Getting Started in EVE Online

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Welcome to EVE Online! You are now a citizen of New Eden. This guide will lead you step by step on your way of surviving and even prosper in this cold and harsh place. You can read it whole or just on-the-fly while you are making your first steps in EVE. You can also go to Youtube and watch the How to Survive EVE Online video series by Seamus Donohue.

Character Creation

The first decision you have to make is to choose a race for your character. There are 4 major factions in the game: Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar and Amarr. Each faction has three bloodlines. But fear not, you cannot make any mistake in this step. In EVE Online every character can learn every skill. That means that even as Amarr you can fly Minmatar ships when you get the appropriate skills. Your choice of race therefore mainly determines the look of your character and your role-playing opportunities if you choose to do so. So pick whatever race you want. See the Character Creator guide on the UniWiki for details on creating a character and portrait.

Name and Portrait

Try to pick a decent name for yourself. Your name is part of your identity, and it will influence how your corpmates think of you. In EVE Online, most corporations make use of voice communication during fleet operations, and will make their voice server available for casual chatter also. You will sometimes need to identify yourself with your name while issuing orders or making reports on voice comms. Your name will be used by fleetmates to give you intel or orders. Having a name that is simple and easily pronounceable will make things easier for everyone. Pick your name carefully, especially your first name, as that will often be used as your callsign during fleet ops. You cannot change your name after character creation.

If you pick a stupid name for yourself, you should prepare for some people to not take you seriously.

Many races have portraits that are hideous and others are quite pleasing to the eye. Whether you go for a scary or an alluring portrait, do spend some time crafting it.

The Tips For Character Creation site may be of help for aesthetic portrait design.

Starting your Career

The Tutorial

As soon as you complete your character and are thrown into the Captains Quarters you are greeted by Aura. Aura acts as a short tutorial, explaining all the basic controls and the interface. Read everything she says and follow her instructions. You will be given several missions. The first one gets you into your very first space ship. Afterwards you will learn how to shoot at thing and how to use Stargates in order to travel the galaxy. Everything should be pretty self-explanatory. But if you ever become stuck, look at the chat window in the lower left corner of your screen. You will see the names of three channels: Local, Corp and Rookie Help. Below that are several symbols. Click on the speech bubble. You will see a couple of folders. Click on help and look for the channel named EVE University (E-Uni). Click join. You are now in the public E-Uni channel where every possible question you might have will be answered!

The Career Agents

After you completed the basic tutorial Aura will send you to the so called career agents. These are 5 agents that will introduce you to the archetypes of things you can do for a living. They will teach you everything you need to know to start your career in EVE. They will also provide a generous amount of ships, modules, skill books and ISK. In addition the last mission of every career agent is a story-line mission. That means you will get a lot of standing with the faction of that agent. It is therefore highly recommended to do all missions they offer. Completing at least one set of 5 career agents is compulsory if you want to join E-Uni. Since their rewards are better than what you will find on your typical Level 1 mission while taking less time, you should consider doing all 3 sets of career agents for your faction. This will give you a lot of standing and ISK right from the start.

The Sisters of EVE Epic Arc: Blood-Stained Stars

After you have completed Career missions, you will have an opportunity to continue your missioning career in a fun way. The so called Sisters of Eve Epic arc The Blood-Stained Stars awaits you. To start it you should go to the Arnon system and talk to Sister Alitura at the Sisters of EVE Bureau. You will now be send on a chain of increasingly difficult missions. You will find out about rogue drones and the secret society of concsious thought. You will also be send around all over the galaxy and have a chance to learn about the culture of the different factions.

While doing the epic arc you should focus on training your combat skills. While the first missions are very easy, some missions like Burning Down the Hive and the two final bosses have a reputation of simply smashing new players. So go on and train the weapon and ship skills of your chosen faction. At the end of the epic arc you should be able to fly a cruiser. If you still need help, ask around in Local or in the E-Uni chat.

Further information and tips on how to run some of the missions can be found in our wiki: The Blood-Stained Stars, and also on EVE Survival: Blood-Stained Stars

Learning Skills

While you are doing your career agent missions or the epic arc you should always have a skill in your skill queue. EVE is different from every other MMORPG out there, in that you do not gain experience points but your skillpoints will accumulate over time. Even if you are not playing. Read the Skills and Learning guide to learn more. You can speed up your learning time by modifying the attributes of your character. One way to do so is by neural remap. But take this advice: Do not remap in your first three months. You might remap your attributes to learn PvP skills just to find out that you like manufacturing more. Then you are stuck since you can only remap once every 12 months. So use your remaps sparingly.

