Notes for Experienced RPG Players New to EVE

I played World of Warcraft for many years; in that game I had characters in both factions; one of each class, with over 400,000 PVP kills among them. I left because I was bored. The first time I tried EVE, I mined some ore, made some money, bought a good ship, and set out to do stuff. But there didn't seem to be anything to do, and whenever I got into a fight, I died. I got frustrated and left. I played some more WoW, tried Guild Wars, and Elder Scrolls and a couple of others, but EVE had piqued my curiosity and I decided to come back to it.

This time I lucked into EVE University and found a group of players dedicated to explaining how the game works. So let's start there: if you have a question ask it. These people are smart and experienced and like most teachers, they love nothing better than to talk. Give them the chance and they will produce the little nitty gritty details that you need to get good at this game.

In my opinion EVE is difficult, not because anything it requires you to do is inherently hard, but because there are a LOT of different, interacting, things that affect your character – and, because the game is not organized like most online role playing games. So here is quick overview of some the ways that EVE differs from traditional RPGs. The summary comes first, and then because I, too, like to talk, there are more details at the bottom. In the middle is a "to do" list of useful stuff you might not have tried yet.

I've spent a year in EVE now ... and my brain is beginning to fill up with ship fits and strange asteroid names ... and soon I will forget how hard it was to make sense of it all in the beginning. So I'm writing this before the memory of my "new" player experience fades. This is not an Official Document ... you can find a nice set of links to the E-UNI rules, regulations and doctrines on the Consolodated Information Page ... this is just my personal reflection on a beginner's time in EVE, hoping to give some insight into the things that seemed to need the most explanation.

Bullet List – Each Item Has More Details in Section 5, Below

Characters in EVE do not level. There is no level cap.

You do not play to gain "experience" and "level up". Instead, without actually playing, you learn new skills – by putting the ones you want to learn into a training queue (which continues to run even when you are logged out) – and you play to improve your ability to use the skills you have already learned. (This is unusual, so to repeat: No amount of PVP or the killing of NPC pirates will help your character advance; you can only advance by clicking on the "Training Queue" button on your character screen and putting some skills into the queue.) (MORE)

Improving your character's skills will change the power of your gear.

Skills not only give you the ability to use new gear, they also change the way the gear you are already using works. Improving a skill will often make you more powerful than getting higher level gear. (MORE)

Combat follows the laws of physics.

In EVE all combat is ranged combat, and it is conducted over kilometers with physical weaponry in space. The game computes hits and misses using the math of trajectories, speed and distance. Your results are always at least a little bit delayed, and sometimes you can't even get a lock on your target. Combat is fast and three-dimensional; very different from most RPGs. (MORE)

Combat "happens" in the heads up display.

Most of the time you cannot easily see the ships you meet. The display tells you where they are, how big they are, and if they are friend or foe. The E-UNI Overview Setup process takes about half an hour to complete, but when you're done, your display will tell you everything you need to know about your neighbors. (Seriously, do the setup ... seeing the flashing red indicator of a ship that wanted to kill me in time to flee has saved me more than once.) (MORE)

Solar Systems are not Zones.

Most online role-playing games have a geography organized as a system of zones. Each zone includes non-player characters whose level lies in a small range, and quests in those zones focus on combat with those NPCs. As a player's character "levels up" it moves from one zone to the next and begins to meet stronger opponents. On the other hand, EVE solar systems are connected by "hyper-space jump gates" in a network that permits travel across the EVE galaxy. There are no restrictions; you can go anywhere that you want to, and a solar system will contain characters with a wide range of abilities. (MORE)

Corporations are not Guilds.

EVE Corporations have access to a tremendous range of resources. They can create offices at stations, declare war on other corporations, organize various kinds of fleets, and generally make life easier for their members. E-UNI will give you some of the gear you need to get started for free, and sell you other gear at cost. Some corporations focus on combat, others focus on mining and industry, others have no real focus at all – E-UNI is focused on helping new players get the experience and gear they need to be successful in the game ... so please search out what E-UNI has to offer; and make use of it. (MORE)

Fleets are not Raid Groups.

Fleets can be as large as the fleet commander can handle – hundreds of ships are not unusual. The leaders of a fleet pass some of their skills down to the fleet members. In this way fleets become more powerful as they gain more skilled leaders. Each official E-UNI campus has its own "standing fleet" that members can join while they are flying in local space. This is a good way to meet fellow players and also to keep up on what's going on in the area. (MORE)

Mining, Trade and Research are full time, legitimate occupations.

Ore is refined into minerals, which are combined with blueprints to manufacture ships and gear, which is sold to other players via the Regional Market service. This process requires as much skill as combat, takes as long to learn, and is just as much fun to play. While most players learn at least a few combat skills, a significant number of players do very little combat, preferring instead to explore, mine, manufacture, trade or administer. (MORE)

When you die, you lose your gear.

This comes as a surprise to many experienced RPG players. You rez, not at a graveyard, but in your "medical clone", which you have stored at some station (possibly far from where you are). In the meantime, your ship was blown to pieces and the bad guys get to pick through the wreckage and take your stuff. Thus, the E-UNI Prime Directive: DO NOT FLY WHAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE. (MORE)

Some Players are Criminals.

