Last night I got myself into some non-consensual PVP… and almost lost my brand new Tengu… and by the looks of it… I might have lost it and never realized that the ship I was flying had a weird bug…

I need to point out, that usually I would take my Cov Ops fitted Tengu when moving in hostile space. However I decided to spend some ISK and build me a nice gank and tank Tengu setup, so I was giving it a try.

So I board my new Tengu from the Ship Maintenance Array, get the bookmarks for the high sec exit from the can (always remember to leave a copy back), and head to the Class 1 static. Stability looks good here, jump inside, check directional.. check directional again.. all good, decloak, warp to the C1 (while spamming directional), activate hardeners before I land on the high sec exit… all good so far…

I activate my weapons, overheat the scrambler, fire up the AB and start orbiting the hole – waiting for the target to decloak… a few seconds pass… nothing… hmm that’s probably someone who is waiting for the session timer to end before jumping ba…

The wormhole at that point is looking really small and by showing info I see that’s on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile another habringer joins the fight and I am not sure what was that 3rd ship.

At that time, my shield has a hard time keeping up and I realize that I might lose that ship because I have not even taken down that Harbirnger’s shield! WTF?! I am supposed to be doing 545 DPS while overloading with my current skills… anyway.. that’s not the time to think about those things…

Overheat my AB, burn the distance (good job on the Harbringers trying to bump me away), and manage to reach it and jump through to the safety of highsec…

I need to give a shout out to Tal Brasi (the first Harbringer pilot) who after chatting with me in wspace colonists channel, offered me the new static signature and the new highsec system so I was back inside Planet Risk not more than an hour later. I was expecting some kind of “welcoming party” there but oh well… we’ll meet again someplace, someday GF!

Now after I am back safely into PR, I start digging to find out how my new Tengu that was supposed to be dishing out pain and suffering couldn’t even bend the shields from that Harbringer, even with overloaded launchers…

Fire up EVEHQ and head to the fitting tool and the Audit tab. Then back to the in-game screen.. Then back again.. then.. aha!

Here are the relevant skills I have:

OK then, petition time. I have to give a thumbs up to CCP GMs here who replied really fast saying:

“Did you try logging off and on again?”

Seriously tho, to cut a long story short, the issue is a confirmed bug and I have submitted a detailed bug report and reproduction steps.

The problem lies with the Ship Assembly Array at the POS. Apparently more T3 ships have reported such issues, so if you are flying a T3 ship, boarded from a Ship Assembly Array in a POS – make sure to check that your bonuses are applied properly!

So these where my thoughts after the dust settled…

Wspace colonists really can’t catch a break with T3 ships inside wspace.

Besides the fact that I cannot change T3 subsystems unless I am in a station, I have discovered that every time I board my ship from the Ship Maintenance Array of my POS, the bonuses I should be getting from the Caldari Offensive Subsystem Skill at level V (that I have trained) are not applied.

If I logoff and then quickly log back on again, before my ship engages the emergency warp drive, the bonuses applied are still the wrong ones.

If I logoff, wait a couple of minutes and then relog, always while flying my Tengu, the correct bonuses are applied.

If I store my ship in the SMA, the next time I’ll pick it up I’ll have the same problem again.

Since I can’t change my subsystem while at my POS (still no news from CCP about this) I can’t confirm for any different subsystems and/or other T3 ships.

Oh the joys of living in wspace!!!

Any of you guys can confirm similar strange behavior?

QP

CrazyKinux’s EvE Online Guides Collection

Now also sporting a link to our guides as well

Thanks CK for organizing and updating this awesome list!

We seem to have solved the server issues we had over the past few days… and just in the nick of time as it seems. CrazyKinux is revisiting the EVE Online Blog Pack (if you are reading this blog in your Capsuleer app on your iPhone then you probably are already aware of it) and we’d like you to go over there and show your support.

Regardless of whether we make it to the next version of the Blog Pack, we’ll continue to blog and write guides and all, so no worries there – we do this because we love doing it

I know we haven’t been blogging extensively over the past couple of weeks, but we had quite a few things to deal with. Fortunately, there will be a new corp-member who will start blogging here soon enough, so you’ll be hearing more from the industrialist’s life in wspace.

You will hear all about the Valentine’s Day Massacre – some of you already heard about from various rumors circulating in wspace colonists channel.

Yep, we’ve had a full-blown siege and capital fight in Planet Risk – and we’ll be talking all about it in the upcoming show – this Wednesday 24th of Feb – 21:00 eve time on siradio.fm

stay tuned!

…boy do we have lots to talk about…

As always, we will be recording the show and releasing it as a podcast for those who won’t be able to join us live.

I’ve come up with quite a crazy idea last night… But before I can start planning, I want to share a glimpse of what I’ve thought about with you…

How about we organized a special PVP Tournament, open to everyone, with some really cool prizes and a chance to fight against everyone?… well not only the drunken duo of the Planet Risk show, but also against other folks… fellow listeners of SI Radio… Split Infinity Radio DJs… and their friends… and their friends’ friends’… and their enemies… hehehe

A test of player dog-fight skills and ability to fight under stress – with lots of other pilots around you, watching.. and waiting.. for their turn…

Here is what I’ve come up with so far:

1. We (Split Infinity Radio) organize and sponsor a PVP Tournament.
2. There is some sort of entry fee and your ship would have to meet specific requirements (see below)
3. Everyone who signs up, at the date of the tournaments has to be at a specific system / specific time where the tournament will take place!
4. The PVPes who signed up will be placed on single-elimination 1vs1 rounds, randomly and would get to fight against our special guests as well as SI Radio members!
5. Winner takes some cool prizes away with the trophy!

Rules:

You will have to fit and come with a Tech 1 Ship, using only! Tech 1 Meta – 0 modules!

No Named, No faction / deadspace / officer / Tech 2 or anything other – down to the bare minimum! Rigs are allowed.

