Making Your Own Goals

A three post series exploring the new player experience in Eve Online.
1. The Most Important Commodity in New Eden
2. Making Your Own Goals < You are here. 
3. New Player Choices

After almost two years of playing Eve I think I have finally figured out what it is I like doing the most, blogging and reading about the game. I like to trade and do industry but that's not what keeps me coming back.

I was reading in the new player forums, a few days back, when someone committed to a new players plea why won't any one do XYZ with me, you have to look at Eve as a simulator the poster replied. I find this statement to be very profound. Eve is a simulation game where you have elements of creation and destruction based in real time with real players. Yes there are some NPCs floating around but their functions are limited to a few basic game play elements.

What this poster needed to understand, as a new player, is to play in the simulation you are required to create your own goals based around this cycle of creation and destruction. If you want to play with others, as this new player did, you better convince them that your goals are more important or just as important as others goals(which in this situation they weren't, the poster wanted to go gank some players for blowing up his T1 frigate).

The truly unique aspects of the Eve simulation are its single shared server, nearly complete player run economy and lack of other MMOs theme park style progression. With a single shared environment butterfly effects, like those mentioned in this promotional trailer, become reality day in and day out. When people make mistakes or forget to pay bills big things happen and they impact everyone.

The point being it is your goals as a player that are important that drive the simulation that shape the sandbox nature of Eve. So as you begin playing Eve set some goals and learn how to use the mechanics of the simulation find creative and out of the box ways to achieve them.

This is a follow up post to:
The Most Important Commodity in New Eden

Planning My Play Time with no Time to Play

The first six months I played Eve I struggled sometimes to know what to do bigger and better things always seemed out of reach of my limited skill base at the time. A year later that isn't the case I seem to have so much to do in-game that I just never seem to have enough time to get it all done. I know we all have limits on our time to play the game and that is one motivating factor I have had for staring this blog of watered down guides that are quick to read and quick to the point.

So on that note I am, and to some extent always have been, planning my play time around more passive less time intensive activities in Eve. For example planetary interaction, manufacturing, and trading. All of which can be time intensive in their own right but also scale with the amount of time invested rather nicely.

As my isk starts to pile up I find a need for larger investments of non time consuming activities my thoughts point me to blueprint research and also setting up a POS. Maybe not the most passive game play but it will get the job done. I have been busy grinding standings in anticipation of setting up said POS. The other reason for going this route is I like to try things first hand in game before I write guides on them and I have always wanted to write a series on POSes.

Basic 14 Day Starting Skill Plan

Geared towards those trial accounts that want to be serious but just haven't taken the risk yet you need a simple training plan to get you started. Because in Eve Online your consequences matter and when it comes to skill planning it matters more than most. Ok, so first the skills and then the why:

Navigation 4 - 5% bonus to sub-warp ship velocity per skill level.
CPU Management 4 - 5% bonus to ship CPU output per skill level.(Used for fitting ships.)
Power Grid Management 4 - 5% bonus to ship's powergrid output per skill level. (Used for fitting ships.)
Capacitor Management 4 - 5% bonus to capacitor capacity per skill level. (Used to activate your ships modules.)
Mechanics 4 - 5% bonus to structure hit points per skill level.
Shield Management 4 - 5% bonus to shield capacity per skill level.
Hull Upgrades 4 - 5% bonus to armor hit points per skill level.
Spaceship command 4 - 2% improved ship agility for all ships per skill level.

Total time: 12 days, 20 hours, 16 minutes, 40 seconds; (Time based on no remap) Cost: 400,000 isk.

Now in some older guides your going to see some different names for these skills as of 2014 these skill names are current. Great for a a new player during your first 14 days or perfect for a trial account. These skills are great for getting started you will eventually train them all to level five they are the base foundation for any path in Eve. Why? These are skills that affect every ship from how fast it flies to your ability to put modules on the ship, shields, armor etc.

To fill out the last couple days of your training look towards some more roll oriented skills or career specific skills:

Gunnery 4 - 2% bonus to weapon turrets' rate of fire per skill level. (If you are planning on shooting something your Gunnery skills are a good place to start.)
Mining 4 - 5% bonus to mining turret yield per skill level.
Trade - 3 Active buy/sell order limit increased by 4 per level of skill. (Someday, sometime your going to need to sell something.)