Most RPGs have a PVE track in which you battle Evil, and a PVP track in which you fight honorably against players of different factions. Both of these exist in EVE, but the game also includes PVP "criminal" activity. You can attack another player anywhere, anytime and attempt to kill them and make a living by stealing their stuff. In some systems this is illegal and consequences ensue, but in many systems the only consequences are those that might be dealt by the player you killed and his or her friends. In EVE you can have a career as a criminal, and many players do just that. (MORE)

Distance is time.

It's not so much that the EVE galaxy is huge as that its systems are far apart. It can take over an hour just to fly from here to there – and that's just counting the distance, and not counting the PVP criminals who may get in your way. Although you can go anywhere in EVE, the game is easier to learn if you organize your activities to stay in one area of the map, at least at first. To help with that, E-UNI has established a number of "campuses" – each of these focuses on a different aspect of EVE gameplay, and players are encouraged to join the campus of their choice. (MORE)

Time Is money.

In most RPGs, although crafting can contribute to your cash flow, the most valuable items are dropped as loot, and you sell these to make money. In EVE, however, the high value items are distributed among all of the "careers". How you use your time in-game is important with regard to maintaining an income, but there is no easy "one size fits all" answer for how to get started. The details listed below give an overview and a few suggestions. (MORE)

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Things to Do

I was about two days into my experience with E-UNI when I just had to stop and laugh. Here was this great place, full of smart people, and they had given me about twenty things that absolutely had to be done first, immediately, right now, ASAP! The problem is that many of these actually should be done more or less at the same time, because this is a complicated game, and there is a lot of stuff you have to do to get started. People have different opinions on how to go about this, but here are the three things that l think are most useful, along with a second list of things to try out later on.

Do These First

Read up on War

Because EVE University Corporation attracts a lot of first time players, it is often at war with Corporations whose members are trying to improve their "kill" counts. The basic rules are:

• WATCH AND LISTEN – the key phrase is "war target" (WT). WT's are experienced EVE players with good ships who are trying to kill you. If WTs are in the area, you don't want to be. Until you get some solid combat experience, it's as simple as that.

• Keep an eye on E-UNI chat, and on the chat channel for your local campus.

• Join the Standing Fleet of your local campus (ask in chat and someone will show you how to do this).

• Join the E-UNI Mumble channel ...( this is highly recommended, but, honestly, while listening to people talk can be really interesting, it often isn't ... so depending on my mood, I sometimes only join Mumble if I have a sudden need for information).

• Set up your Overview Window using the E-UNI format. The E-UNI instructions for setting up your "in space" overview display are detailed and complete. The process takes about half an hour. When you are done, the "PVP TRAVEL" tab will show you any dangerous ships within range. And, the other tabs will do useful things that you haven't thought about yet. More than anything else you can do, this will make traveling around in space easier and safer.

WTs show up in your "PVP Travel" display as blinking red lights. If you see a blinking red light, hide. If you can't hide, run and then hide. Blinking yellow lights are criminals ... they are not at war with E-UNI, but they make a living out of looting ships, so depending on where you are and what kind of ship you are flying, they may attack you. It's best to give them a wide berth. Solid reds and yellows are bad people. Ignore them or not depending on your level of paranoia at the time.

Put your medical clone in a good place.

You only have one "medical" clone, and it is where you will rez if you should die. It starts in the station where you began the game, but you can move it any time to any station that has a "Clone Bay". Once moved, you will rez at that station.

Do this now. If you are in Aldrat, put the clone in a station in that system. If you have moved to one of the E-UNI campuses, put your clone nearby. Just find the "Clone Bay" on the station menu and click it. Don't put this off ... sooner or later, you WILL die ... and you will want to rez in a convenient place.

If you haven't done the tutorials, do them now

These are kind of simple, and a bit slow, but they actually help a lot. For one thing they give you a couple of free ships, some free skill books, and some basic gear, and you make some money.

For another, they take you through the basic careers: combat, mining, exploring, industry. The things they have you do are basic techniques, and trying them out will help you choose a career or two to focus on.

Then Later Maybe Try These

Check Out the Skill Tree

To see all the game's available skills, open your character window the one with a big photo at the top left. Click on "skills". In the skills options menu (it's the little "gear" icon) select "show all". Now you will see a much larger list of skills. Red means your character is not qualified to learn the skill. Green means you can learn it, but have not yet read the book. Select "show only skills I can learn" to put the list back the way it was.

Use the Browser

Click on the "Neocom" ... the three white bars at the top of the icon bar. Pull down to "Accessories" and then go out to "Browser."

This is a real, true browser like Safari, Explorer or Chrome. You can use it to go anywhere on the Internet. By default it opens to the EVE University Calendar. But go to the "Bookmarks" tab at the top, and you will find a wealth of E-UNI information links. And of course, you can bookmark links of your own.

Buy Some ISK – Or Not

If you want, you can go to your game account page and buy a PLEX. This is a certificate that can be redeemed inside the game for a month's worth of game time. It can also be sold in the market ... the going rate is usually in the 750-850 million ISK range. If you are chronically low on ISK and are willing to spend some real currency, this is the fast way to get richer. (Note that players also do the opposite ... make millions of ISK in the game and then use them to buy game time.)

