Before I am going to continue my mission running series with mining agents, I want to give you a brief overview of the different ships and modules that are used for mining. Mining missions will require the same equipment and skills as regular mining and agents will ask you to mine the three basic resource types: ore, ice and gas.
In theory, every ship in Eve that has a turret hardpoint or drone bay can mine. However, there are several hulls that give bonuses to mining gear and have a build in cargo bay to store big volumes of ore, ice or gas.
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The smallest hulls to mine are frigate sized and come in one T1 and two T2 versions.There is the Venture, which is the T1 version and has hull bonuses for ore and gas mining. It is one of the most newby friendly hulls in game and every player will get one for free during the tutorial missions. For extra safety it has two build in warp core stabilizers as a hull bonus
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The first T2 version is the Prospect, which has the same mining bonuses. Instead of the warp core stabs bonus, it can fit a Covert Ops Cloaking Device II, which allows it to warp cloaked and operate more safely in low sec.
The second T2 version is the Endurance, which has a bonus to ore and ice mining. It also can fit a covert ops cloak and warp cloaked. Here are some other basic stats for the three hulls:
The next step up from mining frigates are mining barges, which also come in several T1 and T2 versions. All mining barge hulls have bonuses to ore and ice mining. There is currently no barge for gas mining, so you need to stick to frigates for this.
The T1 hulls are the Procurer, which has the most slots of all T1 barges and gives you a lot of fitting options for different scenarios. It can also fit the best tank of all T1 hulls. However, the amount of ore you can mine in a Procurer will be lower than in the other two available hulls. The Procurer also has quite a big drone bay, which will allow you to bring mining and combat drones at the same time.
The second T1 hull is the Retriever, which has the biggest ore hold but a very limited slot layout. The amount of mining it can do is in the middle of the three T1 hulls. The drone bay only fits one flight of drones, so you need to pick either mining or combat drones.
The last hull is the Covetor, which has the smallest ore hold, but will mine the largest amount of ore. The slot layout is similar to the Retriever and hence very limited. The Covetor has also a bigger drone bandwidth than the other two and can launch medium drones or a single ice mining drone.
There are also T2 versions of all three T1 mining barge hulls. The basic characteristics in terms of ore hold and mining amount of all three T2 are similar to their T1 counterparts. They all have additional slots to give you a lot more fitting options and most have a bigger drone bay. In general the T2 versions mine a bigger amount than their T1 counterparts and can fit a lot more tank.
The last type of mining ships are Command Ships, which use mining drones to mine but additionally can boost the mining stats of other mining ships in fleet. I don't want to go into the details of fleet boosting and the other perks of command ships like a fleet hangar and ship maintenance bay, but only show you the basic mining stats.
There are three different command ship hulls, which are the Porpoise, the Orca and the Rorqual. All three require quite some training, with the Porpoise being the easiest, followed by the Orca and then the Rorqual. All three have very big ore holds and bonuses for mining drone yield. The drone bays are big enough to bring various flights of other drones for different purposes. The Rorqual is the only ship that can use Excavator Mining Drones, which can mine insane amounts of ore compared to even the best mining barge. However, you can only use the Rorqual in null security space and it costs around 10 billions ISK including a proper fitting and the excavator drones, so it is kind of the end game for mining. There is a lot more to say about the Rorqual and its mechanics, but I will explain that in another post. Here are some basic stats of the three hulls.
First thing you need to fit on your mining ship are mining lasers. These come similar to the ships in two different sizes.
There are the frigate sized mining laser for ore (Miner I / II), gas (Gas Cloud Harvester I/II) and ice (Ice Mining Laser I/II), which all come in a T1 and T2 version. The T2 versions all mine bigger amounts per minute. Ice miners always mine 1 block of ice per cycle, but get smaller cycle times by skills, hulls and other gear, which again results in more ice per minute.
Only Mining Barges can fit the bigger versions of mining lasers, which are the Strip Miner I for ore and the Ice Harvester I and II for ice. There is a special T2 strip miner version for ore, which is the Modulated Strip MIner II that uses ammunition to increase the mining amount. There is special ammo called mining crystals for all types of ore and if you want to mine a different type, you will have to swap ammunition for that particular ore. A mining crystals last for a couple of hours, so you won't need new ones very often. With the proper crystal a Modulated Strip Miner II mines a bigger amount per minute than the T1 counterpart. Without a proper crystal it mines less.
