Corporations
A corporation, generally shortened to 'corp' (pronounced korp) in EVE is the equivalent of a guild in most other MMOs, but with a great deal more flexibility. NPC Corporations are functionally identical, but no members have any roles or titles.
Forming a Corporation
Anyone other than the current CEO of a corporation can create a new corp (a CEO must resign first), with a little ISK and some basic Corporation Management skills. As the member of another corp you must not currently have or have had any roles within the last 24 hours, as forming the new corporation will mean you leave your current corp.
As of Jan 2011, the cost to form a corporation is TODO.
Skills & Member Limits
There are currently (as of Jan 2011) a total of 4 skills related to increasing the number of members in your corp, and one which allows the corporation to hold members of different Races. Note that the CEO does not count as a member, so with Corporation Management (Skill) trained to Level 4, the corporation can hold a total of 41 characters.
Corporation Management
Each level of this skill allows another 10 members in the corporation, and is required to form a corporation, however (as of Jan 2011) only needs to be trained to level 0 to form the corporation. With this trained to Level 5, a corporation can hold a maximum of 51 characters.
It is important to note that the below skills only take effect when the current CEO opens the corp management interface and uses the "Update With My Skills" button (NeoCom Corporation>Home>Details>Edit Details). This means that a third party can be used for form the corporation, then resign and appoint another member as the CEO, bypassing the need for the skills to be trained.
Megacorp Management
Requires Corporation Management trained to Level 5. Adds a further 50 characters to the maximum membership, and stacks with Corporation Management for a maximum of 301 members at Level 5.
Empire Control
Requires Megacorp Management trained to Level 5. Adds a further 200 characters to the maximum membership, and stacks with previous skills for a maximum of 1301 members at Level 5.
Soverignty
Requires Empire Control trained to Level 5. Adds a further 1,000 characters to the maximum membership, and stacks with previous skills for a maximum of 6301 members at Level 5. Training this skill is only suggested for the largest of corporations, as it is suggested that you should create procedures to identify and remove inactive members.
Ethnic Relations
This is a very important skill, as by default a corporation can only hold members of the same race as the CEO. Each level of this skill allows 20% of the corp members to be a different race, up to 100% at Level 5. This however does not increase the total membership of the corporation.
Note that this statistic is not shown on the 'Edit Corporation Details' window, however a member cannot be accepted into the corporation if the relevant skill is not present. Requires Corporation Management trained to Level 2 and Social to Level 3.
Corporation Details Window
TODO
Adding Members
Players cannot be 'invited' to a corporation, and they must apply themselves. For full information on this, please see the Recruitment section of this guide.
Resigning as CEO
Unlike other members of a corporation, they cannot drop their roles and titles or leave while the CEO. The only exception to this is when they are the only member of the corporation, in which case they can leave (but not form another corporation).
To resign, a CEO must right click themselves (either in a chat window or the corp member list) and select the "Resign as CEO" option.
Appointing a new CEO
If there are other members in the corporation, then they will be presented with a list of all members. Once selected, a corp notification will be sent out to all members, stating that the old CEO has resigned, and as their final action they named the new CEO as their successor.
At this point, the old CEO will be on the normal 24 hour role cooldown timer, and can leave the corporation after this expires.
Closing a Corporation
To close a corporation, all members must either leave or be removed, at which point the CEO should resign, which will return them to an NPC Corp.