying at, and always make sure it is safe space. Look in the market window, don’t just sell the item blindly, you could be just one or two jumps from a lot of ISK.

I hope you found this helpful and I am sure I did not cover every possible idea or method but it should get you thinking. If you have any suggestions or questions, be sure to comment bellow. Also subscribe to my site for updates and new post.

Until next time, Fly safe

Reggi Mental

‘Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.’ This is a quote from one of my favorite authors Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but I think this is very appropriate for this article.

Navigating around EVE Online can be complicate. So the Auto Pilot is real good at plotting your course from one system to another. There are a few things that you should be careful about. First thing you should know is that the autopilot will give you the shortest, most direct route. This can be dangerous if it puts you through low sec space (0.4 or lower). It could also plot you through heavy traffic systems (with over 700 pilots in) and you could suffer lag (sluggish response time and even delays or drops).  Another thing, if you have set up your autopilot setting before, and you have multiple waypoints set is you could just jump right through and on to the next location. It is always a good idea to NOT travel on autopilot while away from the keyboard (AFK).

So now I will walk you through a few settings that should make your navigation a bit easier.

Setting a Destination:

Your first stop point will be the ‘Destination’. To ‘Set Destination’, right click on the name of the system and select ‘Set Destination’. You can find this name in many ways, either from the market, your agent, or even a search of systems using the ‘People and Places’ window or anywhere that has the ‘Set Destination’ option.

Adding a Waypoint:

Like Destination, waypoints are any additional stops along your path. They are the second stop, or maybe your return trip, or if you are doing any multiple stops, these are all called waypoints. These are set the same way that you would a destination, just select ‘Set Waypoint’. NOTE: That if you should hit ‘Set Destination’ by accident, or to try and change your first stop, it will over write your whole course and you will have to start again. To Change order of stops or to remove one, see below.

Autopilot Settings:

To make changes to your Autopilot settings, open the ‘Map’ icon or hit F-10. Then in the menu, select ‘Autopilot’ tab then ‘Settings’. I suggest selecting the ‘Prefer Safer’ and make sure that ‘Disable autopilot at each waypoint’. Just because you have selected the ‘Prefer Safer’ does not mean you will never go through low sec space (there may not be any other route), always look at your route and do not fly afk.

Avoiding Systems:

Sometimes you need to avoid some systems (example Jita, it’s a heavy market area and can get very laggy). Sometimes there are systems that are known for suicide gate campers. To avoid a system right click on the name of the system (either through the map, name search, or whatever). Then drop down the menu to ‘Avoid Solar System’. If you need to remove the avoidance, go to ‘Autopilot’ tab in the ‘Map’ and select the ‘Avoidance List’ tab, right click on the name of the system and select ‘Do Not Avoid Solar System’. In the ‘Settings’ tab there is also an ‘Avoid systems where pod killing has recently occurred’ check I have not used this one, but it might not be a bad idea.

Moving/Clearing a Waypoint:

If you only have one destination set or want to clear all of them, open the ‘Map’ by using the icon on the left or by pressing F10. Then right click in the map area and select ‘Clear all waypoints’. If you have multiple stops and what to rearrange or delete one, Open the ‘Map’ area, then in the ‘Autopilot’ Tab go to ‘Waypoints’. You will get a list of your waypoints. If you want to see every system in the route check the ‘Waypoints Expanded box, or if you want to see just the stops, uncheck the box. Now select a waypoint and move up, down, delete whatever you need.

Tips & Tricks:

I want to let you know that if you just let the autopilot do its job, you will warp to a gate, but be about 15km out. Now you will jump once you are within 2500m, but it can still take time to get there. One tip is to manually warp to the gate (it will be in yellow in your over view, and if more than one is yellow, look on the left at your route and the ‘Next system in route’). Just select the gate, and hit the ’Warp to within 0km’ (->>>) key above your overview. Then you can turn back on the autopilot for it to do the jump, then turn off again on other side. Or just use the autopilot to plot your course (show everything in yellow) while you do it all manually (warp to, and jump), it faster and you spend less time being a target. If you are flying manually and you are warping to a gate while in low sec, once you see you are getting close to the gate start hitting the jump button (again and again) above the overview (the arrow in a circle) and then once you are out of warp and in range you will jump (not much time for a target lock by hostiles).

