Attributes
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Attributes & Skills
Every EVE character has five attributes. These are:
- Intelligence
- Perception
- Charisma
- Willpower
- Memory
These attributes determine how quickly you train the various skills in the game. They do not influence anything else about your character. Since time is perhaps your most valuable asset in EVE, understanding attributes and optimizing them for your character's plans is absolutely vital. In order to view your attributes, open your character sheet and select “Attributes”. The five attributes for your character will be listed there.
To use your attributes to determine how fast you will train a given skill, find the skill in the market or in your character window and click “Show Info”. Under the “Attributes” tab you will see the primary and secondary attributes for the skill, along with a training time multiplier. As an example, the Gunnery skill has Perception as its primary attribute and Willpower and its secondary attribute. The game uses this to determine how many skill points per minute you receive from training that skill. The formula is this:
points per minute = primary attribute + 0.5 * secondary attribute
To figure out points per hour, multiply this by 60. So, for example, my brand new character has 20 points in both Perception and Willpower, and hence he will receive 30 skill points per minute if he trains Gunnery. If he had 30 Perception and 21 Willpower, he would receive 30 + .5 * 21 = 41.5 points per minute.
However, this does not explain the “Time Multiplier”, also called the "rank", of the skill. You will notice that every skill has five different levels (Gunnery I, Gunnery II, etc.), and you must train so many skill points in that skill before reaching the next level. For a skill with a time multiplier of x1, the number of skill points (SP) needed is:
| Level | SP Needed |
|---|---|
| 1 | 250 |
| 2 | 1414 |
| 3 | 8000 |
| 4 | 45255 |
| 5 | 256000 |
For a skill with a time multiplier of 2, you double each of these numbers. For a time multiplier of 3, you triple them, and so on, to determine how many points you must put into the skill to reach a given level. As the most advanced skills can have up to x16 multipliers, training them them to level 5 can literally take months. Keep in mind that the number of points trained in a skill does not “reset” when you reach the next level. Hence, after you hit level 1, you will have 251 skill points in that skill and will move up from there.
Skill Groups
The skills of EVE are divided into 16 different skill groups focusing on various aspects of gameplay. Each skill group has associated with it a primary and secondary attribute that nearly all skills of that skill group use. The skill groups are:
| Name | Primary | Secondary | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporation Management | Memory | Charisma | Corporation and POS Management and Upgrading |
| Drones | Memory | Perception | Number, Quality and Effectivness of Drones |
| Electronics | Intelligence | Memory | CPU, Targeting, EWAR |
| Engineering | Intelligence | Memory | Capacitor, Powergrid, Shield Tank |
| Gunnery | Perception | Willpower | Turret Damage, Range, and Fitting |
| Industry | Memory | Intelligence | Mining, Ore Processing, Refining, Production |
| Leadership | Charisma | Willpower | Fleet Bonuses |
| Mechanic | Intelligence | Memory | Armor Tank, Hull Tank, Rigging |
| Missiles | Perception | Willpower | Missile DPS and Range |
| Navigation | Intelligence | Perception | Ship Speed and Agility |
| Planet Management | Charisma | Intelligence | Planetary Interaction |
| Science | Intelligence | Memory | Cybernetics, Research, Manufacturing |
| Social | Charisma | Intelligence | Mission Reward and Standing Boosts |
| Spaceship Command | Perception | Willpower | Increased Effectiveness of Ship Bonuses, Piloting of more Advanced Ships |
| Subsystems | Intelligence | Memory | Used for Tech 3 Strategic Cruisers |
| Trade | Charisma | Memory | Increases Number of Market Orders, Decreases Taxes and Fees |
Remaps and Planning
You'll notice that you probably want skills from several of these groups and hence want good stats in nearly all of the attributes! On the other hand, you do not want to waste your time training skills that you do not have good attributes for. For instance, putting lots of points into Charisma is a bad idea if you'll be spending months and months training Electronics skills! It's a fantastic idea to plan out your future skill training queue well (a whole year) in advance. The reason for this is that roughly once a year, or when CCP is feeling generous, your character can remap his or her attributes. Remapping skills is simply reassigning all of the points for those skills, enabling you to change up your training once a year. The number of remaps you have available or the next time you'll be able to remap is displayed on the "Attributes" tab of your character screen. Don't waste them!
Since characters only get to remap once a year, many players set up year-long training plans for their characters using a program such as EVEMon. That program allows you to figure out the best possible attributes needed to complete the training plan, and so maximizes how many skill points you receive.
Odds are, you aren't quite sure how you want to train your character. If not, you should probably follow a guide such at this one to ensure your character has a solid base of skills to build on. You might also try picking out some favorite ships you'd like to fly, finding fits for them, and planning out what skills you need to fly those fits. As a general rule of thumb, if you ever use a skill at all, it's probably worth training to at least 3. If you use it occasionally, take it to 4, and if you find yourself frequently using the skill, it will probably be worth it to train to level 5.
Implants
Directly underneath your Attributes tab is the Augmentations tab. This is where you'll find your character's implants, if you have any. Implants are special items that you plug into your current clone that increase attributes or other stats. Once plugged in, they are destroyed if they are removed from your clone or if the clone is destroyed. This is why you must be very careful when flying around in your capsule, or pod, and why the Pod Saver tab on the Overview is so important, as these implants can cost a tremendous amount of money and you do not want to be killed in your pod and lose them.
Despite the cost, implants are extremely valuable, as they can boost your attributes and decrease training times. Obtaining a set of +3 implants (one for each attribute) should be a priority for new characters, and there is a program to help new characters achieve this goal.
