Newb starting Missions and requiring help!

PvE Gameplay Center Missions
1

Hello !
I am a brand new player that joined the game two days ago. A friend of mine showed me the game and how Mining work with his account (IRL, he didn’t handed me his account), but I felt there was more to this game than just sitting in a belt with three ships and some space rocks locked.

No, I wanted to see with my eyes what a pirate ship would look like under my locks ! So I enlisted and joined the adventure =)

I finished today the Agents Career missions and I am actually in possession of a Merlin, fitted with 150mm Railguns, and a Cormorant that I can’t fly yet. I tested out Security missions in High Security space and it went pretty well.

I have multiple questions concerning Missioning, please :

  • How long does it generally take to gather enough Standing toward a corporation or empire to gain access to higher level agents ?

  • I am planning to use railguns for my career, as I am not interested in the others weapons systems, but I heard Caldari ships are actually bonused toward Missile Launchers and Gallente designs generally favor Hybrid Turrets, should I consider to abandon States’ lines to go for the Federation ships if I plan to use railguns ? And if yes, what are the Gallente hulls suited for railguns ?

  • My Merlin is actually doing pretty great with railguns, but what are the ships that play in the same style and could be considered as “Merlin’s big brothers” ?

  • Is it possible to run missions for pirates cartels ?

Sorry if all those questions might appear idiot =/
Thanks in advance !

Billy Sanchezo

2

If you like Hybrid guns, there are some Caldari ships bonused for Hybrid weapons as well as some Gallente.

3

I’m not quite sure what you exactly mean by “Enlisted”, as a general term, in EVE, it means that you have joined a Faction’s Militia (Faction Warfare). Is this a correct assumption? Know that while enlisted in a Faction’s Militia you will be attacked by your Faction’s opposing Factions’ navies and you can be freely engaged by any player that is a member of the opposing factions’ militia, regardless of where you are.

It highly depends on how much time you have available and how much of it you want to playing EVE. With about an hour play time each day, you should be reaching Level 2s in about a week or less. By this time you should also have had the time to train into a Cruiser-class ship (Frigate → Destroyer → Cruiser).

This is true, Caldari ships are primarily geared towards Missiles with a few odd ones for Hybrids. Gallente are, as you said, geared towards Hybrid Guns and the odds ones, like the Vexor, for Drones. You are free to choose which ever racial ships you would like, you are not locked to the race you chose your character to be.

Among the Caldari the Cormorant, a Destroyer-class ship with bonuses to Hybrid Guns. Next up again would be the Moa a Cruiser-class ship with bonuses to Hybrid Guns and Shield Resistances. Among the Gallente the Catalyst a Destroyer-class ship and next up from that you have the Thorax a Cruiser-class ship, or the Vexor also a Cruiser-class ship if you’re more fond of a “hands off” approach .

Certainly, however to do that you need to go out to NPC Nullsec.

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Thanks you !
Yes, about the term “enlisted”, I didn’t meant it in the way of joining a Militia. I still need to gather more informations on the PVP face of the game, as I don’t really know what it is (I just remember the Advanced Military Career Agent talking about it when the tenth mission if finished).

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There are not many ways of learning PvP. One way is; learn by doing, fit a couple of cheap frigates near a lowsec system (possibly near FW systems) and have some fun hunting and being hunted, have a chat with your killers and ask them how you did and what you did “wrong” and getting advice in the process, and learn from your experience.

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Contrary to this, there are many ways to learn PvP (strictly speaking of ship combat forget the market etc) and many different kinds of PvP. Loss and failure will be your best teachers and really hardwire your mind to EVE. Missions are a good start as they will teach you how to navigate and be aware of your surroundings which are vital to overcoming an encounter. Even courier missions to low sec or carrying valuables through high sec will educate you on what to look out to because when you undock you are never completely safe. What you plan to hunt or what you plan to attack or whether it’s for an objective or just the pleasure of destroying someone or simply for the thrill of combat these factors among many more determine what kind of ship and fitting you will need. You could go alone or join a corporation or ask a vet to show you the ropes but keep in mind that the rules and strategies will keep changing based on who, what, when, where and why you are engaging. Even if you’re all by yourself you’ll be learning involuntarily by the presence of others. Once you stop learning and adapting and believe you already know everything that’s when you lose.

