26 replies to this topic

[Saigo]

Hello there, I've been reading the website and the articles relating to the PvP courses offered here. I'm interested in taking them, but it seems like the next run of PvP BASIC will be a ways off, given that the next class in the cycle is PvP WOLFPACK. This is fine, as I'm a rather new player, and haven't had time to train much beyond a whole mess of learning, mircowarp drives, jamming. and cruisers. At any rate, I have all the required skills for PvP BASIC at the moment, though some of them are at the minimum level. I also have the ISK to put up for the course, and while it would be a financial hit, I could afford it and it seems the best way to learn PvP. I'll get to the point. The reason I'm posting is that I'm unsure of what to do next. Should I just go out there and try and learn PvP the hard way, so to speak? I don't have an active PvP corp. nor do I think I have a viable solo PvP setup (outside attacking completely defenseless foes, and that's hardly conductive to learning anything). I could continue to fight NPCs in alliance for cash, earn some LP, and such, or just sit on my current pile of cash and accrue some of the core skills that will let me fly better, and play it safe, but that somehow feels like playing much too cautiously, when I could be learning. To be more specific, I've got ~1.4m SP, of which 1m is combat-related (not learning, industry, or social). I'm sitting on ~20m isk in liquid funds, as well as a decent pile of assorted fittings, a cruiser, and a destroyer. So, nothing much, and nothing that could solo rat 0.0. I can make ~1million ISK/hour missioning and salvaging (assuming good luck with the salvager, if not it can drop to half that rate, or spike to double it). I can also solo rat lowsec space, which is a little riskier, but seems to net the same profits as missioning, and it doesn't seem to destroy my Caldari standing (I'm Gallente, and their Navy missions have put me at a very slight negative with the Amarr and Caldari, and that makes me nervous). Anyway, any advice would be appreciated. I hope to see you all in a month or whenever the next class runs. Thanks, Saigo Nanshu

[Occam]

Well, ninjasalvaging is not very moral, but quite nice source of income for new player. You will also develop good probing, bookmarking and directional scanner skills while doing that. Here is linky for the guide if you are interested.
When you will get familiar with that you can also start looting along with salvaging.
I also suggest you to combine that with flying in lowsec in some t1 frigate or cruiser and getting in some combat engagements. You will be blown up quite a lot, but if you don't forget to insure, it shouldn't be painful for your wallet.
One more advice would be to try faction wars.

[Sanfrey]

My absolute best advice is - spend the time finding a corp of fun, willing, interesting people to play with. If you're in a great corp, they will entertain and help you, and offer you all the advice you'll need. If you're in a corp and you're NOT finding that you're getting that kind of help then say so here - and I'm sure one of our Alumni will recommend a corporation that meets the above criteria. (Agony does! But we're probably the type of corp you'd move to after being in the game 6 months or so.) PS a PvP-BASIC class will be posted in about 48 hours, but the last one filled up in 5 hours flat so there's a fair amount of luck involved. Cheers

[Mortis Aguila]

You may be able to find a sparring partner with PvP experience. He can recommend a good PvP frigate setup, or you can find one on one of the sites like BattleClinic or Scrapheap Challenge. Go to a planet and have it out between you, agreeing to stop when somebody gets down to, say, 25% structure. Have the partner critique how the fight went and what you could have done better. Of course, if you're not careful, you could get a partner that will just blow you up! Not that any level of treachery exists in Eve. There are no low-lifes here, right? :amazed:

[Saigo]

Hey there, thank you for the suggestions. I do have a couple of questions relating to it, of course: ( bolding questions to help with wall of text

Regarding ninja-salvaging: how badly is this looked down upon? I have decent salvaging skills (salv 3, and a few hours away from snagging tractor beams, and of course the ability to fly a Catalyst), though no Astrometrics (which needs changing). I do need to get practice bookmarking and probing, and this sounds like a great way to do it, but it seems like this could be the sort of thing which might be viewed as scummy on the level of ore theft, though I doubt it's viewed as poorly as high-sec ganking. Would getting caught doing ninja salvage put a black mark on my character's reputation? What about my corporation's reputation?

For the record, I'm curious how this falls under AGONY's policies. From reading your rules, I don't see anything specifically against it, and it doesn't seem to count as playing politics. However, it might be seen as damaging to the reputation of the corp, which is more the reason why I ask.

