EVE Online Survival Guide

The purpose of this guide is to give you some pointers on how to survive those harsh first few weeks and get started on the path to success in EVE Online.

The strength of EVE is that there are many paths to success, that's also it's greatest failing since the number of options are overwhelming to a new player.

To maintain EVE's sandbox nature I'll try to avoid taking set-in-stone paths and speak in a general tone. In short, I'll show you the why's so you can determine the how's for yourself.

I'll discuss skill areas to train and which ships to get based on your play style. Together we'll get you on the path to making isk and learning skills so you can get more skills and buy more ships.

Good Luck and Hang in there. It won't be long before you're flying a massive Battleship and dominating level 4 missions.

First things first, and the first thing you should do is the in game tutorial. Even if you've tried the game in the past and went through the tutorial then. CPC remade the tutorials recently and have greatly improved it. Compared to what is was in the past, the new tutorial does a decent job of teaching the absolute basics.

After you've finished the tutorial, move on to the advanced tutorials. Yeah yeah, I know it's no fun doing the tutorials for your first few hours of play, but it really is the best thing to do. If you skipped them and went off to do your own thing that's one of the reasons you're here looking for help.

The advanced tutorials are like missions that you accept from a mission giver so they get you acquainted with the mission system. In addition, the advanced tutorials reward you quite well in both ISK and ships.

I really can't stress enough that doing the advanced tutorials all the way through is very important. It's something we didn't have back when I started and I really wish it had been available. Spending a few hours doing the advanced tutorials will set you up with ships and ISK far beyond what you could get in a week or two of game play without the tutorial missions. Doing the advanced tutorials get you a huge advantage over those that don't.

There are three different branches to the tutorial, combat, industry and trade. Pick the one you are least interested in first and go through it completely. Once you've completed that mission branch, do the other two branches. You'll be glad you did

- You'll be rich compared to the amount of ISK you would have if you had done anything else for the same amount of time.

- You'll have some sweet ships at your disposal that you would not otherwise

- You'll learn a lot just going through the steps. You'll be surprised how many things will come second nature once you've completed the tutorials.

- You'll get familiar with the immediate area

- You'll have some nice skill books that would have otherwise cost you a small fortune

There aren't any drawbacks to doing the tutorials other than time.

Ok, you've done the tutorials, made some nice ISK, and collected a tidy fleet of useful ships.
Now it's time to decide your initial direction in the game.

This is important as it will determine what you are going to be spending most of your time doing for a while. However, don't stress too much over it. You can always change your mind and can eventually train in everything, given enough time. You have to start somewhere though, so pick the thing that you enjoyed the most while doing the tutorials and focus on that.

If you enjoyed combat, then start focusing on the combat skills and skilling up into combat type ships. If you got a kick out of mining asteroids for minerals then go with industry related skills and ships. If you really want a challenge, start working on your trade skills and become a trader.

Depending on the type of trader you want to be, you may not even have to train ship skills for a while as you can make do flying a shuttle around.
How you chose to make your mark in Eve is up to you, but I would suggest starting with either mining or combat missions. Both are profitable and relatively easy to get started.

One of the most exciting things about EVE Online is picking a ship and fitting it for whatever role you happen to need at the moment. One of the most important and often overlooked things to consider when picking a ship is the description, or rather the text just under the description.

The description will tell you basically what the ship is intended to do, the text under the description tells you what bonuses the ship gets. These bonuses can make or break you and unfortunately, people don't usually notice them for months.

Here's an example, you are intending to go mining and you can fly frigate class ships. Any frigate can be equipped with a mining laser but only one frigate (per race)gets mining bonuses.

Here is the description of the Gallente frigate Navitas.

"The Navitas is a solid mining vessel, in wide use by independent excavators. It is also one of the best ships available for budding traders or even scavengers. The long-range scanners and sturdy outer shell of the ship help to protect the ship from harassment.

Gallente Frigate Skill Bonus: 5% bonus to cargo capacity and 20% bonus to mining laser yield per skill level.
Role Bonus: -60% mining laser capacitor use"

Take a look at those bonuses. It's obvious that this ship will work great for mining. Not only does it get a bonus to cargo space and a boost to mining yield, it can also fit larger mining lasers due to reduced capacitor use.
This ship would be great for mining but not so much for combat.