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Generally speaking, if you like railguns, you should look for ships that have bonuses to hybrid turret damage and range. Blasters are a short range variant of hybrid turrets and ships best suited for them will generally have bonuses for damage and tracking (which helps you hit ships that moves quickly around you).

If all goes well, at long range with railguns, target ships barely seem to move so tracking is not an issue.

Interestingly, the caldari have most of the range bonuses for hybrid turrets, whereas the gallente tend to have bonuses to tracking. For missions, range and railguns will make your life much easier than trying to rush in in the middle of the enemy (but that can be a blast, in many ways!)

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Get yourself Gnosis (while it is dirt cheap for a newbie friendly ship it is) and go to Arnon to talk to sister Alitura. She will give you chain of easy missions (low reward, plenty of travel to see new Eden) which will end up with dificult (for a newbie) but rewarding one. Main reward is not ISK but standing boost for a faction (you can choose for which one). You need to get drone skills to be able to use at least medium drones but those skills will be extremly handy in PVE anyway.

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Ah, are you talking about that SOE special arc thing ? I heard about it in the game channels. Apparently the missions are doable in a T1 frigate, but if you say I need something as big as a Gnosis, maybe you are talking about something else ?

Also, even if I could afford a Gnosis hull, I don’t think I’ll have enough money to buy the skills for battlecruiser weapons… I still have troubles replenishing my ammunitions, so anything bigger than my Cormorant is pretty far for now ^^

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You will need Gnosis for the kill dagan mission, one of the last misions in arch. Gnosis is a drone boat. Even if you skill small hybrids only to 3 you can start skilling medium. And I doubt skill will cost you that much (100 000 isk)

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There’s also some handy loot to be collected, adds up to a tidy sum by the end of the arc.

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I did the whole thing except the baddie at the end in a Tristan (Gallente frigate), The last baddie (Dagan?) needs a bit more, but there are usually other ‘arcers’ to team up with in that sim, so you can take him on mob-handed.

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Just a cruiser will suffice, I ended-up killing him in a Vexor.

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So, I tried to make a fit on my own for my little Merlin, it might turn out really bad as I have very little experience in this field. Here, someone told me how to copy/paste fits in the channels or forums :

[Merlin, Higitus Figitus]
Fourier Compact Tracking Enhancer
Vortex Compact Magnetic Field Stabilizer
Vortex Compact Magnetic Field Stabilizer

1MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Limited Kinetic Deflection Field I
Small Clarity Ward Booster I
Small F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender

150mm ‘Scout’ Accelerator Cannon
150mm ‘Scout’ Accelerator Cannon
150mm ‘Scout’ Accelerator Cannon

Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Core Defense Field Extender I
Small Hybrid Collision Accelerator I

Iridium Charge S x1639
Antimatter Charge S x1910

Here, what do you think about it please ?

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This doesn’t look like a bad start for a new character. But, some questions that will help us comment on this or make tweaks:

  • What tool did you use to come up with this fitting?
  • What kind of PVE are you going to use this for (what specific NPC enemies, if you know right now)?
  • Is this cap stable for you?
  • What kind of DPS are you getting with this?
  • Do you know how to answer those last two questions :wink:?

I’m not trying to be a jerk by asking this, just trying to get a feel for what kind of info to offer that isn’t too basic or too advanced for where you are in the game right now.

16

OK, here’s some general thoughts from another random EVE player based on everything you’re asking here.

First, welcome to the game! It sounds like you are off to a great start, and kudos to you for trying new things and asking for help. The community here has an (earned) reputation for being gruff and unfriendly, but a lot of us genuinely love helping new players.