Ships I am thinking of are Frigates or Cruisers – what do you think?!?!

Check out the poll section on the right – vote!

As you can also read in the latest Tribune article, the above fight for Y-2ANO recorded as one of the most expensive losses in a single battlefield ever yet in terms of ISK.

Reports say that in fact 7 Titans met their doom but somehow the killmails went lost.

As rumored there are about 250 of those ships (the size of Long Island) in the game.. well about 246 :-p Now, for newbs like me a single Titan loss seems unthinkable.. but 7… or even 4 ?

With the number of players online on the server reaching a new peak record of over 56.000  ((!!)) last weekend, I expect that killmails like that will be coming again sooner or later.

Bundled with player-driven actions like Hulkageddon II, started by Helicity Boson, I say 2010 started with quite a bang!

Exhumers (especially Hulks) are sky-rocketing in market already – almost double price compared to a month ago – as well as Destroyers and other ships used in the suicide runs.

The coverage of Hulkageddon II in media like MMOCrunch and Massively.com is huge, as well as the whole EVE blogosphere.

So what do Hulks and Titans have in common?

They both require massive amounts of minerals to make, especially Tritanium. I am curious to see how the market will be affected…

In the meantime, I am training a mining alt to help mine all those lovely roids inside Planet Risk to help the corp in building more capitals

QP

Recently we had a few new members join our ranks. Now there are many nice guides for new players out there, but quite a few months ago I took the time to write down some points for leveling up during your first few weeks that turned into a bigger guide in time, and then it grew even bigger and bigger… so I thought I’d refine it and share it with the community. So here it is.

Here is a link to Part 1

This is Part 2. Part 3 will follow soon ™.

QP

In Part 2 I will continue the talk about the various aspects that you can train for in this game. As in part 1, I will be presenting multiple skill plans as an example to what to train for in each aspect.

As a reminder:

There is no such thing as a "Perfect training plan" nor such thing as a "Power Gamers’ Plan" to help you in training your skills.

I came across a couple of links in the wiki that I missed linking in the first part.

Take a look, they are quite informative.

Ship Fitting Guide

Skills Guide

Now let’s go meet the rest of the Offensive skills. In Part 1 I discussed the Drones Skill Group. In Part 2 I’ll talk about the Gunnery and Missile groups.

Offensive ( Drones / Gunnery / Missiles )

The Gunnery Skill Group.

Guns are simple.

You load them with ammunition and you shoot at your targets. The more skills you have in the Gunnery group, the more damage you should be able to dish out, and the bigger guns you should be able to fit to your ship. If your tanking skills (more on that in Part 3) are just as good, you will be able to survive long enough to be the last man standing. That is always a good thing.

Guns are simple.

However it doesn’t seem that simple when you first look at that Gunnery Skill Group. Now apart from some odd skills like Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration that I am not going to discuss in this guide, we saw 2 of the skills in this group being used in enhancing your ship’s fitting in Part 1 of this guide. Weapon Upgrades and Advanced Weapon Upgrades will reduce the amount of CPU and Powergrid respectively that your ship’s weapons use. I will not discuss them further here.

Also note that by training the Weapon Upgrades skill you will be able to use some low-slot modules to augment the damage and Rate of fire of your preferred weapon system. These modules are Heat Sinks (for Energy Weapons), Gyrostabilizers (for Projectile Weapons), Magnetic Field Stabilizers (for Hybrid Weapons) and Ballistic Control Systems (for Missile Launchers). To use the Tech 2 versions of those modules you will need to train Weapon Upgrades to level IV.

Before you play with guns, read this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071223162431/www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g25.asp

Now you got your mind wrapped around concepts like Optimal, Falloff, Tracking Speed, Signature Radius, Transversal Velocity and so on… You will need to understand how these concepts work (it’s not hard if you have some basic math/physics knowledge) and how they are introduced in the game mechanics. Then you will be able to fit and fly your ships more effectively.

If you want to see how your fitting would work in some dogfights you can use the great ship fitting tool included with EVEHQ (http://evehq.net) called HQF. In there is a Damage Analysis tool (similar to that one in page 4 of the guide above) that will allow you to position your ship and a target and set speeds and range and take transversal velocity in mind and all that… go play!

Also, it’s highly recommended that you read the Missile section of this guide (see below) to understand how these two weapon systems work in the game and make your choices wisely. There are a lot of ships that can support both Guns and Missiles in the game and that might be the way to go for you!

Types of Guns

The first thing I should mention is that every Race in the game has it’s own ships and each type of ship is optimized to use different type of guns. Take a look at ships like the Harpy or the Jaguar for example. Or the Abaddon. Each of these ships gives bonuses to different type of weapons.

There are 3 major types of Guns in the game. Energy, Projectiles and Hybrids. Each of these types has 2 variants, one for close and one for long range. Each of these come in 4 sizes. Small, Medium, Large and Capital (or X-Large).

So you have a total of 24 different types of guns…

…and you bet there is a different skill for each

Of course you can mix & match but if you don’t know what you are doing, you should better stay with your own race’s type of guns. If you think you know what you are doing – why are you reading this guide for then? :-p

Also it is very important to mention that you should not be mixing different type of guns in the same ship. You either go for short/close range or try to stay far away. You don’t put Artillery and Autocannons in the same ship. This is one of the most common mistakes you can do in your first fitting attempts.

Everyone has done it and even if they don’t admit it, they had at some point a ship fitted with different type of weapon ranges. If however they do admit it and feel proud about it, then nod and walk away… slowly. Then go to read this: http://www.dontmixguns.com

Last, but not least, make sure you fit the correct size of gun to your ship. Small Guns are for Frigates and Destroyers, Medium are for Cruisers and BattleCruisers, Large are for Battleships and Capitals are for Capitals

So let’s see what we have for each race:

• Amarr: pew pew lazorz

  • Amarr use Energy weapons (also known as teh Lazorz) as their main offensive force.

