How to start an Alt in EVE Online
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Use a second account. Start with some free time.
If you currently have a paid subscription you can get a pretty good deal by using the EVE Bring in a Buddy program. You do this by logging into your account on the EVE Online website and then emailing yourself a link for a 21-day free trial (the standard trial is only 14 days long). If you eventually subscribe with this trial account, your original account gets 30 days of free play time. Using the 21 days is a great way to get your core skillsets up to par. The problem is that you cannot play a trial account and a paid account at the same time on the same computer. Add that to the fact that trial accounts cannot use contracts, it becomes difficult to set up your Alt with all the necessary skillbooks and ISK from your main character without getting another player involved or having to use two computers.
A nice option: with a PLEX in hand, manufacture 51-day-freebie alts.
If you have a PLEX in your hangar and are about to add game time to your main account, pause and consider. The PLEX in hand is an opportunity to create one or more alt accounts, at no net cost, that are fully subscribed for 51 days. To do this, create a fresh email address (perhaps not required?), and send yourself a 21-day buddy offer as above, choosing to receive a PLEX as the reward when the account subscribes. Then, trade your PLEX to the new trial account (the easiest way to do this is to have two computers running EVE, since you can't run a subscribed and a trial account on the same computer at the same time). Use the PLEX to add 30 days to the trial account, making it a fully active unrestricted account with 51 days left on it. Within a few minutes, your main account will receive the PLEX reward, recycling the PLEX you started with. You may need to relog to the character-selection screen in order to retrieve the new PLEX to your item hangar. This process can be repeated multiple times, recycling the PLEX each time.
Get started with your training.
Read this great guide for getting a new Alt's Core skills up to par so that they have basic competency in a good number of areas. (Note: This guide may refer to Learning skills which are no longer in the game.) It will take about 7 to 10 days to get everything in the acceptable range, but it’s time well spent.
A note about your API key.
An EVE account must be active for 72 hours before you can request a Limited API key. I originally wanted to create my Alt and get a few good skill path options laid out in EVEMon before decided on ‘The One’, but I then discovered that I had to wait 3 days before I could get access to an API key and thus EVEMon’s functionality.
To get started though you can log in as the alt and download the character info as an xml that can be loaded into EVEMon.
Importing Character Information into EVEMon
To import a new EVE character into EveMon do the following:
- Open EVEMon.
- Use the Menu sequence: File > Manage Accounts.
- Switch to the Accounts tab.
- For an existing account click the account and choose the 'Edit' option.
- For a new account chose the 'Add' option.
- Add User ID and API Key as appropriate. If this is an existing account and those values are fine then just continue with the next step.
- Press the 'Next' button.
- Check which accounts you want EVEMon to know about.
- Press the 'Update' Button
A helpful tip for money & skill books
Go through all the tutorials and initial career path missions. This is a great way to get some free skillsbooks, gear, ships, ISK and standing, plus it only takes a couple hours at most. This only applies if you need the help of free skills and gear, if your main character can bank roll your Alt, then don’t bother unless you want the small amount of standing the missions offer.
Original courtesy of Freddy Facepalm