Check out the Compare Tool

This service makes it easy to compare items of gear. It is very useful when you are buying or fitting out a ship.

• Open the Compare Tool – its icon is a cube with two arrows beneath it.
• Open the Market window.
• Pick a category ... like Ship Equipment > Propulsion > Afterburners.
• Drag two or three items from the category into the Compare Tool.

Now when you check the little boxes on the far left, information about the items will appear on the right. You can sort the rows by clicking on a column header. EVE players spend a lot of time making decisions about ships and equipment. This makes it easy to compare items based on the characteristics that matter to you.

Set Up a Safety Spot

This is how you make places that you can jump to quickly in emergencies. It is also how you record the locations of interesting or valuable things that you have found in space.

• Undock and be in space.
• Open the Map Browser (key F11 – note: not the Map; you want the smaller Map Browser).
• Find a planet or moon in the browser, right-click on it and choose "warp to within 50 km".
• You will now be warping ... when you arrive, click in space somewhere to get your ship moving – you do not want your spot to be exactly where you arrive, as someone else might arrive there later.
• While you are moving, open the "People and Places" window (key alt-E).
• Click the "Add a Location" button at the bottom left of the window.

You'll see the system name ... edit the text to say "safe spot" after the system name.

• Save the location (hit the "submit" button).

From now on, any time you are in this system, you can right-click on this entry in the People and Places window and warp directly to this spot.

Know Your Attributes

Open your Character screen. Click on "Attributes" – you will see five of these: Perception, Memory, Willpower, Intelligence, Charisma. Leaving that screen open, open your skill training queue and click on the "Get Info" circle for any of the skills you are training. Click on "Description" – on that page you will see a "Primary" and a "Secondary" Attribute.

The only thing that Attributes affect is the speed at which you learn skills. If you have more points in an Attribute (you can reconfigure this on the Attribute panel of your Character screen), then you will learn skills that require those Attributes faster. Whether you want to do this or not is up to you, and how you optimize it is open to discussion.

Three General Suggestions

• Basic ship handling skills ... Navigation, Engineering, Shields, Armor, Rigging ... apply to almost anything you decide to do in EVE. The "Mastery" panel on the Show Info window of the ship you are flying suggests skills that will help you improve your handling of that class of ship. UniWiki also maintains a good list of Basic Skills. The general agreement is that any skill worth learning is worth learning up to Level III. Learn Level IV if it is a skill that greatly affects something that you do a lot of. The time you need to spend to get to Level V is usually not a good trade-off against training a different skill to Level IV – though the game occasionally forces you to learn a Level V as a prerequisite in the skill tree.

• Alts, or Alternalte Characters, have a number of potential uses. You probably want to make one and train it to use Industrial ships for hauling. Run Distribution Missions to get augmentation plugins, and then, as your skills grow, you may want to look towards buying an industrial ship large enough to let you contract to carry large loads in hisec space. Or, if you want, you can choose to develop your Alt as a miner, or as an explorer ... any career other than combat fighting. Generally, Alts do not fly in E-UNI combat fleets.

• Jump Clones give you a good way to run multiple careers. Keep one clone at your campus for joining fleets. Put another where you want to be doing mining or industry. Keep a third in a system where you want to run Security missions. This lets you pursue your career tasks without having to fly long travel routes to get there. Note that while every clone will have the same skills, each will have different augmentation plug-ins. (While your Alt is an independent, additional character, your Clone is you, just in another body.)

Web Bookmarks

These link to information that you will need fairly frequently while you are starting out. (Note that some of these are already pre-bookmarked in the in-game Browser.)

Consolidated Information Page

An index page with links to all of the E-UNI rules and most of the information that any new player needs. Much of the information that you would search for on this Wiki can be found by just going to this page.

Ship Database

Every ship in the game is listed with basic information, evaluation of its utility, and suggested fittings. A "fit" is a compromise among utility, power use, cpu use and cost. The best way to learn how to fit a ship is to go to the ship's page in the Wiki, look at the recommended fittings, and check out each piece of gear in the Regional Market and Show Info windows. And it's sometimes interesting to use the Compare Tool to see how different versions of the same gear item match up to one another.

NPC Damage Types

Lists all of the NPC enemies and shows the kind of damage that they throw at you. Also shows the kind of damage you need to throw at them to have the best effect. (I keep a copy in my Notebook and check it before each Security mission. Having the right drones and ammo can make a big difference in damage done.)

Mission Guide

Everything you need to know about running missions in EVE.

Evelopedia

This is essentially the online User Guide for the game. It contains details on every item you can find in-game.

EVE Account Management

This is where you can log on to your EVE account to buy game time, buy plex, get multiple character training, submit service tickets and so on.

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The Details

Characters do not level in EVE. There is no level cap.

You play to improve your ability to use your skills. And you gain new skills by "training" them. There are a LOT of skills, and you can only train one at a time. Each level of each skill takes a fixed amount of time to learn, and this means that all characters in EVE learn new skills at the same rate. This makes your choice of skills, and skill levels, a key factor in developing your character.