  • Beam Weapons that are best for longer ranges, have medium tracking and do good damage and Pulse Weapons that are best for shorter to medium ranges, have good tracking and do very good damage.

  • Lasers don’t use ammo like other guns, but use Crystals that once you load into your gun, you won’t have to reload for a long-long time. Of course at some point the crystal will be destroyed and you will have to buy a new one, but usually you will be swapping different crystals based on the range of your opponents. Crystals do EM and Thermal Damage.

  • Energy weapons are the most capacitor greedy of all, so make sure you have great capacitor skills if you want to keep your guns firing during the whole encounter!

• Minmatar: ratatatatatattttatttt

  • Minmattar use Projectile weapons as their main offense.

  • Autocannons are for short ranges while Artilleries are for longer ranges.

  • Projectiles use ammo and by changing the type of ammo you use, you will get different Optimal & Falloff range as well as damage. Projectile ammo can do all types of damage, however each type of ammo does two types of damage. So you can swap ammo in order to match your opponent’s weakest defenses. However note that projectile ammo is consumed in large quantities – especially in autocannons.

  • Projectile Guns don’t use capacitor, which is a great bonus!

    • Read this excellent guide from Letrange if you are looking into more details for Minmatar weapons: http://letrangeeve.blogspot.com/2009/12/projectile-ammo.html and http://letrangeeve.blogspot.com/2009/12/artillery.html

• Gallente: “Launch Drones.. I mean.. Fire!”

  • It’s true that most Gallente pilots consider Drones to be their primary weapon of choice, however they share the same love as the Caldari for Hybrid Weapons.

  • Hybrids come in two choices, Railguns for superior snipping range, moderate damage and bad tracking and Blasters for up close and personal massive damage with good tracking.

  • Much like the projectiles, they have ammo to swap for changing their effective optimal and falloff range. Hybrid guns use ammo that does a mix of Thermal and Kinetic Damage.

  • Hybrid weapons use capacitor but are not as demanding as Lasers. Still you will need to train some capacitor skills to compensate.

The Path to Bigger Weapons

So let’s assume you want to get into a Battleship, and you will need Large Guns. You will need to train the following skills:

Gunnery III
Gunnery IV
Gunnery V
Small XXX Turret I (20.000 ISK)
Small XXX Turret II
Small XXX Turret III
Medium XXX Turret I (100.000 ISK)
Medium XXX Turret II
Medium XXX Turret III
Large XXX Turret I (2.000.000 ISK)
Large XXX Turret II
Large XXX Turret III

Total time: 9 days, 10 hours, 47 minutes, 42 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

• Where XXX can be your choice of Energy (for Amarr), Projectile (Minmatar) or Hybrid (Gallente & Caldari)

Gunnery Support Skills:

Much like the Drones and Missiles, there are some skills in the Gunnery Group that will affect any type of guns you use. It’s good to train them soon because the give good bonuses to your damage output. Whether or not you are going for Tech 2 Guns, you will have to level up some of these skills faster and further than others. But more on that bellow.

At a minimum, you should have the following skills trained to support your guns of choice:

Controlled Bursts I (70.000 ISK)
Controlled Bursts II
Controlled Bursts III
Motion Prediction I (60.000 ISK)
Motion Prediction II
Motion Prediction III
Rapid Firing I (40.000 ISK)
Rapid Firing II
Rapid Firing III
Sharpshooter I (80.000 ISK)
Sharpshooter II
Sharpshooter III
Surgical Strike I (1.000.000 ISK)
Surgical Strike II
Surgical Strike III
Trajectory Analysis I (100.000 ISK)
Trajectory Analysis II
Trajectory Analysis III

Total time: 5 days, 4 hours, 53 minutes, 20 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

If you are to invest more on support skills, besides the two needed for T2 guns, Rapid Firing would be the one to maximize first, as it is a Rank 2 skill (can get to V less than 10 days) and gives 4% bonus to the Rate of Fire of your guns per level.

Going for Tech 2 Guns

Tech 2 Guns are better. Bigger, faster, stronger.. take your pick. You want them just because they exist. Let’s see what’s needed for you to get them.

First of all, you will notice that you not only need to get some of your Gunnery Support skills first to higher levels (Sharpshooter for the Long Range versions / Motion Prediction for the Short Range ones), but also you will need to have all the smaller sized gun skill to level V and it’s specialization at IV before you can train the next one in size.

Let’s assume you want to go for the Long Range variant of your weapon of choice, in order to fit for a Cruiser-sized-ship that will be snipping targets from far away. Here is what you’ll need to train:

Sharpshooter I (80.000 ISK)
Sharpshooter II
Sharpshooter III
Sharpshooter IV
Small XXX Turret I (20.000 ISK)
Small XXX Turret II
Small XXX Turret III
Small XXX Turret IV
Small XXX Turret V
Small YYY Specialization I (1.000.000 ISK)
Small YYY Specialization II
Small YYY Specialization III
Small YYY Specialization IV
Gunnery III
Medium XXX Turret I (100.000 ISK)
Medium XXX Turret II
Medium XXX Turret III
Medium XXX Turret IV
Medium XXX Turret V
Medium YYY Specialization I (3.000.000 ISK)
Medium YYY Specialization II
Medium YYY Specialization III

Total time: 37 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes, 50 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

• Where XXX can be your choice of Energy (for Amarr), Projectile (Minmatar) or Hybrid (Gallente & Caldari)
• Where YYY is: Beam Laser (for Amarr), Artillery (for Minmatar) or Railgun (Gallente & Caldari)

Now let’s say you want to go for the Short Range variant, so you can get into a fast Frigate-sized ship and orbit at close ranges, dealing pain to your opponent.