Hope that gets you started. Eve Online has years and years worth of skill training to train so get started and don't forget to feed your skill que. This list is based on skills that will help you in the long run, before you have a chance to see what kind of game play you like or enjoy. Good luck out there you have a lot of decisions ahead of you in your future skill training.

Other helpful Resources:
EveMon - Is a third party program that helps you create skills plans and test different attribute remaps. One of the single best resources out there for a new player or trying to make skills plans.

Operation: Mission Grinding

Before I could start doing level 1 missions I had to think ahead, as is the case for most things in Eve. A little planning can go along way to avoiding a headache. I first thought about the two reasons I wanted to do missions in the first place. The first and biggest reason was I wanted to work towards setting up a POS(Player Owned Station) in order to do that I needed NPC faction standing(reputation) in the system I would be setting it up in.

Standing Required for POS
System Sec    Standing
0.4                  4
0.5                  5
0.6                  6
0.7                  7

The second reason to do missions was to try out level 4 missions as an income source and for the fun of it. Level 4 missions require at least a base level of trained skills in order to survive. Also you need a certain level of standing with an NPC corporation in order to do the level 4 missions.

Agent Level Standing
Mission    Standing
1                -10
2                1
3                3
4                5
5                7

Now that I know what level of standings I needed for my two previously mentioned goals it was time to choose a location. I needed to work on the NPC empire faction where my operating base is so I could set up a POS close to where I play. As far as choosing a NPC corporation to grind standing I wanted to choose one that had a good mission hub nearby(a mission hub would be a station or system with multiple level 4 mission agents in it).

After some careful consideration I choose an area to do missions in and started working on level 1s. Now I should note that there is a lot more to consider when grinding missions for standings I will post a few resources below for further reading. Also I hope to post a few of the ship fits as investment guides that I have been using to grind in.

Eve-survival.org
The Plan(Standings Grinding)
Standings Mechanics

Eve Apps

iOS: Neocom
I have been using this app for the past several months on my iPad. What a huge resource for any player. With full functioning API it doubles as an evemon on your iPad or iPhone. With quick access to your players skill que, the Eve Central market laid out like the in game market and in-game mail access just to name a few. It is very handy for checking up on your industrial timers without having to boot up your PC. Once more I promise you will waste even more time at working reading Eve News24 and TMC with the quick news fed interface on this  app.

The API function is quick and painless. You connect to the app through your LAN and can easily copy paste in your API using your PC. Now I know CCP would hate this but I find myself as trader and industrial player checking up on my market orders and industrial jobs and not even logging into the game. Check it for yourself it is free at the App Store and does have a small ad bar in the left hand bottom corner. With a donation of 1 dollar you can get the ads removed. Check out their website at www.eveuniverseiphone.com. Wow that sounded more like an ad than a review I guess those marketing classes in college counts for something.

Android: Aura
Also I have to mention the android app Aura. I personally have never used it but it was recently featured in the eve community news that they cover each week head over there and check out their coverage and review if you have an android device I am sure the features are similar.

30 Day Trial Account Offer (Limited Time Only)

(Update: Aug. 26 2013) This offer is no longer available.
(Update: Aug. 6 2013)Special Alliance Tournament 11 Offer 30 Day Trial: Free
Game Time: 30 Days, subscription and game purchase required afterwards. This offer is going on during the recent Alliance Tournament 11. I don't know how long this will be going on I expect about a month. This is quite a good offer it covers 30 days of free game time that is equal to 15 dollars or a PLEX which costs 19.95. Check out more subscription offers at Eve Online Subscriptions and Specials.

This is a really cool offer and one you should take advantage of if your thinking about getting in game this is a great opportunity to try it out. Again wow one whole month of game time this is almost makes me want to start an alt account.

Again here is the link https://secure.eveonline.com/ATXITrial/.

Saw the link up on the video below an ad for Alliance Tournament 11.

