Tips and Tricks

This page lists miscellaneous tips and tricks discovered by unistas which don't merit a more in-depth write-up.

To see the origin of some of these contributions please visit the Contributions Page or the original forum thread.

Traveling

• When traveling lowsec frequently, especially in a hauler, keep warp core stabilizers in your cargo to refit if needed. Remember this wont help you escape Heavy Interdictor ships which are often used for gatecamps.
• When traveling through hostile territory ALWAYS keep local chat separated from the other chat windows. This allows you to see pirates and wartargets appear more obviously, giving you vital seconds to make decisions.
• Be wary of your security status. If it falls below certain levels then Faction Police may shoot you if you enter a high enough security system. E.g. Sec status -2.0 or below means you will be shot in systems with sec status 1.0-0.9. Sec status of -5 or lower means you are kill on sight to everyone. Train diplomacy to remedy this a little.

Autopilot

• Don't autopilot in low-sec or 0.0, or even in highsec if you are carrying something valuable -- nothing attracts pirates and suicide gankers faster than a ship that shows up 15k from a gate and heads for the gate at normal speed.
• The autopilot isn't useless, though: with a route set for the autopilot, warping to zero and activating the autopilot while still in warp will make your ship instantly jump as soon as you arrive on the gate. Just deactivate the autopilot as soon as the jump is initiated to prevent it from warping to 15km on the next gate. This is allowed in wartime as well.
• If you set the route to a system, the next stargate on the route will show up in yellow, so you can find it easily. (If you take a different gate, the autopilot will re-route automatically.)
• If you autopilot in a heavy ship, the time spent approaching gates from the 15km warp-in point can begin to dominate your travel times. Try fitting Overdrives to reduce this time. Alternatively, fitting Inertia Stabilizers will give your ship less of a speed boost, but will improve align times on the other side of the gate.

Bookmarks

• Leave a cheap item at stations you visit frequently. This will turn your assets tab (available on the left of the screen) into a handy collection of bookmarks.
• Make safespots and bookmarks everywhere you regularly go, especially in lowsec and nullsec. Tired of the masses of bookmarks cluttering your people&places window? Make separate folders for them. Right click this folder heading to get a window just with your bookmarks for ultra quick navigation.
• Insta-undock bookmarks are perfect for getting large ships, or ships carrying very high value items, out of the Jita 4-4 station without getting bumped all over the place (or scanned).
• If you use a bookmark a lot, and want it near the top of the folder, edit its name and put “ #” in front of it (“space” then “hash”), this will then push it to the top of all the other bookmarks
• An easy way to create safespot bookmarks is to run some encounter missions in the system you need bookmarks in. If missioning complex is at least 14AU (directional scanner range) away from all gates, bookmark it.

Cloaking

• When you come through a jump gate, you're cloaked for 60 seconds, or until you move. If you jump into trouble, pause a few seconds to analyze your situation, let the panic subside, and decide what to do.
• If you have a cloaking device and you're in unfriendly territory you can minimize visibility by doing the following: 1. Jump through gate and pick destination to warp to. 2. Align to destination then immediately hit your cloak. Once aligned then warp off. (Some techniques use a burst of AB or MWD as well.)

Salvaging

• Destroyer class ships make great salvaging ships. Many are able to fit 4 salvagers and 4 tractor beams. Good cargo space as well. Now that small rigs are affordable, make use of them!
• If the wrecks are in large clumps many kilometers apart, clear one clump and bookmark the next set of wrecks, then warp away and warp back to the bookmark you just made -- saving you from having to slowboat all the way.

This works really well if the mission had multiple rooms since the warp point you can use is close by.

• Despite detailing in their description that they are for pulling in cargo containers, tractor beams CAN pull in wrecks also. Indeed, pulling in wrecks is the reason you want them. The description is left over from a previous release of Eve.
• Remember you can also bookmark mission locations, allowing you to hand in the mission and return to the wrecks, especially if your running low on time for bonus reward. This means you'll also be able to use a microwarpdrive - which may save time. If you're salvaging a level 4 when stuff is very far apart i.e. over 30-40+km then mwd is a good idea. For anything less, you might find yourself overshooting your targets, as the mwd cycle has to complete. Make sure you bookmark every room in the mission if you want to do it this way, as warpgates vanish when you hand in the mission.
• While you are salvaging with some tractor beams, you can drag the wrecks behind you and salvage them at the same time while you travel towards another wreck that's outside tractor beam range. This saves time.
• Use your tactical overview (one of the buttons on the left side of the HUD) to plot an efficient course through the wreck field rather than just moving to the closest wreck.
• If you are in a large wreck field you can jettison a can (right-click on an object in your cargo hold and jettison) and use a tractor beam to haul it behind you. You can dump the loot into the can as you go. When done, bookmark the can's location and come back in a hauler to get it all.