Motion Prediction I (60.000 ISK)
Motion Prediction II
Motion Prediction III
Small XXX Turret I (20.000 ISK)
Small XXX Turret II
Small XXX Turret III
Small XXX Turret IV
Small XXX Turret V
Small ZZZ Specialization I (1.000.000 ISK)
Small ZZZ Specialization II
Small ZZZ Specialization III

Total time: 8 days, 13 hours, 33 minutes, 20 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

• Where XXX can be your choice of Energy (for Amarr), Projectile (Minmatar) or Hybrid (Gallente & Caldari)
• Where ZZZ is: Pulse Laser (for Amarr), Autocannon (for Minmatar) or Blaster (Gallente & Caldari)

Tech 2 Ammunition

Tech 2 Ammo can only be used in Tech 2 Guns. I am not going to discuss Tech 2 ammo here, but what you should know is that Tech 2 ammo comes with higher DPS or higher ranges but also with a disadvantage to your ship. Either increased signature radius (you become easier to hit) or reduced speed or reduced capacitor recharge. You will have to weight the Pros and Cons when deciding to use Tech 2 Ammo.

You can however, use your Tech 2 Gun together with normal Tech 1 Ammo or use Faction Ammo (can be quite expensive sometimes) for extra damage without any drawbacks.

Things to note about T2 guns:

• As you can see above, if you want to go for T2 guns, you can’t go for the Large Long Range version unless you also train the Medium and Small Long Range versions first.
• That means that although you might be able to use Large T2 Pulse Lasers (Amarr Battleship Close Range weapons) chances are you won’ be able to use Small T2 Beam Lasers (Amarr Frigate Long Range weapons).
• This is drastically different in the Missile Group, where as you can see below, you only need to train the appropriate size to level V and then the specialization for it.

The Missile Launcher Operation Skill Group

Missiles. The domain of the Caldari. Also a nice supplement to both Amarr and Minmatar pilots. They always hit their target with constant DPS, are not affected by transversal velocity, don’t have tracking speed issues but also do not hit instantly like guns do.

I need to point out at this stage that I am primarily a missile user so I’ve come to love and hate missiles at the same time.

Love because they have a much simpler training plan than guns above. Love because they put constant DPS on the target without worrying about orbiting speeds or tracking speeds or transversal velocity. Love because I can chose what type of damage I do based on what the weakest resistance on my target’s tank is. Love because they use no capacitor at all.

Hate because their DPS is usually lower of that of a gunboat. Hate because they have long reload times and low ammo capacity on their launchers. Hate because it takes time to reach their target and that’s bad for PVP. Hate because I don’t have an animation whenever I fire a missile (rather than a pile of smoke coming from the center of my ship) compared to awesome looking Turrets tracking their targets on gunboats.

Before you play with missiles, read this:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071231134111/www.eve-online.com/guide/en/g61_3.asp

Now you got your mind wrapped around concepts like Explosion Radius, Signature Radius, Explosion Velocity and so on… You will need to understand how these concepts work (it’s not hard if you have some basic math/physics knowledge) and how they are introduced in the game mechanics. Then you will be able to fit and fly your ships more effectively.

If you want to see how your fitting would work in some dogfights you can use the great ship fitting tool included with EVEHQ (http://evehq.net) called HQF. In there is a Damage Analysis tool (similar to that one in page 4 of the Gunnery guide above) that will allow you to position your ship and a target and set speeds and range and take transversal velocity in mind and all that… go play!

Also, it’s highly recommended that you read the Gunnery Section of this guide (see above) to understand how these two weapon systems work in the game and make your choices wisely. There are a lot of ships that can support both Guns and Missiles in the game and that might be the way to go for you!

Types of Launchers

Launchers are a bit less complicated than guns. Their main distinction is that of size.

• Rocket Launchers and Standard Missile Launchers are for Frigates and Destroyers
• Assault Missile Launchers, Heavy Missile Launchers and Heavy Assault Missile Launchers are for Cruisers and Battlecruisers
• Cruise Missile Launchers and Siege Launchers are for Battleships
• Citadel Cruise Launchers and Citadel Launchers are for Capitals.
• Bomb Launchers can be used only on Stealth Bombers (Tech 2 Covert Ops Frigates)

To avoid Confusion:

Don’t try to find any “Standard Missiles” to be used with Standard Missile Launchers, nor any “Assault Missiles” to be used with Assault Missile Launchers. They are called Light Missiles, and their respective skill is called Standard Missiles.

Light Missiles like the Bloodclaw Light Missile are the only type of missile that can be used in two different type of Launchers. When used on a Frigate/Destroyer they are launched from Standard Missile Launchers, while when they are used on a Cruiser/BattleCruiser they are launched from Assault Missile Launchers.

Torpedoes are launched from a Siege Launcher. Don’t try to find any “Torpedo Launcher” cause there isn’t one.

Did I mention the Missile Skill group isn’t as complicated as the Gunnery group? Well.. I lied. :-p

Types of Missiles

Rockets are used in Frigates/Destroyers that want to have a very close orbit (usually less than 8KM), are fast and have high RoF but have very low damage. The Rocket Launchers have very low CPU/Powergrid requirements however so they can be fitted in a ship much easier than Standard Missile Launchers.

Light Missiles when used on a Frigate will have great range (can reach up to 40KM), higher speed than rockets (will hit faster moving targets like Interceptors and Drones), higher damage, but lower rate of fire. When used on a Cruiser will have much higher rate of fire, but it’s more common to use Heavy Missiles or Heavy Assault Missiles in that ship size. If you want to have the perfect anti-frigate missile ship however it’s a Cruiser with Assault Missiles.

Heavy Missiles have great range (up to 90KM or more), good damage but slow rate of fire. It’s the weapon of choice for PVE Cruisers like the Caracal and BattleCruisers like the Drake.