10 Things I wish I had known when I started playing Eve Online

In no particular order,

1. Watch out for scams in local chat or any chat for that matter. If it seems to good to be true it is. Seriously though every single contract or trade in local chat is a scam either by design or by a stupid person not knowing what they are doing.

2. Never underestimate the value of reading and researching. You can save yourself hours of round abouts and headaches if you take a few minutes to read up on something your trying to do.

3. Think long term, What will you be doing in a week, what will you be flying in a month? What is your goals for the next three months, six months or a year?

4. There is no endgame, you play how you want to play when you want to play, you are in control. No one is going to hold your hand and walk you through to some starting point. After the tutorials you can do whatever you want.

5. Don't wait until you have the perfect ship fit to try something out. Just get out there get your hands dirty its a sandbox getting dirty is required to build something great.

6. Don't give up if you don't like something or if its hard. You might need to try one of the tips above read more about it or rethink your plans.

7. PLEXing your account is not a goal its a wish. Lots of people wish they could PLEX their account. If your PLEXing your account you are the entertainment that everyone else is paying for.

8. Find people that like doing the same thing as you and go have fun with them.

9. Skills take REAL time to train your not going to be able to do everything you want right out of the gate its just plain fact.

10. Have fun, the minute it feels like a job you need to stop playing and rethink why your playing this game.

Quick Start

Starting out for the first time Eve Online is overwhelming. This guide gives you a heads up on character creation consequences, character attributes, implants, skill training and clones. What are you waiting for lets get a quick start. First lets watch a quick video it gives a brief overview of what you will be doing in game.

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Character Creation

What are the consequences of Character Creation?
Race affects...
Your starting area in-game. The general region in space you start at, for example, if you choose Amarr You will start in Amarr space etc. Two token skills, racial frigates, and a small weapon skill. You can train to fly any ship in the game of any race regardless of starting race. Each race has one of three ethnic bloodlines you may choose from.

Bloodline affects...
What you generally look like before you start editing your physical character.

Ancestry affects...
What your little bio says in-game.

Education affects...
What starting system you will be directed towards in the in-game tutorial. You can do the tutorial at any starting system of any race in the game or not at all if you choose. Below is a list of starting areas for each of the four races. (Note: You are only asked to report to these training tutorials you don't have to. Although I highly advise you should go through them all.)

Amarr Empire

• Conoban System - Hedion University
• Deepari System - Imperial Academy
• Pasha Sytem - Royal Amarr Institute

Caldari State

•  Akiainavas System - School of Applied Knowledge
• Jouvulen System - Science and Trade Institute
• Uitra System - State War Academy

Gallente Federation

• Clellinon System - Center For Advanced Studies
• Couster System - Federal navy Academy
• Trossere System - University of Caille

Minmatar Republic

• Embod System - Pator Tech School
• Hadaugago System - Republic Military School
• Malukker System - Republic University

Pick a good name that you want to be known by.

(Note: After completing the character creation process you can only change the appearance of your hair, scars and tattoos. You can change the character profile picture at any station for no cost.)

(Note: You can train to fly any ship in the game of any race regardless of starting race. Also Race doesn't affect Character Attributes which are explained below.)

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Character Attributes
Character Attributes are actually Skill Attributes. They don't directly affect how your ship flies. These attributes affect the time it takes to train your skills. How attributes affect skill training? Each skill has two attributes that affect its skill training time. For example Mining's two attributes are Primary: Intelligence and Secondary: Memory by having a character with more points allocated to theses two attributes the Mining skill will train faster.


Attribute names are:

• Intelligence
•  Perception
• Charisma
• Willpower
• Memory.

Each attribute has a base number of 17. When you first start you can remap them twice after that you can only change them once a year. You have 14 re-mappable points. You can only add up to 10 additional points to any one attribute.

The best way to map out your training and best possible attribute configuration is to use the program EveMon. EveMon is a free API that you can use to plan your skills out and attributes. Some corporations even use it to verify how many skills you have trained.

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Implants
Implants can be used to increase your attributes even further thus increasing your effect skill training time.

Implants come in +1 to +7 per attribute. As a new player it shouldn't be hard to get your hands on some +2s. You will need Cybernetics skill trained before you can implant them.