Hauling

• You can fit an improved cloaking device to your hauler for some added security during wormhole ops. Ask the miners to drop the can some distance from the asteroid belt, and stay between 2000 and 2500 m from the can in the direction that you want to warp to. If trouble arises and you don't think you have time to align and warp out (or you're bubbled), you can instantly activate the cloak and head away from the belt in an open direction. The loot you save may even pay for all those dead Retrievers!

• Use EVE-Central.com to haul more profitably.

• Beware of pirates!

Exploration/WormHoles

• Learn how to use probes quickly with the help of this video.

Market

• Don't rush.
• Use the scroll wheel on the mouse to adjust orders by 0.01 ISK.
• Try to avoid updating your buy/sell orders at the same time each day. This keeps your competitors guessing.
• If possible, leave your trade character logged on at all times. That way, if you are added to your competitor's address book, they'll never know when you log on and off.
• When buying from contracts read what you are actually paying for. Don't be the fool that loses all his money because he didn't read the contract's contents and the number of zeros in the price.
• When buying set market to Region (top left corner), and go to the settings tab and tick the box to avoid low-sec and/or 0.0 systems if this helps.
• Setting up buy orders for items you don't need right away will save lots of ISK over time.
• Remember, you don't need to sell straight away. If you set up a sell order for a 1000 items of x, and someone decides to sell the item at a stupidly low price, don't jump in and change your order to beat him. It might not sell this week, but it will eventually, and you will make much more isk.
• When setting the range on your buy orders, check to see how far away the nearest lowsec system is. If you don't want to go to lowsec to pick stuff up, set the buy range accordingly.
• A day of very high volume or a trade at a very high price can cause the market graph's axes to adjust, making it difficult to read. Use the "Show Table" button below the graph to display the same data in table format.
• The relationship of the median price (yellow dots on the graph) to the day's high and low prices gives you a clue about the flow of the trades, whether the action is mainly selling (median is close to day's high) or buying (median close to day's low), assuming there is no overlap between the high buy order and the low sell order. In particular, for items that are dropped as mission loot but are not very useful (i.e. energy vampires) there will only be action on the your buy side (that is, you will only be able to buy them, not sell). If you want to buy these (and don't plan on trucking them extra-regionally), make sure you only pay up to the salvage value.
• Playing the .01 ISK game benefits people who like to play it. You don't have to play if you don't want to. Feel free to drastically slash sell orders or raise buy orders.
• Consider using a particular number of "isk cents" on the end of your order prices to make your orders easier to locate on the list.
• Be very, very careful typing your prices! Don't skip that decimal point!
• Shift + sell item/buy item opens the advanced sell/buy menu

Mining

• When you first warp to an asteroid belt you may be up to 70-80 kilometers away from the rocks. Bookmark an asteroid, then warp out and back to the bookmark to save time getting to mining range.
• If you have a really long belt, you may save time by warping between two sets of asteroids >150km from each other when changing rocks, rather than slowboating to the next asteroid.
• Crawling to a new spot in a belt is slow. It's faster to warp to a different belt. Save time later by bookmarking 2 or 3 places in each belt and building up a bookmark list for all the belts in the system.
• Use MLU's - Mining Laser Upgrades instead of cargo expanders especially when group mining.
• Have your mining drones go to the nearest rock you want to mine. Get as close to it as possible as they have to include travelling time there and back and are a lot slower than other drones.
• Don't mine someone else's rock, not only is it rude if you don't know them but if you are in a group it is terribly inefficient as when the roid is close to popping whoever's lasers finish first will pop the roid and get all the ore. Anyone else mining the same roid will get nothing, wasting up to 3 minutes. Use "Look at" before you lock on. Also this applies to solo mining, mine different roids with each laser.

