I read in Corp Chat that “don’t spread your SP too thin early”, but I’m not sure what the actual downside is.
Since skills train in real time and SP isn’t consumed, wouldn’t training a broader base early give more flexibility while figuring out what I enjoy? I get that focusing gets you into specific ships faster, but is there a real long-term penalty to being a generalist early on?
In other words, does early broad training meaningfully set you back later, or is “wasted SP” mostly an efficiency mindset that only matters once you already decided on your goals?
The only SP that is wasted is that which cannot be applied to activities you enjoy. Unless you intend to sell this pilot, of course.
Personally, I recommend using the mastery system (Level I-II for alphas or rookies) and the AIR career program to explore gameplay and the ships needed to accomplish your goals. Overspecializing takes a great deal of time and should come after you discover some playstyles that agree with you.
I guess I was one of the guys who ‘‘broad-trained’’ from early on. I did it during the time when there were no skill injectors or free SP from CCP. And I have no regrets. My character can do everything in this game – combat, mining, industry, trading, science, scanning – all of it. That includes being a cap pilot with max skills for titan and dread/T2 cap combat (hulls + supporting skills). Of course, it took me long time to max myself out on everything (which, by now, I am), but I didn’t find that I was handicapping myself in any way. In fact, I have always been very proud that my main is so ‘‘broad-spectrum’’ in the game, and that I don’t have to juggle who knows how many alts just to enjoy variety in my game play.
I have always had a few rules though. For one I always max out hulls I fly on a regular basis. Those hulls go to lvl V ASAP. Less important stuff goes to lvl IV until I get the opportunity to prioritize them. Training to lvl IV is usually pretty fast, so everything you fly should be at a minimum IV. Same advice goes for supporting skills, like shield/armor and navigation skills. Max out the most essential ones in those categories early on.
Most guys don’t need a broad-spectrum character (e.g. if you’re really not interested in industry or trading there is no sense in training those skills) and some don’t have patience to wait months or years to max their character on different aspects of the game. So, training multiple characters at the same time definitely has an advantage in that regard. But it’s a personal preference. I personally don’t see it as a problem.
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There’s something to say for either broad skill training and focused skill training.
With focused skill training you get to good skills for one particular activity or ship much faster. If you have a few activities in mind for a character it takes far less SP (and time) if you only train the relevant skills for those activities instead of training ‘any fun skill’.
A bit of focus can be helpful.
On the other hand skills have heavy diminishing returns. The first three levels of a new skill give you 60% of the full effect for only a little over 3% of the SP.
In other words, for one level 5 skill you could train 32 skills to level 3.
Going broad instead of focused allows you to experience much more playstyles with the same amount of SP.
Personally I’d mix both strategies.
Don’t overdo either:
- Pick somewhat if a focus for a character, so not industry and mining and combat on one character as these roles do not help each other (maybe make a separate character for the other role)
- Train all lower level relevant skills of that focus first before you get to level 4 and 5s, only train level 5s if it unlocks something you need or if there is no other useful skill you could train to level 3 or 4 first
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Having a broad range of skills lets you do more, but early in the game, you’ll want to find something you like and specialize until it’s easy, then branch out.
I’d suggest going broad like other suggested and then maybe if you enjoy a certain specialized activity make a 2nd account for that purpose.
Be cautious, “getting into a ship” doesn’t mean being able to handle it. I’m still a fan of the “broad” Magic14, which help you to handle any ship you pick.
But you don’t have to dig into skills like Planetary Industry, Structure Management, or Corporation Management too soon as long as you don’t want start that activity.
The Magic 14 are a great fallback if you don’t have any other current training goals. They are certainly not something you want to focus on early. You’ll end up training most of them in the normal course of training for modules in any case.
The only thing magic about them is that they are support skills that apply to every hull you’ll fly, so worth slipping in at the end of training queues.