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Skill Training(These will affect how your ship flies)
Skills train 24 hours a day in real world time. Starting out your going to want to specialize in certain skills. Download EveMon, as I mentioned above, it will help you plan out your skills and the best attribute combinations to train them. Also it will tell you what skills you need to use various items and ships.

To get more skills you buy the skill books, which are NPC seeded at the starting stations. Some skills cost a lot more than a week old pilot can afford. With time you can buy what you want and need.

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Clones

What is a clone? A clone is you. All your skill training is kept in your clone. You need to upgrade your clone level as you gain skill points. Because if your pod is destroyed without an upgraded clone you lose those trained skills. The space station your clone is saved at is where your going to start if your pod is destroyed. Keep that in mind when venturing far off into space. Your clone also has all of your implants in it. So if your pod is destroyed  whatever implants you had plunged into it are destroyed as well.

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Jump Clones
What is a Jump Clone?  It is a copy of your characters clone. Jump Clones give you the ability to both have multiple sets of implants and also a way to jump to a new location of a saved jump clone. They can only be used once every 24 hours. You have to have at least an 8.0 standing with the station owning corporation in order to instal a jump clone. You also need Infomorph Psychology skill to use. (Note: It will take several months before your playing around with these bad boys but don't worry once your standings are high enough you will be in good shape to use jump clones.)

These are very watered down definitions but should give you a clearer understanding of some of the most important aspects of the game. You have a lot of studying to do beyond this so get out there keep flying and keep reading.

Next Guide Character Creation Walk-through>>>

Already in Game? Starting Tutorial Missions Guide>>>

Other Guides can be found here.

Odyssey: In Review

At first look tons of sweet changes, lots of new things to play with and try out. First things first, there are a ton of bugs specifically skills that are not showing up right. I think if you just be patient and send a ticket in so they know you have a problem everyone's skills will get sorted out if not today in a couple of days. We all know we trained like crazy to take advantage of the changes whats a couple more days wait.

The most important thing to know: To disable the camera auto tracking thing press "C" It will stop the constant swinging motion I about feel off my chair after I logged in.

Right now I am really into the fact that all the blueprints have color. I do a lot of building and it is much more interesting looking at my huge stack of blueprints with color than the old hazy blue style. Thumbs up on that unexpected but classy change.

All changes aside the one thing you can not ignore is the jump gate affect. I would say it is the most visible and strong reminder that this is an ever changing universe. With that said a lot of the other features I really don't interact with. I haven't done exploration since I started playing. I have never gone ice mining and don't own a POS. Some of the ship changes are interesting. As I stated in my Eve Odyssey Prepare and Speculate post the only thing that really affected my game play was the ship skill changes and the clone cost reduction.

Maybe its time I go try out the hacking mini game? Or just stick to playing the market "mini" game all the stops and starts on there are reacted to and changed by real people not the computer and I make a lot of isk doing it.

Note: I should note this is the first major "patch" I have played through.

For known issues check out the EVE Online: Odyssey Issues.

Oh and if you didn't see they released the Odyssey Trailer:

Also the In development: Dev Video for Odyssey:

Eve Odyssey: Prepare and Speculate

Post Updated: June 3, 2013
Eve Online: Odyssey Summer Expansion
Release Date: June 4, 2013
43 Days after Fanfest April 24, 2013
35 Days after May 1, 2013
7 Days after May 28, 2013
Patch Notes: Odyssey 1.0
Test Server:
Our EVE: Odyssey Exploration features now available for testing on Sisi
Our EVE: Radial Menu now available for testing on Sisi, demonstration

Eveonline.com:
Eveonline.com/odyssey

Discovery Scanner: Using this new system, more pilots will reveal the hidden secrets of the EVE Universe. Beautiful new visuals, customizable controls and new functionality have been added to encourage the adventurer in everyone. There is now more among the stars, enticing even the most experienced veterans to explore.

A New "Spacescape": A rebalance of major areas of space from highsec to nullsec include changes in exploration sites, industrial resources, some types of NPC loot and more…

The Little Things: Continued development towards raising accessibility without removing functionality will bring dozens of changes to player-owned starbases, game UI and beyond.

