I need the skills.

January 29, 2012 3:51 PM

How should I train a new pilot in EVE online so that I can have a head start when I start playing in June?

I don't have time for EVE right now, but I'd like to play this summer when I will have time. In the meantime I'd like to start an account and get it training and check in for 10-15 minutes a day so that by the time summer rolls around I'll have a character that has a decent number of skills trained so that I'll have a head start.

Is this possible? If so, what skills should I train? I'm more inclined to the capitol ships path rather than an economic or business path.

I'm a super noob, so please crush this idea if it requires more than a few minutes every day or so.

Thanks.

posted by JimmyJames to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

You can do this, but you'll need to have a paying account. If you know someone who plays you can hit them up for a 21 day trial account to get slightly more free time.

Download EVEMon and find out what skills you need for what you want to fly and do in the game. EVEMon will let you create and save a skill plan.

Eve Online has a 24 hour skill queue now, so you shouldn't have to log in more than once a day.
posted by ODiV at 4:11 PM on January 29, 2012

Jacen, I'm not sure if you were referring to the Learning skills but they have actually been removed from the game recently. You no longer have to deal with those.

OP, what I would suggest is that if you're going to use this time to simply train skills and not really sink time into playing the game, then you're best off using this time to take care of the really long duration skills. Max out your racial Frigate, get going on Cruisers and work your way up to whatever specialty ships you want to fly.

That way once you start playing, the majority of your skills will be of a shorter duration and you'll feel like you're making more forward progress. It'll also allow you to come into the game this summer with a wealth of options in terms of what you want to fly and how you want to play.

If you go this route, what I would suggest is buying some Implants for the relevant skills (should be Willpower and Perception, I think). Toss all your money at it. Borrow from folks if you need to. But if you're going to be spending four or five months ONLY training skills, the Implants are crucial. They'll shave weeks off your training times.
posted by Modica at 4:34 PM on January 29, 2012

Should have mentioned this in the first post, oh well. One problem that you will face is that once you enter the game with all these ships at your disposal, you won't know what to do with them. Unlike many other MMOs, simply having the skills trained in EVE isn't going to mean diddlysquat unless you have the knowledge to back it up. So if you're angling towards getting into big ships and ruining people, it would be wise for you to start reading and watching and learning now.

There are a number of really good, really well written guides on EVE's combat, the purpose of each ship and an overview of ship roles, fitting suggestions, etc. Knowledge is power when it comes to EVE. That's how I was able to best players with two years of account time on me. I took my frigate against their cruiser and I came out on top because I had devoured every single piece of material I could get my hands on when it came to weapon tracking, missile speed and falloff, judicious use of afterburners, when and what to use propulsion jammers on, etc.

While you train your skills, don't fire and forget. Study the game, watch videos, get a plan in mind. If you want a Battlecruiser, start reading about them and the differences and strengths of each one. If you want Electronic Warfare or Covert Ops/Stealth Bombers, start reading (there's definitely a lot to learn about those).

I tell you all this because otherwise, when you step foot into EVE with your months of skill training but your lack of field experience, you will get killed and you will get frustrated and you will feel like you wasted time and money. Your skills won't help you as much as your brain will.
posted by Modica at 4:43 PM on January 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Came in to say what Modica said. Because skill training in Eve takes forever, there are a lot of folks who try to skip it and get straight to the 'interesting' bits of the game, often by buying a high-skilled character and a PLEX and jumping straight in their first Big Awesome Ship, and... those are the folks who'll turn up on kill boards five minutes later to a chorus of 'lololololol' and 'ka-CHING!'. Don't be those people.

EVEMon is invaluable for skill planning, but don't just look at the minimum skills you need to get into a ship - look at the skills you need to fly it well. Certificates are a pretty good guide of this, but sometimes totally off as well, so it's worth doing some research on. Getting the boring fitting and support skills out of the way when you're not actively playing is a good investment.

But yeah, research everything, and take your character out for a fly around once in a while even before you've really got time to sink into the game, just to get a bit of a feel for how things work. Do the tutorials, and learn how to use your overview. And enjoy it! For all the (totally justified) reputation about its learning curve, it's a great great game, and it's a shame that so many people do get frustrated and drop it before getting far enough up that learning curve to see that.
posted by Catseye at 5:23 PM on January 29, 2012

They removed the learning skills in Incursion, IIRC. Everyone was training them because everyone felt they were necessary (they were) and so CCP found that it was pointless to have them in there. They increased attributes across the board, refunded costs of the skill books, a whole bunch of stuff. It was part of their big retooling of the game which included the bonus training speed for new players up to 1.6M skill points (which was around the total of all the learning skills, I believe).

I really should stop talking about EVE because now I want to resubscribe.
posted by Modica at 6:07 PM on January 29, 2012

As others have mentioned, use EVEMon in conjunction with the in-game certificates feature to get your core competency up. The core skills are the most boring because they don't seem to make an impact right away on your firepower...but they are the foundation to working your way up to tech 2 (eg. fitting requirements and squeezing as much performance out of a ship as possible).

From there the universe is your oyster. Interested in being a badass pirate? Train heavily into small to mid-sized ships and focus on speed/ewar. Interested in joining an alliance and being a part of a fighting fleet? Invest into CBCs, Recon, BS, and keep capitals on the horizon. Interested in going solo? Research the best battleship and T3 ships money can buy and work towards those so you can plow through level 4 missions. None of that seem interesting? Look towards training towards awesome mining/industrial/freighter ships. Work on all the trade skills to help you reap the best profits.

All of these depend on the core skills to some degree. And yes, thankfully you don't have to learn out to learn anymore!
posted by samsara at 5:21 AM on January 30, 2012