Missioning

• Drone users: Make sure you have all the NPCs in a given group locking/attacking you before you launch your drones. Refer to EVE-Survival for info on spawn triggers and the possibility of drones attracting the attention of other NPC groups.
• Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Look at the mission before accepting it: note the rat type (telling you what ammo to use and resists to fit).
• Usually, it's best to concentrate all your fire on one target rather than spreading it out, as this eliminates incoming DPS quickest.
• To get aggro from an npc you don't have to actually hit it. Lock the npc and fire a shot. It might take some time for it to respond to your aggresion but the npc will come to you. This is why some droneboat mission fits use a single civilian gun to draw aggro.
• Train up salvaging as soon as possible -- salvage can double your mission profit, and a team running high-level missions with a dedicated salvager can be much more profitable and safe than a solo missioner.
• Remember courier missions: you can work up your standing just fine without shooting anything!
• Destroy small ships at range first, they can generally dish out damage but can't take it. NPC battlecruisers and destroyers in particular deal large amounts of damage for their size and can't take very much. Battleships, however, absorb a lot of damage, and deal damage that can be avoided more easily with speed.
• If your tank is being broken in a mission, especially if you're using undersized ships for the mission, move. Even if your battlecruiser doesn't move fast, moving makes it that much harder for the 10 battleships orbiting to hit you, and can sometimes pull your tank back up.

Safety

• Never, ever fall asleep when doing a mission (a "quick mission" before bed after a heavy night boozing is a bad idea). You will lose your faction fitted CNR etc.
• Check the location of the encounter and right click it and set destination. Bring up the map and you can see what kind of space you will be traveling through.
• If the situation looks bad, align to warp out if it gets worse.

Ships and Fitting

• Fly a ship size appropriate for the mission. Lvl 1 - frigates, Lvl 2 - cruisers, lvl 3 - battlecruisers, lvl 4 - battleships.
• If you have the choice between light drones and medium drones and can't take both, always go for light drones. They can eliminate Warp scrambling frigates and webbing frigates much faster, which is critical if you need to do an emergency warp out to save your expensive battleship.
• Buy a hull repairer when you move up from frigates. Keep it in your cargo bay and if you hit structure during a mission warp out, dock locally, fit it, undock and use it to repair your ship, saving you station repair bills. Remember to swap it back out before going back to the mission!
• Long range weapons are generally better for encounter missions than their short range counter-parts. Why? Because they give you the ability to eliminate lots of enemies before they get into their range, thus maintaining your tank more easily.

Fleets

• If you mission in a fleet with somebody else, you'll get standings increases with that corporation. This can save you some grinding, as a couple of shared L3 or L4 missions will give the same increase as many more L1 or L2 missions. Many Uni missioners will be happy to have you come in with a salvage destroyer and do the salvaging on a shared basis, if you're not up to taking on L4 combat yet.
• Similarly, the E-Uni missioning channel runs spider fleets -- you join and run missions solo, but share the profits and standings with other Uni mission-runners. That can get you standings with corporations you couldn't access otherwise.

Saving Time

• Consider keeping a short summary of the missions your agent regularly gives you in your notepad. Important info : damage types/resists/webs/scrams/difficulty etc. Once you have them all, this can save a lot of time alt-tabbing if you're a fullscreen user.
• After training Social to 3 and Connections to 3 you can almost instantly access L2 agents without the need to grind lots of L1 missions.
• On courier missions, always check twice before undocking to make sure you have transferred the courier items from your hangar to your hold.
• Always check you have accepted the mission before undocking.

Combat Techniques

• During encounter missions, take advantage of the fact you can centre your view over the enemy and look from behind them. double clicking in the direction they are travelling in is now easy as your view is locked on the enemy. Repeatedly clicking in the direction he is travelling will constantly change your direction to match his, minimising the angular velocity and increasing your chances of good hits. (Works best with large/medium guns against large/medium rats)
• If you are having problems with a large ship demolishing you or staying far away from you, try getting a light drone speed tank it and go to town.
• When buying ammo make sure you look at its attributes to check its range bonuses and damage type(s), until you learn which ammo does what.
• learn to use your size and speed to your advantage. Orbiting a target fast and close will mitigate a lot of damage and allow you to beat ships much larger than you.
• Learn manual piloting. Double click in space to fly. The orbit command AI is very exploitable and by piloting manualy you can close on or get away from a faster ship which is using the AI.