The War Machines: Forged by the lessons learned from countless combat pilots, the four factions will issue forth with the latest tools of war and re-designs of old favorites - ships as awe-inspiring as they are deadly.

The Story Line Continued: The shared EVE Universe storyline continues to evolve following the Battle for Caldari Prime, with participatory events spawning unique player stories in two games at once.

Fanfest 2013: April 25 - 27, 2013
Announcements. I expect a lot of information and features to be released during Fanfest.
"A huge amount of detail coming from Fanfest then." - CCP on Video 4:10

EVE Fanfest 2013: EVE Keynote Along with the keynote all of the other Fanfest videos are up on youtube you can find them here.

EVE Universe: Origins  < New trailer doesn't really have anything to do with Odyssey though.
EVE Fanfest 2013 - EVE Keynote - New Jumpeffect and Scanner *NEW*


Forums:
Features and Ideas Discussion lots of features and changes don't make it into the devblogs check them out here. Forum links listed here in no real order:

[Odyssey] Small Navy Cap Boosters CCP Fozzie states this is the last of the changes for Odyssey 1.0 I assume.
[Odyssey] X-L Weapons Balance
[Odyssey] Clone Costs Clone Costs are being lowered by 30% can't argue with that.
[Odyssey] Navy Battleships Posted: 5/13/2013
[Odyssey] Tech 1 Battleships - Build Costs It is beyond me why they let this sort of stuff just slip into the forums. I guess they don't want mass hysteria as everyone slams the market buying up battleships. I am sure by now the price has already adjusted. So if your wondering why your paying 40 million more for your little T1 Battleship this is why. So if you thought the ore changes were going to drop prices in the mineral market think twice before dumping your stocks or speculating on that shift.
[Oddysey] Capital Rigs
[Odyssey] Cruise Missiles
[Odyssey] Large Energy Turrets
[Odyssey] Ship Resistance Bonuses
[Odyssey] Tech 1 Battleships - Amarr
[Odyssey] Tech 1 Battleships - Minmatar
[Odyssey] Tech 1 Battleships - Gallente
[Odyssey] Faction Navy Cruisers
[Odyssey] Navy Battlecruisers
[Odyssey] Tech 1 Battleships - Caldari
[Odyssey] Attack Battlecruiser balance pass
[Odyssey] Faction Navy Frigates
[Odyssey] T1 Frigate Polish Pass and Naglfar fix
[Odyssey] T1 Cruiser Polish Pass
[Odyssey] Module Rebalancing Part One: RSBs and TEs

DevBlogs:
Sensor overlay changes in EVE Odyssey
Odyssey Ship Balancing
U and I made some changes: Odyssey UI changes A few consolidations of right click menus and a few other chat changes.
Probe Scanning and other Goodies for Odyssey A great list of changes coming to exploration and a few other things explained.
Reinventing the Radial Menu for Odyssey
Dual Character Training Wow, this is an excellent feature that I think will only increase the ability for this game to reach out to more players. I don't think we can even see how far reaching the effects of this change will be for isk, PLEX, and players.
Hacking in Odyssey  "This first release of changes to Hacking and Archaeology are just the tip of the iceberg. In the future we hope to add in much more variety into the subsystems you encounter whilst hacking." - CCP Bayesian
WantToTrade: Tags for Security Status The complete run down on the new system for gaining security status from -10 to 0, as explained during CCP MasterPlan's Fanfest presentation.
Resource Rebalancing in Odyssey: Numbers!
Resource Shakeup in Odyssey: Just don’t call it a Cataclysm Reading through these changes nothing strikes me as an oh snap I am going to invest/change what I am doing. I guess there will be even more ore so prices will go down? I guess the scanner could be cool. This whole devblog seems like a piece to a puzzle that we haven't quit seen the whole thing.
Odyssey Summer Expansion Starbase Iterations
In the Navy: Changes to Navy Ships in Odyssey
The Great Ship Skill Changes of Summer 2013 "All of this will happen for the Summer 2013 expansion." Which we now know is Odyssey. This Devblog has the most far reaching effects for me in-game and you would do well to sit down and take a hard look at all the skill changes being made. For new players the skill change for industrial ships will go a long way towards letting you fly around with a little more cargo. Also note if you could fly it before you can still fly it after the expansion goes live.