Just to give a taste of the breadth of the skill set: each of the four racial factions has six levels of ships (frigates, destroyers, cruisers, battle cruisers, battleships, and capital ships), and each level requires a basic "spaceship" skill. Since there are five levels to every skill, this means you need to acquire 4 factions x 6 ship types x 5 skill levels = 120 skill levels to maximize your skill at piloting all the basic faction ships. And that's just the racial factions ... the Pirate factions have their own ship categories, as do various other NPC groups. And within each faction there are special "advanced" ships that have their own required skills.

In addition there are numerous categories of equipment that also fit on the ships ... scanners, afterburners, drones, and the like. And there are four kinds of weapons systems (solid projectile, missile, charged projectile and ray beam). The weapons systems come in small, medium and large, and each has its own set of skills. Most combat ships can use more than one type.

This makes the process of "fitting" a ship ... or choosing the weapons and other gear for a particular craft ... very complicated. You will spend more time getting your ships ready to fight than you ever did building a gear set in any other RPG. The results can be very satisfying, though, because with so many options, you get to design a ship that best fits your abilities and style of play.

But that only describes ships and their gear. There are more skill sets available in Mining, Scanning, Navigation, Industry, Science, Leadership and other non-combat activities. The time varies for different skills, but generally, the first level of a skill takes a few minutes to learn, the second level about an half an hour, and the third some number of hours. It can take from a few hours to a few weeks to learn the fourth and fifth levels of a skill. The good news is that training continues while you are logged off ... but even so, it takes years to learn everything the game has to offer.

On the other hand, since there is no level cap, you will not run out of things to do. And, since there is no rush to level up, you can take your time to master one particular set of skills before moving on to the next. Or, you can train a variety of lower level skills and work your way up multiple paths. EVE is very flexible in that regard. (Many players train to Level III in skills they need, Level IV in skills they use a lot, and only go to Level V if there is a pressing need ... like a prerequisite to a higher skill, for example.)

THE BOTTOM LINE: Don't run around chasing points or items. Decide what you want your character to DO (combat, exploration, mining, industry) and focus on learning the skills you need to continually improve your results. Choose your ships, gear, missions and so on to support your choice of "career". (BACK)

Your character's skills will modify various attributes of your gear.

Skills not only give you the ability to use new gear, they also change the way the gear you are already using works.

For example, each level of the skill "Light Missiles" increases the damage that a light missile does by 5%. This means that if you train this skill to Level 5, your light missile damage will go up by 25%. Similarly, the "missile bombardment" skill will increase the range of your missiles by 10% per level, or 50% when fully trained. (Note, by the way, that Light Missiles only applies to "light" missiles, while Missile Bombardment applies to all missiles. This makes the latter one a very valuable skill, and consequently, it takes longer to train it to Level 5.)

Skills also modify equipment. "Missile Launcher Operation", for example, increases the rate at which your missile launchers fire. This has no effect on the missiles, themselves, but you fire them faster. Other skills make your ship faster, more agile, harder for enemies to target, and so on.

Skills also modify NPC interactions. Under "Social" skills, for example, "Connections" makes NPCs like you more, which means they are more likely to offer you better missions to run. And "Negotiation" increases the amount of money you receive for successfully completing a mission by 5% per level.

BOTTOM LINE: don't worry about finding "better gear". Worry about increasing your skills to make the gear you already have work better. Being able to use one kind of weapon at level 3 is better than being able to use three different weapons at level 1. (As you play the game, you will have plenty of time to train up on additional weapons ... as almost all long term EVE players do.) (BACK)

Combat follows the laws of physics.

Combat in most online games is immediate. You take a swing or shot at your target, and you get instant feedback as to whether you hit or missed. In EVE, however, all combat is ranged combat, and it is conducted over kilometers with physical weaponry in space. The game computes hits and misses using trajectories, and your results are always affected by this.

For example, let's say your ship is equipped with missiles. And, let's say your missiles travel at a speed of 1K (thousand) meters per second. So, if your ship is 10K meters from a target when you fire a salvo of missiles, it will take them 10 seconds to arrive. But that's if both you and your target are standing still. Which you are not, so the game computes a time based on your mutual speeds and directions. Or, if you are using a projectile turret (think: big guns on a naval battleship), the turret will have to turn to track its target. This takes some time, so the speed of the target and the speed of the turret both figure into the likelihood of a hit.

Weapon Type	Pro	Con
Short Range Turret	more accurate, fires faster	have to be close to your target
Long Range Turret	longer range, more damage per hit	less accurate, slower firing rate
Missile	never misses	you can be dead before they get there

There are three types of each ranged turret: projectile, hybrid and energy beam. Each of these uses a different type of ammunition.

Turret Type	Ammunition	Pro	Con
Projectile	solid chunk of matter	most damage per hit	worst range
Hybrid	ion charge	highest rate of fire	kind of in the middle
Energy Beam	draws from the ship's capacitor	best range	less accurate at short range

In addition, weapons can do one or more of four types of damage: kinectic, thermal, explosive and/or electromagnetic pulse (EM). For more details, read the article on Damage Types.