Heavy Assault Missiles have low range (can reach around 15KM) lower damage per volley than Heavies but much higher rate of fire, hence better DPS. They are mostly used in PVP Caldari setups.

Cruise Missiles can reach massive ranges (150KM+), pack a great volley damage with moderate DPS. It’s the weapon of choice for one of the most used ships in the game, the Raven.

Torpedoes have low range (up to 25KM), have massive volley damage and great rate of fire for high DPS. They can also be used in Stealth Bombers and are ideal for anti-Battleship setups.

Based on the type of ship you can fly, essentially you have to choose between the long-ranged Guided missile but lower DPS version (Light, Heavy, Cruise) or the shorter range un-Guided, high DPS version (Rockets, Heavy Assault, Torpedoes).

Special Types of Missiles:

Bombs are a specialty, since only Stealth Bombers can use them. They don’t require a lock on the target, only your ship to be facing the target, will travel 30KM away from you and explode doing massive amounts of damage to everything in a 15KM radius. It takes about 5 seconds to cover that distance and your target might have time to warp out by the time it reaches them. The respective skill decreases the time it takes to be able to fire again with a bomb launcher. Nice to level up if you plan on spending a lot of time in a Stealth Bomber.

Defender Missiles are rarely seen in-game besides some NPCs and are used as chaff, to hit and destroy incoming missiles. Don’t bother training this skill at all.

Friend-or-Foe (FOF) Missiles can be used if you become jammed (unable to lock targets) by use of ECM from your enemy ships. The missiles will launch and hit the first available target in range. Useful, but not really needed. Train this if you don’t have anything better to do.

Path to bigger Launchers

Let’s assume you want to equip your Raven with the appropriate set of tools for the job. The weapon of choice is Cruise Missiles. Here is what you’ll need:

Missile Launcher Operation I (20.000 ISK)
Missile Launcher Operation II
Missile Launcher Operation III
Missile Launcher Operation IV
Missile Launcher Operation V
Standard Missiles I (20.000 ISK)
Standard Missiles II
Standard Missiles III
Heavy Missiles I (100.000 ISK)
Heavy Missiles II
Heavy Missiles III
Cruise Missiles I (350.000 ISK)
Cruise Missiles II
Cruise Missiles III

Total time: 9 days, 17 hours, 20 minutes
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Stealth Bombers

As mentioned earlier, there is a special type of Ship, called Stealth Bomber that uses some special type of weapons, called Bombs. These lovely toys are used together with Torpedoes to make this small frigate a feared opponent to any Battleship that has no smaller ships around to protect it.

Bombs can also be used to one-shot enemy Frigates, Destroyers, Industrial ships or even poorly-fitted Cruisers and all of their Tech 2 Variants. There are also special type of bombs available that can do nasty things besides damage, like remove the capacitor from the enemy ships or break their target locks.

Here is what you’ll need to use both a Bombs and Torpedoes on a Stealth Bomber:

Missile Launcher Operation I (20.000 ISK)
Missile Launcher Operation II
Missile Launcher Operation III
Missile Launcher Operation IV
Standard Missiles I (20.000 ISK)
Standard Missiles II
Standard Missiles III
Heavy Missiles I (100.000 ISK)
Heavy Missiles II
Heavy Missiles III
Torpedoes I (400.000 ISK)
Torpedoes II
Torpedoes III
Missile Bombardment I (80.000 ISK)
Missile Bombardment II
Missile Bombardment III
Missile Bombardment IV
Bomb Deployment I (8.000.000 ISK)

Total time: 6 days, 58 minutes, 32 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Missile Launcher Support Skills

Just like the rest of the Offensive Groups, Missile Launcher Operation has some skills that give bonuses to all other Missile Skills.

Well not true.

There is a skill, Guided Missile Precision that only gives it’s bonus of 5% decreased factor of signature radius only to Light, Heavy and Cruise missiles. That means that this skill does nothing for your Rockets, Heavy Assault Missiles and Torpedoes. Besides that however, it’s a great skill to train, because it will increase your damage to smaller targets when using Guided missiles.

Here is what a decent Missile Launcher Support skill group should look like:

Missile Launcher Operation I (20.000 ISK)
Missile Launcher Operation II
Rapid Launch I (40.000 ISK)
Rapid Launch II
Rapid Launch III
Target Navigation Prediction I (60.000 ISK)
Target Navigation Prediction II
Target Navigation Prediction III
Missile Bombardment I (80.000 ISK)
Missile Bombardment II
Missile Bombardment III
Missile Launcher Operation III
Missile Projection I (100.000 ISK)
Missile Projection II
Missile Projection III
Missile Launcher Operation IV
Warhead Upgrades I (1.000.000 ISK)
Warhead Upgrades II
Warhead Upgrades III
Missile Launcher Operation V
Guided Missile Precision I (500.000 ISK)
Guided Missile Precision II
Guided Missile Precision III

Total time: 12 days, 53 minutes, 20 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

If you can spend more time training up your missile skills, Rapid Launch, Target Navigation Prediction and Missile Bombardment are the skills to level up first. You can leave Warhead Upgrades last because it only makes a difference if you are using Cruise, Torpedoes or Capital missiles.

Getting to Tech 2 Launchers

Let’s see some training plans for T2 Launchers.

