So, what can we talk about today?
That’s generally what goes through my mind before writing any blog-based article, about anything. But in the case of Eve-related articles, it gets really complicated.
I’m relatively new in this game, and I’m sure some players would call me “noob” or “carebear”. I’m still in mid-sec space (never been to double-o before, and I do need to beef up my artillery before I do), so I haven’t seen all that other fellow blog-writers might have seen themselves. Consequently, this generally makes for a limited amount of talk. My need to be creative is therefore quite high.
That said, I think after looking for a subject, I can start digging into my own experiences and hopefully some of the newer players will get their interest peaked. I’d like to talk about skill management, and how I find it very complex and time-consuming.
Being a single player, discovering the skill-training system of Eve was mind-boggling at first, yet it was wonderful to me that there was so much variety and so many possibilities. It was very hard for me to know what to train for. Within lies the complication, as well as the learning curve of this entire game.
I started by reading the fiction about the game, and most of the stories and texts I read pointed me towards the free-thinking explorer race Gallente. So I started on my character as a Gallente, and trained him to be a pilot. I ended up with very strong skills in Drone control. After I learned how to manipulate the drones, I realized it could be a potentially very powerful tool, and so I trained everything around that.
But there were many more things I needed to learn about this game.
Once I found “The Eve Compendium“, I started taking some time at work (don’t tell my boss) to read up on Eve info, Eve lore, Eve tactics, choices, and the experience of others. I later found out all this skill training had to be setup in regards to what you want to be inside the Eve universe. I’m more of a group person, and if I have a purpose within, I will handle myself very well. Say, being an officer, director… that kind of thing.
So I set myself up for training my Corporation Management skills, but stopped really quickly because I definitely enjoyed mission running. And since I wouldn’t survive very long without the proper fighting skills, on I went with Gunnery and Drone skills. Little did I think about defending myself, so I forgot about the Engineering and Mechanic skills.
Wanting to move onto bigger missions, something that pays more, I figured I needed a bigger ship — so I trained Ship skills. And then I found the corp. The Flying Flyers were a bunch of friends, and were on the verge of moving on to bigger aspirations. We had inside info about the Orca development plans, so we started mining as much mineral as we could. Guess what I’m training these days?
Yep – Mining, Industry, Astrogeology, Astrometrics, Mining Upgrades, Mining Barge, and Ice Harvesting.
So when I saw the certificates system come into play last month with the Quantum Rise upgrade, needless to say I was totally shocked. “Why didn’t I have this to begin with?” So I’m really starting to dig into the certificates, and getting a different view about this whole skill thing. The way the certificates are setup, they should be a quintessential part of the game. Based on the recommendations coming from these, I have managed to re-establish my training the way it should be.
For example; I was usually missioning Command missions, but was never able to fully tank my ship. I later found out that the ships I was using were generally armor tankers, yet I was setting up the shields booster skills. Now, I have an Engineering level of 5 – much better at using the capacitor to its fullest extent, and therefore able to tank out level 2 missions. OK, so I’m still working on tanking a level 3 
This is just one of the many recommendations issued by my certificates, and I am going to really go into it a whole lot deeper.
The main thing here, is to be patient. Experience will come. Skills will develop. And soon, you will also be able to bask in the glory of running level 5 missions in a fully-loaded Capital ship.
Now, in my new role as Recruiting and Training Officer, I hope to be able to help out others to hone their skill-training skills to a fine art.
Let’s just hope the learners don’t out-skill the master too soon.