Another way to boost your training time is Implants. Implants come in different flavors but the most common ones are the +1 to +5 attribute enhancing implants. While the better ones are very expensive, the +1 implants are quite affordable even for a new character. EVE University also offers subsidized +3 implants.

If you do all your career agents as recommended you will end up with a large collection of skill books. That is a good thing since the price of skill books can be quite overwhelming for new players. But never save on the wrong end and make sure to always buy a new skill when you can afford and need it. EVE University provides certain skillbooks for free to its members.

Fitting your Ship

Fitting a ship is the most essential player skill in EVE. It is also difficult to master. But if you fit Shield Extenders on your Abaddon or Gyrostabilizers on your Raven you will not only have low performance, you will also get laughed at all the time. Is is therefore important to get used to the general principles of ship fittings. You can start with our Fitting Guidelines. For a list of rigs and module types, with short descriptions, visit our Fitting Modules and Rigs Guide. There are also guides on how to generally fit ships of a specific race:

Ship Fitting Guides -- Amarr | Caldari | Gallente | Minmatar | ORE

To find recommended fittings for a specific ship just type the name into this Wiki and you will see a number of tested and working fittings. Since not everyone has perfect fitting skills you should plan your fittings with the 3rd party software EFT, EveHQ, or Pyfa.

EVE University Forum

As a new player, don't be afraid to ask for fitting advice in the EVE University PvP and PvE ship setup forums. This should be the first place for new players to look for fits and ask for advice. These forums are restricted to EVE University members and alumni.

Other Web Sites

  • Failheap Challenge: This site has both PvP and PvE forums. Some threads are quite old and the discussions can be outdated in the earlier posts. Failheap is often a very good place for experienced pilots to find fittings, and many threads will also have tactic discussions on how to use them. Most of the fits are meant for older pilots with excellent fitting skills, and it can be harder to find fits that work for low skill points.

Join a Corporation

Now is a good time to think about joining a corporation. Being a member of a well established corporation brings many benefits such as free ships and modules, missioning support, advice and of course fun fleet operations. As a newbie you should consider joining the EVE University. Besides the awesome wiki you are currently reading, we also provide ship replacement, subsidized implants, lessons and valuable hand on experience in our fleet operations and the low-, null- and wormhole campuses.

Other corporations that are a good starting point are:

Red vs. Blue - Two corporations that are locked into an eternal war. They provide free ships and constant thrill.

Brave Newbies Inc - A newbie organization that mainly focuses on PvP in low and nullsec.

Advancing your Career

Now that you have completed the career agents and the SOE Epic Arc and joined a corporation you can decide what you want to do in EVE for the foreseeable future. Below are some suggestions for the most common ways of making ISK. They include a short introduction and links to further your knowledge.

Security Missions

Doing Security Missions is one of the two most common career choices next to Mining. In its essence you keep doing combat missions while increasing your combat skills and your standing. This then allows you to do more difficult missions with higher risk/reward. The upside of this career is, that every skill you learn for PvE is also useful for PvP. And in the end you can naturally progress to Incursions which are the best source of PvE ISK out there.

The UniWiki has a basic Missions article. The Evelopedia has a Missions Guide which can help you decide which corp and department you want to run missions for. Pilots who wish to mission close to the EVE University HQ in Aldrat often run missions for the Minmatar Mining Corporation in nearby systems. Other corps to mission for in nearby systems are listed in the Mission Guide to Aldrat.

We recommend declining kill missions against the four main empire factions (Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, and Minmatar) 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. This can also cause problems if you later join a corp that has their HQ in a faction's empire space that is denied to you, or if you join a nullsec alliance whose nearest empire space is denied to you. When you have -2 or below standing with a faction, only the Level 1 agents will be available to grind standings, which could be a lengthy process. You will know if a mission is a faction kill mission because it will have the faction's logo next to the objective.

You can check mission information before accepting or declining on EVE Survival.

If you want to find agents close to a particular system, you can use the Agent Rangefinder web application.

There is a database of agents available on the EVE Agents website.

Notice: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 and 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.

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Mining

If shooting red crosses is not your type of work you may want to consider the second popular profession in EVE: Mining. Mining is as straightforward as is doing security missions. You start out with a Venture and then progress to Mining Barges and Exhumers. Mining is infamous for being able to be done afk. Just start your mining lasers and do something else while your ship fills its orehold automatically.