Additionally to mining lasers, you can also use mining drones to mine ore and ice. There are various T1, T2 and faction version for ore and ice mining available. They pretty much mine more per minute if they are more expensive. Ice mining drones are quite big in size and need a big drone bandwidth, so not all mining hulls can use them.
There are the two special mining drones for Rorquals, called ‘Excavator' Mining / Ice Harvesting Drone. A flight of Excavator drones is around 5 billion ISK, which comes on top of the expensive Rorqual hull and fittings. However, with the right Rorqual fitting these mine the largest amount possible in the game and income can be up to 200 million ISK / h.
To further increase the mining amount of your lasers you can use a low slot module called Mining laser Upgrade I / II for ore and Ice Harvester Upgrade I / II for ice. There is no upgrade for gas mining available.
Survey Scanners are another very handy mid slot module used for mining. A survey scanner scans all asteroids , ice blocks and gas clouds around you and displays how much is left in the scanned objects. By this you can time your mining lasers and don't waste mining cycles on small asteroids. Survey Scanners come in a T1 and T2 and a meta version which have different ranges.
There is a special type of ore called Meroxid which is only found in null security space andthat requires special mining equipment. It cannot be mined by regular ore mining lasers. There is several small and barge sized versions of mining lasers for Meroxit available and the T2 versions need Meroxit Mining Crystals to to work properly.
Finally, there is one type of rig that increases ice mining amount in all four sizes. There are no rigs that affect ore or gas mining laser yield, but another one that works for mining drones, which is mostly used on command ships.
If you then still want to increase mining yield, there are also various implants that affect increase ice and ore mining amount and reduce CPU needs for mining upgrades.
To use all these mining stuff you will need the proper skills. There are the skills to use the ships which are:
Mining Frigate, which gives you access to the Venture hull with level 1 and at level 5 to the Prospect and Endurance. The T2 hulls then need Expedition Frigates level 1 to unlock the hull and increase its stats.
Mining Barge, which gives you access to T1 barges with level 1 and at level 5 to the T2 versions. The T2 hulls then need Exhumers level 1 to unlock the hull and increase its stats.
For command ships you will need Industrial Command Ships for the Porpoise and Orca and Industrial Capital Ships for the Rorqual.
To use mining lasers you need to train Mining for all ore related lasers and Ice Harvesting for all ice related lasers. Both skills also increase the mining output of the corresponding lasers by level. Finally, there is Gas Cloud Harvesting to unlock gas mining lasers and increase the mining yield.
To get access to mining drones there are again two separate skills for ice and ore mining drones. These are Mining Drone Operation for ore mining drones and Ice Harvesting Drone Operation for ice mining drones. For both types there is also a specialization skills that unlock the T2 versions and that further increases mining yield of T2s.
One very important skill that is a prerequisite for many hulls and gear is Astrogeology. It increases the mining output of all mining lasers by 5% per level and is required to train into T1 (level 3) and T2 (level 5) barges. This is probably the most important skill to train to 5.
To use the mining laser upgrades, you will need to train Mining Upgrades, which unlocks Ice Harvester and Mining Laser Upgrades I/II.
Finally, if you want to use mining crystal for T2 strip miners, you will need to skill into ore processing skills. Each mining crystal requires you to train the corresponding ore processing skill of the ore the crystal works on, e.g. Arkonor Processing for Arkonor Mining Crystals. There are quite some different ore types, so to use all the mining crystals you will need a lot of training towards ore processing. However, these are skills quite useful to miners if you want to refine your own ore. From there you could also look into T1 production as a career.
That's my summary of mining ships, gear and skills. It doesn't cover every little detail about mining equipment, but will give you enough inside to understand the fits in the next post of these series, which will be about running mining missions in high security space.
Welcome to EVE Online! You are now a citizen of New Eden, an exciting and dangerous virtual world. This guide will lead you through your first few days in EVE. For a more general list of topics new players should know about, see the New Player Index.
- 3Character Creation
- 4Starting the game
- 10Getting help
Introduction to EVE
EVE is a game unlike many other MMOs. It doesn't just have unique mechanics, but doesn't follow many of the conventions of other games. Therefore it may be a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the core aspects of the game, in order to have a better idea of what to expect:
Accounts
- Main article: Accounts
To play EVE you must first create an account. Your account name doesn't show up anywhere in game, and you can have up to three characters per account. You can have as many accounts as you like.