Interceptors:

• Fly tech 1 frigates for a few months before you step into an interceptor hull. Once you fly a tech 1 frigate well, you should be able to fly an interceptor well.
• There are two kinds of interceptor: tackling and dogfighting. Tackling 'ceptors should always be speed fit and should try to stay out of heavy neut range. They have bonuses to disruptor range. Dogfighting interceptors should focus on tank and damage output before tackle.
• Don't be afraid of warping off, and know what you can and can't handle. Call out your points and make sure your FC knows if you need to get out.
• If you are attacked by Warriors (the fast-moving Minmatar light drone), don't freak out. You can survive them for a while before you need to get out. Neuts and scrams, however, can ruin your day.
• Never ever directly approach anything. Always approach at an angle, otherwise you will die. You should be manually piloting a lot of the time anyway.

PVP/Low/NullSec

• Choose your fights carefully. In pvp space you are a shark or a fish. If you can't avoid the sharks, then you are food. Learn safespots, gate scouting and safe undocks.
• Rat in lowsec or nullsec. Not for money, but to learn how to not be shark food while still being being able to do something undocked. You can't hunt down prey until you aren't prey yourself.
• Do not trust people if they say "come here u can shoot at my ship to test your damage".
• Bookmark locations you use regularly - e.g at least 170km+ above (and/or below) gates you use/camp frequently, to allow you to warp up to it and back to the gate as you wish, yet remain on grid to see what’s happening. These are especially useful on 0.0 gates that lead to empire. These bottle neck systems are often camped and bubbled: if you arrive in system and there’s no obvious bubble on the gate but there are reds or neutrals in system, don’t warp directly to the next gate! Instead, warp to your bookmark 180km above it, this will stop you being ‘sucked’ into a warp bubble directly behind the gate and will allow you time to see if you should fight, run or just warp down to the gate and continue your journey. These bookmarks are also great for cloaky ships to sit at and give intel on general traffic or the enemy.
• “Insta-undock bookmarks” are great for haulers/BS's, use them. If in 0.0/lowsec try to not use the same insta-undock bookmark all the time – especially if the system is near a war front and has a few ‘reds’ in local, as one day someone might work out where you land, and will be waiting for you the next time you undock! Use a small fast ship to make these at a distance of at least 400km from the station - for safety they should not be on the same grid as the station you left from.
• During roams or when moving through unfamiliar hostile space, every now and then link your present location (drag the triangle that is next to the upper left system name) into your private player channel and hit return. After a while you'll have a perfect note of the reverse route home or to safety if things go pear-shaped, you'll also be able to guide your corp mates home if things get a little chaotic and the FC gets podded (lol).
• If you join a 0.0 or lowsec corporation that has capital fleets/pilots (most corps do these days), try to train a new character as a cyno pilot asap (not your main as you'll want it to be expendable). This will mean your cap-ship flying corp mates will love you, and this love goes a long long way. The grateful cap ship pilot will often ask you if want something moved with the cap ship (maybe a ship, a small can or whatever) and this can be very helpful, especially if you can't fly/own a cap ship yourself. After a while people will be asking you for cynos and offering to move stuff all over Eve for you. In my experience "being the cyno guy" means getting lots of offers of help in return, and everyone wins.
• A very basic cyno alt: (use a fresh character) The new 100% bonus to training speed is perfect for training an expendable cyno alt in double quick time! They need to be able to fly any race's frigates, as you never know what will be for sale in 0.0/lowsec, and this will require only racial frigate to level 3 for each race. Also you will have to be able to use and fit a Cynosural Field Generator, I recommend Cynosural field theory to L3 to allow 2 cynos worth of fuel in a frigate. FYI: 350 units of Liquid Ozone (LO) per cyno at L3, this equals 700 LO for 2 cynos, and 700 LO takes up 280m3 cargo space)
• For a much better cyno alt: (still use a fresh character) they can still be trained with minimum time with the new 100% bonus to training speed. You can get a Cyno using alt that can cloak and use a MWD I with cap recharger I, The cloak is invaluable if you are doing a mid point cyno in the middle of nowhere, you can just get in position and cloak up until needed. If you train this 'better' cyno alt AND train for a bit of extra agility/speed too, you have a very useful and expendable character that will be able (with a bit of practice) get almost anywhere you need a cyno-guy to be put! And as a bonus you will still be well under the 800,000 skill point limit for needing to purchase medical clones every time you get pod killed (it happens sometimes - you just have to get used to this). Overall the benefits of having a cyno character far outweigh the training time used up.