Which brings me to my question about corporations. I'm currently in a rather small player corporation that comes from a community I know from other games (Anqara Industries (ANQ), from The Amazon Basin). They're nice, friendly people, and they've given me some solid advice on learning the basic game mechanics, but it's also a rather small group that seems primarily interested in PvE and high sec activities. I don't think they would have a problem with me leaving for another corporation, but I'm a little wary of throwing down with some random startup, not knowing their reputation or policies. From reading Agony's recruitment information, philosophy, rules, as well as your polite and helpful responses, you all do seem like the sort of group I would like to join up with after I find my footing, but for now I must admit I'm a bit torn, as I don't want to corp-hop and join groups with no principles and terrible reputations in the interim between now and finding a permanent home. Do you have any specific advice for picking a corp? Are there any groups which I should watch out for? (Note: I understand this could be construed as asking you all to play politics, but that's not how I mean it.)

And finally, for a random question out of left field: is there a role for miners/industrialists out in low/0 sec space? I've got a real life friend that actually got me into my current stint in EVE, and while he's a fresh as I am, he's as avid about the financial side of EVE as I am the PvP. I don't think he's opposed to PvP, necessarily, but it's not his primary interest. If I were to join up with a corporation bent on making it out in low/no sec space, would he be able to function as a miner or manufacturer, or would he be screwed out there? For the record, he currently is flying a mining fitted Exchequer, with the related Gallente industrial background.

Anyway, thanks for the advice so far, and I hope to see more of you all in the future (though hopefully not by staring at a sea of flashing red boxes in my overview). If any of these questions are of the type which I shouldn't be asking here, please, tell me and I'll stop posting them.

Thanks,
Saigo

[Atlas Elestra]

Ninja-Salvaging... Well while scanning out others fields of wrecks to salavage is great practice for scanning out mission runners there is another way. When I was just starting out I picked up salvaging pretty quickly and besides salvaging wrecks of my own creation I would trail corp mates who ran higher level missions and didn't salvage. or I would go belt jumping and upon seeing wrecks there ask the owner who was often a miner if I could salvage them. They often said go right ahead and upon occasion would fleet up with me and let me loot them as well. If you do really want to focus on the PvP aspect of the game and just have no one to fly with I think Occam's suggestion of Factional Warfare is great. Now this might mean leaving your current corp for an NPC corp so you can declare and participate, but it should be well worth it.

[Baka Lakadaka]

Not everyone in Agony has a spotless background. You might be surprised at some people's past. To join Agony you need to be able to clean up your record if it's been tarnished. i.e. serial scammers and corp thieves wouldn't be accepted (there's no fixing that type of reputation), but a pirate who is able to improve their security status and behave respectfully could be. You can salvage from other people's wrecks, but you can't tractor them. So ninja salvaging is more about a fast ship and probing, rather than tractors and lots of salvagers. You won't get criminally flagged or lose sec status from ninja salvage - unless you loot, in which case you would be criminally flagged, but you wouldn't lose sec status. A miner/industrialist can make it in 0.0, but it's better with a bigger corp/alliance - I started out that way. You generally need some PvP skills as a corp/alliance will need to defend itself. As Sanfrey said, keep an eye on the website for upcoming basic courses.

[Smokey Jill]

I certainly wouldn't recommend going to 0.0 with as low SP as you have, not without the backing of an active corp with nice alliances to keep you 'safe'... Since you sound keen on pvp and not so much missioning/mining/etc. I'd suggest you set up a 'mining' cruiser for pvp in low sec and try to snag some targets, they can get a decent tank and dps, and if you include a web and scram you're set...Tons of small low sec bubbles all over, with 1-3 low sec systems connected, but surrounded by high sec...They usually have some pirates lurking around for easy carebar targets, ppl who try a fast mission or ratting in low sec cause they think it's worth it (it's not)...Pirates like that often fly solo as the amounts of targets in their little bubble tends to be rather low and easy to handle, you could give them a nasty surprise...'Oh look a cruiser mining, an easy kill....What the frag..? He's got me webbed and with a point on me..!?' *boom* (one of you anyway) ;-) You might also consider taking a month or two to build up your char, just a little bit further, while missioning and salvaging more funds as you WILL lose your ships...But a cruiser which is insured, rarely costs you more than 1 million isk if you go with only T1 named (2nd to 3rd best named)... Yada yada learning skills = basics to lv 4 and advanced to lv 3, all except charisma stats which you rarely need for pvp (but which is nice for missioning)...