In closing I hope this helps you to get around a bit easier. So if you have any comments or questions be sure to ask. And remember to subscribe to my site to receive notices of new post and other responses. Until next time, Fly safe.

Reggi Mental

Being able to save a location so that you can revisit again later is called Bookmarking (bm). Bookmarks are markers that you put in your ships computer (and will move with you from ship to ship) and will allow you to warp right to a location (within 2000m +/-). This will come in handy early on. If you have tried to warp to an asteroid belt in rookie space and seen that the warp in point is over 100km away from the nearest rock, this is a perfect use of bookmarking.

Bookmarking allows you to go back to a mission site after you have completed the mission. This allows you to clean up the wrecks or to reclaim your loot (salvage). It also allows you to make safe spots in a system or to create different warp in points to gates and stations. These can be helpful in hostile systems.

Bookmarks can also be shared or traded with other players. You can create folder to sort your Bookmarks or leave them in the root directory and sort them by system, constellation or region.

So let’s get started making your own list of favorite sites. First we are going to look at where they are stored and how to edit them. Then I will walk you through creating a few to show you how and then how to use them to your best advantage.

Where to Find Your Bookmarks:

Bookmarks are stored / accessed through the ‘People & Place’ panel located in you NeoCom (icons on the left, the second one down). Click this to open the window and select the ‘Places’ tab. I like to sort my bookmarks by solar systems, so click the table header ‘SOL’ until you have an arrow pointing up. This has now sorted your bookmarks in alphabetical order based on solar systems. Those bookmarks that are in your current system should be highlighted in green. If you select a bookmark (if you have one already) you can right click on it and edit the name, delete it, show information, set destination / waypoint, have the star/system map come up and show you its location or even mark the system to be avoided by the autopilot.

There are a few ways to create a bookmark. The first is by locating an object in space or on your overview and right clicking, then select ‘Bookmark Location’. I should point out that you do have to be within a certain range of some objects and not all objects can be bookmarked. If you can bookmark the target, you will get a window pop up. This window will allow you to label the bookmark. I will point out at this time that your bookmarks will be displayed alphanumerically (with numbers being at the top, and that 10 will show before 2, i.e. 1, 10, 2, 3, 4 …) when you use the menu in space or the navigation triangle next to the system name in the upper left, so if you want things to show in a certain order be careful how you label your bookmarks. You can of course change them later (see above).

There are a couple of reasons to use bookmarks. Recovering loot from a mission, making a short cut to an asteroid, warping to a secure can, a safe spot in the system, or even saving anomalies found during probing. Below is a list of ideas and why you may need them and even a few abbreviations to help in naming them.

Recovering Loot:

You took a mission from and agent, and you have a lot of wrecks and cargo containers but the time for the mission bonus is running out and you don’t have time to do all the salvage or you did not bring a ship with enough cargo space or with a salvager. Bookmark a wreck or can (you will need to do this for each room or area that you warped to because you will not have the acceleration gates).  Note: the wrecks, like jet cans, will disappear after about an hour but your bookmark will remain.

Warping to Your Target:

You want to do some mining but the warp in point to a belt is 100km (or in other systems about 20km +/-) away from the nearest rock of Veldspar (or whatever ore). This can be a real pain if you need to do several trips and you’re using a very, very slow ship. Simply find a rock on your over view in the area you want to be, bookmark it (I like to use the belt ID i.e. Belt VI-01, or Veldspar VI-01, …), then warp out to a planet or station, then right click in space, open the menu and find your bookmark and select “warp to”. Presto, you’re right on target (well 2000m +/-). This also works with Secure cans that you have anchored (again I like to use the Belt ID to help out, and remember you cannot anchor a secure can in high sec space above 0.7)).

Making A Safe Spot:

Sometimes you need a spot to repair, reload you weapons, gather your thoughts, or just plain hide from others. Now anyone looking in Local chat will know you’re in the system, but they may not be able to find you. This takes a bit of planning ahead but is relatively easy to do. First open the ‘Places’ tab in the ‘People & Places’ window. From a starting location in system (gate, station, planet …) warp to another location. While in warp hit the ‘Add Bookmark’ button and label this Safe spot 1. Once you are out of warp, select another location to warp to (making sure it is not along the same line as the first location) and repeat label it safe spot 2. Now warp to safe spot 1. Once there warp to safe spot 2 and again while in warp ‘Add Bookmark’ and label safe spot 3. Make sure that this 3^rd spot is not along the lines of any object or within sight of one. You can repeat this as many times as you like, generating a series of safe spots. This is sometimes a good idea if you know you are being hunted (or will be). A good prober can find you in less than 30 seconds but not if you keep moving from spot to spot.