Modules/Rigs

• Different versions of standard laser crystals (Multifrequency, Gamma, X-Ray, Ultra, STD, etcetera) all have different capacitor modifiers. If you're barely capstable with Standard crystals, you won't be stable with Multifrequency.
• You have to unload your guns before you can group them. You can group in the fitting screen, or whilst in space.
• Thermodynamics is a skill worth getting if you intend on PVP. Rightclick show info on a module to find out the potential increase in performance if the module is overheated. e.g. you may be able to increase warp scram range by 5km and surprise your enemies. (See here for more on overheating.)
• Overheating modules causes heat damage to them. They can be repaired in a station with the standard repair bay, or with Nanite Repair Paste in space. Once completely burned they can only be repaired in a station.
• Modules installed next to a module you are overheating will also be damaged. Make sure to put overheatable modules next to not overheatable modules to mitigate heat damage.

Overview

• Set up your overview according to the Overview Guide.
• Hold the CTRL key and left click on an entry in your overview to target it.
• Holding CTRL will also freeze the overview so things don't change position. This is useful for making sure you click the right thing in busy situations.
• Double-clicking on something in your overview will tell your ship to approach it. This only works with things that are on-grid with you.
• Export your overview! Just do it now! Save in safe spot. Overviews are notoriously frustrating to reconfigure if you lose your settings.
• You can zoom like a telescope to any location on your screen, just hold down right click and look at the area you want to zoom into, then hold down both mouse buttons and move the mouse up and down to zoom. (Start at bottom of screen for maximum control. With practice, you can see targets over 100km away giving a lovely movie-action shot of your guns pounding the enemy.)
• Moving stacks of things around your hanger or ship's cargohold etc : SHIFT + drag will bring up a box allowing you type a number to split out.
• Hit ESC and check out the options window. There are lots of options you can fiddle with, for example an option that allows windows to be immovable if pinned.
• An especially handy option to give a visual representation of the session change timer is available under general settings in the ESC menu.

Drone Usage

• The commands "All Drones: Engage", "All Drones: Return & Orbit" and "All Drones: Return & Dock" can be assigned to hotkeys.
• In your drone window in the overview, don't forget to keep the tab under "Drones in Space" open, so you can moniter your drones' health and call them in in case they are attacked. This is especially important if you are using Tech 2 drones, as they are expensive to lose.
• Gallente drones for sheer damage output. Minmatar drones for speed and reasonable damage. Amarr and Caldari drones do not really got a role.
• Gallente drones (which do thermal damage) will even outdamage other drones vs NPCs with weaknesses to other damage types.
• Minmatar drones are a good option in pvp, since they are fast and can catch the enemy. Especially true for Warriors vs. interceptors and Valkyries vs. frigates in general.
• When fighting larger/slower NPCs you can use a fast drone to speed tank. Just send it in first before the enemy engages you and you're good to go! Be warned, if there are multiple enemies, the drone's transversal velocity may not be high to some of the ships it is not orbiting and it may die a fast death.
• Drone shields do not instantly regenerate when they dock to your ship.
• You cannot see your drones health whilst docked in your drone bay. Make a mental note about how long you should leave a drones shield to recharge if damaged.
• Recall your drones before warping. But if you forget to recall return to the original spot and they'll be sitting there. You can scoop them to your cargo bay if you get within 2500m. You cannot tractor beam drones.
• When getting jammed and losing lock try recalling your drones (if they are not engaging the ECM ship), set them to aggressive and relaunch: even if there are other ships around they'll attack the jammer if you're lucky.
• Drones will pursue a target to the limit of your drone control range, which is determined by your drones skills and any Drone Link Augmentors you have fitted on your ship. This is true even if your drone control range exceeds your ship's targeting range - if the target runs away you will lose lock but your drones will continue to attack.
• If the target being engaged by your drones moves out of your drone control range, those drones will begin idling and return to your ship via their sublight propulsion (that is, not using their MWD). This can take a long time unless you manually give them the "return and orbit" or "return to drone bay" commands, which cause them to engage their MWD while returning.
• It is possible with high Drone Navigation skill, Drone Navigation Computers fitted, and/or light drones, for your drones' MWD speed to be too fast to properly brake around your ship, making them unable to return to your bay when given "return to bay" orders. However "return and orbit" orders will cancel this endlessly looping behavior.
• Similarly, very fast drones when ordered to attack a fast target will often become confused and begin idling instead of attacking if they cannot form a stable orbit. Keep an eye on your drones' status in your drone window when fighting Interceptors - spamming your "engage target" button may become necessary to keep them all fighting.
• Your drones will obey orders to kill each other! Be careful with your commands when using remote repair drones alongside combat drones.
• If your Drones are within 2500m of you and being attacked by the enemy, scooping them to your drone bay is a faster way to get them off the field.

