I have heard stories about this game and wanted to try it out. I just downloaded the game today and Have done 3 missions in the agency. So far I have shot a lot of ships and got currency. Robo Lady keeps on telling me to do missions so I decided to go off and explore a bit (not much).
There is just so much information and buttons but I managed to make sense of most of them by seeing what they do.
The only thing I have done without any assistance(from the robot) is get myself back to science and trade institute to log off safely.
If someone can give me an idea of what I am going to be doing as I progress through this game and a list of what not to do, that would be appreciated.
1st of all decide what will hold your interest the most, PvE combat, PvE non-combat such as mining, industrial, hauling, exploration, or PvP.
If you go into PvE combat, then you will have the freedom of overlapping the skills you train and ships and equipment you use for PvP, as well as some of the combat exploration sites.
If you go for PvP, then your ships and fits will not be very effective in PvE for a long time to come until you train into them and get enough overlap from that side of things.
If you go into mining, well, then you’ll be just mining.
Exploration is initially OK, but then it can get very boring if that is what you will end up focusing on, you will not be able to fly combat focused stuff too effectively while focusing on exploration.
Industrial stuff other then mining in this game is really complex, so I can not recommend it for someone brand new, give yourself a bit of time see how the game works, then branch out into it if you want to try some things.
Alternatively, since Alpha accounts are free, you can make multiple accounts with different focus on each. I highly recommend this. At minimum make 1 character that will be trade / market focused with some basic hauling so you can at least move your own stuff around if need, sell anything you loot or make etc.
For basic PvE combat, bring up your agency, and on top you will see “drop down” tabs. Select level 1 security missions from the faction you are with. Stick with that for a week or 2, switch to level 2 combat missions when you feel you are ready etc.
I highly recommend training into or starting as Caldari or Gallente. Their ships tend to be more suited for PvE then the other 2 factions. For PvP, I recommend Minmatar.
If you jsut started, and went different faction, don’t worry, just make anotehr character, you are not missing much, couple days at most is really no biggie and you can continue trainign your current character even when you do not play it into something else.
If you do decide to take this road, train up your capacitor, powergrid, CPU, Navigation, warp, shields, missiles and drones. If Caldari, hold off on the drones for now, just do missiles, if Gallente, train up armor instead of shields and drones, do not worry about the guns, might as well skip them for now. For Caldari I reccomend a Light Missile Kestrel for Gallente a Tristan. They are very nice starters both for PvE and PvP combat. You can bring up your Ship Tree, and find them on there, check their requirements, also simulate fit, straight from the ship tree, mess around with different modules etc. Keep the Kestrel as shield / missile, the Tristan as armor / drones.
After about a week or 2, when you can fly a ship with level 3 skills, some 4s even maybe, then go start Sisters of Mercy Arc. The computer should point you to it, but if not, then just come back here and ask about it,.
Pass that, look at joining a newbie friendly corporation / alliance. There are quite a few of them, do not get stuck in one that is too small or bad, you will have a very difficult and bad time, sometimes they even recruit unweary newbs just to kill them, or the wardec corps make an alt corp and fill it with newbs then wardec it. That does happen here unfortunately and most people caught like that end up permamently leaving the game.
Couple of tips, if you find a ship or module you would like to use but can’t, you can right click on it and hit “show info”. On top there are tabs, one of them is “requirements” that will let you know, what you need skill wise to be able to fly or use the ship or item.
Do not be put off if you get blown up, it will happen, quite a bit at the beginning. So do not use expensive fits and ships.
After you accumulate around 120-150 milion, I know it sounds liek a lot but it really isn’t, buy yourself a Gnosis. It is more expensive but a very good new player ship and I guarantee you you will meet its requirements. The Gnosis, fully fitted in basic T1 stuff will run you around 45-65 mil, depending on what you put on it, but you may end up losing it, probably will, remember, you are new. This is why you should not do it until you have around 120 mil or so. This way, you will have ISK for immediate replacement.
If you are combat, remap your stats / attributes. Go as high as you can on Perception and Willpower, medium on Memory , and nothing on int and charisma. This will let you optimize training time for combat skills a little bit. Remap by bringing up your character screen, then Attributes, go from there.
Beyond missions, once you get into a cruiser, you can try level 1 and 2 Abyss, DED sites that you will need to scan for, few other things.
One more thing of utmost importance. Overview. Unfortunately, the basic overview is really really screwed up. Make 4 more Tabs, one specifically just for travel and warps, 1 for seeing NPCs and mobs etc., one for seeing nothing but player ships and one for seeing nothing but various types of loot and mission objectives available in the game. This is extremely important.
Both Eve University and Brave Newbies are player corporations you can join. There are many others catering to different playstyles.
There is no single path defining progression in Eve and much of the game is player interaction - politics and economics. CCP basically provide a sandbox, we decide what to do with it.
As a fellow newb to EVE, all these tips are great!
I would add the following tip to fellow new players- as enticing as it is to jump the gun and start shopping for “better” ships and gear - it actually is simpler to run through the Starter Agency missions first as they basically give you the ships you might have been able to afford that early in the game as part of the missions. They also pay out decent enough in ISK that it’s worth Saving that cash for when you’ve really understood the fundamentals of how all the different categories of equipment actually work.
Also - join a friendly and well organized Corp ASAP, but choose wisely and be sure they are legit as there do exist scam Corps and you also just want to find a group that suits you well.