So, with that, here is a wall of text that touches on some of what you are asking.

Missions
Lots of good advice here, and I heartily recommend trying the SoE Arc as your next step. That will show you New Eden and build some standing. In the context of building standing for the purposes of running missions, this will certainly help get your feet wet. The topic of standings is, like all things in EVE, extremely complex at first. Here’s a good article that covers the basics:

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Standings

Some rules of thumb here:

  • Be careful managing your standings, since fixing them can take a lot of work
  • Be aware of how derived standings work.
  • When doing missions, avoid taking those that pit you against empire factions, as these will kill your standings with them (pirate standings are generally fine to nuke).
  • Follow these rules until you have enough experience to know why/when not to

When you start running missions, research them first to know what you are going against. Here is a link to help with that:

https://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=MissionReports

Weapons
Rail are a great way to go and get started. All weapons have pros and cons and slightly different mechanics. But, turrets require understanding some mechanics such as traversal, angular velocity, optimal/falloff, etc. In addition, make sure that you understand the skill path to train to get the best performance out of your weapons. Here is a good article that covers the fundamentals of hybrid turrets (blasters and rails) so you get a sense of all of that and have an idea of what to train or explore further:

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Turrets

Gunnery fundamentals
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fuc%3Fid%3D0Bymhje4Rma0GakpmX2x1bUM0ZFE&embedded=true

Fitting
Fitting ships is both an art and a science. It is highly variable, not just on the raw stats of the ships and modules, but also on the skills of the player, what the fit will be used for, and how the player likes to fly. You can take the same ship and fit it completely differently for a kiting PVPer or a brawling PVEer. The in-game tools can help there, but I’d suggest looking into using a tool like PYFA as this offers a lot more information and is generally easier to get around in (once you get the hang of it).

Fitting Basics:
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Fitting_Guidelines#Fitting_modules

PYFA and how to use:
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/PYFA

(be aware that the PYFA article is a little dated due to the changes from API to ESI, but we can help with that when you set it up).

Ships
Repeat after me- “Bigger is not always better”. While getting that newer, bigger ship is a TON of fun, unless you can fly it properly, you will not be in good shape. And remember, that all ships have pros and cons- frigates will struggle against battleships, but battleships will struggle against frigates…unless you know what you are doing and how to fit them. That experience will come, but my point is not to jump into a bigger, badder ship until you really know why you need to do that, understand the trade-offs, and are properly skilled to do so.

And, while I agree with @erg_cz that the Gnosis is an awesome ship for a number of reasons for newer players, I’m not sure I’d recommend it just yet for the SoE arc. As he mentions, you need to have some skills to get the most out of it and it’s kind of slow for some of those long jumps you need to take in the mission arc. For what it’s worth, the first time I did the arc I did it in the Gnosis’ little brother, the Sunesis :slight_smile:

Skills
Ships are fun. Guns are fun. Training those skills is great and you can get some immediate gratification.

But…without supporting skills to back them up, you’re hosed. Your rails won’t help you when you have no cap. You won’t have enough gank OR tank unless your engineering skills are up to snuff.

There are a group of skills called the Magic 14 that are fundamental skills for any pilot. They are not sexy by themselves, but they allow you to train other skills and fit modules that are. And these are important because they apply to any ship and any career that you choose in the game.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Magic_14

I’m not saying to deprive yourself of training the sexy skills to get all these under your belt first, just make sure you don’t neglect these. Slip some of them into your queue in between the fun stuff- I promise, you’ll be glad that you did later.