Naming Conventions

• Name ships so you know how they are fitted or what their role is. This can be handy if you have several of the same type sitting in a hanger. Use a convention that works for you but is not obvious to others -- don't call your ship 'Low Armor Heavy Gank PvP Ship'.
• Remember that if you keep operating in the same area without altering your ships' names every now and then your enemies will begin to recognise you on scan.

Fleet Movements

• Aligning: you must be moving in the direction ordered by your FC and moving at at least 75% of your top speed to be aligned properly.
• Offensive Gate Camp: all ships are within jump range on a gate, ready to jump in and assault the next system. Cruisers and ships smaller than cruisers should orbit the gate within jump range. Large ships sit still.
• Defensive Gate Camp: all ships are within their optimal shooting ranges on a gate. You are all ready to defend your current system from ships jumping in through that gate.

Words of Wisdom

• Never trust a random player in local chat to help you or salvage for you in a mission. Chances are he will try to get you killed. If you need help, ask in your corp.
• If in doubt, ask! Your corp mates are there to help and answer questions, silly or not. You’ll be surprised how even in a small corp there will be experts on many aspects of the game.
• Don't fly something that you cannot afford to lose (sometimes known as the First Rule of Eve).
• If you don't know what something does, then you're probably not ready to use it. You'll learn what it does with time and training. You don't want to spend money to fit a ship that you cant maximize.
• Never attempt to rush your skills to achieve the next rank of ships.
• Certificates allow players to work towards certain specified certificate levels found under each ship's infomation window, in order to fly that ship well. Newer players should get used to using this system as a guide at first.
• Insure your ship using the Insurance button in a Station. The higher the level of insurance, the higher the payout if your ship is destroyed. (New pilots, insure ships the Uni provides you, as you will make a profit if your ship is destroyed. Don't go overboard and exploit this, though.)
• Update your clone in a medical facility in a station. Make sure the clone is set higher than your current SP. If it isn't, and you get podded, you will lose valuble SP! Check your medical clone regularly, especially before undocking for combat. Update it when you are podded.
• Whilst you are enrolled as a member of Eve University you must abide by our chat channel polices.

Alliance Chat - For forming fleets only. Only type here if you mean to start a fleet, or join one once your role has been called.

Corp Chat - For official corp buisness only, such as skillbooks, Teamspeak issues, questions on events/classes. please only speak here if you mean to.

For everything else, CHAT.E-Uni is your best friend! Keep all other chat in there.

• Read the corp mail. There is a lot, but it's very important stuff. Will answer a lot of your questions, and keep the directors from getting upset!
• Eve Online is a game for readers as well as thrillseekers. Read as much as possible to get the most out of your career!
• It may be very good for your e-peen to fly with shiny faction fittings, but ask yourself whether the benefit outweighs the costs.
• If what you are doing is fun, then do it. If what you are doing isn't enjoyable then look around for something else to do.
• Use the test server, especially before major updates. You will be able to test new features, new opportunities, and make horrible mistakes without any penalty to your real Eve characters. You will find bugs, and you should report them so you will be a part of making Eve better for yourself and everyone else.
• Using self-destruct (left click on your ship) on an insured ship will still get you the pay-out.
• Use the Eve Fitting Tool and EveMon -- 3rd party tools which help you try fittings out and plan your training. Very very useful. Ask if you need help on them.
• Like the game a lot? Think about a second account (not everyone can afford it, but you don't exactly have to be Bill Gates either). A second account lets you have a second character training at the same time. Focus him or her on another facet of the game that interests you. Main is a PvP character? Make a mission runner, or station trader, or an industrialist. Having another character to haul for you is great as well, especially in wartime.