First, let’s assume that I want to equip a BattleCruiser like the Drake with T2 Heavy Missile Launchers so that I can clear some of those Level 4 missions faster. Here’s what I’ll go for:

Missile Launcher Operation I (20.000 ISK)
Missile Launcher Operation II
Missile Launcher Operation III
Missile Launcher Operation IV
Missile Launcher Operation V
Standard Missiles I (20.000 ISK)
Standard Missiles II
Standard Missiles III
Heavy Missiles I (100.000 ISK)
Heavy Missiles II
Heavy Missiles III
Heavy Missiles IV
Heavy Missiles V
Heavy Missile Specialization I (3.000.000 ISK)
Heavy Missile Specialization II
Heavy Missile Specialization III

Total time: 31 days, 6 hours
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Next let’s say I want to equip my fast-moving Interceptor class Frigate like the Crow with T2 Standard Missiles. This will allow me to hit my target with decent DPS without worrying about my tracking speed while keeping a really high transversal and orbit speeds in excess of 4.000 m/sec:

Missile Launcher Operation I (20.000 ISK)
Missile Launcher Operation II
Missile Launcher Operation III
Standard Missiles I (20.000 ISK)
Standard Missiles II
Standard Missiles III
Standard Missiles IV
Standard Missiles V
Standard Missile Specialization I (1.000.000 ISK)
Standard Missile Specialization II
Standard Missile Specialization III
Missile Launcher Operation IV
Missile Launcher Operation V

Total time: 22 days, 22 hours
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Tech 2 Ammunition

Tech 2 Ammo can only be used in Tech 2 Launchers. I am not going to discuss Tech 2 ammo here, but what you should know is that Tech 2 ammo comes with higher DPS or higher ranges but also with a disadvantage to your ship. Either increased signature radius (you become easier to hit) or reduced speed or reduced capacitor recharge. You will have to weight the Pros and Cons when deciding to use Tech 2 Ammo.

You can however, use your Tech 2 Launcher together with normal Tech 1 Ammo or use Faction Ammo (can be quite expensive sometimes) for extra damage without any drawbacks.

Coming up in later parts:

Please leave a comment if you liked the guide and suggestions / improvements are always welcome.

EVEMon was used during this guide to show learning trees and skills suggestions. No pets where harmed while writing this guide (at least to my knowledge) :-p

QP

Recently we had a few new members join our ranks. Now there are many nice guides for new players out there, but quite a few months ago I took the time to write down some points for leveling up during your first few weeks that turned into a bigger guide in time, and then it grew even bigger and bigger… so I thought I’d refine it and share it with the community. So here it is. Parts 2 & 3 will follow soon ™.

EvE Universe Rule(s):

1. Never fly what you cannot afford to lose
2. NEVER fly whey you CANNOT afford to lose
3. NEVER FLY A SHIP YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE
4. Never …
5. …you get my point

Please leave a comment if you liked the guide and suggestions / improvements are always welcome.

QP

Scope of this guide:

I will be introducing you to some of the basic concepts of the game that have to do with your character’s development and skill training and then focus on the various aspects of the game and note what are the skills you should train first for each of those.

…but first some basics!

Things to know about Skill Points

1. Your Character in EvE grows stronger by accumulating Skill Points (SP). The more SPs you have, the "stronger" your character is. Skill points are accumulated by training skills. Just to give you an idea, our dear CEO Luminus has about 42M SPs. You, as a new player has just started the game with only 35K SPs. Why is that huge difference? Skills are trained in real-time, and the more months you have into the game, the more SPs you will accumulate.
2. Skills Points are accumulating as long as you are training any skill, in real-time, even when you have logged-off EvE and you are off to work, school or even holidays (yep Luminus is known to logging off from time to time to get some beer). The good news is that you, as a new player, get a special boost to your training time until you reach 1,6M SPs. Once you reach that point you continue training your skills normally like the rest of us.
3. Every skill in the game has Levels. From level I to level V. For each level of the skill you have successfully trained you get the designated bonus. You don’t get any fraction of the bonuses by having trained your next level to 92%. Only when you get to 100% of a new skill level you will get the designated bonus. For example the skill Spaceship Command gives your ships better Agility per skill level. More agile ships mean faster turns, faster align to warp and faster and tighter orbit speeds. Faster is always good – right? So this particular skill gives your ship a 2% bonus in Agility, so when you reach level V you will have a total of 10% bonus to your Agility score for each ship you fly.
4. All skills have Ranks, from Rank 1 (fastest training time for starting skills) all the way up to Rank 16 for using the mighty Titan. For each Rank the skill has, it multiplies the training time by it’s rank. For example, the skill Rockets being a Rank 1 skill, will take you around 5 days to train it from level IV to level V. The exact amount of time needed to train is calculated based on your attributes (more on that below), but let’s assume it’s 5 days. Now if you want to train Heavy Missiles skill, being a Rank 3 skill will require you to spend 3x times more time to get it trained from IV to V, so about 15days.
5. To learn new skills, you will use books and "inject" them into your clone. You get Skill books either by direct purchasing from the market or by completing missions for agents. Your tutorial agents gave you a few books to get you started. You have a very useful tool to use for learning new skills called The Skill Training Queue. Use it wisely so you don’t have to wake up early to change a skill or even worse – miss training time!.
6. Skills are grouped in Groups and you should start by taking a look at what is available for you, but also what skills you can learn. Spend some time playing with tools like EvEMon or the in-game skill window and you will soon get a feeling on what is important and what not. You will soon realize that you will need to have some specific skills called Required Skills in order for some more advanced ones. Take a look at Cruise Missiles for example to see quite a few required skills and their required skill level.
7. Each skill group has one “major” skill that by taking it to higher levels will “unlock” the training of the rest of the skills in this tree. In my notes for each skill group (see below) I will be highlighting the major skill in each group and the skills it unlocks. You should consider

Things to know about Attributes:

1. Your character has 5 basic Attributes. Attributes control how fast you can train your skills. The higher the attribute, the faster the learning time. Simple – yes?
2. You can increase your Attribute scores by doing 3 things: 
        a. You train the appropriate learning skill (more on that below).
        b. You train the Cybernetics skill that allows you to use Implants to increase a specific attribute.
        c. You use the Neural Remapping Tool to change your base Attribute scores once per year.
3. For new players, you get to use the Neural Remapping Tool 2 times, so you can afford to make a mistake, or to optimize your training plan Talk with others and don’t choose your attributes without planning and consideration because you can only change them once per year. I will talk more about Neural Remapping in part 2.