If you were invited to EVE by a friend (i.e. have a referral link), use it when creating your account, as you will get some free skill points (equivalent to about 2-6 weeks of training time). Even if you were not invited you can use a public invitation link. Those are often shared by streamers and youtubers. Use a search engine to find those. Additionally, your friend will receive a reward. It's possible to invite yourself to create additional accounts.
Sadly, sometimes accounts are hacked. Observe basic security considerations to prevent this. On top of that, you should use Two-Factor Authentication.
Character Creation
- Main article: Character Creator
Race
The first decision you have to make is to choose a race for your character. There are 4 major factions in the game: Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, and Minmatar. Generally speaking, your choice of race is purely an aesthetic choice, as every character can potentially learn every skill. That means that even as Amarr you can fly Minmatar ships when you get the appropriate skills. Your choice of race therefore mainly determines the look of your character and (if you choose) your role-playing opportunities. You will receive a few initial skills in your chosen race--regardless of whether you are a paying subscriber ('Omega') or playing for free ('Alpha')--but you can quickly 'cross-train' to try out other races' ship and weapon types.
Bloodline
A bloodline in EVE is a character's familial ancestry. There are three different bloodlines for every race to choose during character creation.The bloodline you choose determines which NPC corporations your character will automatically join when no longer being part of a Player Corporation or Starter Corporation - however, there is absolutely no difference between any of the corporations, so the choice is purely aesthetic.
School
The School you choose will only determine which starter solar system you begin in and which Starter Corporation you will be part of. There are absolutely no differences between any of them. They will give your character a permanent list of stations spread across all of New Eden belonging to that school where you can set your Medical Clone independently from any corporation you might have joined and independently of the location you are setting your clone from.
Portrait and Appearance
Next you have to design your character's appearance and take a portrait. Your looks depend on which race and bloodline you chose, but the tool also gives you a lot of flexibility. Do spend some time crafting your character and taking your portrait, but keep in mind that 99% of the time other players will only ever see your portrait and not your entire character model, and (unless you like spending time in your Captain's Quarters) so will you. You can change your character's clothing and re-take your portraits at any point later, but changing your character's physical appearance can only be done by paying for 'Character Remodeling' with PLEX (through the New Eden Store).
Name
Pick your character's name carefully, as you can never change it later. Your name is part of your identity, and it will influence how your corpmates think of you. In EVE Online, most corporations make use of voice communication (e.g. Mumble) during fleet operations, and also use their voice server available for casual chatter. You will sometimes need to identify yourself with your name while using voice comms, and other fleetmates will use your name to give you intel or instructions. Having a name that is simple and easily pronounceable will make things easier for everyone. Pick your name carefully, especially your first name, as that will often be used as your callsign during fleet operations. If you pick a stupid name for yourself, you should prepare for some people to not take you seriously.
You can pick a first and last name (although the last name is optional). Character names are unique, and the game will check whether your chosen name is available before letting you proceed.
Starting the game
Tutorial
- Main article: Tutorial
When you first start the game as a new character, you can go through the tutorial (also called the 'New Player Experience'), a story-driven experience which gives you step-by-step instructions to the basic mechanics of playing EVE. Unless you've already played EVE it's highly recommended that you follow the tutorial, as the game has many particular mechanics which you may not be used to, even if you've played other computer games.
Career Agents
- Main article: Career Agents
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The next step in learning to play EVE (after the tutorial) is to visit the career agents and do the missions they offer to you, which expand on what you've learned in the tutorial and introduce you to some of the main PvE activities in EVE Online. The agents are not exclusive, you can do as many of the agents' missions as you want. It's highly recommended that you do as many of them as interest you, as they not only explain many more game mechanics, but also offer some good rewards for new players.
However, keep in mind that they offer little training in PvP (which make up a very substantial part of the game). Additionally, EVE is a sandbox game, and much of the attraction of the game is forging your own path as opposed to following a pre-set path.
There are five career agents, each offering between 5 and 10 missions in a certain area:
- Industry
- Business
- Exploration
- Military
- Advanced Military
If you've followed the tutorial, you will have flown to the station housing the nearest career agents; all five agents are always located in the same station. If you skipped the tutorial, you can locate the closest set of career agents (there are three sets of agents per faction, but they all offer the same missions):
- Open the Help menu in-game (F12, or click on the '?' icon in your NeoCom)
- Look for the section called 'Career Advancement' on the Support tab.
