Getting Started in EVE Online
Welcome to Eve Online!
This guide is intended to help you get started with your first few days in New Eden.
Character Creation
Before you begin, the first thing you should do properly is decide a race you'd like your character to be. Keep in mind that all races can pilot other faction's ships if they train the required skills. Your starting faction will determine your appearance, starting location, and the initial racial frigate and gunnery skills.
All races have ships that can fill different roles with differing levels of effectiveness. But in the end, without going into overly elaborate discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of racial ships in various hull sizes, the thing that matters the most is picking a race who's ships you think look cool. You can worry about the details later, and cross-train if there are any particular role or ship you want to fly.
Name and Portrait
Try to pick a decent name for youself. In Eve Online, many corporations make use of voice communication during fleet operations, and will make their voice server available for casual chatter also. In large fleets, you will sometimes need to identify yourself while issuing orders or reporting target activity. Having a name that is simple and easily pronouncable will make things easier for everyone.
Many races have portraits that are hideous and others are quite pleasing to the eye. Wether you go for a scary or an alluring portrait, do spend some time crafting it. If you are displeased with it later on, you will need to spend real money if you wish to change it.
The Tutorial and Career Agents
These agents will be available in the station in your starter system. You can also find career agents in the NeoCom (the interface on the left of the screen) in the Help section (also accessible by pressing the F12 key), and then clicking the 'Show Career Agents' button. Tutorial and Career Agents in Eve
The tutorials will give various skill books, ships, and modules as rewards to help you get started.
Your first step should be to talk to the basic tutorial agent which will give you two missions before referring you to the career agents.
Once you've done those two missions, we recommend you do the career agents in the following order:
Military Agent
Skillbooks: Motion Prediction, Weapon Upgrades, Shield Management, Propulsion Jamming, Sharpshooter.
Industry Agent
To complete the Industry series, the Industry skill will need to be purchased. It is possible to overlap these agents, for example, when you're waiting for a manufacturing job to build.
Business Agent
Skillbooks: Survey, Salvaging, Hacking, Contracting, Negotiation, Trade, Retail, Cybernetics, Production Efficiency.
Exploration Agent
Some players have difficulty with the probing system. You can watch the CCP probing video on Youtube for a demonstration of the probing mechanics.
The UniWiki also has a probing guide available: Smurfprime's Probing Guide
Skillbooks: Astrometrics, Survey, Astrometric Pinpointing.
Advanced Military Agent
Read the mission descriptions carefully when doing the Advanced Military path. Two of the missions require losing your ship, so make sure you use the ship supplied by the agent and get platinum insurance for it. The article Advanced Military Career Funnel Chain describes this chain in further detail.
The Advanced Military Agent will give a Letter of Recommendation that can be used to enter the NPC Factional Warfare corporation. Factional Warfare Guide
Skillbooks: Propulsion Jamming, Remote Armor Repair Systems (Amarr and Gallente) or Shield Emission Systems (Minmatar and Caldari), Small Energy Turret (Amarr), Drones (Gallente), Small Projectile Turret (Minmatar), Destroyers.
Rewards
Once the Career Agents are completed, the character will have acquired around 26 skillbooks (some of them duplicates), about 10 ships and close to 4,000,000 ISK.
A new player that takes time with the tutorials and career agents will learn and experience much of the basics of almost everything EVE has to offer, aside from PvP.
The Sisters of Eve Epic Arc
The career agents will recommend starting the Epic Arc mission series with Sister Alitura in the Arnon system at the Sisters of Eve station. We recommend doing all of the career agent tutorials before heading off to the Epic Arc.
Some of these missions are difficult for rookie pilots. Many new players will lose ships while learning effective tactics to defeat NPC opponents. We recommend you fly cheaply fitted ships and insure with platinum insurance.
The final bosses in the Epic Arc, Kristan Parthus and Dagan, can be very challenging for rookie pilots. Many pilots will get help by asking in local, although you risk having your mission objective stolen and ransommed by fleeting with strangers.