Planning your skill training:

There is no such thing as a "Perfect training plan" nor such thing as a "Power Gamers’ Plan" to help you in training your skills.

You will train them based on what you need, what you would like to do, what ships to fly and what modules to fit. Generally it’s better to start off by training the basic skills (most are Rank 1 so you train them fast enough) you will need, like flying ships and basic fighting skills.

It’s very important to note that even if you choose to become a Trader or a Manufacturer that you will spend most of your time doing research or trading and not flying in fleets doing massive tons of damage (like normal people :-p) you will need to have some basic fighting skills as you must get some missions done to get the game started and your income to flow.

Now rather than going through every skill in the game and explaining what it does, I will only point out the “must-have” from each Skill group, but grouped in one of the following aspects.

• Learning
• Ship Fitting
• Offensive (Gunnery / Missiles / Drones)
• Defensive (Armor & Shield Tanking)
• Exploration & Wormhole-specifics
• Electronic Warfare
• Fleet Support & Logistics
• Other Useful things

Note that the times (days) training for the suggested skills below are if you start a new character and train nothing else besides those skills. Hint: Train those learning skills first

The Learning Skill Group:

1. The Learning skill group consists of 11 skills, each increasing one of your base attributes by 1 point for each level of the skill.
2. This group is one of the first that you should consider training, as it will dramatically decrease the training time of your other more "important" skills you need for your career in EvE. It may seem to be really boring and a total waste of time, but trust me, it will pay off.
3. The main idea here is to train the Rank 1 skills in this tree ASAP to level IV and then train the Rank 3 skills to level IV as well. the Rank 3 skills cost about 4,5M ISK each so you might not be able to acquire them when you initially start the game, but it should be one of your first real investments.
4. If you would rather spend your 100% training time bonus on actual training for “useful” skills rather than learning skills, it’s still highly recommended that you train the Rank 1 learning skills up to level III and then proceed to your normal training routine.

Below I have two examples. One is for a character who wants to spend all their 100% training time bonus to maximize learning skills (why waste more time on them later?) and the other is for the minimal amount of training needed to speed up the rest while you train your preferred skills.

Option 1: Max Learning

Cybernetics I (75.000 ISK)
Instant Recall I (50.000 ISK)
Analytical Mind I (50.000 ISK)
Learning I (35.000 ISK)
Instant Recall II
Analytical Mind II
Learning II
Instant Recall III
Analytical Mind III
Learning III
Instant Recall IV
Eidetic Memory I (5.000.000 ISK)
Eidetic Memory II
Eidetic Memory III
Analytical Mind IV
Logic I (5.000.000 ISK)
Logic II
Logic III
Learning IV
Eidetic Memory IV
Logic IV
Learning V
Iron Will I (50.000 ISK)
Iron Will II
Iron Will III
Iron Will IV
Spatial Awareness I (50.000 ISK)
Spatial Awareness II
Spatial Awareness III
Spatial Awareness IV
Empathy I (50.000 ISK)
Empathy II
Empathy III
Focus I (5.000.000 ISK)
Focus II
Focus III
Focus IV
Clarity I (5.000.000 ISK)
Clarity II
Clarity III
Clarity IV
Analytical Mind V
Instant Recall V

Total time: 20 days, 15 minutes, 56 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Option 2: Minimal Learning

Cybernetics I (75.000 ISK)
Instant Recall I (50.000 ISK)
Analytical Mind I (50.000 ISK)
Learning I (35.000 ISK)
Instant Recall II
Analytical Mind II
Learning II
Instant Recall III
Analytical Mind III
Learning III
Iron Will I (50.000 ISK)
Iron Will II
Iron Will III
Spatial Awareness I (50.000 ISK)
Spatial Awareness II
Spatial Awareness III

Total time: 20 hours, 38 minutes, 29 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Note: on both suggestions, first is Cybernetics at I. This will allow you to use +3 implants right away that will shave off lots of your training time. The cost of +3 implants is about 10M for each.

Ship Fitting Skills:

Now if you have come to a point where you want to fit that 4th Launcher in your Kestrel or you want to add a bigger plate to your Rifter but you don’t have enough CPU or Powergrid, look no further.

Ship Fitting skills will allow you to use better (bigger) modules and maximize the efficiency of your ship.

Again I present two suggestions here, one for maximizing the ship Fitting capabilities of your ship, the other with just the bare minimum you should train in your first few days.

Option 1: Maximizing Ship Fitting

Electronics IV
Electronics V
Electronics Upgrades I (100.000 ISK)
Electronics Upgrades II
Electronics Upgrades III
Electronics Upgrades IV
Engineering IV
Engineering V
Energy Systems Operation I (40.000 ISK)
Energy Systems Operation II
Energy Systems Operation III
Energy Systems Operation IV
Energy Systems Operation V
Energy Management I (170.000 ISK)
Energy Management II
Energy Management III
Energy Management IV
Energy Management V
Energy Grid Upgrades I (79.000 ISK)
Energy Grid Upgrades II
Energy Grid Upgrades III
Energy Grid Upgrades IV
Weapon Upgrades I (80.000 ISK)
Weapon Upgrades II
Weapon Upgrades III
Weapon Upgrades IV
Weapon Upgrades V
Advanced Weapon Upgrades I (500.000 ISK)
Advanced Weapon Upgrades II
Advanced Weapon Upgrades III
Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV
Hull Upgrades I (60.000 ISK)
Hull Upgrades II
Mechanic III
Jury Rigging I (60.000 ISK)
Jury Rigging II
Jury Rigging III

Total time: 116 days, 22 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Option 2: Minimal Ship Fitting