As you can see, EVE balances out the characteristics of the weapons to make each of them have benefits and penalties. In general:

• closer range weapons usually fire faster and hit sooner, but with less damage per shot
• bigger guns do more damage per hit, but take longer to fire and have difficulty hitting small, fast moving targets
• weapons skill training greatly ... greatly ... increases your ship's damage potential (as long as you are using the weapons for which you have trained)

THE BOTTOM LINE: which gear you use is not as important as your skill level for using the gear. Pick a ship category/weapons system that you think you will like and then train all of the skills for those to at least Level III. While you're training, do missions and other kinds of combat to learn how to use your weapons in combat. (BACK)

Combat "happens" in the heads up display.

Your ship is moving through space at a high rate of speed. You can't easily stop and go backwards; you move by turning in an arc. You are fighting ships who are also following their own arcs in space. The data on your screen is what you use to figure out who is where, and when, and how soon you can hit them, and whether they can hit you.

The Overview Window is your main source of information. If you click the "distance" column, it will sort the closest things to the top of the window. If these are enemy ships, they will be red, and you can choose which ones to target and begin to attack.

At the bottom of your screen is a dashboard. To the left are five buttons. Press the top leftmost of these and the "tactical" display will come up. Roll your mouse wheel to zoom until the ring of numbers is small enough that you can see the "30" ring. Now move your mouse over one of your ship's weapons. The whitish sphere that appears shows the range of that weapon.

There is a lot of stuff like this within the various displays, and all of it is explained somewhere in UniWiki. Here, for example, is a detailed explanation of how to use the Tactical Overlay.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Read about the various windows and displays and try them out. Pick the ones that seem most useful to you and keep them up whenever you fly. (BACK)

Solar Systems are not Zones.

EVE's solar systems are connected by "hyper-space jump gates" in a network that permits travel across the EVE galaxy. In addition, there are some special portals, "wormholes", for example, that lead to locations not reachable by the jump gate network. You can go anywhere that you want to, and the built in Map makes travel fairly easy to organize.

Except for "security" restrictions, there is no limit to combat in any solar system. Security is provided by CONCORD, the EVE government police force, and each system is labeled with a CONCORD "security level". These range from 1.0 (maximally secure) through 0.5 (lightly patrolled) to 0.0 (not patrolled at all) – and further down to negatively numbered totally lawless systems which can be insanely dangerous. These systems are loosely labeled "hisec" (1.0-0.5), "lowsec" (0.4-0.0), and "nulsec" (below 0).

CONCORD has very fast, powerful ships that patrol the high-sec systems. If you damage another player while in a level 1.0 system, for example, CONCORD will immediately attempt to destroy you. If you do this repeatedly, you will be labeled a "criminal" and from then on you can be destroyed on sight. As the security code of a system goes down from 1.0 to 0.5 the immediacy of CONCORD's reaction decreases. That is, if you are doing something illegal, it will take longer for the CONCORD ships to show up in a 0.5 system. If the security number is below 0.5, CONCORD will not show up at all.

You also have a security standing with the various factional governments, and with any corporation with which you have had contact. You can check these on your Character screen by clicking on the "Standings" section. If your standing with a faction gets too low, they will attack you. If your standing with a corporation is too low, you will not be able to get missions from their agents.

Null-sec systems, with security levels of zero and below, have no CONCORD presence. Consequently, these zones attract criminals who prey on themselves and other players. And, just to make things interesting, EVE has placed a variety of rare, high value, minerals, loot, and other rewards in "nulsec", thus ensuring competition and combat.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Systems whose levels are from 1.0 to 0.8 are usually safe. Systems rated 0.7 to 0.5 are moderately safe. But if you go into a solar system whose level is below 0.5, expect to be attacked. And don't go into any null-sec systems or wormholes until you have learned how they work and how to deal with the dangers. (BACK)

Corporations are not Guilds.

EVE Corporations have access to a tremendous range of resources. They can create offices at stations, and use these to provide services to their members. Each E-UNI office, for example, has a hangar into which members can donate gear for other members to use, and another set of hangars from which members can take certain kinds of free gear. E-UNI will also replace your ship if it is destroyed in certain kinds of activities. The corporation will sell you ships and gear at a lower cost than the market. And it will fully reimburse you for the cost of the "books" that you need to start learning a new skill.

Corporations can declare war on other corporations, thus removing the police restriction on fighting in high-security solar systems. They can organize various kinds of fleets, including mining fleets which make it easier and safer for members to mine large amounts of ore.

Because corporations have access to so many important resources, and because they can provide fleets to help protect their members, EVE is a very difficult game to play "solo". You may leave E-UNI at any time, but you will almost certainly be moving on to a new corporation.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Take the time to learn about E-UNI's policies for reimbursing your expenses, and ask about how to find the campus hangar that contains free items that any new member can use. And as you gain experience, if you find E-UNI restrictive, don't feel bad about finding yourself another corporation. (BACK)

Fleets are not Raid Groups.

Although fleets at first appear to be similar to raid groups, they can be as large as the fleet commander can handle, and they are associated with a special set of skills that allows for advanced command and control. The leader of a fleet unit passes some of his or her skill values down to the members of that unit. Thus, while in a fleet, you may find that your character flies faster, shoots faster, and does more damage than it does when on its own.

