Skills and learning
This is a guide to learning in-game skills. It explains the mechanics that govern skill training, and makes some suggestions for training strategies. If you want detailed coverage of individual skills, you can start here. This page will occasionally refer to Evemon, a widely-used third-party program which lets you track and plan your character's training, and you can learn more about Evemon here.
How Skill Training Works
Acquiring Skillbooks
To learn a skill, you need the relevant skillbook. If you did the starter missions from the tutorial agents (and if you didn't, they're highly recommended) you will have been given some useful skillbooks.
The main way to acquire other new skillbooks is from the market. You can browse the available skillbooks under 'Skills' in the Browse tab, or just search for a particular skill. Currently most skillbooks are sold by NPC corporations for a fixed price -- this is effectively CCP seeding them on the market.
The NPC sell orders are easily spotted: they have a uniform price and they have nearly a year's worth of time listed in the 'Expires In' column. (The maximum amount of time a player can put a sell order up for, by contrast, is 90 days.)
You may see player sell orders for NPC seeded skillbooks too. If they're below the NPC price they're probably selling off books they bought in error; if they're above the NPC price they're probably hoping to trick someone into buying. Make sure you check the NPC price before buying an NPC-seeded skill from a player!
Some skillbooks are not directly seeded onto the market. Instead they're acquired through the Loyalty Point stores of NPC corporations or from exploration sites. These tend to be more advanced skills, such as Small AC Specialization, which lets you use T2 small autocannon. Some players trade in these skills by finding them or buying them from LP stores where they have LP and then putting them up on the regular market for a profit. Depending on how hard it is for you to get these skills any other way, you may find that buying them from players selling them on the regular market is your simplest option.
If you are a member of E-Uni the university can reimburse the cost of any skill which is NPC-seeded and costs less than 1 million ISK -- see the reimbursement page for more details.
Training and Injecting Skills
If you have the required prerequisites you can train a skill by dragging and dropping it into the training queue, or by right-clicking on it in your Skills list, or in your hangar/cargo if you don't know the skill already, and selecting 'train now to level X'.
Right-clicking on a skill in your hangar or cargohold, if you don't know the skill already, also gives you an 'inject skill' option. Injecting a skill shunts the skill from the skillbook into the Skills list on your Character Sheet, but doesn't actually start it training -- effectively it stores the skill at 'level 0'. You can only inject a skill if you already have the prerequisites to train it.
Injecting is useful if you've bought a skill which you have the prerequisites to train, but don't actually want to start training it right away: once it's injected, you don't need to worry about keeping the skillbook with you, and there's no risk that you'll lose the skillbook if you fly into dangerous space and lose your ship.
Training Time
So, how is the time it takes you to train a particular skill calculated? The number of skill points necessary to train a skill is determined by the skill's rank, also known as its training time multiplier, while the rate at which you get new skill points is determined by your attributes.
Training Time Multipliers
The base numbers of skill points required to train a skill with a training time multiplier of 1x (like Navigation, for example) go like this:
- Level I: 250
- Level II: 1,414
- Level III: 8,000
- Level IV: 45,255
- Level V: 256,000
When training from one level to the next you start with the skill points you accumulated training the previous level -- so, for example, if you start training Navigation IV, you will already have 8,000 SP in the skill and will need to train 37,255 more SP to move from III to IV.
If a skill has a training multiplier higher than 1, the numbers of SP required for each level are multiplied by that number. So, for example, Evasive Maneuvering has a training time multiplier of 2x, and you need to accumulate 500 SP to train it to I, 2,828 SP to train it to II and so forth.
The better the benefits of a skill or the equipment it lets you use, the higher its training time multiplier, or 'rank' as it's sometimes called, tends to be. Amarr Titan, for example, has a x16 training multiplier -- you need to accumulate 4,096,000 SP to train it to V.
