Looking at the TVP Vindicator basic plan (provided here) and applying it to one of my gallente PI alt who has never trained in combat (maybe, a tiny bit in navigation/engineering, but not enough to matter), he needs 2.2M SP more to qualify, or 1.5-2 months more training.
Assuming that all the skills are unlocked, the 5M SP is more than enough to fly with them. There are quite a few T2 items needed, but given that alphas will get T2 medium weapons, it seems unlikely that they would not get T2 adaptive shield hardeners.
The intermediate training plan amounts to 7.5M SP, which is too much for just training but with the isk you will get flying incursions with the basic skills, you will have the isk to inject, not to mention PLEX your account. This includes getting T2 blasters, which alphas can’t, but, once again, the basic vindicator will be plenty to PLEX your account and keep going.
Presumably, people who want an incursion alt will be able to get one more easily than previously, but it seems unlikely that you would remain an alpha with T1 guns indefinitely when you can afford to PLEX and offset a good chunk of that running cost by running the now unlocked PI. Given that the number of incursion runners is not that high, it seems unlikely that the the ability to create an incursion alt for free, versus ~2 months of sub to get going, will make that much of a difference.
Alphas should get everything, I mean they are for free and they should have all pre-purple fit titans in all stations, so they can undock and press FONE.
I don’t get why alphas need to do anything.
It is the ebil “veterans” that paid the game for them, so give them everything.
It looks like CCP want to limit what alphas can do industry wise. I am pretty sure I saw somewhere that they are not getting barges and I would not expect them to get PI either.
I did mean that, once you have an alpha that can run incursions (which I expect will be doable going by the minimum TVP skill requirements), you should be able to PLEX fairly easily and, at that point, why wouldn’t you? You get to train whatever skill you want, train twice as fast and the recurring cost of PLEXing is at least somewhat compensated by running 3 PI characters.
Even if you somehow entirely stop making isk actively at that point, you can extract half the SP you gain per month, bringing you to the same training rate as you were as an alpha, complement that with PI and probably pay your account, with the benefit of being able to train whatever you want.
Regardless, it seems like “OMG alphas will be able to run incursions!!!” is a storm in a teacup since there is little reason not to PLEX once you reach that point. “OMG you can train an alpha to get into incursions” is much, much less of a crisis. CCP loses the 2 months of sub or MCT it would have taken to make that character, but then you are PLEXing which makes them more money than subbing so eventually it will pay off. And, of course, it is far from all alphas that will run incursions, much like it is far from all HS PvE players who run them.
But anyways, an Alpha is not going to be popular in incursion fleets because of lower dps. And Alpha fleets will not compete well with Omega’s. I’m not so sure Alphas will be able to make a gravy train from Incursions.
Incursions are an odd case, yes, but they are in the game and we have to live with them one way or another. My expectations is that alpha incursion runners will be alts from existing players and be trained as far as possible for free and PLEX’d shortly after making it into a few fleets (or earlier if they actually can’t make the requirements). New players are usually uncertain about what they can do and incursions is still considered high end content. To join EVE as a brand new player and immediately aim at incursions seems unlikely, unless you have a friend already running them or something.
@de_Obliviator_Preon I don’t expect all skills to be unlocked but I do expect the vast majority of the “minimum skills” of the TVP setup to be available since they are by no means very demanding. Also, fair, it will take alphas a longer time (~3-4 months) to train to the TVP minimum, instead of the 1.5-2 months I saw for an omega, but it is training for free if you are not in a rush. At worst, you have to PLEX before getting in fleet to train a few things and you make the isk back shortly thereafter. At best, you can get in the fleet as an alpha and PLEX soon after. Either way, you’ll most likely be omega for most incursion running, so the only change is that it is easier to get up and running. It’s not that game breaking.
incursions are already hell on the economy making it easier for more people to print isk can very well be game breaking. These need to be restricted for the same reason mining and industry paths are restricted.
The point is that if they print isk, why wouldn’t they plex to print more isk? And then they are no longer alphas. Running incursions, printing isks and nevertheless remaining an alpha seems unlikely. If you want to print isk, it is to afford more/nicer things. Pretty much the most valuable thing an alpha can buy is his month’s PLEX.
In what situation do you see an alpha printing isk and remaining an alpha? The only one I can think of is running incursions, making isk, and using it to do T1/pirate ship pvp. But chances are that there will still be enough of a difference in what skills alphas have access to that, if you really are into pvp, you will want that edge and PLEX first.