This video clip (at YouTube) shows what is reputed to be "the most destructive battle ever fought in an online game." An argument over ownership of a star system escalated into a battle that eventually included over 4000 ships. (The bubbles you see are force fields. The small dots are big ships; the big blobs are "Titans", the largest ship that can be built in EVE.) While encounters of this size are rare, many smaller fleet actions happen every day.

Each E-UNI campus has its own "standing fleet" that members can join while they are flying in local space. This is a good way to meet fellow players and also to keep up on what's going on in the area.

If you plan to follow a career that involves combat, even if you plan to eventually become a PVP Criminal, be sure to engage in as much fleet action as you can. There is very little solo PVP combat in EVE ... mostly because it is unusual for two evenly matched ships to meet in the vastness of space ... so fleets are where you learn how to use your ship as a weapon. Even Criminals operate in fleets, so get in as much training as you can.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Be sure to read the UniWiki sections on fleets and join the local campus standing fleet whenever you are online. Check the Calendar for fleet announcements, and join whenever you have a ship that meets the requirements. (BACK)

Mining, Trade and Research are full time, legitimate occupations.

While the game itself makes basic items available for sale, most of the unusual, extra powerful, higher level ships and gear are made and sold by players. The game provides blueprints, some of which are very rare, that "Industrialist" players use to manufacture items. These are then hauled to central locations and offered via the Regional Market service. Mining, Missions and Exploration provide the materials needed to manufacture items from blueprints, Research allows Industrialists to improve the speed and efficiency of their manufacturing processes, and Trade improves their ability to sell their goods.

Here is a quick summary – for more details, look in the "Time is Money" section:

Missions – much like "questing" in other RPGs. Missions pay in ISK and loyalty points with the corporation offering the mission. Note that the loyalty points can only be spent in that corporation's store. Missions go from level I to level V. I through IV are solo and get progressively harder while offering progressively better payoffs. Level Vs are for fleets. Also included in this category are Encounter Sites, similar to "dungeons" in other RPGs, which pop up at random and offer loot if you can kill all the NPCs in the site.

Mining – use a laser to chop asteroids into pieces and haul the resulting ore back to a base. The ore can be sold "as is", or reprocessed. It tends to be worth more "as is" until you train up your reprocessing skills.

Industry – using minerals reprocessed from raw ore, and blueprints, to manufacture items. Many higher level game items are produced this way. Industry requires high level skills and is very competitive. "Research", which improves basic blueprints and allows discovery of new ones, is an advanced aspect of industry that requires extra training and is seldom pursued by new players.

Trade – sell stuff. You can produce it and sell it. Or you can buy it, move it to a place where it's worth more, and sell it. Or you can loot it and sell it. Trade is interesting, but there are a lot of traders in EVE and the competition is cutthroat.

Hauling – contract to move stuff from one place to another. Because long distance travel is boring and/or dangerous, many players hire other players to move their items around. This is done through the in-game contracting system. Hisec hauling is easy, competitive, and doesn't pay very much. Low and nullsec hauling is dangerous, but pays very well. To get into the lowsec hauling business, you need good ship handling and cloaking skills.

Exploration – use your scanning, survey and decrypting skills to unlock potentially valuable archaeology sites. The best sites are in nulsec and in wormholes, but such sites can be amazingly valuable – though Pirate players may try to kill you and take your loot. Exploration is easy to train, but it takes a lot of practice to get good enough to do the high value sites.

Solo PVP – fly around in lowsec and nullsec space looking for people who want to fight. The winner gets to loot the loser's ship. Not recommended for beginners.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Depending on what you enjoy doing, any of it can be fun. However, it is impossible to do all of these things at the same time with any kind of reasonable competence. So pick one or two: combat pilot, explorer, miner, manufacturer, merchant, researcher, hauler – and focus on deepening your skills in those areas. (BACK)

When you die, you lose your gear.

The E-UNI Prime Directive: DO NOT FLY WHAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE.

Always insure your ship (with Platinum, because you will probably lose your first few ships one way or another). Never carry stuff that you don't need. Never use an expensive ship when a cheaper ship will do. Avoid the autopilot. Always assume that five guys in a Pirate ganking fleet are waiting for you at the next gate. (Paranoia is good, but it is not enough.)

THE BOTTOM LINE: You will die, then you will know. 'Nuff said. (BACK)

Some Players are Criminals.

EVE includes PvP "criminal" activity. You can attack another player anywhere, anytime and attempt to kill them and steal their stuff. In hisec space this is illegal and CONCORD will try to wipe you out, but in lowsec and nulsec the only consequences are those that might be dealt by the player you killed and his or her friends.

If you look at the EVE star map with the color set at "security status", you will see a ring of dangerous red solar systems surrounding the safer green and yellow ones. Some of the red systems are the home of Criminal corporations whose members prey on anyone who ventures out of hisec space. As far as EVE is concerned, these activities are perfectly legitimate space, and there are even a number of game mechanics that favor criminal enterprise.

