EVE Online Question

The EVE box contains an install DVD, 60 day game time card which if used when you create a new account gives you an "Interbus Shuttle" (a unique ship... shuttle with 20m3 cargo space instead of 10m3... big woo).  Along with players guides and such.

The "Premium" wording of the client is a throw back to when there were two clients: 'Classic' (Shader Model 1) and 'Premium' (Shader Model 3).  Now it's a single client that requires a minimum of SM2 but will make use of SM3, but tends to still be called 'Premium' (and Premium-lite when in it's SM2 compatibility mode).

Downloading and creating an account will get you a 14 day trial and an installer of the client (Apoc' is just the name of the latest expansion).  A 60 day GTC costs around $40 I think. And obviously you don't get the free shuttle going this route.

The boxset is still giving the client away for free, you're paying for the game time and assorted shiny in the box.

Really? You get a shuttle? Because players spend so much time in those!

I can't check the download link you have posted but I checked all the methods of buying Eve very recently and although you can download the Eve client for free and get a 14/21 day trial (depending where you go) you still have to upgrade a trial account to a full acount for $19.99, I'm not sure if that includes a free month though.

In the end I went with the cheapest option I could find, which was to buy through Steam, here in the UK it was less than half the price and it included a free month.  So far I've only owned a full acount for almost a week and it's been well worth the £8.99.  I had a trial account before it but didn't take proper advantage of the trial as I was in to another MMO.

Yes, it does. Basically, the first subscription month just costs $20 instead of $15.

Ahh, similar to what I have gone for then, just slightly cheaper through Steam.

I don't think the box set is worth it if you are fine with digital downloads, it's to reach gamers that would never digital download.  Last Sunday there was something like 52,000+ people online so it looks like it's helping.

Last Sunday wasn't a good time to be in Dodixie

I heard something mentioned about that place but I'm very new, didn't understand what was being said in the noob corp chat.  What was going on?

Dodixie is probably the second largest hub system (next to Jita), which means lots and lots of players. It can get laggy. What's worse, it's the location of I think the second best level 4 Navy agent for Gallente, so lots of people also run missions out of it. Missions and lag don't mix well, especially the harder ones.

I made the mistake of grabbing a mission on the evening of Apocrypha deployment, and I couldn't kill stuff I should have been killing with ease because my guns would lag firing and the enemy ships would just repair.

Thankfully, that kind of extreme lag doesn't happen very often and it's usually restricted to systems with 500+ players which aren't very many.

What race did you pick, btw? And are you going to try getting into PVP? Specifically, large fleet stuff? Asking because if you are, people tend to laugh at most Caldari ships in mass pvp. Turrets are king, along with armor tanking. I can give you some good advice on stuff to focus on if you want to get into something like that as quickly as possible. Even your character name makes a difference because fleet commanders generally just go with a mix of alphabetical and ship type (Megathrons get primaried a lot) and the closer you are to either end of the list the higher your chances of getting picked.

I'm Gallente, I'm currently in an Incursus, I've been going for the recommended certificates (after getting 4 in basic and 3 in advanced of each learning skill).  I've got Basic Hybrid Turrets, Basic Armor Tanking and I've nearly done Core Competancy Basic.

I could use any help I can get to be honest, most things are still going way over my head.  No idea why mission offers are set to expire or what a level 1 or 2 mission is.  I'm just enjoying the tutorial stuff still and training my guy up to be a fighter.

I'm deffinately interested in PvP, and by PvP I mean pitting skill against skill, not sociapathic 10 vs 1 inferior ship ganking to hurt some other humans feelings

Are you in a decent Corp Annatar?  My name is Harree in game.

What race would you recommend for someone that eventually want to pilot larger ships and possibly get into larger fleet pvp?

I did all my stuff before the certificates were put in. They help you out a bit now with letting you know which skills to train up. Well, you can't go wrong with Gallente, they have very good ships.

Have you played WoW or Guild Wars? Something with a "reputation" system? Essentially, EVE's mission system is similar. You start as an unknown pilot, so you have to prove yourself.

There are many NPC corps to each faction (if you show info on the Gallente Federation, for example, you'll be able to see a list of all member corps), so there are different standings. The one that rises fastest is the corp you pick to run missions for. For combat, most people pick the Federation Navy since it's the military arm of the Gallente. Doing missions increases your corp standing (corp standing is what limits your available agents). Every 16 (I think it's still 16) regular missions you get a "storyline" mission. Doing it increases your Faction standing considerably. Faction standing is important for several things: first, it supercedes corp standing, so say an agent requires 5.0 standing to get. If you have 5.0 Faction standing, you can have 0 with that particular corp and still get the agent. Essentially, a high enough faction standing lets you use any agent of any corp. Second, negative faction standings start giving you problems. If you get to -5 with some faction, you'll start getting shot on sight by their navies when you try to enter high security space belonging to that faction.