- Click on the button 'Show Career Agents'. This will open another window which will present you with the 5 closest Career agents to your current location.
- At the bottom right there will be a button labelled 'Set Destination'. Click it to plot a route to follow to get to the system and station where that agent is at.
You can do the agents in any order you like (although do the Military agent before you do the Advanced Military one).
The Sisters of EVE Epic Arc: Blood-Stained Stars
- Main article: The Blood-Stained Stars
After you have completed the missions for the career agents, the EVE galaxy is yours to explore! Should you like to run a few more story-related missions, you can do the Sisters of Eve epic mission arc 'The Blood-Stained Stars'. The epic arc is a series of 50 connected missions which take you all over highsec and expose you to quite a bit of the background and lore of the game, particularly concerning the Rogue Drones and the secret Society of Conscious Thought. To start it you should go to the Arnon system and talk to Sister Alitura at the Sisters of EVE Bureau.
While doing the epic arc you should focus on continuing to train your combat skills. You can do most of the initial missions in a Frigate, but you should consider upgrading to a Destroyer or even a Cruiser towards the end. Most of the missions will be fairly easy, but some (particularly towards the end, like the infamous 'Burning Down the Hive' or 'Our Man Dagan') have a reputation for being very challenging for new players. If you find yourself struggling, don't be shy to ask for help in the E-UNI chat channel as many EVE University players would be happy to help you. However, be careful about accepting or asking for help in the Local chat channel, as there are some unscrupulous players who might hijack your mission objective, or bait you and destroy your ship (see also: scams in EVE Online).
Learning Skills
- Main article: Skills and Learning
Unlike in many other MMOs, in EVE your character advances (gains new abilities, can use additional modules and ships, etc) through training skills, which are trained in real time, even when you are logged off. Therefore, you should always have a skill actively training. You can queue up skills to be trained one after the other, up to a maximum of 24 hours into the future (for Alpha characters) or nearly infinitely (for Omega characters). Skills have five levels (I through V), and while the benefits of each additional level scale linearly, the training time increases exponentially - so it's usually not worth training skills beyond level IV in your first few days. Instead, focus on the skills which either improve whatever you're doing at the moment, or which unlock new ships or modules you want to try. As you get a feel for what you enjoy doing in EVE you can focus your training in that particular area. Skills are cumulative, and a character (provided they have an Omega clone) can potentially learn every skill in the game given enough time, so don't worry too much about training 'the wrong skill' at the start of the game.
You start the game with a number of skills already trained. To train additional skills you must first acquire the appropriate skillbook. While you will receive a few skillbooks as rewards from the career agents, the others must be bought on the market; most of the basic skillbooks are reasonably cheap. EVE University provides certain skillbooks for free to its members.
You can speed up your training time by installing implants in your character, specifically the basic attribute-enhancing implants, which add between +1 and +5 points to your character's attributes. While the better implants are extremely expensive, +1 implants are affordable even for new players. Members of EVE University can also buy +3 implants at a discount.
Fitting your Ship
You can speed up your training time by installing implants in your character, specifically the basic attribute-enhancing implants, which add between +1 and +5 points to your character's attributes. While the better implants are extremely expensive, +1 implants are affordable even for new players. Members of EVE University can also buy +3 implants at a discount.
Fitting your Ship
- Main article: Fitting Guidelines
Ships in EVE can be fitted with a wide variety of modules which grant the ship additional abilities (e.g. weapons, which allow you to fire at enemy ships) or enhance its statistics (e.g. armor plates, which increase the amount of damage your ship can take before exploding). Learning which modules work well on which ship (and in combination with which other modules) is a potentially very deep topic, so you should approach it step by step. Basic guidelines for fitting each of the four factions' ships can be found on the following pages:
Additionally, there is a complete list of all modules and rigs, and what they do. EVE University members can also ask for fitting advice in the EVE University PvP and PvE ship setup forums or the #fitting-chatDiscord channel.
It's also a good idea to set up PYFA, a popular tool that lets you build and simulate fittings out of game. PYFA will let you easily simulate fittings and see what skills you'll need to train to fly them.