Things to remember
People will probably disagree with me on this, but these are things I have found to be true in EVE:

  1. As long as you follow the rules, there is no “wrong” way to play EVE. You do you.
  2. Fun is infinitely more valuable than ISK. Don’t fall into an ISK grind for too long or you’ll be miserable.
  3. EVE has no end. Set small, medium, and long-term goals, and don’t be afraid to change them.
  4. EVE is about the journey. Lots of things take a lot of time, especially training skills. Learn to enjoy that.
  5. You will die and lose things. That’s part of the game. Accept it now and don’t stress when it happens.
  6. Ask for help when you need it, and don’t let Bitter Vets like us get you down.
  7. Always remember…they are just pixels on a screen :slight_smile:

o7

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17

Thanks you a lot, it was well written =)

About the questions you asked in your first post, I’ll answer them as best as I can :

  • I used the in-game “Simulation” tab. I think it’s a real nice and useful tool !
  • I’m going to do Missions given out by a level 1 agent of the Hyasyoda corporation. I thought I was going to be mostly against Guristas pirates, but I ended up killing a lot of Gallente ships and I fear to hurt my standings toward this agent if I refuse too much missions because I need to kill Gallente in them… I also met “Rogue Drones”, I don’t really understand what those are.
  • If I have my “Small Clarity Ward Booster I” not always running, my cap is written in a green “stable”. If it’s on, it say “00:00:40”.
  • I am getting 39.2 DPS with Iridium ammunition (my favourite), but I could apparently get something around 62 DPS if I was using Antimatter ammunition.
  • Did I messed up my answers ?

Also, I have another question : during a mission against Gallente ships, they all dropped “Federation Navy [grade] Insigna [I-III]”. What are those please ?

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Cool, thanks for the responses- very well answered.

Indeed it is. Previously, we had no choice but to use third-party tools like EFT and PYFA, until this was added. I would definitely still recommend checking out PYFA simply because you can get a LOT more information and I personally find it friendlier to use.

Guristas are pirates (and I’m guessing you’re in Caldari space). These are fine- kill to your heart’s content! You will get bad standing with them, but that is generally not an issue.

This is…less good. Tanking your standings against Empire factions will not only limit your abilities to get missions from their agents, but can get them hunting you if you enter their space. There are skills you can train and things you can do to repair that, but my advice is to avoid killing any more Gallente :slight_smile:

You can decline a mission from an agent once every 4 hours without hurting your standings. Because of this, it’s a good idea to find a few agents within a few jumps that you can run missions for in case you “faction out” with one of them. Even if the agents are from different corporations, you will still be gaining experience and ISK.

The short answer is that this is another NPC faction. Abandoned drones that have become sentient and are now trying to kill you. These are fine to kill as well.

That means you have 40 seconds of capacitor when you are running that. That’s… not great for PVE. If you run out of cap you are screwed because you can’t fire your guns, you can’t warp, and you can’t use your shield booster. Your capacitor is life.

As for what to replace it with, that gets into the art of fitting, but I would suggest to fit another hardener like a Limited Thermal Dissipation Field. Since Guristas do Kin/Therm damage, that will increase your resists (EHP) against their damage. In PVE, it is common to fit resists specific to the kinds of enemies you will be fighting.

Correct. Antimater does more damage, but has shorter range. This is where a tool like PYFA comes in handy- you can see those kinds of trade-offs. Carrying multiple types of ammo can be a good idea, so that’s not a bad thing to switch back and forth depending on what you are shooting at.

Nope! Well done :slight_smile:

These are items that are used in LP stores. When you run missions, you get ISK as well as what are called Loyalty Points (LP). Each corporation has a special store where you can redeem LP for special items, though you will usually need to also spend some money and, in some cases, additional items to purchase things. In this case, those tags are used in LP stores along with LP to buy certain items. You can keep them for later use in the LP store or you can sell them on the market for others to use.

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Thanks for your help !

I have another question : today I finished the train for my Cormorant. I would like to know : for what level of missions should I do it, please ? If I take him in level 1, won’t he be too slow for the almost same performances as my Merlin ? Thanks in advance =)

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The cormo would be a good transitioner from L1 to L2. To which it wouldn’t be too difficult to transition to a cruiser. Word of warning, while cap is life, there are some ships you’ll never get cap stable with. Caracal is one.