[Saigo]

Hey there, Thanks for the food for thought. In reference to skill training: I've trained all the learning skills to 4 with advanced at 3 (except Charisma, which has a paltry 2 basic). This is where almost all of my non-combat skills are. I've also plotted out what it would take to get up to a solid skill level in all the Electronics, Engineering, Navigation, EWAR, Drones, and Gunnery - all in all, it looks like it will take about a month and a half to get them to 3 or 4 (with 1 or 2 5s in the mix that are prereqs), give or take a bit. So, yeah, it looks like your advice on taking a few months to train up the core skills hits right about where I'd start gaining the most from them. I may try the pirate baiting trick you're suggesting. I actually tried it once already a while back, only it backfired and I caught a T2 cruiser - which was a good way to learn to fight aligned, and watch local a bit closer (and to not warp to the default points in asteroid belts, and... yeah, I was playing very poorly that day. Insurance made my net loss relatively painless though.). It's good to know faction PvP is an easy way to learn PvP in empire, but I'd rather not wall off Caldari space for the time being, nor do I really want to leave my current corp that strongly. I'm also considering asking my miner buddy to play bait in lowsec and try the a variation on the trick you were referring to. My disinterest in PvE isn't strong enough that I'm not willing to do it for a living (at least to get started), and I honestly need a bit of practice getting used the whole whole UI and systems. If only for that last bit, I think I might try a bit of probe salvaging, though I doubt I'd be so bold as to take from a missioner I ran into directly. Regarding the PvP class... I'll be watching these forums, provided I'm not in class or asleep when you give the announcement. I've run a bunch of setups through EFT, and it looks like I could do either a standard tackler Incursus or a sensor damping Maulus, if I were to make it in and if there wasn't a time conflict. It is true that I don't have the skills to run T2 gear, but the upshot is that my budget could take the loss of 3 frigates fitted with cheap t1 easily. Anyway, thank you all, if any of you have any further advice, I'd happily hear it. Saigo

[Sanfrey]

Time zone wise, the next class will be on the 18th Oct at 1800

[ewar]

ill pvp with ya im near dioxide if thats what its called basically gallentes jita ingame R3DRUM

[Sevron]

Time zone wise, the next class will be on the 18th Oct at 1800

and its not even announced YET ... so watch the forums closely :-)

and ninja salvaging is funny as hell, and you learn alot about probing and using your scanner. Dodixie is a nice system for that, i mission there myself very often, so you maybe can ninja salvage my missions as well

[Wil Ricker]

Silly question, what is ninja salvaging?

[Baka Lakadaka]

Silly question, what is ninja salvaging?

Sneaking in and 'stealing' other people's salvage items by salvaging the wrecks. You don't get flagged for it and it's quite legal under the game mechanics, but people do get upset by it.

[Laurentius]

Silly question, what is ninja salvaging?

Sneaking in and 'stealing' other people's salvage items by salvaging the wrecks. You don't get flagged for it and it's quite legal under the game mechanics, but people do get upset by it.

And with good reason. Like can flippers, ninja salvagers are just sad little people.

[Occam]

There are different views on ninja salvaging and discussing which of them is right is pointless. I myself see ninjasalvagers as kind of balancing factor for highsec lvl 4 missions, which offer big rewards with almost no risk. It is also a great way to earn decent money as a new player without being involved into full time mining or low level mission grinding. If your moral views don't allow doing it or you don't want to spoil reputation of your corporation, it is better not to do it.

[Saigo]

Hmmm, I didn't mean to start a debate. With this being something of a point of contention, I think I might play it safe. I'd probably consider it heavily if I didn't care about the reputation of the corp I'm in at the moment, but, well, they're good people, and I've had good luck ratting in 0.4 and 0.3 space with some tackling gear equipped. It doesn't quite net the isk/hour that salvaging would, but I'm gathering up a nice pile of modules to work with, and practice running in hostile space.