Take a look at the frigates for your race. Examine the bonuses and find the ship that fits the role you need.

Hint - when picking a combat ship, the bonuses tell which type of weapon is best suited to that particular ship. Each race favors a particular type of weapon. So if you've been confused about which ones to train, just read the descriptions for a clue.

Amarr - Energy Turrets

Caldari - Missles

Galente - Hybrid weapons and Drones

Minmatar - Projectile weapons

This doesn't mean you are limited to these types of weapons, this is EVE after all, and you can certainly pick the type of weapons that you think looks cool, but if you are just starting out, it's a good idea to stick to the recommended type of weapons.

There are a ton of skills to chose from in EVE Online. So many in fact that it's difficult to decide which skills to train and which to ignore. You might as well get used to this, even Eve Veterans have trouble deciding which skills to train.

Don't let this stress you out. Take a deep breath, think about the activity that you want to perform, determine which ship is best suited for that activity and then pick the skills required to fly that ship. Then determine which modules to use for that ship and start training the skills to use them.

Take a look at the requirements tab for any item in the game to see what skills are required to use that item. This gives you a roadmap of skills that you will need to train in order to use an item or pilot a particular ship.

EVE uses a lot of specific terminology, one of those terms thrown around by veteran players that might throw off new comers is "Tank".

In EVE, "Tank" refers to the method each individual pilot uses to defend against damage during combat.
There are three different kinds of tanking in EVE.

Shield - The energy shield that surrounds a ship. This is the first defense to take damage. Once it is reduced to 0% damage is applied to the armor. The Caldari race prefers this method of tanking.

Armor - Armor plating that absorbs damage. Once the armor is reduced to 0% damage is applied to the Hull of the ship. The Amarr race prefers this method of tanking.

Hull - The last line of defense. Once this is reduced to 0% the ship explodes and the pilot is ejected into a pod. Because failure of this defense means losing the ship, this is the least preferred method of tanking.

Pick a method of tanking that works best for your type of ship, train for it and stick with it. Mixing methods of tanking isn't advised.

You can determine what sort of tank works best for your ship by looking at the fittings screen. Check the default resistances and also the default capacities for shield, armor and hull. A good rule of thumb is to use the type of tank that has the best resistances and largest capacity.

EVE is a living, breathing universe composed of real live actual folks just like you playing the game and using its resources. Nearly everything in EVE is player made.

The ship you're flying was made by a player, unless you're still flying the starter ship or one of the ships awarded via the tutorial. Most of the equipment you'll fit on your ship is player made or at the very least player collected.

Eve is somewhat unique in the MMO world because when a player loses a fight and their ship is destroyed, they actually lose the ship and everything on it. There is no rezing at a shrine with all your stuff intact and a slight debuff for a few minutes. A destroyed ship is gone and the player needs to purchase a new ship and new equipment. Occasionally one or two items can be salvaged from your wreak but it's not something to count on.

This creates a constant market for ships and the equipment to fit them with. Which in turn creates a market for minerals since everything is created using some combination and quantity of minerals.

If you want to start making isk and turn a profit in whatever venture you chose, you need to supply something that is needed. Minerals, equipment or ships. There are lots of ways to collect these things and we will go over some of those ways, but the key to remember is provide a needed resource.

You can accept missions from various types of NPC's.
Different NPC's will give different types of missions.

Missions fall into one or more of these categories

Distribution - These are courier and trade missions involving moving goods from one location to another. These goods could be a specific cargo provided by the mission giver or just common commodities found in the market. Depending on the item and quantities, you may have to make more than one trip. Having a large industrial transport ship helps to complete these missions quickly.

Mining - Mining missions involve delivering quantities of minerals or ore to specific locations. A pilot can either mine the materials themselves or purchase them on the market. Re-processing items into minerals is another option for completing these missions provided that you have lots of items stored in your hanger.

Research - Research agents provide research points that can be redeemed for data cores. data cores can be used in manufacturing, or sold on the market for easy profit.

Security - Security missions involve combat encounters with NPC enemies. Typically the pilot is required to fly to a specific location in space and destroy all enemies there. Sometimes you'll be required to destroy structures or to collect something from one of the enemies.

All missions require that you perform some task and will reward you with isk, and sometimes an item, for completing that task.This is perhaps the simplest way of making isk but it occasionally involves risks such as traveling to low security systems or engaging in combat.