Missioning
The Evelopidia has a Missions Guide which can help you decide which corp and deptartment you want to run missions for.
We recommend declining empire faction kill missions to avoid losing access to empire space. Having -5 or below standings with an empire faction can cause problems during war fleets, lowsec patrols, wormhole ops, and many other circumstances. When you have -2 or below standing with a faction, only the Level 1 Quality 0 agents and below will be available to grind standings, which could be a lengthy process.
You can check mission information before accepting or declining on Eve Survival.
There is a database of agents available on the Eve Agents website. Some of the entries are outdated and you should always check in-game to confirm the existence and location of the agent. You can also use the map to see systems where you have agents available to you. Open the map (F10), go to the Star Map tab, go to the Stars sub-tab, go to the My Information section, select My Available Agents. Flattening the map can make it easier to navigate. Hovering your cursor over these star systems will list the available agents along with their respective corporation, level, quality, and division.
Basic Skill Recommendations
These are basic skill recommendations. None of these skills have prerequisites above level III, and are thus easily accessible to new players. They will provide a solid foundation upon which to develop more advanced skills.
The skills have been grouped to help players find skills relevant to their interests. The Learning and General Skills categories are recommended for all pilots.
Armor Tanking
- Hull Upgrades
- Mechanic
- Repair Systems
Drones
- Combat Drone Operation
- Drones
- Scout Drone Operation
Electronic Warfare
- Electronics Upgrade
- Electronic Warfare (Caldari)
- Frequency Modulation
- Long Distance Jamming
- Sensor Linking (Gallente)
- Target Painting (Minmatar)
- Weapon Disruption (Amarr)
Exploration
- Archaeology
- Astrometrics
- Astrometric Pinpointing
- Electronics Upgrade
- Hacking
- Salvaging
- Survey
General Skills
- Acceleration Control
- Afterburner
- Electronics
- Energy Management
- Energy Grid Upgrades
- Energy Systems Operation
- Engineering
- Evasive Maneuvering
- Fuel Conservation
- High Speed Maneuvering
- Long Range Targeting
- Navigation
- Targeting
- Warp Drive Operation
Gunnery
- Controlled Bursts (unnecessary for projectile weapons)
- Gunnery
- Motion Prediction
- Small Energy Turret (Amarr)
- Small Hybrid Turret (Caldari and Gallente)
- Small Projectile Turret (Minmatar)
- Rapid Firing
- Sharpshooter
- Weapon Upgrades (also applies to missile launchers)
Learning & Implants
- Analytical Mind
- Cybernetics
- Empathy
- Instant Recall
- Iron Will
- Learning
- Spatial Awareness
Mining
- Mining
- Mining Upgrades
- Refining
Missiles
- Missile Bombardment
- Missile Launcher Operation
- Missile Projection
- Rapid Launch
- Standard Missiles
- Rockets
- Target Navigation Prediction
Missioning
- Connections
- Social
- Salvaging
- Science
- Survey
Production
- Industry
- Mass Production
- Production Efficiency
- Refining
Shield Tanking
- Shield Management
- Shield Operation
- Shield Upgrades
- Tactical Shield Manipulation
Ship Command
- Amarr Frigate
- Amarr Industrial
- Caldari Frigate
- Caldari Industrial
- Destroyers
- Gallente Frigate
- Gallente Industrial
- Minmatar Frigate
- Minmatar Industrial
Tackling
- Propulsion Jamming
- Signature Analysis
Trading
- Broker Relations
- Contracting
- Marketing
- Procurement
- Retail
- Trade
Finding A Corporation
You can find recruitment adverts through the NeoCom Corp interface, under the Recruitment tab.
The Official Eve Online Alliance and Corporation Recruitment Center.
Eve University's Work Fair forum.
If you are looking for a corp to learn the basics of the game, Eve University might be the place for you. Feel free to join us in our public channel "E-UNI". The channel is there to recruit players into the corp, and to answer any questions rookie pilots may have.
Read the Applying to Eve University article for more information.
