EVE Online

If you've played for a year or less, and you've accomplished (or near accomplished) any of the below, could you please speak up and let us know about your accomplishments? i.e. how hard was it to accomplish, what sort of help did you get (like you joined eve uni and learned a lot fast), and a general idea of how you did/do it (like, i trade on the market/contracts)

   thanks in advance~!!

1 - flying some type of huge ship (say, something larger than a battleship)

2 - making 20m+/hour (how much, and how -- missions, ratting, trade -- just a general idea please, no specifics requested).

3 - 15m+ SP, what was your secret in getting a lot of SP early on? how did you combat the desire to watch your skills as the timer slowly ticked on them?

a lot of new players post here asking advice.  i'm just curious how many new'ish players are accomplishing crazy mad goals that first year.  I know of one guy that went nuts with the market and was making billions early on.  he could very well be the exception to the rule.

say you're not that far along, only been playing 4-6 months... do you see yourself reaching any of the above 3 within your first year of play?

I think my newbie friend is gonna hit #3 easy. When he first created his character he read a ton of guides. Then he purchased ISK on the site using the GTC. He took that ISK and brought the +3 implants right off the bat.

Next, he trained all the learning skills. The rank 1 skills he took to 5 I believe

He also stuck to the optimal training path. For example, his highest stats are +Int +Mem and +Cha respectively. So he regiously sticks to those only training skills hes optimized to learn

His SP is really high already its pretty remarkable.

Myself I was doing point #2 early on. I simply trained the skills needed to fly a Battlecruiser (Myrm) and just killed rats in 0.0 starting out.

My newbie friend has hit #2 I think via trading. You know, buy low, sell really high

Neither of us are concerned with #1. I've always wanted to be a covops specialist / Trader and he always wanted to be a Trader / Industrailist.

While my character age is considerabley over a year due to computer problems early on I have actually played less than 6 months.  If you want an accurate guage I suppose I can look at my account records to find out.

That said, no, I have not accomplished any of the goals that you list, nor do I see myself accomplishing any of them within my first year of actual play.  Why?  Well, probably the most important reason, I haven't set any of those goals.

While I have not (nad have no plan to) reach the goals you listed, at least not anytime soon, I have accomplished a good list of other goals.  For instance, I have nearly all of my skills for the Arbitrator and tech 2 Minmatar drones at level 5 and I'm doing well on the other skills needed for the modules I prefer in that ship. As well, I have nearly the same level of skills with the Punisher and tech 2 fittings.

Do I feel bad that I'm not doing level 4 missions in 0.0 and nettings millions of ISK per hour?  No.  Do I feel bad that the largest ship I can fly is a cruiser?  No.

I haven't played 6 months and I have a little over 7 million SP.  When I started out I always made sure I had something to do that I enjoyed, so there were many times when I trained a new skill or set of skills at the expense of haveing optimal training skills.  I have never had more than 2 implants at a time, and those were +1s, right now, for the first time I have 1 +2 implant.  But most of my training has been without implants.  Since I have 7 million SP in less than 6 months and I am now in a position to afford more implants (what I don't spend on ship replacements) I have no doubt I will have considerably over 15 million SP when I finish my first year of game time.

What I love most about EVE is that it is a sandbox.  There are a thousand paths to follow, and nobody can tell me which one to follow except me. 

But...but...but...Eschi!  You won't have a battleship?  Not even after a full year of play?  Nope!  But so what?  I suppose if a battleship is the only measure of success in EVE then I am an abject failure.  But by my measure (the only measure that matters) I am very successful and fully expect to remain so.

you realize that a trader/researcher could train for a long, long time and never be in a ship larger than a frigate.  this person could rarely ever even leave a station.  yet the player could be having tons of fun, lots of friends, and therefore... be successful BECAUSE they're having fun.

like that one dude in another thread where zooming in first into the mission yelling something on TS like, "imma fire moi LASORZ" (or whatever) is all that guy needs to have fun.

fun is a totally different animal than power/meta gaming, being uberly rich, and getting max SP in minimal time (or 'catching up with vets').

fun IS what it's all about.

but i'm just curious how many new eve folks cranked it up and tried (or did) hit those benchmarks in the op, early on.

Okay, mixed in with my answer then, I am on track to considerably surpass #3.  I've tried to train smart, but never at the expense of fun.  :)

1 - flying some type of huge ship (say, something larger than a battleship)

Early on, I started leaning toward the industry side of things so my main PvP ships are still frigs (albeit T2 at this point).  A year in I still haven't trained battleships for any race - for missions I fly a Myrm and do lv. 3s (purely for standings), and I have quite advanced drone skills and could be in a carrier in about a month and a half if I really wanted to.  But I don't - I'm still happy flying small ships (mostly covops when I'm not doing industry stuff) and good BS and even carrier pilots are a dime a dozen it seems like.

2 - making 20m+/hour (how much, and how -- missions, ratting, trade -- just a general idea please, no specifics requested).

Mining Dark Glitter in 0.0 in a corp-op (while receiving gang boosts from a Rorqual).  Dark Glitter has a high stront yield and even after paying the haulers and the booster and the lookout I was stil making about 20M an hour.

3 - 15m+ SP, what was your secret in getting a lot of SP early on? how did you combat the desire to watch your skills as the timer slowly ticked on them?

 I only have 8 months active - I quit for about 3 months and went back to WoW, but after Eve I just can't get into level-based theme-park type games anymore.  In WoW the game treats you like some kind of hero but you're really just a regular joe and just like everyone else with your gear and talent build.  Eve treats you like a regular joe but you can become anything you want with enough time and (real, not character) skill.  So to make a long story short I only have 10M SP.  I suppose you could get 15M SP in a year if you trained the relevant learnings to lv. 5, trained cybernetics to lv. 5, got a whole set of +5 implants, then trained the rest of the learnings to lv. 5, but it'd take (offhand estimate) about 4-5 months to do that assuming you could get someone to just hand you an expensive implant set.  I still use +4s (Even though I'm back in empire for a while I still operate in lowsec frequently - would rather not risk the ISK on +5s) and have basic learnings at lv. 4 and advanced at lv. 3 and don't plan on training them any higher - I'd rather have more immediate returns at the moment.

a lot of new players post here asking advice.  i'm just curious how many new'ish players are accomplishing crazy mad goals that first year.  I know of one guy that went nuts with the market and was making billions early on.  he could very well be the exception to the rule.

say you're not that far along, only been playing 4-6 months... do you see yourself reaching any of the above 3 within your first year of play?

11 months here, see yellow text above.