Alpha only?

How much can you actually do with just an alpha account?. I’m pretty much a solo player , just wondering if it’s worth the expense of a sub. to really experience the game.

Sooo… technically you can do “almost anything.”

By this I mean…

  • you are not restricted in terms of what space you can venture out to.
  • you can interact with any and all players in the game.
  • you can join up with other players and their groups (either as a part of their social circle or as a part of their player corporation).
  • you can mine almost any and all resources.
  • you can build some things.
  • you can fly your race’s ships all the way up to cruiser (and there are a lot of ships between your “Rookie Ship” and Cruisers).
  • you can participate in PvP and wars.

The restrictions that Alpha accounts have merely throttle back the “effectiveness” of a player in all of the above points.
Meaning you can do them… but not really in an “efficient” manner or with as much “flexibility.” And this can largely be attributed to the fact that Alphas can only train a relatively small amount of skills and only so high.

A subscribed player will have potential access to all skills in the game… including skills that allow them to fly other racial ships, use better equipment, fly faster, tank more, hit harder, etc.
Oh… and skills train at double the speed

Understand… Alpha status is pretty much an “unlimited trial.” They are not meant to compete toe to toe with a subscribed player.

Oh… and one last thing: While you have mentioned that you are a “solo player” I should warn you that EVE is largely centered around inter-player cooperation and conflict.
You can operate solo if you wish… but it will be more difficult. Especially as an Alpha.

If you chose to group and organize with others though… you may find that you can raise your effectiveness and/or efficiency in many things. :wink:


edit: I should also mention that the cost to subscribe to EVE can be broken down thusly:

https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/203599091-Subscription-Costs

1-month-plan $ 14.95
3-month-plan $ 38.85 ($ 12.95/month)
6-month-plan $ 71.70 ($ 11.95/month)
12-month-plan $ 131.40 ($10.95/month)

To give you perspective:

  • a bottle of so-so wine or 6-pack of beer is about $10 and usually won’t last 2 or 3 days (maybe not even a day if you’re like me).
  • a NICE meal at a restaurant is about $10 to $15 and won’t last more than 30 minutes to an hour.
  • a monthly gym membership is about $10 to $20 a month and, on average, people don’t go to it more than 3 days a week for an hour or two at a time.
  • a good night at the bar with friends will EASILY cost $50 and MAYBE you remember about 3-4 hours of the experience, followed by hours of pain the morning after.
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In nullsec you can participate in fleets and ratting as an Alpha. A good guide: https://wiki.braveineve.com/public/dojo/wiki/alpha-clones

In highsec most industrial activities are severely restricted - largely to prevent Omega clones from exploiting the free accounts to wreck the economy. You can easily run level 3 security missions in a Gnosis and level 4 distribution missions can also be run with an Alpha account - it will take a while to grind standing but loyalty points from factions like Thukker Tribe or Sisters of Eve can be quite valuable.

In lowsec, faction warfare is wide open to Alphas https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Faction_warfare

A lot of us play Eve primarily for the economic simulation. Resource harvesting, processing, research, invention, manufacturing and markets. These activities are restricted or unavailable to Alpha accounts. As @ShahFluffers pointed out a 30 day subscription to eve is about the same as a fast food lunch in developed parts of the world and, once you master the industrial game, you can easily earn enough to pay your subscription with PLEX.

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There is nothing wrong being an alpha… but I would much rather be omaga. I’m currently settling for alpha because I don’t have the time to really play more than 2 or 3 hours week. But one good thing about being an alpha, i have nothing but time to train all those engineering, armor, shields, and so many other skills I just grazed over to jump up to the next big shiny.

I am well trained in orca, exhumer, and Gal battlecruiser operation, and I miss them very badly as an alpha.

The omaga access is well worth it, I just don’t have the time to injoy it like I used to.

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Thank you all for your generous advice. I may opt for Omega but for now I’m going to try to get somewhat better at what I can do . I ventured into nulsec last night and I learned very fast that I need to get better at all aspects of controlling a ship. Thanks again and maybe I’ll run into some of y’all and get my butt kicked.

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I like this one. He’s plucky.

Can we keep him? :slight_smile:

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Thanks, I made it out but just barely. Just got destroyed in hisec by some big bug looking thing.

I would.

I used to be an Om, but left when my sub ran out since I was away a lot and only getting to play a few hours at weekends. Once Alpha were introduced I came back. I miss my shiny toys and PI but have learned to play ships I had tossed aside to get up to a battleship, and compensate for all the flash tier 2 gear I had.
I enjoy creatively solving the problems that used to get handled with “a bigger hammer” by using what is available to alphas, and one day will get to brush off my shiny old toys when I can plex my account.
Enjoy life as an Alpha, you can still do a lot. Then, when the envy gets unbearable, you can always become a wallet warrior.

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Alpha’s have one race of ships up to cruiser, plus a generic battlecruiser that doesn’t have skill prerequisites and can be purchased from the market.

As indicated above, Alphas can participate quite a bit, but you’ll have two large restrictions:

  1. You train skills at half speed, at a time where you need to train a lot of skills to unlock some basic defensive modules, weapons, and ships. If you are a casual player, this will be ok, but if you play 4+ hours daily, it will frustrate you.

  2. Your self-imposed “solo” restriction will make it more difficult to acquire ISK and ships. There are several large player alliance groups in game that are quite happy to take on newbies (even alphas) and get them started with free ships and ISK, in the hope that they’ll like the game and continue to play as part of the alliance. Solo, you’ll miss that. MMO’s have 2 grinds (grind for xp/levels, and grind for gold); EVE gives you the skill points / xp for free (just takes time), but you still have to grind for ISK (cash), and solo high-sec is the area with just about the worst payouts you’ll see.

EVE is a PVP MMO. Solo PVE is ok for “learning the game” but won’t teach much about the finer aspects of PVP, and won’t get you rich either.

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