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