Copy and Share:

To copy a bookmark, you need to be docked in a station. Open the ‘Places’ tab in ‘People & Places’, hold down Shift, click drag the bookmark to your hangar, NOT TO YOUR SHIPS CARGO HOLD (this will make you a copy of the bookmark but will also remove it from your list). You can select a maximum of five bookmarks to be copied at one time but just repeat the operation if you need to more copies.

To install a copy of a bookmark, be docked in a station, open the ‘Places’ tab in ‘People & Places’ drag the bookmark from your hangar and drop bookmarks on top of the ‘Places’ tab itself. This will place the bookmark in the rook directory, then just drag and drop into a folder if you wish. Dropping a bookmark on top of another bookmark has no effect.

How-To-Use a Bookmark:

Now That you have all these bookmarks how do you use them? Simply right click in space or use the navigation triangle next to the system name in the upper left hand corner of your screen. Then hover over the bookmark you want in the ‘My Places:’ of the menu and select ‘warp to location’. You can now warp to within 2000m of a asteroid location in a belt, a wreck, a jet can whatever you bookmarked and save a bunch of travel time. You can even warp your favorite station over and over again, or to a nice little hide away to reload or just to gather your thoughts.

I hope you found this information helpful and remember if you have any questions be sure to ask. Subscribe to this site for notice of future post and until next time, Fly Safe

Reggi Mental

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

After you finish doing the tutorial career agents you may be uncertain where to go next. Well you have the option at this point to go anywhere you want. If you want to mine you can go find a nice system and start mining ore for sale or to process and sell or to start manufacturing items. Just remember that in systems with 0.8 security or less you will encounter NPC pirates (or rats as they are called) in the belts, so do no mine away from keyboard (afk). Also you must always be on guard for player pirates (or prats as I like to call them). And in Space below 0.4 security these prats can attack you without intervention of CONCORD.

You can find a corporation to help you out with more training or to find a purpose. Later on even start a corporation of your own. This corp could even have access to low sec space or 0.0 space. In these areas you can mine, do mission running, or go ratting and make some good ISK.

You can also go find more agents on your own to run missions. That’s what this article will be about, finding agents that you can learn from and earn ISK or even Loyalty Points (LP). Running missions will also help with your standing with that NPC Corporation and even with that Empire (Race).

There are several ways to find an agent.

•  Random searching of regions or systems stations.
•  Select a NPC corporation you want to work with and find what agents they have and where.
•  Open up the map (F10) and set your ‘World Map Control Panel’ to show ‘My Available Agents’.
•  Use outside links to find an agent.

I will cover all these methods in this article but first I want to give you some idea of what mission types are out there and what you can expect to be doing. There are several mission types which require you to perform tasks for the agent, not un-similar to the tutorial agents. All Agents have a Level and a Quality score. The lower the level the less risky, dangerous, or difficult a mission will be. The lower the quality score of the agent, the lower the reward. Your security status with that corporation will also limit who you can talk too. You could think of the tutorial Mission agents as level 0.

Here is a list of agent types and the mission you can expect from them. This information is gathered from several sources, and because these are randomized you may encounter a different percentage.

• Kill Missions: require you to fly to a location and destroy ships found there. These can be located in deadspace pockets (a.k.a. ‘dungeons’) where you warp to an acceleration gate prior to engaging and those where you warp directly to a particular engagement.
• Courier missions: This is moving goods from one station to another. These goods may be market items or special packages from the agent. (L) Large Shipment: May need to make multiple deliveries or use an industrial transport ship and/or long trips. (S) Small Shipment: May be able to fit into the hold of a frigate and/or short trips.
• Trade missions: These require you to provide the agent with the goods requested. You may need to be purchased (or produced) these items and delivered to the destination station. The reward and bonus I believe will cover the cost in most cases.
• Mining missions: This is where you deliver a specified amount of minerals or ore to a certain location. You can either mine and/or reprocessed what’s needed or buy on the open market.
• R&D missions: This mission delivers a fixed amount of Research Points (RP) throughout the day for a certain research field. You will receive these points until you quit. Bonus points, usually equaling to one day RP, are rewarded by doing mining or courier missions. These bonus missions are offered once a day and you will receive notice of it through your ‘EVE-Mail’. These points are used to purchase Datacores from the agent. Datacores are used for Invention or Tech II blueprints. There are no kill missions in this field.