Electronics IV
Electronics Upgrades I (100.000 ISK)
Electronics Upgrades II
Electronics Upgrades III
Engineering IV
Energy Grid Upgrades I (79.000 ISK)
Energy Grid Upgrades II
Energy Grid Upgrades III
Energy Management I (170.000 ISK)
Energy Management II
Energy Management III
Energy Management IV
Energy Systems Operation I (40.000 ISK)
Energy Systems Operation II
Energy Systems Operation III
Energy Systems Operation IV
Weapon Upgrades I (80.000 ISK)
Weapon Upgrades II
Hull Upgrades I (60.000 ISK)
Hull Upgrades II
Mechanic III
Jury Rigging I (60.000 ISK)
Jury Rigging II
Jury Rigging III

Total time: 9 days, 3 hours, 17 minutes, 12 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Offensive ( Drones / Gunnery / Missiles )

The Drones Skill Group:

If you’ve chosen Gallente as your race, you will be using drones as your primary weapon, as most of their ships have special focus on drones. But even if you are not Gallente, you will learn to respect your Drone tree if you want others to fear your drones.

Drones are a very important source of DPS and although you need quite a few skills to make them effective, you will be using drones in almost every ship you fly with. So even if you fly with Frigates, Cruisers or Battleships, having good drone skills will be invaluable to your total damage output.

Similar to the other offensive skills in Gunnery and Missiles, the Drone group has 2 types of skills. The ones that will unlock more powerful set of drones and enable you to use their T2 variants, and skills that will augment your drone’s abilities and firepower.

Let’s see what you’ll need in order to use Tech 2 Light and Medium Drones (assuming Gallente Drones).

Drones I (20.000 ISK)
Scout Drone Operation I (40.000 ISK)
Scout Drone Operation II
Scout Drone Operation III
Scout Drone Operation IV
Scout Drone Operation V
Drones II
Drones III
Drones IV
Drones V
Gallente Drone Specialization I (9.000.000 ISK)
Gallente Drone Specialization II

Total time: 15 days, 28 minutes
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Of course you will need to augment those drones with some decent support skills:

Combat Drone Operation I (50.000 ISK)
Combat Drone Operation II
Combat Drone Operation III
Drone Durability I (50.000 ISK)
Drone Durability II
Drone Durability III
Drone Interfacing I (500.000 ISK)
Drone Interfacing II
Drone Interfacing III
Drone Navigation I (100.000 ISK)
Drone Navigation II
Drone Navigation III
Drone Sharpshooting I (150.000 ISK)
Drone Sharpshooting II
Drone Sharpshooting III

Total time: 3 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, 20 seconds
N.B. Skill costs are based on CCP’s database and are indicative only

Of the Drone Support Skills, Drone Interfacing is the most valuable one, as it drastically increases the DPS of your drones, so you might want to train that first to higher levels than the rest of your Drone support skills.

Coming up in Part 2:

Coming up in Part 3:

• Complete suggestions for various races with sample skill training plans

Please leave a comment if you liked the guide and suggestions / improvements are always welcome.

EVEMon was used during this guide to show learning trees and skills suggestions. No pets where harmed while writing this guide (at least to my knowledge) :-p

QP

After the long hiatus, we are back and eager to clear some sites and make some extra ISK

So after the holidays when everyone was away and not clearing sites we had quite a few spawned inside our new home. In total we had 6 PVE Sites (2 Citadels, 2 Bastions, 1 Strange Energy Readings and 1 Mirror), 9 LADAR sites (Yes 9!!) and 8 Grav Sites (Yes 8!!!) and also a RADAR Site.

So far we’ve cleared most of the PVE and LADARs – but damn! scanning all those signatures every day after server restart just to refresh their sigs so you can scan for any new wormholes is a royal pain! The mining crew has almost cleared a Rarified Core Deposit and we are planning to have a massive mining op soon to clear all the smaller sites in one go.

On the PVE front, we are now using carriers to augment our sleeper encounters and net extra ISK from each site. The first carrier you bring into the mix spawns an additional 6 Sleepless Guardians (the best Sleeper BS kind) while the second carrier you bring spawns an additional 8! Nothing to worry about though… the encounters are easy enough when you have 2x Carriers on grid and the DPS is quite good to clear the sites fast enough. The extra ISK from the Guardians is also most welcome!

Here are some nice looking pics from our recent encounters. Look ma! Lights!

PVP action has been quite low these days – following last month’s massacre where I got podded – I’d say this is not bad. A few days ago we had some folks hauling stuff through our wormhole but we lacked the manpower to setup an effective camp using bubbles etc so we didn’t net any kills. Too bad

On another note, we are still debating whether to build a Rorqual right away or build some Dreadnoughts first. We will talk about that on our next show, as well as give you detailed info on how to use carriers in wspace encounters from our experiences these days.

Last, but not least, on a personal note, my main (Quivering Palm) just got over 20M SPs (huzzah!) roughly about the same time as I celebrated my first year in the game. One year ago I was looking to find level 1 agents with Quality 15+ and now I am debating whether to build a Moros or a Rorqual.. I’d say it has been a good first year and hope much more to come!

See you out there!

You might recall the Siege on Planet Risk * we had back in the Class 2 beginning of September, where we managed to protect our POS against a Russian corp from the xX Shadow of Death Xx alliance.

* hence the grin… :-p

We also had quite a few dealings with Russian PVPers last week, where we simply got pwnd… Some lessons learned there (wait for the next PR show for details).

So I began to think how come and so many Russian folks wander in wormholes…

Perhaps the image discovered by Therem Harth gives a clue to why wormholes are so popular to Russian players…

In any case, I just want to point out that I have no prejudice nor hard feelings for any Russians playing the game. In real life I work daily with a team of Russian folks and I am proud to call some of them my friends… Hmm.. maybe I should show them that Dominion trailer and hook them up with EvE! :-p

Мне бы хотелось побывать в вашей стране!

На здоровье!