The mission levels themselves scale in cash rewards, loyalty point gains, and standing gains. Loyalty points are per-corporation, and any agent you work for from that corp contributes towards your total. When you dock in a station belonging to the corp you work for you can access the LP Store, which gets you faction modules, faction ships (like the Federation Navy Megathron), cheaper implants, etc. Each corp has their own store. As you can imagine, the Navy store is mostly combat oriented, while stores for science or mining corps would be more tailored to their stuff.

Agents are split by levels and ratings. Agents level 1-5 offer level 1-5 missions respectively. Level 1s are the easiest and meant for newbies, level 2s start seeing stronger frigates, destroyers, and the occasional weak cruiser hull in the tougher missions. Level 3s start seeing cruisers mainstream, and the occasional weak battlecruiser. Level 4s is a mix of everything, including battleships. Some level 4s are heavy on battleships, others are light. Level 5s are designed to be done in a group, and have more battleships and other nasty stuff. Each agent is also rated from -20 to +20, with -20 being the worst quality and +20 being best. Missions from higher quality agents are closer to home (a -20 might send you 3 jumps away, a +20 might keep you in the same system most of the time) and the cash rewards and LP rewards are also better.

In general, level 1s are designed for frigates, level 2s for cruisers, level 3s for battlecruisers, level 4s for battleships, and 5s for groups of battleships.

Most non-fleet PVP inevitably turns into ganks, whether it's piracy in Empire space or roving gangs in 0.0 Alliance space. Fleet stuff is usually very organized with (mostly) competent fleet commanders. The only drawback is in a small gang, you can have more varied and interesting fittings, and get away with interesting ship choices. In fleet, there are only a few roles: 1) recon - usually in covert ops frigates with cloaks, scouting ahead, probing for good targets, and dropping cynos for incoming capital ships. 2) fast frigates/interceptors to tackle (web/warp scramble) ships so they can't warp out and have to sit and die, 3) interdictors/heavy interdictors that are always primaried religiously because they drop bubbles that prevent warping from anywhere within it. They have a large radius and are very dangerous, so 'dictors never last long, and 4) battleships of the line - fleet fights are done at extreme sniping range usually of 100km+, where missile ships are useless and turret ships rule. The Gallente's Megathron and Minmatar's Tempest are two of the best fleet ships. Battleship fleet fits are very specific and always armor tanked/plated.

Mine is Se'len, also Gallente. I'm in an NPC corp now. I was in a 0.0 alliance a while ago, but with work I just don't have the time to commit to it. It was a ton of fun, but our main ally was a Russian alliance so all of our battle times were closer to Euro prime time and going to bed every night at 11-12 and waking up at 5 for work is rough. So now I'm pretty casual. Alliances take a considerable time investment (unless you just leech free access to 0.0 space, but that's not nice!) so I can't do it.

Gallente or Minmatar, mainly. Minmatar ships are very fast and agile which is great for their frigates and interceptors, and they have one of the best fleet ships (Tempest). Gallente have another really good fleet ship in the Megathron, and are very versatile with Drones as well. Really though, you can be any race and learn to pilot ships of any other race so it's not a big deal. But picking the one you're most interested in early will save you some time since they start with close to 1 million skill points pre-trained in more relevant attributes to their ships.

Gallente carrier (Thanatos) is also a very good ship and it's the most common carrier. Dreadnaughts are mostly across the board so it doesn't matter as much, but I believe the Minmatar's is regarded as the worst dread.

But, getting into a capital won't happen for a very very long time, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Hmm adding Karma doesn't seem to work in IE or google chrome anymore for me otherwise I'd add one to your huge pile already, thanks for the info fella.

I never said it was a wonderfully good unique ship.  Unlike a Guardian-Vexor, Tribal Tempest and all the others sitting in someones hanger, somewhere.

I was mocking CCP there, not you Since a complete newcomer wouldn't know that you hardly ever use a shuttle (and when you do it's not for their cargo space..) and all they see is "Ooo unique ship!!!", it's kind of a cheap shot.

I agree that the Megathron is a great fleet ship, but Minmatar ships suck for larget fleets as they are very poor snippers. Probably the best fleet ship is the Rokh (a pitty Caldari are so bad for PvP in general :p). Amar ships are great too for big battles as they don't run out of ammo so they keep firing even if there's a looot of lag.

Fair enough   What I kind of find a cheap shot is the wording used on Amazon and a few other places suggests this is the first time ever CCP have made a unique ship. 

wrong. currently the best race for PVP is Amarr. Caldari for support (ECM, Falcon, overpowered) The Tempest is a pile of crap compared to the Armageddon (best bang for the buck ship in the game) or Abaddon (best fleet ship in the game, period), the Apocalypse is also overpowered if sniping is your thing.

Amarr also have a solid selection of ships (except cruisers).