Joining a Corporation
Corporations are EVE's version of player organisations (vaguely similar to guilds or clans in other games, but with far more scope for influencing the game). EVE is, at its heart, a social game, and while it's perfectly possible to play the game by yourself, most long-time EVE players cite the sense of community in their corporation as one of the main attractions of the game. Additionally, a well-run corporation can offer many services to its members, such as free ships and modules, missioning support, advice, a sense of banding together with other to achieve common goals, and of course, fun fleet operations.
EVE University is a corporation dedicated to teaching new players how to play and enjoy EVE. We provide a wide variety of services (beyond teaching and a very helpful community), such as free skillbooks, subsidised implants, mentors, and campuses to provide hands-on experience in a wide variety of locations and environments in EVE, not to mention the awesome wiki you're currently reading. We welcome applications from all new players.
However, there are other corporations (large or small, casual or formal, located in all corners of space) in EVE who are very welcoming to new players, and every player should look around to see what best suits their interests and temperament. Corporations advertise in:
- The in-game corporation finder
- The official corporation recruitment forum
- EVE University's work fair forum
- /r/evejobs on Reddit
Next steps
- Main article: Careers
EVE is a sandbox game, which means it's up to each player to find what they enjoy doing most in the game (unlike in some other MMOs, there isn't a central story to follow). Due to EVE's skill system, it's usually easy to start doing a given activity, but it takes a while to master it to its fullest. Therefore, as a new player, it's often a good idea to dabble in a few different activities to find out what suits you best. If you've found something that looks appealing, research it (e.g. by searching this wiki, attending a class, or chatting to your corp-mates), start learning the appropriate skills, and get started. If you find it enjoyable, keep training your character's skills while honing your 'player skills' (the experience you gain playing the game - EVE is very complex, and it takes a while to learn the ins and outs of even one part of it); should you grow bored, you can always switch up your character's training queue and try something else.
While playing the game, you may want keep in mind:
- Tips for New Players, a list of some common mistakes new players make and how best to avoid them
Getting help
EVE is a very complex (and sometimes non-intuitive) game. Should you feel unsure or lost, then don't hesitate to ask for help; the EVE player community is very friendly and helpful towards new players. The easiest way to get direct help is through in-game chat channels.
Chat channels
There are (at least) three chat channels dedicated to helping new players - you can ask questions here, and there are usually other experienced players and game masters around to help you. You can find these (and other) chat channels in tabs at (by default) the bottom-left of your screen.
- Rookie Help (dedicated to helping the newest players.)
- English Help (general English help chat. There are also help chat channels in French, German, Japanese and Russian.)
- EVE University (EVE University's general help channel.)
You automatically join the 'Rookie Help' channel when you first start the game. Additional, you can join the 'English help' or 'EVE University' chat channels (as Rookie Help is often very busy, and characters older than 30 days no longer have access to 'Rookie Help'):
- Click on the speech bubble below the chat channel. You will see a number of folders.
- Click on 'Help' and look for channels named EVE University (E-UNI) and/or English Help (Help).
- Click 'Join'.
Videos
Some things are just more easily explained in a video than through text.
- EVE Online Flight Academy video series by CCP, which explain basic gameplay. These videos are also available in-game from the Help menu (F12, or the '?' Icon on your NeoCom), on the 'Tutorial Videos' tab.
- EVE tutorial - Full career agents/SOE Epic arc tutorial videos mission by mission
- How to Survive EVE Online video series by Seamus Donohue, which goes from character creation to the end of the career agents, with helpful commentary along the way.
Deeper knowledge
Beyond simple questions which can be answered in a chat channel, there is an enormous amount of knowledge about the game that the player base has documented. The EVE University wiki that you're reading right now is one of the most comprehensive resources for newer players, but there are many others, often dedicated to a particular activity in the game. Using your favourite internet search engine is usually a good starting point, but keep in mind that EVE is constantly evolving, so check whether the information you find is current. Additionally, the official EVE help centre is a good place to find information relating to your subscription, account services, as well as basic gameplay.
Related Links
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- All pages on this wiki aimed at new players.
- The EVE University Class Library, contains recorded classes that cover a wide variety of subjects.
- ISK The Guide, an industrial-sized knowledgebase that covers almost all aspects of EVE.
- The EVE careers chart, showing (almost) all the things you can do in EVE.
- A two-page EVE cheat sheet by Korgan Nailo.
- The Alpha's Guide to the Galaxy, an excellent starting point for Alpha clone characters.
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