From Peon to Pirate: Part I
A large part of my work at Dell involves reading the comments of gaming enthusiasts on blogs and forums, so it’s my job to know what the buzz is in the gaming world. What’s the buzz about EVE Online? Most say it seems to be a rich and complex MMO, yet the learning curve is pretty steep. I’m certainly not here to disagree with the buzz. Had I blundered into the game without some great help from my veteran friends, I’d have been completely lost. They asked me what I wanted out of the game, gave me some tips, and let me loose. They showed me that EVE doesn’t hold your hand. EVE doesn’t tell you where to go or what to do to succeed: it only gives you the raw materials.It’s up to you to provide direction.
In EVE’s sandbox there are no “character classes” like many other MMOs, so it’s up to the player to define their own career. Do you want to be a pirate? You can. How about a corporate embezzler? You can do that too. Does ship tycoon sound more your speed? That’s possible too. What about a smuggler, a mercenary, a soldier, a miner, a high volume courier, or bloodthirsty villain? There are as many career choices in EVE as there are play styles. A player is only limited by their imaginations.
In this and future blogs I will explore how a brand new player can jump into the game and compete with older players in a matter of a few weeks. Since the main focus of my EVE career has been interplayer relations (read: combat), I’m going to be focusing on the easiest career a combat pilot can undertake: Piracy.
How can a new player ever hope to compete?
EVE is a skill based game. There are no levels to acquire, and you don’t have to grind for experience to get more skills: it’s all based upon time. This is one of the most endearing things about EVE. You set a skill to train, turn off the game, and at the prescribed time, that skill is complete whether you’re playing the game or not. If that’s true, how is a newer player ever supposed to compete with those who’ve been playing for years?
The answer is specialization.
A quick look at your market window will reveal hundreds of ship and module choices, many of them requiring special skills to use. Though you may have 75 million skill points, the skills you actually use are limited by the ship you’re flying at the time, and you can only be in one ship at any given moment. You won’t be using Large Hybrid Turret Specialization V, for example, when piloting your Punisher. The ship you currently inhabit places a temporary cap on the number of your skill points you’re actually making use of.
The key to competing in EVE quickly is knowing exactly what you want to do at the outset. With a definite direction in mind, you’ll be blowing up the big dogs in no time.
Planning your training is the first key to success in EVE. For your skill training plan, I highly recommend EVEMon. The tool is tried and true, and has been used by the EVE community for years. This little gadget will also help you to incorporate learning skills in your training plan in an optimal way, so you can gain the benefit of learning skills to reach your short term goals without spending the first few weeks of your time in EVE grinding nothing but learning skills.
For the purpose of illustration I’m going to assume that the new EVE player I’m talking to here has opted for an Amarr character, and will be using a Punisher for the start of their career. I’ll explore other options in a later blog post. Using Battleclinic, I found a fairly highly regarded Punisher fit using Autocannons instead of lasers. It’s always a good idea to try and use a ships bonuses (listed in their description) when choosing modules. Since the Punisher doesn’t receive a damage bonus to lasers, and since autocannons don’t use capacitor to fire, using autocannons on a Punisher actually provides more benefit than the ship bonus to laser capacitor use provides. Fitting projectiles on Punishers is pretty common.
I loaded the fit onto a Punisher using EFT, and this was the result:
Not too shabby. With all applicable skills at level V, this fit gives us 100 damage every second using high tech ammo, can run its armor repair unit for a solid 2 minutes, and has an impressive 5805 effective hit points. This ship is a competitor.
Now that you know what you want to fly and how you want to fit it, it’s time to configure a training plan in EVEMon. This is as simple as checking the ship browser and the module browser in EVEMon’s Skill Planner, then adding the skils to your plan from there.
Once you’ve done that for every module in the loadout, you’ll have an idea of how much time it will take to fit out the punisher as planned. A suggestion link will appear in the bottom left corner if you can add learning skills to your plan to reduce the time until the plan’s completion.
In the example shown, taking the suggestions EVEMon offers reduces the overall training time by two days.
So, in a little over a week, a brand new character could potentially be flying a T2 fitted PvP frigate. It will take a little cash though, and the 5,000 ISK your wallet starts with can’t exactly bankroll your new life of crime. To do that you’ll need to find an initial source of income. For the aspiring buccaneer, those first few paychecks usually come from killing NPC belt pirates and running combat missions for agents. Not only will you gain a few ISK to start your upcoming career, you’ll learn how to control your ship and what your ship is capable of.
In my next post I’ll explore piracy options in more depth, and go over some of the strengths and weaknesses of viable pirate frigate choices, as well as how to choose your targets.
Tags: career choices, character classes, combat pilot, embezzler, eve online, gaming enthusiasts, gaming world, high volume, imaginations, learning curve, mercenary, MMO, mmos, piracy, playing the game, raw materials, sandbox, smuggler, veteran friends, villain
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