I think gallente are second place, the mega is still a solid all-round ship, drones are good, sensor dampeners are decent EWAR. Gallente are also much more newb-friendly, Amarr needs very good skills all-round to start being better than the other races.

Minmatar need a ridiculous amount of skills to be decent, and they're never really better in any department than the other races (especially with nano nerf).

Caldari are newb friendly, have good small to med scale PVP ships. They are however lacking for large scale fleet combat as the Rokh doesn't do anywhere near the damage of an Abaddon with a full rack of Tachyons. Caldari also have the best EWAR.

Rokhs are far more better fleet snippers than Abaddons. An Abaddon has a hard time to reach 200km and be DD tanked while a Rokh can handle both things pretty easily.

if getting to 200km with DD tank is the issue then the apoc is far better than the rokh.

Also 200km isn't the "must have" range for fleet sniping anymore as it was when every ship could hit 250km with skills and rigs. Nowadays 150-180 is plenty.

Amarr will always be inferior because regardless of anything else, EM is the highest base resist on armor (and any fleet ship is going to have a DCII running as well). It's the only problem they have. The old old Amarr were complete crap. Now they are more competitive (mostly with the Apoc's changes), but I still wouldn't count them as the best by a long shot.

Neither the Apoc or Rokh get a damage bonus, their bit of extra optimal range from the ship stat might allow them to use better ammo, but at best their damage output would equal Tempest/Mega. Tempest is a beast, ROF and Damage bonus on the ship that never had problems reaching crazy ranges with a rack of 1400s. Sure it needs good skills, but that's the price

Annatar, 2 words: Mega Pulse II

no other "short range" turret can reach up to 50-60 km. Cruiser sized Pulses are similarly overpowered. On Zealots I can make focused med pulses go 30km.

Believe it or not, the game isn't about raw dps, Amarr have the best combination of solid buffer tanks, good dps, and excellent range for small to med gang PVP, while also having some of the best fleet ships in the game. Only area in which they lack is solo PVP (almost a dead art anyway) where Gallente and minmatar remain king.

And simply the fact that you suggest that the Tempest is a competetive battleship proves you don't have a clue about what you're talking about. The Tempest is probably the worst battleship in the game for...everything as things stand now, certain alliances have been having their fleet players train Amarr for more than a year now because they're so good.

I have no problem having 50km optimal on 425 rails with Antimatter either. Without using any lows.

But I was talking fleet pretty specifically, where most of that doesn't matter. DPS and range matter most, buffer tank second (if you get primaried in a big enough fleet, the one/two low slot differences matter less and less). Tanks matter much more for smaller scale PvP.

The mob is not always right. Just because something is FoTM Like I said though, the Amarr are competitive now after they got their much needed buffs, but not the end all be all

I've been playing for a very long time (since 2004) and in this case the mob is in fact right. As it stands now I'd rather go PVP in a Torp fitted Typhoon (better dps and better tank) than a Tempest. Seriously, it has nothing going for it. It has worse DPS on top of a worse tank, one extra mid isn't going to compensate for the fact that it's the only armor tanking battleship without 7 or more lowslots. And its slight bit of extra agility and speed isn't going to save it from getting insta-ganked by a decent gang.

I have near-perfect skills for both the Pest and Amarr battleships and I can tell you flat out that the Armageddon is a better ship to bring for small gang warfare, it has extreme amounts of gank that can reach out to 50 km, it has an excellent buffer tank, and can fit 5 heavy repper drones for gang logistics, all in all the best bang for the buck in the game. The Abaddon is the best battleship in the game for doing what a battleship does...sit in one place dishing out damage and taking it.

I have no problem having 50km optimal on 425 rails with Antimatter either. Without using any lows.

Figure out the tracking, fitting, and damage on 425mm rails and compare them to MP II, then come back and admit you're wrong. Actually, I'll do it for you:

Armageddon with MP II (scorch) and no other mods: 412 DPS, 45km max range
Mega with 425 II's and Antimatter: 318 DPS and 36 max range

However the Armageddon has the option of switching to Multifreq for close range combat and dishing out much more damage.

On top of that the MP II's have much better tracking because they are SHORT RANGE GUNS, all of which combined makes Amarr the king of mid-range small-med gang combat.

as I said, I've been PVP-ing in EVE for years, solo, small gang, and some fleet. Amarr simply are at the top of the pack right now, especially when you combine them with Caldari for ewar. This too will pass though =D

For fleet combat, the Abaddon has the best alpha strike in the game combined with very good refire rate. 'nuff said. And you're wrong about "dps and range" being the end-all of fleet warfare. RAZOR uses (or used) Armageddons with only 5 tachyons fitted and no damage mods, in order to withstand double DD's.

No need, I was wrong Wasn't thinking straight (I blame it being 6 am). I apologize for that. Realized it on my way to work.