Attributes
Every skill has a primary and a secondary attribute: Navigation, for example, lists Intelligence as its primary attribute and Perception as its secondary attribute. When you start training a skill, you can calculate the time needed in minutes thus:
( SP_Needed - Current_SP ) / ( Pri_Attrib + ( Sec_Attrib / 2 ) )
It's not necessary to know the mathematics involved here, but the important thing to note is that your score for a skill's primary attribute will affect its training time twice as much as your score for its secondary attribute. You can find your attribute scores on your character sheet in the Attributes section, though the figures there are rounded to the nearest whole number (EveMon can give you decimal points, if you really want them).
Each attribute is associated with skills for particular spheres of activity. Generally the groups of skills are associated with particular attributes as follows:
| Group | Attributes (Primary, Secondary) |
|---|---|
| Corp Management | Memory, Charisma |
| Drones | Memory, Perception |
| Electronics | Intelligence, Memory |
| Engineering | Intelligence, Memory |
| Gunnery | Perception, Willpower |
| Industry | Memory, Intelligence |
| Leadership | Willpower, Charisma/Charisma, Willpower |
| Learning | Memory, Intelligence |
| Mechanic | Intelligence, Memory |
| Missiles | Perception, Willpower |
| Navigation | Intelligence, Perception |
| Science | All except Perception |
| Social | Charisma, Intelligence |
| Spaceship Command | Perception, Willpower/Willpower, Perception |
| Subsystems | Intelligence, Memory |
| Trade | Willpower, Charisma/Charisma, Memory |
As a rough summary:
- Perception and Willpower are very important for combat pilots, since they help you train skills which let you use better ships and weapons, and use your ships and weapons better.
- Memory and Intelligence are very important for industrialists, and still quite important for combat pilots (they're useful for drone skills, fitting skills and tanking skills).
- Charisma is important for traders and mission-runners, and anyone who's training the Leadership skills.
It should be obvious that raising your attribute scores, particularly for skill groups you intend to spend lots of time training, is a very good idea. Ways to do this are discussed in part 2, Training Strategies, below.
Your Medical Clone
When you die -- which is to say, when you are 'podded', when your capsule is destroyed -- you wake up in your medical clone. Everyone has a medical clone, and you can open up a menu that lets you control your medical clone using the medical bay button in any station which has a medical bay.
N.B. Do not confuse medical clones with jump clones! Although they have similar names they perform different functions.
Medical clones come in different 'grades', and each grade preserves a different number of skill points. If you are podded and you have more SP than your medical clone can preserve -- say you have two million SP and you still only have the basic medical clone which stores 900,000 SP -- you will lose skill points.
You should therefore regularly check that your medical clone preserves more SP than you have, and upgrade it if necessary.
When you die and wake up in your medical clone, you are automatically given a new backup medical clone to replace the one you are now in. The new medical clone is, however, only the basic one, so the first thing you should do after being podded is upgrade your medical clone.
Training Strategies
Boosting Your Attributes
You can increase your attributes, and thus speed up your training, by training the learning skills and by using certain implants; you can also juggle points between different attributes using neural remaps.
Learning Skills
All the skills in the Learning category actually increase your attributes when you train them. Training these skills therefore increases the rate at which you train other skills.
Every attribute has two associated skills, one basic and one advanced. The basic skill is cheap and has a x1 multiplier, while the advanced skill is expensive (for a new character) and has a x3 training multiplier. Both skills give you +1 to that attribute per level.
So, for example, each level you train in Analytical Mind increases your Intelligence score by 1. Level IV in Analytical Mind is the prerequisite for the advanced Logic skill, which also gives you +1 Intelligence per level.
Finally, the skill which is itself called Learning gives you a 2% bonus to all your attributes per level.
Pay Back Time
Training the learning skills will make you learn other skills faster, and everyone should train them. However, training the learning skills also takes time itself. You must therefore consider how long it will take a particular level of a learning skill to 'pay back' the time spent training it by saving time from other skills.
