Starting out in EVE online
You start off in EVE by downloading and installing your 14 day free trial, after which you can fully activate your account if you decide to continue playing.
The first thing you must do is configure your character, not only how he/she looks but also your race, bloodline, tribe, character base profession and apply skill points to various attributes of your characters mental prowess. These are important and need careful consideration before final application because they affect the speed that various skills are learnt in EVE.
Here is a description of the races and various bloodlines in EVE:
http://support.eve-online.com/Pages/KB/Article.aspx?id=182
Choose wisely as it will affect everything you do in EVE.
You can even customise the way your character looks in the initial stages of setting up your account.
You can appoint bonus skill points to certain attributes and basic skills when setting up your character.
Decide which route you want to take in EVE before character creation
As a reference my character is Gallente race with Gallente bloodline, and has been setup up to be an all-round character, good at most things and great at none but bad at none either. Not that my kill statistics are anything to go by!!
Your first ship:
Your first ship will be a basic n00b ship which is given to you free of charge, basically equipped with a low grade mining laser and a gun for killing npc pirates. You also receive a small amount of ISK (ingame currency).
When you start for the first time you will automatically begin a tutorial from and agent. Please do persevere with the tutorial as its very important to get the basic understandings of how things work in the EVE universe. This takes roughly an hour, depending on how quickly you progress.
Tutorial finished? Now you are on your own.
As your ship is equipped with a mining laser and a basic gun you can either start to make your money by mining or shooting npc pirates in high sec space(more on that later). When you have destroyed an npc pirates ship it leaves an icon in space either a solid or hollow upside down triangle. Now if it is a solid icon that is left in space that means you can loot that wreck. Approach to within 1500m and you can transfer what was in that ships cargo hold into your own, hence make money by selling that loot or use it yourself. You can also salvage wrecks more on that in a later report. By killing these npc pirates you also get paid by CONCORD for killing them an ingame npc bounty system. CONCORD are the ingame npc police corporation be wary! More on CONCORD later.
As your ship also comes fitted with a basic mining laser you can make money by mining in the local asteroid fields and then selling the raw ore, or refining it in a station and selling the subsequent minerals. Far safer than hunting and looting npc pirate ships, but ultimately not as exciting.
As you start out in EVE you will find it slow to build up your cash, but that will increase as you learn more skills and are able to buy better ships and equipment more suited to your needs. My suggestion would be to get a good basic miner or combat ship and put all of your earned money into buying skill books.
Skill books are purchased at space stations, and are used to progress your skill levels in specific fields and to enable you to use better pieces of equipment, ships, increase your training times, increase your mental prowess etc....and you start training skills as soon as you start in EVE. The tutorial will show you how to train skills.
Google Evemon to download a program that can help you plan your skill training in the direction you have chosen.
By training your learning skills initially you will save yourself a great deal of time in the future. As you train each learning skill you will notice your training times for other skills decreasing, due to the learning skills improving your characters mental attributes.
Many people make the mistake of building up their gunnery skills, or others, before their learning skills. This is a mistake as acquiring greater mental attributes will save you months of additional training time in the future.
CONCORD
This is the ingame police npc faction, all have top spec ships with devastating weaponry. They patrol high security space for npc pirates and come to the aid of players that are being attacked illegally. They also protect other players valuable in space aswell as the various stations and jumpgates to other systems.
System security rating
you start off in a high security system in EVE, to keep you safe from a majority of the pirate players. Security ratings range from 1.0 to 0.0, 1.0 being highest. High security space systems have a rating of 0.5 and above, low security systems are 0.4 0.0, 0.0 having no security at all.
Concord have a presence in every system with a rating of 0.5 and above, increasing deployment of their ships accordingly to each incerement in security status of that system.
Low sec space is overrun by pirates and pirate gangs by the way, be very carefull. There is no trust in EVE, no morals and no feelings. People in low security will kill indiscriminantly. No questions asked, and move onto the next victim.
TIP: stay out of low sec systems until you have at least 10mil skill points.
Ownership of items in space
You will notice that when you are flying around in asteroid fields and jumpgates there will be items floating in space, usually cargo containers. Aswell as npc or player ship wrecks too. These will appear as a yellow icon if they are not owned by you, they appear white if they are your property.
If you attempt to take items from someone elses containers in high sec space you will be attacked by CONCORD, the same applies if you try and shoot aforementioned item. If you take loot from a ship wreck that does belong to you, i.e. you havent killed, then that automatically gives the owner of that wreck the right to open fire on you within whats known as the aggression period. Usually 15 minutes. After which your status returns to normal. Many players use this to earn money in EVE, i do now and then. It Brings some extra excitement to the game.
Here are a few helpfull links to guides and programs:
EVE online trailer:
http://myeve.eve-online.com/download/videos/
Mining:
http://www.envimon.com/francis…pleteminersguide_v2.2.pdf
Combat:
http://www.simnet.is/chase/PVPGuide.rtf
Exploration:
http://dl.eve-files.com/media/0705/Exploration_2.01.pdf
Mission running:
http://www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g610.asp
General info:
http://eveinfo.com/
Evemon training tool:
http://evemon.battleclinic.com/
Ship equipment fitting program:
http://elegance.grojojo.com/quickfit/
I will start to cover more indepth aspects of eve as i progress ingame. In EVE i am a dedicated mission runner, working for npc agents to earn money killing loads of pirates! Az is a trader, others are deicated miners. You all choose your role in EVE to give yourself a unique gaming experience.
Come and judge for yourself!