So, if you want to be a criminal, you can ... though to do so, you need to eventually leave E-UNI and find a corporation located in lowsec or null space. E-UNI is a force for good in the galaxy and does not generally condone criminal activity.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Watch your back. (BACK)

Distance is Time.

Travel through EVE's many star systems can take a a minute or two per system. Also, travel is inherently dangerous, even in hisec space. For example, three players can form a "suicide" fleet whereby one player, usually in an ship with a lot of offensive power, will suddenly kill you. CONCORD will immediately kill him or her, of course, but the other fleet members will now scavenge the loot from your ship, and then share the proceeds with the dead guy. This is only profitable if the ship killed is a big, valuable ship, preferably an industrial ship hauling a lot of goods ... (though I was "suicide ganked" once in a small, cheap ship; apparently just for practice).

The danger makes it important that you actually fly your ship. The autopilot will take you to a designated destination, but the autopilot flies very slowly, especially as it approaches hyperspace gates, which is where the bad guys like to hang out. Ships on autopilot are much more likely to be killed than ships with active pilots. On the other hand, piloting a ship for 15 or 20 jumps can get pretty boring. So this is something that you do if you have to, but not something you want to do often.

In the beginning, at least, the game is easier if you organize your activities to stay in one area of the map. To lessen the burden of excessive travel, E-UNI maintains a number of "campuses" – E-UNI offices in different solar systems – that are located in the same general region of the EVE galaxy. Each campus emphasizes a different aspect of the game. By joining one of these, you can have fun, learn the game, meet other players, and not have to travel long distances. Most new players should start at High Sec Campus (HSC) which is especially set up to give advice to beginners. (You can find the locations of the all the various campuses by clicking on the links that follow.)

Official Campuses

Each of these has a chat channel, a Mumble channel, and a Standing Fleet that all members are invited to join. Read about the campuses in UniWiki by clicking the link; chose the one you want to join, and go there.

Hisec Campus (HSC)

: A place where beginners can learn basic skills and try out new things. In hisec space you are safe most of the time (except for War Targets), and most new members should start here. Access to combat fleets, asteroid belts, missions and everything else you need to get started are available at HSC. All new members are encouraged to join.

Lowsec Campus (LSC)

: For members who want to learn how to play in a more dangerous environment. Lowsec systems contain ore and archaeology sites whose exploitation is worth the risk, but they also contain player pirates who make their money by killing other players and taking their stuff. There are no entrance requirements for LSC, although you should probably have participated in fleet actions. Read the Lowsec Wiki page and come when you feel that you are ready.

Nullsec Campus (NSC)

: A very dangerous environment that offers unique PVE and PVP encounters. NSC involves the most potential combat of the three "sec" campuses, and it's primary focus is on how to survive in nulsec's uniquely lawless environment. There are no entrance requirements, but fleet PVP combat experience is helpful.

Wormhole Campus (WHC)

: An advanced campus focused on life inside a wormhole. Because wormholes contain some of the game's most valuable loot, they are areas of intense conflict. Special skills are necessary for acceptance into this group. Sophomore standing at E-UNI is required.

Unofficial Sort-Of-Campuses

These provide unique experiences, generally for more advanced players, though only the Incursion Community has an entry requirement. They have chat and Mumble channels, but may not have a standing fleet. These are "practicum" campuses where you learn how to do something by doing it alongside E-UNI experts.

Amarr Mining Campus (AMC)

: Large scale mining is conducted in organized fleets. AMC's location is secret, and it moves around to take advantage of ore deposits as well as to foil prospective bandits. AMC is for serious miners, and if you join, you should be planning to stay for a lengthy period of time. Contact them for more information.

Project Solitude

: I spend time in this community now and then. It is located in an isolated region with a mix of high and low sec systems, and it is a great place to do solo mining, exploring and mission running. Be aware that getting there and back involves travel through a "corridor" of pirate-infested, lowsec systems. There are no requirements, other than that you need to be able to fly there.

Incursion Community

: "Incursions" are large PVE encounter events staged by the game in random systems. Incursion combat is very high level, but this group focuses on bringing less experienced players into the events. Contact them for more information.

E-UNI Headquarters

: The center for E-UNI corporate services. The hangars are stocked with gear that members can use. Many of the University's classes take place near headquarters, and the Aldrat system contains a Player Owned Starbase that members can use.

IMPORTANT: An option with regard to travel is to train for and acquire "jump clones." These are copies of your character that you can station in systems that you want to visit, and then "jump" from one to another as needed. There is no limit on how far apart the clones can be - but of course, you can only play one clone at a time, and there is a 24 hour reset timer on the jump. This is probably the best way to establish yourself in different parts of the EVE galaxy. You should at least read about Cloning now, so that you can learn the skills that you will need when you are ready to clone.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Long distance travel is slow and dangerous. Play near a campus to increase safety and reduce bordom. Consider using clones for distant activities, and when you do travel, use a ship you can afford to lose. (BACK)

Time Is Money.