Taking the basic learning skills and Learning to IV and the advanced skills to III pays back quite quickly; taking the basics and Learning to V and the advanced skills to IV should pay back in a year or two; taking the advanced skills to V will take several years to pay back. Pilots therefore commonly train either '4/4' (everything to IV) or '5/4' (basics and Learning to V, advanced to IV) arrangements.
Remember that a learning skill is only paying back when you're training a skill that uses the relevant attribute -- so, for example, combat characters frequently neglect the Charisma learning skills since they train so few skills which rely on Charisma.
If you make a long-term skill plan in Evemon it will suggest a level of learning skill training which will pay back within the plan's timeframe.
Efficiency vs. Fun
Since the learning skills themselves depend on the Memory (primary) and Intelligence (secondary) attributes, the most efficient way to train them is by training the Memory-related and Intelligence-related learning skills, and Learning, first, thus cutting the time required to train the other learning skills.
It is also most efficient to train the learning skills as early as possible -- ideally, before anything else. Remember, however, that Eve Online is a game which is meant to be fun: if you don't feel like spending your first few days and weeks of play training learning skills and doing nothing else, then train to use more interesting ships and equipment instead. The minor loss of training time is a much smaller problem than running the risk of boring yourself away from the game.
If you're training up a new alt character and you already have a main character to have fun with, you should of course go straight for the learning skills first. Though if the alt has a limited training plan (if, for example, you will train the alt to fly covops ships as a scout/courier for you, and then stop training it) you may not need to train all the learning skills very high at all.
Implants
The other way to increase your Attribute scores is through plugging implants into your head. The first five numbered slots on your character sheet's Augmentations window are for attribute enhancers, implants which each give a bonus (from +1 to +5) to one of your five attributes.
The +1/2/3 implants are relatively cheap and you only need to train Cybernetics I to use them, so it's worth investing in these as soon as you can. Storyline missions sometimes offer an implant as a reward so if you're running missions you may find yourself collecting some implants.
If you're podded any implants you are wearing will be destroyed -- you can set up a jump clone with cheaper implants, or no implants at all, and jump into it when you want to PvP to lower the amount of ISK you're putting at risk.
Since the more powerful +4 and +5 implants can be quite expensive especially for a newer pilot, one common trick is to arrange your skill plan so that you're only training skills which rely on the same two attributes, and then only plug in attribute enhancers for those two attributes. This way you only have to pay for two rather than four or five.
This is similar to -- and can work together with -- planning to train skills which only use a few attributes and then remapping to boost those attributes (see below).
Remaps
Neural remapping doesn't let you boost your attributes overall, but it lets you take points away from one base attribute score and add them to another. The remap interface can be accessed through the Attributes tab of your Character Sheet.
Remapping can have long-term consequences. Make sure you know what you're doing!
There are a number of rules governing remapping:
- Normally (but see below) you have to wait a year after a remap before remapping again.
- However, new characters get two 'free' neural remaps which you can use whenever you like.
- Once you use the second free remap, you must wait a year as normal.
- An attribute's base score may not be raised above 15 or lowered below 4.
- Any points taken off one attribute must be added to another -- they cannot be 'left over' when you finish remapping.
The common strategy for remapping is to put together a long-term skill plan which majors on skills which use a particular two attributes, and then remap so that you denude all your other attribute scores and pump up those two attributes.
If you create a long skill plan in EveMon, you can use one of the options of its 'Optimize Attributes' function to calculate which arrangement of attributes would be best for the first year of your plan.
One efficient way to use the two free remaps on a new character might be to remap so as to burn through the learning skills as fast as possible, and then remap again to optimize your attributes for the first year of your long-term plan.
However, if you're new to the game your future career plans are quite likely to change so doing this on your first and main character may lock you into an attribute profile which you don't really want. It's probably better to keep this strategy for alts, which you will be training for a specific purpose from day one.
How Many Levels?
As you train higher and higher levels in a skill, you get less benefit for the time invested.