[Kosi Congar]

I cant wait till the PvP basics class ... I feel like a little kid in a candy store ... !lol (OK OK a very old kid) But i do have a question to the upcoming class. I was planning on getting all the skills required for the class to at least level 3 ... witch is no big deal ... Now the question is if there is something else that might come in handy or that i should have that would be a plus. :dodge:

[Riley Kendrik]

I cant wait till the PvP basics class ... I feel like a little kid in a candy store ... !lol (OK OK a very old kid)

But i do have a question to the upcoming class. I was planning on getting all the skills required for the class
to at least level 3 ... witch is no big deal ... Now the question is if there is something else that might come
in handy or that i should have that would be a plus. :dodge:

Warp Drive ops is a good one to go as high as you can. Lvl 3 is not enough for some frigs, especially on the long warps. It's well worth it.

[Saigo]

Heh, I wake up an hour after enrollment fills (this sounds like some instances that have happened to me out of game). This will at least let me get more skills and financial security before the next course is offered. Good luck, and have fun!

[Baka Lakadaka]

I cant wait till the PvP basics class ... I feel like a little kid in a candy store ... !lol (OK OK a very old kid)

But i do have a question to the upcoming class. I was planning on getting all the skills required for the class
to at least level 3 ... witch is no big deal ... Now the question is if there is something else that might come
in handy or that i should have that would be a plus. :dodge:

Warp Drive ops is a good one to go as high as you can. Lvl 3 is not enough for some frigs, especially on the long warps. It's well worth it.

If you've got some spare time for skills training then warp drive operation is a very good one - there can be some long warps during the course and some students will probably not make them all in one go, a few might even take 3 warps, without this skill.

Others that you might consider are:

Long Range Targeting - I always found this useful.
Navigation - will make you go faster.
Controlled Bursts - if you're using turrets, this will reduce cap burn.
If you have a particular bonus for EWAR that you intend using, then train the skills for that a little more. (e.g if you are going to fly a griffin, train more of things like long distance jamming or electronic warfare)

Any other support skills that will improve cap are always good.

The course is designed such that you can do it with just the pre-reqs, so don't stress too much about it.

[Kosi Congar]

Thanks for all the good tips. Na wasn't stressing at all just have nothing to train for at the moment I know that sounds a little strange. Let's say i have no priority currently and can fit a few things. I will decide after the basic class if PvP is something I want to be doing or not. Dependent on that I will choose my skills. Well in any case thanks for the help. :amazed:

[Baka Lakadaka]

Thanks for all the good tips. Na wasn't stressing at all just have nothing to train for at the moment
I know that sounds a little strange. Let's say i have no priority currently and can fit a few things.

I will decide after the basic class if PvP is something I want to be doing or not. Dependent on that I will choose my skills.

Well in any case thanks for the help. :amazed:

If it were possible, I'd borrow that training time from you and get a few things trained myself.

If you find yourself at a cross-roads and unsure of your direction, TRAIN THE SUPPORT SKILLS. Engineering for Capacitor and Grid, Electronics for CPU and Navigation for agility/speed/etc, Mechanic skills if you're armour tanking, Engineering contains the shield skills as well.

You'll find that these support skills will be useful for almost any career.

[Kosi Congar]

Well here is my problem in skill training .. i got all leaning lvl 1 at 4 and all learning level 2 at 3 Then i did all the really important skills like engineering, electronics, navigation, mechanics, navigation, afterburner ... well all the main dependency skills to 4 or 5 depending on my needs and now i am trying to figure out what to do with this character. I have a second one that will sit in a hulk soon and provide the basic income with mining/production/sale ... very little afford in all that and if i really need a little quick cash i run a couple of L3's that nets 5 million really quick. So my big idea was going to do some PvP ... but my attempts so far were very bad. Lost about 10 ships from frigate's to battlecruiser and the last one hurt. So here i am hoping that that pvp class at least gets me a.) in the right directions and b.) puts me in contact with a few people i can go PvP'ing with. Because my solo affords are not really pleasant. I really appreciate all the info i have gotten here so far ... tx

[Riley Kendrik]

Well here is my problem in skill training .. i got all leaning lvl 1 at 4 and all learning level 2 at 3
Then i did all the really important skills like engineering, electronics, navigation, mechanics, navigation, afterburner ... well all the main dependency skills to 4 or 5 depending on my needs and now i am trying to figure out what to do with this character.

Take this however you like, I am no expert, but if you are looking for direction, train for Recons. You will always be in demand. !lol