Ok, let’s go find an Agent. The first way I mentioned to find an agent was to randomly search systems and stations. Well yea you could do that but it is not always the best way to find what you are looking for. You may find a agent there in field you want, but they may not be the right level for you. you could find one that is of your level but maybe they’re not in the field you want.  You want to be a miner not a fighter and they are not what want. But then again you may get lucky or you have not decided what you want to do and any agent that will talk to you will work for now.

Let’s say you want to work with a certain NPC corporation, maybe one you have dealt with before or one you want to boost your standing in. Do a ‘show info’ on that corp and look for an tab labeled ‘Agents’. This will give you a list of the fields that they have agents for. Then select a field and you will get a list of agents. This list will should be broken up into two areas, ‘Available to You’ and ‘Not Available to You’. Note if your standing is to low or to high you may only get one set of these list. Now once you find an agent, right click to ‘Show Info’, look under ‘Agent Info’ tab and look at their location and do a right click ‘show info’, just to make sure that it’s a safe system. If all these check out just right click to set destination and off you go.

The next method will find all the agents that will talk to you. You will still need to do some hunting to find the one in the field you want, but you can do this while docked in one station. Open you map (F10). In the control panel window select ‘Star Map’ tab. Select the ‘Color Stars By’ tab. Now look down the list for ‘My Information’ and open it by clicking on it. In this list you will find ‘My available agents’ select that and wait for your screen to refresh. You will now see a ton (hopefully) of green dots of various sizes. The larger the green dot the more agents in that system that will talk to you. Hovering your mouse over a do will open a small window listing the System, the station(s), the agent(s) their area, level and quality score. Be sure to pay attention to the system name and security level in the top line; don’t want you going to an agent in low sec space, unless you want too. Once you find a system you like, right click to set destination.

Now for the easiest way I know to find an agent. This requires knowing a few things, and having a out of game browser. Open up a browser window (or click the link) and go to www.eve-agents.com. This site has done a lot of work for you. If you are looking for a certain Region, Faction, or a research agent of a certain type or level, this will save you a lot of time. Just enter in the criteria and let it find you an agent. Read the details and again be sure you choose a safe enough system for yourself.

I should note that not all Factions, or Regions have all the different agent types, so don’t be surprised if you can’t find one right away, just look in other regions or even other corporations. Also some missions are in parts (again like the tutorial missions). Also some missions may require you to go to or through low security space. If you feel that you need to reject a mission, do not do this more than once every four hours as this will hurt your standing with that agent and his corp.

Working with agents you will improve your standing with that agent and his corp. After 16 missions of the same level with agents of the same Faction you will be offered a ‘Storyline Mission’ with another agent. This mission will improve your standing with that faction. These missions can be all over the range of mission types. On the other hand your standing takes a hit with some factions if you destroy one of their ships, even if that is done as part of the mission you’re on. Rising your standing in one faction can hurt your standing in another faction. Luckily this is not done at the same scale so you can run several missions for one faction, then move to another factions controlled space and run missions with them for a while to try and maintain a bit of balance. If you’re standing with a faction should drop to low you may not be permitted to enter their space. A possible fix for this is to train some of the ‘Social skills’. Training some of these skills will also raise your standing with agents and even improve your rewards. Below is a small list of the social skills and ones I would recommend starting with.

There are more skills in this area but you can do those as you see fit. These should allow you to get the best out of your agent(s) with the smallest amount of investment.

I hope you found this helpful and be sure to subscribe to be notified of future post and leave comments to let me know what else you would like to see or any questions you might have.

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

In this article I will be doing a brief overview of the market in EVE Online. Let’s cover just some of the basics that will allow you to navigate the market and get your items safely and at the best price. I will be making the assumption that you are new to EVE Online so forgive me is some of this is real basic.

Let’s start by first opening your market window. This can be done in station by the menu on the right or in space by using the market button on your ‘neocom’ on the left. The first thing I want you to do is to open the setting tab and make the following changes. In the right hand side window, across the top is a series of tabs, select the tab marked ‘Settings’. Deselect all check boxes except “Display Orders in High Security Systems” and “Automatically Refresh Market Data”

These changes will restrict your search for items to High Security space, no sense in spending your ISK for an item in Low Sec space just to get blown up trying to get at it or worse getting you and the item blown up trying to get out.