News and Blogs:
Neural-boost.com/odyssey
Torchwood Archives: Eve Online: Odyssey Status Post < great list of explanations for a lot of subtle changes coming patch day. The closet thing to patch notes we have right now.
Massively's EVE Evolved: EVE's Odyssey expansion could be incredible
PC Gamer's EVE’s Odyssey expansion will bring much requested Starbase improvements

Videos:
CCP In Development: the features of EVE Online: Odyssey
CCP's Fanfest 2013 All videos
CCP's PAX East 2013 EVE Online Odyssey world premier reveal
Curse.com's EVE Online Odyssey Expansion - Interview - PAX East 2013
Amir Hamzah's Eve Online - Odyssey Capital Ships V3 
EVExploration's Eve Online Odyssey Update: New Gallente Capital Ship Textures And Hangers!

Bridging the "Cliff"

What to do after you hit the Cliff? Now a lot of people are going to tell you different things for example: just try everything, or go make money, or just play. Find the one style of game play that you like and do that. While all these are great suggestions they don't really point you in any direction and they don't address the two biggest challenges with the cliff. So if your just finishing your 14 or 21 day game trial subscription or your just activated your subscription for the first time lets bridge this cliff and get you moving in a direction.

What are the two challenges you need to confront when you hit the "cliff"? First, you don't have very much isk to try different play styles out and second you don't have very deep skill training in anything to make a lot of isk thus compounding the challenge. For example you don't have any Planetary Interaction skills yet, if your on a trial account you may rudely be awakened to the fact that you can't train industrial ships. You might be shocked to find that the Accounting skill (Used to lower the cost of Trading on the market) cost 4.5 million isk and you have only 3 million isk to your name.When I found out it cost over a million isk to buy a cloaking device I think I stopped playing for two days. Now that you understand better what your limitations are lets take a step back and get a perspective of the greater game here for a minute.

With the above reasons in mind I want to explain something to you before you play this game much longer. Eve Online is what you might a Real Time MMO, this is for two reasons your skills train in real time and your plans to play the game are going to happen over real time. You can't log in one weekend grind for 48 hours straight and be level 100 and have all the skills and gear there is in the game. It just isn't possible. Your going to have to, at the very least, write down some goals read a little, and maybe just maybe, think. I know its hard but life sucks and then you die but that's it, it's ok to die, because you know what? You get a clone in-game that will forgive your mistakes and bring you back to life(just not your expensive implants).

The reason I like this game is because it is long term and you can actually make plans on how to play the game and you won't be patched over making all your hard work irrelevant after only a three months. This is the exact reason I stopped playing WoW, two years ago. Because after you have been playing for several years you realize you will never get ahead ever! The reason they patch all your gear into oblivion every three months isn't to help you go anywhere its to keep you subscribing for the game. Opps, did I just give away their scam of a business model. Sorry folks, grinding for the same gear I just spent three months grinding for is in of itself a mindless arcade game that just takes a couple days longer to beat. Back to Eve, long term, stay with it, long term.

My advice is when you reach the cliff you need to do two things:

• Make some isk.
• Make a skill training plan.

And if your lucky enough to have a vague idea of where you want to go in the Eve universe, I suggest making a good skill plan around that as well as a good outline of what you want to do your the lucky one here.

How do you make some isk? Now if you have an idea of what you want to do in game and you are training towards that good for you this guide isn't for you. To start making some isk you can do two simple things.

• Mining (See my Investment Guide to Basic Mining.)

• Run Missions

That will give you some income to A: try different aspects of the game out or B: get going on that plan for galactic domination you outlined or what ever you are trying to do.

How do you make a skill training plan? Download EveMon first of all. Then do some searching around the web, you can find a lot of guides about professions in Eve and they usually mention a few key skills that you will need. Use these as a templates and put together a list of skills you want to be working towards.

Remember think long term, when I say long term I mean one month is short term, three months is getting there six months is getting about right, a year? not unheard of.