There is a basic guide on mining in the wiki. When you become more proficient you may also try Ice Mining or even Gas Cloud Mining. If you are a member of EVE University you will have access to our Mining Loaner Fleet where you can lend free mining ships. You should also join the Amarr Mining Campus where you will get advice and can join mining fleets. This fleets will usually provide an Orca which will increase your mining yield. If you have no access to the AMC you should consider getting a second account in order to train a hauler and Orca alt.

After you have mined your ore you might consider refining it. This is not the default choice but needs some serious calculation. Since refining is determined by your skills and your standing with the corporation owning the station where you refine a considerable amount of minerals might be lost to the Nether if you are a new player. Unista Makie Tachibana created a helpful spreadsheet for you to determine if you should refine or just sell your ore. If you are a member of EVE University you can also use the Perfect Refine Service where other Unistas will do the refining for you.

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Exploration

If doing missions or shooting space rocks is too dull for you, you might be in for the recently updated profession of exploration. Exploration means that you look for hidden sites and go to loot them for profit. A guide to exploration is provided in the wiki.

Exploration is a very fun activity but the gain is somewhat random. While data and relic sites provide blueprints and material for production, combat sites may escalate and drop valuable faction or deadspace loot. Or not so valuable, if you are unlucky. As you get more experience you can progress from high-sec exploration to low- and null-sec explorations where the rewards but also the risks are higher. A cloaking device is most essential. If you are member of EVE University you should join exploration.e-uni for help and advice.

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Science & Industry

So you neither want to shoot ships nor asteroids? And you do not want to endanger your ship while strolling around in null-sec? You are pretty decent in math and you want to create instead of destroy? Welcome to Manufacturing! Manufacturing is the art of using a blueprint to produce items that are then sold to the market. You can read this guide to get an overview of how it works.

Basically you will first search the market for something you want to produce. Ships, Drones and Ammunition are a good starting point since the modules you can produce have better (and cheaper) counterparts in their Meta 1-4 variations. You will then acquire a blueprint. This can either be a blueprint original (BPO) or a blueprint copy (BPC). The first one allows unlimited runs, the latter only a specific number until it vanishes.

You can also buy either unresearched blueprints from the market or researched blueprints from contracts. Research provides lower material costs and lesser production time. If you go for a researched blueprint do your math first and compare the amount of ISK you save for lower production cost with the cost of the blueprint. If you save less money then you spend its obviously not worth it.

You can also always research the blueprint yourself. The problem with that is, that you might have to wait for a really long time until a high-sec research slot becomes available.

If you are a member of EVE University you can use the E-Uni POS to do your research. You can also join Project Solitude which operates in a high-sec pocket surrounded by low- and null-sec. This has the advantage that it is far easier to get a empty research facility. You can also sell ships and modules for a premium price there.

Like Security Missions and Mining, Science & Industry comes with a steady progression. You will start manufacturing T1 items. But after a while your skills are high enough to start producing T2 items. And after that you can venture into T3 production, manufacturing the components that Strategic Cruisers are made of. You could even become a capital ship manufacturer as the pinnacle of your career.

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Business

What do the mission runner, the miner, the explorer and the manufacturer have in common? They sell their goods to the market. So why not be the market maker? Let the peons grind, while you sit in the station buying low and selling high? Pretty good idea! But not so fast, the entry barrier to doing business is pretty high. Experience-wise as ISK-wise. You can read this basic guide on Trading to get a good idea.

Basically there are three different types of trading with increasing difficulty.

The first one is hauling. Hauling means that you buy items at station A, put them into your cargohold and ship them to a local tradehub where you can sell them higher. You can either do this as inter-region hauling, where you exploit price differences of items in different regions. Another apporach is to set-up buy orders in mission hubs to buy the loot from mission runners. You then haul the stuff to a local trade hub and return with ammunition, ships and exotic dancers that are useful for mission runners. A third way to do hauling is to buy up stuff for cheap in the career agent systems. Especially the ships that are given out by the career agents to new players can be bought cheaply and resold in the next hub.

A more sophisticated form of trading is station-trading. This involves no time in space. Your character is just sitting in a station and buys and sells items. For this you want to look for items that have high-volume and high-price differences. You will then set-up buy orders and wait for people to sell you their stuff. You will then resell it on the market for a higher price, therefore making profits. Your biggest competition in this field are market bots that over-/undercut your prices by 0.01 ISK.

The ultimate form of trading is inter-hub trading. This combines both approaches above. You set up buy and sell orders for items in several trading hubs. You will compare the prices and volume of items in different hubs and then buy where it is cheap and sell where it is expensive. This might require additional characters in each of the trading hubs you are dealing in.

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Related Links

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