Combat missions tend to be risky since you may lose your ship but they also pay quite well and you can loot defeated enemies to collect equipment. You can use this equipment on your own ships or sell it on the marketplace for isk.

Mining is almost the safest profession you can pursue.
You fit your ship for mining, travel to an asteroid belt and activate your mining lasers to mine the asteroids of minerals.

When your hold is full, you warp to a station, drop off your collected minerals, and warp back out to the asteroid field for more.

Once you've collected a fair amount of minerals, you can transport them to a station that pays a good price for those minerals ans sell them all at once for a tidy profit.

This method involves little risk to your ship except from the occasional rat (NPC pirate) or the rare player pirate that will attempt to trick you into attacking him so he can destroy your nearly defenseless mining ship.

Bring along drones to defend against NPC rats and you should be ok. Avoid targeting the player pirates no matter how angry they make you and you won't have much to fear from them either.

As long as you stay in a high security area and don't do anything to flag yourself as aggressive, there is little they can do to you without risking concord destroying their shiny pirate ships.

Jet can mining - You may have heard about Jet can mining. It's the practice of right clicking ore that is in your hold and jettisoning it into space. Doing this creates a container in space that you can place more ore in as you mine. The container is much larger than the hold on your ship and filling it allows you to mine longer with fewer trips to the station. Once the can is filled you can go get your hauling ship and transport the ore to a station in large lumps.

Jet can mining can be an efficient way of mining but it also opens you up to player pirates that will steal the ore from your jet can and then place it back. When you take the ore after that you are flagged as stealing and the pirate can then attack and destroy you.
It's a tradeoff, faster mining with some risk. If you are paying attention you can spot this when it's about to happen and avoid getting your ship destroyed.

Another way to do it is to purchase secure containers and anchor these in your mining spot. You can password protect the containers and then fill them with ore. Return later to collect it with your hauler ship.

Manufacturing is the process of using minerals and other items to manufacture practically anything that you want or need in the Eve Universe. Manufacturing has the potential to make you a lot of money but it requires an initial investment of buying blueprints and collecting minerals.

If you are interested in this method of making isk, then I suggest you supplement your isk making activities with mission running or mining. Mining is a good choice as it provided you with lots of minerals to use in the manufacturing.

You will need to do some research to find out what items are selling well in your region of space. Ammo usually sells really well as do smaller ships such as shuttlecraft and frigates. Later on, when you are more skilled you can make a tidy profit selling tech 2 ships.

Manufacturing is not for everyone, it requires considerable investment of isk and training and is sometimes a slow profit making method requiring lots of patience. Be prepared to be undercut by well trained and funded pilots if you suddenly discover a profitable market.

Trading is the act of buying low and selling high. If you enjoy watching the market for hours on end to find profitable items to buy and later sell, then trading is for you.

Many folks say that you can't make money in trading until you have a lot of money to spend on buying items. There is some truth to this, since the more money you have to spend, the higher your profits when you start selling. You can also continue to buy while selling.

Nevertheless, it is possible for a new player to make a living through trading, they just have to be creative. Look for good buys in various regions of space and then move them to another region where they will sell better. You could also target products that the big boys can't be bothered to buy.

Trading is definitely a fun meta game within the Universe of EVE if you can stick with it long enough to get good at it.
Buy low, sell high, sounds so simple doesn't it.

Have you ever wanted to be an interstellar trucker, moving your load of cattle, cars or guns from one planet to the other? Then you might want to try Hauling for to make your isk.

Check out the market, find products that are selling low in one system and have a buyer willing to pay more in another system. Load up your hauler with as much of the product as you can carry and haul it to the buying system and sell it for profit.

It's pretty darn easy and fairly low risk as long as you pay attention to the security ratings of the destination system you should be ok.

Hauling is a lot like mining in that you can do other activities while you are hauling. watch a movie, read a book, surf the web, cook dinner, whatever you need to do as long as you check on your progress every so often.

I hope this guide has been of help to you iif you were struggling with EVE Online.
It was a lot of fun to write and I hope you have even more fun playing EVE.
Check back frequently and I'll try to have more tips and tricks for you to help you succeed in EVE.

If this lens helped you out or just entertained you for a bit, please remember to like it and be sure to leave a comment.

Farewell and Good Luck fellow Capsuleer!