Note: If you start down a path say a month into training some skills and it just isn't your thing that's ok, start working towards something else. My main has deep skills into a wide assortment of random things. Life happens your plan is just a template of what you hope you want to do.

Tip of the Week: Changing Your Ship's Name

I have a pretty simple one for you this week. Changing your ship name is as easy as: Opening your Inventory > click on your Ship Hanger > right click the ship you want to change and go down to Change Name... type in the name you want and you have a new ship name.

Tip of the Week: Locking your Overview columns

When your traveling around. If you lock the very first column in your overview it will make it so your destination, the yellow icon, gate or station or what be it rotates to the top most spot of your overview. This can be handy if you are just trying to quickly warp to a gate so you don't have to scan through all the items in your overview.

Just click the ^ at the top of the column to toggle it on and off.

Tip of the Week: Patch Day Skill Que

This is more of reminder than a tip. Patch Day is on Tuesday Feb. 19. In case of long down times make sure you que up enough skills to cover you for at least a day or two. Also I would note in this patch a lot of skills are being changed especially ship skills so find something useful that won't get stopped mid training because it doesn't exist anymore after the patch.

If you have any questions read the patch notes or the devblog.

Tip of the Week: In-Game Web Browser

To open the in-game browser go to the top left hand corner of the screen if your neocom is left aligned. Click the E, open Eve menu, scroll down to Accessories, then scroll down to Browser. You can also use the Browser bookmarks to go directly to sites.

The browser is fully functional you can change your homepage and add and remove bookmarks. Note some sites that use flash plugins like youtube.com don't work very well on the in-game browser.

Tip of the Week: Taking Screen Shots

So I was flying around yesterday doing some missions when this screen just grabbed me. I was fumbling around trying to remember how to take a screen shot. I finally found the Print Screen button and mashed it a couple of times coming up with the above shot. I knew it would look awful with the UI all over the screen so I did a quick search. To drop the ui from your screen simple hit CRTL+F9. Then you get pretty pictures like the one below. Happy picture taking...

Tip of the Week: The Cliff

Ok so you just finished up the career agent tutorials. Your ready to start flying around space and blowing things up or whatever it is you want to do. But wait you stop and think to yourself now what? Now I know some people who have at least a vague plan of what their going to do, great good for them, but most don't. Its a simple matter of you are here at point A and you want to be over there at point D. The problem is you have no clue what B and C is or where to find it or if it even exists.

Lets slow down a little bit here. You might consider doing the Sisters of Eve Epic Arc once your done with the career agent tutorials. The epic arc consists of over 50 missions around New Eden your going to fly all over Empire space. It will help you get acquainted with the UI and other regions of space. Most importantly its going to give you time to first train more skills and second think about what you want to do in Eve.

Sisters of Eve Epic Arc Guide this is a pdf guide that outlines the entire Sisters of Eve Epic Arc it is a great resource for helping you find your way through the different missions. It offers plenty of tips and hints.

So take a minute and breath yes you are in the middle of a giant sandbox but there are plenty of things left to learn run through these missions and get better acquainted with Eve Online and your goals of how you want to play.

Tip of the Week: Update your Clone!

The title really says it all. If you get podded, that is your ship gets blown up and then your pod gets blown up, your clone gets destroyed. If you haven't updated your clone then your precious skill points, above your current clone level, are going to be destroyed as well. Update your clone once your skill points are above your current clone level. It's really a no brainier.

Lessons Learned

I had just started a new character yesterday and was running around the starting system doing the tutorial missions when someone asked me to join a conversation. We chatted for a minute but ultimately it got down to: Do you want to join my corp? They claimed they were great and would love to help and had experienced skilled players to help me. I did a quick search of their corp on Eve Who. They only had like 6 people in the corp and they few people I clicked on had only been created a month ago.

So don't get me wrong I am sure they are a great fun group of people but if your looking for something a little more, I don't know, advanced or want to learn from someone that has been playing for longer than a month make sure you do your homework before you join a corp.

Come to think of it I've only been playing for a couple months myself. Hmmm strange.

Note: Names have been with held to help protect those involved