New Player

This page offers some pointers on starting out life in New Eden, with a particular focus on topics useful to new EVE University members.

Where to start as a new player

EVE Online is an overwhelming place. EVE University is here to help: you can consider applying to join--and if you've just joined, welcome to EVE University, it’s great to have you here.

All the information on this wiki is available to the whole EVE community, and players don't need to join EVE University to benefit from it: even if you don't see yourself joining the University, please feel welcome to use these resources.

Activities / Careers

Find an activity that you enjoy doing. If it doesn't generate much ISK, find a second activity that will pay for it.

If you are not sure what is there to do, start with the Tutorial and Career Agent Missions. Career Agent Missions will introduce you to many different activities, ships and modules. After you are done with the Career Agents try doing the The Blood-Stained Stars Epic Arc. It will earn you around 15 million ISK and introduce you to doing missions for Security Agents.

Choose an activity you enjoy rather then an activity which earns you the most ISK. EVE Online offers many activities. Don't be afraid to try doing something else when the opportunity presents itself. Equally, don't try to master everything at once!

Following on this, the AIR Career Program is an amazing resource for encouraging new players to try out activities that they may not have otherwise considered. By completing goals for the four main career paths (Industry, Exploration, PvE and PvP), new players can earn a generous amount of skill points, ISK, SKINs, various ships, modules and skillbooks, and other miscellaneous rewards. See Guide to AIR Career Programme for a step-by-step guide on how to efficiently complete it.

Most activities are available to both  Alpha clone and Template:Clonestates Clones, but some are restricted only to Omega Clones.

Activity	Alpha Clone Restrictions
Exploration	No Cloaking
Mining	No advanced ships, no ice mining
Missions	No Level 4 or 5 Agents
PvP	No hard limitations, though advanced ships/fits will be unavailable
Manufacturing	No Inventing, most Tier 2 Manufacturing is locked behind inaccessible Science skills, and Alpha clones pay an additional 2% tax on all jobs
Trading	Limited number of skills
Planetary Industry	Unavailable
Hauling	Cannot fly advanced ships, and only one contract can be taken out at any given time

Think about what you want to do in the long run. Do you enjoy doing missions? Take a look at Incursions: they use similar skills, pay more and are a group activity which will help you make connections. If you like industry, you could expand into T2 Invention and Production. Exploration could lead you to living in wormhole space. There are lots of possibilities out there.

If you are doing an activity you like, don't listen to those that criticize your ISK/h efficiency. The amount of ISK you earn will increase over time as your skills improve.

Don't be in a rush to do everything! Take it step by step. Be cautious about using Skill Injectors or buying Plex to get ahead. These are legitimate options, but part of the fun is learning and making your own ISK—and jumping too quickly into expensive ships with demanding skills can set you up for expensive losses.

Ships

Don't be afraid of losing ships, but try not to make too many expensive mistakes that teach you nothing. EVE Online has a simple rule: "Never fly what you can't afford to lose".

EVE Online is not a safe place, not even in High Security systems. CONCORD's job isn't to protect you, but to punish criminals. This wiki has articles covering various rules, tips and tricks that may help you survive.

The flipside of this rule is that if you can afford to lose a ship, you should feel free to take risks with it in the cause of having fun. It is best to think of ships as being a bit like ammunition.

EVE University is often at war which means that, for players working in highsec space, there are some ships that are best flown on an Alt to avoid being killed. At war, Trade hubs often harbour hostile war targets. Use an OOC Hauler and read about Hauling to reduce the risk of being killed. You should also consider using the EVE University Hauling Service and the Buyback.

To help you with ships and modules EVE University offers Corporation Hangars with a selection of free fitted ships at each campus. If you don't have the Freshman title, ask someone who has to get a ship for you. If you lose a ship during a EVE University combat fleet you will usually be entitled to use the Ship Replacement Program.

Skills

As you learn skills, it's worth remembering that training skills to level IV and (especially) V becomes increasingly time consuming for only minor gains. An important thing to remember is the 80/20 Rule of skill training, where training a skill to level IV will give you 80% of the benefit of the skill, while only requiring 20% of the time, compared to training the skill to level V.

EVE University has two sets of skill plans that will help you get a good foundation of skills.

• The Short Skill Plan can put you in a PvP-ready, battle-effective Tech 1 frigate within six hours, and a battle-effective Tech 1 cruiser in less than 5 days.
  • (These times will be roughly doubled for alpha clones.)
• The Pyramid Skill Plan is a good guide to longer-term training for whatever your goals are.

Note also the "Magic 14", 14 skills which benefit any ship you undock.

To help you start your training, EVE University offers the Skillbook Program and The +3 Implants Program.

Communications

Aside from the In-Game Chat Channels and Mailing Lists, EVE University has a forum, an extensive Class Library and external Mumble and Discord servers for communications.

If you are struggling to understand some of the terms and abbreviations used, have a look at the Lexicon. Don't be afraid to ask on Discord or in-game if something's still unclear!

A wide selection of fleets and classes are held and will be announced in the Calendar, as well as in the forum and on Discord.

Where should you go?

EVE University’s Main Community, based in and around our headquarters in Stacmon, has several different Upwell structures where members can dock, situated in both High-Sec Stacmon and neighbouring Slays, and our null-sec staging area of PC9-AY. Each structure is optimised for different areas of the game, giving new players an opportunity to try a variety of activities.

Wormhole Community (WHC)

For those seeking a risky (and profitable) life outside of known space, the Wormhole community, living in J-211936, may be the right direction to move towards. Wormhole space can be a demanding place, so joining this community has a few minimal entry requirements. That said, the WHC welcomes very new players, who can start learning about wormhole life and participate in many campus activities near the outset of their Uni careers. Also, there are regular “Noobs Night in the Hole” (NNitH) events that will allow you to experience life in WHC without meeting all the requirements.

Incursion Community

Unlike their sister communities, there is no fixed headquarters, but a nomadic group which follow the current High Security and occasional Low Security incursions around New Eden. While everyone is welcome, Incursions are high-end PvE content, and as such generally require a more rounded set of skills than those you will have at the start of your game. There are, though, a couple of low skilled roles available, so just ask if you're interested.

How to get there

If you've recently finished the career agents you've probably got a small collection of ships and modules. Generally, it's not worth trying to move everything to your new home.

Instead pick a frigate (the exploration frigates, the Heron, Imicus, Probe and Magnate, are good choices as they have large cargo holds), or even a shuttle (ideal for safe travel to nullsec).

You can move your existing assets to the nearest trade hub and sell them, if you want to. If the Uni is at war, try and do all this before accepting the invite to join. Alternatively, if you are near one of the stations covered by the University's Sponsored Shipping Service anyway, you can haul your stuff to that station and then use the University shipping service to have it taken to any of the major locations in the Main Community.

Once you've flown to your new home you'll find that the corporation hangars will have many ships and modules you may need.