There are many ways to make money within the game. Here are a few examples to illustrate the differences among possible careers:

• Mission Running: A Level 3 Security mission takes about half an hour to run and pays a bit under a thousand loyalty points. 1,200 loyal points plus 5,000 plain ammunition charges gets you 5,000 extra-powerful "faction" ammunition charges. So, for example: if a regular, medium, fusion projectile costs 70 ISK, then 5,000 of them costs 350,000. Faction, medium, fusion projectiles sell for a bit under 800 ISK, so 5,000 of them would sell for 3 million ISK. Thus, you spend 350,000 ISK plus 1,200 loyalty points, and you get 3 million ISK. It's not quite that simple, but it works out to a good profit. (Plus, you can use some of the charges yourself ... and the loyalty store has some other useful stuff for sale, too.)

• Mining: 50,000 units of Pyroxes Ore takes about half an hour to mine (with a mining barge) and sells for about 2.5 million ISK. Ores have varying prices depending on scarcity, but once you have the skills, you can make a fair profit this way. (On the other hand, mining ores in safe systems is rather boring, and you only make money ... you do not gain loyalty standing with a corporation.)

• Industry and Trade: An Amarr Faction "Punisher" frigate sells for about 400,000 ISK and isn't all that hard to manufacture, once you train the Industry, Mining and Trade skills. On the other hand, you only make money when someone decides to buy one of your ships, and you need to sell five of them to make 2 million ISK. Furthermore, since there are other players also making and selling ships, the marketplace is very competitive.

• Exploration: EVE space contains "encounter" sites that are guarded by NPCs who drop significant loot. It also contains encrypted, unguarded sites that you can loot if you can break the code. But the various sites are not like the typical RPG dungeons that spawn especially for you. These spawn randomly, and whoever gets there first gets to use them. Naturally, there is a lot of competition, and it is not unusual for whoever gets there second to try to kill whoever got there first. There is an art to dealing with these sites, and many EVE players find them challenging and fun.

SUMMARY: it all works out to more or less about the same income per hour ... less in the beginning, and more as your skills and gear improve. Therefore — find something you like to do, and use it to fund your character.

More basic information for each career type:

Mining is easy to learn and turns a slow, but steady profit. Ore sells at a predictable rate, and the systems within which you mine have predictable security hazards, whch lets you fit out a ship that matches the conditions you expect to meet. You need to train Mining skills, of course, but also train Reprocessing skills ... because you will often get more cash for the reprocessed minerals than you will for the ore. Train Drone skills for protection while you are mining, and train Salvage skills to harvest the NPC pirates that your drones will kill. Trade skills will let you offer more goods for sale and increase your profit, but these will not be your first priority.

Mission running is not lucrative in and of itself ... missions pay a fairly small amount of cash for each completed mission ... but the loyalty points you gain can be used to buy "faction" gear that sells for a high price in the market. Level III missions are fairly easy to complete and pay good loyalty points. To get to Level III do ALL of your level I and level II missions with the same Corporation. Train Connections to improve your standing with the NPC Agents who give out the missions. Train Negotiation to increase the rewards that you get for completing a mission.

Missions come in career flavors: distribution, mining, and security. Security pays the best; distribution (making courier runs) is the safest but you have focus on flying the ship; mining has a limited set of missions, but it lets you do other things while your ship mines the ore. Pick one of these career types, and then pick a corporation that offers up to level IV in that kind of mission – and run all of your missions with that same corporation. Research missions serve an entirely different game purpose, and you can ignore them for now.

Exploration is the most random, and dangerous, way of making money, but it also has the biggest potential payoff. Explorers go into lowsec and nulsec space, and into wormholes, searching for ancient archaeology sites. Once opened, the sites have the potential to produce extremely valuable loot – though these areas of the game are also patrolled by criminal players who hope to kill explorers and steal their loot. Begin by training Survey and Hacking, and then all of the skills in the Scanning section. You will also need Salvaging and Cloaking.

If you eventually want to do Exploration, then start by running Security Missions, and simultaneously train the basic Scanning and Salvaging skills. You can practice your exploring skills in hisec space, finding sites and hacking them in relative safety. Move to lowsec once you are experienced at Hacking and have the skills to fly a cloaked ship.

Industry and trade produce goods for sale to other EVE players and deliver them to various markets. Right at the beginning, you can sell items that you loot in the marketplace, but you need special skills to become a professional Industrialist and Trader.

If you eventually want to do Industry and Trade, then start with Mining. Run mining missions to get loyalty points to buy augmentation plugins. Once your Mining skills are well developed, and once you have the Spaceship skills to be using Mining Barges, then begin to train Industry and Trade skills. Start by buying blueprints and manufacturing disposable items for your own use ... ammunition is good place to start - it will save you the cost of buying it, and any that's left over can be sold. As your skills develop, think about moving up to producing various ship equipment items and eventually ships themselves.

Hauling can be lucrative once you have the skills to fly the basic Industrial ships, and especially if you have the Cloaking skills to fly large stealthed blockade runners in and out of lowsec space. Many EVE players develop an "alt hauler" character to carry their stuff around in wartime (which, at E-UNI tends to be pretty much all the time). If you do this, you might find that you enjoy it and just continue developing those skills. To make money at hauling, you will need to be able to fly the very big freighters, you will also need Contracting skills.

THE BOTTOM LINE: It all works. Choose an approach that seems interesting and pursue the skills you need to become good at it. (BACK)

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