Now let’s get back to the main window. Let’s first adjust the range to cover the whole region. On the left hand side near the top there is a drop down menu, ‘Range Filter’, this menu adjust your range to the Station, the Solar System or the Region, select Region. At the bottom of the main window in the browse tab, deselect the check mark for “Show Only Available”. This check box will filter out those items that are not available in your range. Right now I want you to see the whole list of items available through the market. This is a great source of information later on.

Now at the top of the left hand side of this window we have three tabs, Browse, Search, and Quick market. The browse tab allows you to see the full list of items available on the open market in EVE Online. I should note at this time that this is not the total list of items in EVE, some items are not available on the open market but are only valuable though an mission agent or the Contracts area. The search tab is where you can search for an item if you are unsure of the location in the browse tab. Just type part of the name of an item in the search box and hit search. All items containing this phrase in its title will appear in the area below, and then it’s just a matter of clicking on the name to get the information. The final tab, ‘Quickbar’ is your person shopping list area, these are items that you select to be here and I use for frequents searches like minerals or ammo.

In the Browse tab we find a list of header areas that all the items are place under. Ammunition would be under ‘Ammunition and Charges’, Skills under ‘Skills’ etc… Simply click on the header to open a drop down list of other menu items until you reach the item you want. For example let’s look for ‘Mining I’ lasers. This would be under ‘Ships Equipment’, ‘Turrets and Launchers’, ‘Mining Lasers’ and again ‘Mining Lasers’.

Once we get to the lowest level of the menu a list of items will appear on the left hand side window and on the right hand side a list giving us the description and price of each item. There are two buttons here also, ‘Buy’ and ‘Show Details’. Lets press the ‘View Details’ button on the ‘Miner I’. This changes our view for this item. In the upper portion we have all the sellers and the lower all the buyers. Here’s a small fact/tip, if you look at the column marked ‘Expires In’ and see anything over 100 days, this is a Non Player Character (NPC) buyer or seller. Not all NPC buyers or sellers offer the best price, but it is a good base line price for the item. At the top of each list are a series of headers that will allow you to sort by these headers. On the Sellers select ‘Price’ until the lowest price is at the top of the list (small white arrow pointing up), and on the Buyers select ‘Price’ until the highest price is at the top of the list (small white arrow pointing down).

Now you can decide where you want to buy based on price and range. To buy an item simply right click on the seller line and select ‘Buy This’ and it will be done. Then is just a matter of picking the item up from your hanger in that station. You can also set the autopilot by right clicking the seller or buyer line and under Location select destination or waypoint. It’s a good idea to do this first in case you bought the last item, or you can always looking in your ‘Assets’ menu in the NeoCom.

If you have any question about and item, you can select the blue dot, or right click of the item on the item line to ‘Show Info’. Remember to look under the items ‘Prerequisites’ to see if you can use the item and what skills you need to use it before investing your ISK. Right clicking on the left hand side list will also give you the opportunity to add this item to your ‘Quickbar’ list so you can find it quickly.

After a while you may want to play with some of the settings depending on your needs, but the one I gave you above will be the safest way for you to shop around.

I hope you found this information of help. Be sure to subscribe and you will get notices of future post. If you have any questions, be sure to comment and I will try and get an answer to you ASAP.

Until next time, Fly safe

Reggi Mental

“Where do I find [insert Mineral name here]?” is one of the most common question I am seeing on local chat in rookie space. Dont get get me wrong I am not picking on these people, because their new, so how should then know. Well here is a some information to help out.

Veldspar is the most common oe in eve. It can be found in I think every system that has a ore belt (as to systems that dont have any belts or just and ice belt). It can even be found during mission runs in the background. To process this ore you need 333 units per batch.

 Scordite is the second most common ore found in EVE. This ore I think can be found in some 1.0 Security level space and in most 0.9 and down.

After Scordite the ores start to become more rare and you need to start going to lower and lower security level space to find. Some ares are more common in certain regions or even impossible to find in others (except for the occasional mission run or space exploration site).

Also remember that once you are in 0.8 space or lower you can have NPC (non player character) pirates attack you in belts. And in 0.4 security space and lower CONCORD will not come to your rescue against othe players.

I hope you find this helpful, if you have any questions be sure and ask, and until then 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