Surgical Strike, for example, gives you a 3% bonus to all turret damage per level -- very useful for anyone who uses turrets as their primary weapon system -- and has a 4x training time multiplier. You can get your first 3% bonus in a trivially short amount of time: even with basic attribute scores, training Surgical Strike to Level I takes 40 minutes or so. However, with the same basic attribute scores training Surgical Strike from Level IV to V would take nearly 25 days -- and you would still only get 3% more turret damage for your trouble!
For a new character, it is therefore often most efficient to train a useful skill which has a high training multiplier to III or IV and then move on rather than taking it to V straight away. As a rule of thumb, if you use a skill at all it's probably worth training it to III, and if you use a skill regularly it's worth training it to IV.
When your character is older you may well reach a point where you have fewer things you want or need to train -- at this point, it may be worth revisiting some skills you left at IV and taking them to V.
There are, however, some skills which it's worth training to V quite early on in your capsuleer career. For combat pilots Navigation, which we used as an example previously on this page, is one such because:
- it has a low training time multiplier (1x)
- it affects a very fundamental aspect of the performance of all of your ships (speed)
- with a substantial bonus (5%)
There are a number of other skills with a similar combination of quick training times and significant, widespread bonuses which are well worth training to V quite early.
Another class of skill which you may find yourself training to V are the so-called 'blackmail' skills which are prerequisites for particularly desirable equipment. On the way to training to fly the Wolf, for example, you would need to train Minmatar Frigate V, Mechanic V and Engineering V. Similarly, on the way to deploying T2 Hammerhead drones you would need to train Scout Drone Operation V and Drones V.
Some skills are worth training to V because of a combination of several of the above reasons. Drones V for example lets you use a full flight of five drones, which is useful on any ship with a drone bay of 25m3 or more -- and it's a prerequisite for the excellent T2 drones.
Making Skill Plans
[Don't lose heart, postpone fun or feel you have to 'catch up' with older players -- explain reasons why]
Appropriate Remapping
(Remapping appropriately, importance of a year)
Specialization
(Focusing your training on particular roles/ships/fits/occupations)
(Example long-term goals)
Ways to Plan
Here are three ways to organise your skill training around a particular focus or goal. These are certainly not the only ways to plan skill training -- they're offered here only as examples.
- Training in short spurts designed to get the prerequisites to use a particular ship or module. These spurts are unlikely to ever be much more than a few weeks or a month long.
- This method gives you the regular gratification of being able to use shinier stuff, but is probably an inefficient way to use your attributes and may miss important support skills that would make your ships and modules much more powerful.
- Training in several-month-long stints designed to allow you to fly a particular ship or class of ships at peak or near peak performance, with all the relevant skills at IV or V. Several such stints can be combined to make a skill plan that lasts a year or more.
- This method will make you a more reliable pilot, but requires more patience and dedication, and research to find out which support skills you need.
- Training in blocks each lasting a year or more, organised around the year-long time limit on neural remaps, and designed to eventually create a highly-skilled character.
- So you might remap to boost Intelligence and Memory, then only train skills that rely on those two attributes for a year or more, before remapping to Perception and Willpower and focusing on skills that require those two attributes for another year.
- This method uses your attributes very efficiently, resulting in an overall shorter training time. But it's also very boring since your character will probably be quite useless, with big holes in their skillsheet, for a year or more.
The first method is good for new players since it offers the interest of regularly being able to use new equipment. Avoiding long-term planning when you're new can actually be a good thing, since you may change your mind about your long-term career goals in Eve. Deciding that actually you want to be a small ship, Gallente-flying manufacturer and explorer just after you've remapped for a two-year long Amarr-focused battleship fleet PvP skillplan is very inconvenient!
The second and third methods are more useful for older players who have a clear and fixed idea of what they want to do. The third method in particular is very boring, and is best suited to alts which are being skilled for a specific purpose (such as piloting supercapital ships) or to older characters who already have a good grounding in support skills and skills that let you do entertaining things while you chew through a list of month-long level V trains.
See Also
- The general skills page for information on particular skills
- The support skills page for a discussion of particular skillsets
