EVE Online has a well earned reputation for being a complex game, given all of the systems that make it up, and the ocean of information that’s foisted upon the player. From player built real-time repositories of kills on zKillboard, to the ingame map of the nearly 8,000 individual systems that the game takes place in, it can be easy to get overwhelmed - or simply not know where to begin looking for an answer to your questions.
Fortunately, the EVE community has a repertoire of talented 3rd party developers, who’ve brought a bevy of fan made tools to life in order to help make player’s lives easier. Here I’m going to list a few key ones that I think all players should be aware of, as they’re useful no matter if you’re just starting out, or a multiple year veteran.
Pyfa - Ship Fitting Simulator
One of the first challenges a player faces after the tutorial is trying to figure out how to set up their ship, with the need to balance both fitting resources, whilst . So, whilst the developer has begun adding features to allow fitting simulation in game, I still recommend this as a tool to use once you progress past the tutorial. You can sync it with your character to show exactly what you’ll be doing whilst the character you’re playing is training, or see what can be done with the best possible skills, as well as helpful features like being able to easily find out what skills you need to train fly any particular fit you’ve crafted up. You can download a copy for yourself here for free.
)
EVEMon - Skill Training Planner
One of EVE’s main quirks is the fact that you unlock new skills over time, rather than through grinding, and without any restrictions of what you can unlock. Because of that, the skill training system presents a lot of choice to a new player in terms of what to do, and with free-to-play accounts only being able to queue 24 hours of training it can seem hard to plan. Fortunately, EVEMon allows you to plan as far ahead as you’d like, whilst also allowing you to find out the best attributes to pick to speed up your training. Much like with Pyfa it can be synced with your character to update over time, allowing it to warn you when your queue gets low, and work on a plan with your existing skills. If you’re unsure of what to train, there are 14 skills that affect every single ship you can fly., but otherwise you can download your copy of EVEmon here.
)
EVE Gategamp Check - Route Checking
One of the constant worries when travelling through space is that of jumping into a camp of other players, waiting for you on the other side of the gate and ready to blow your ship into oblivion, and this understandably makes some players hesitant about trying to go into the more dangerous regions of the game. However you can do a lot to scout and try and find a safe route into them in order to get access to the richer rewards of that area, with tools like this website allows you to check whether your intended route puts you through any systems where players have died recently. Whether you’re looking to try and find some Solo PvP in lowsec, or exploration in nullsec, this can help you decide what systems to avoid.
)
Pirates Little Helper - Intel Overlay
If you want to start getting into PvP in EVE, one of the things you’ll need to get used to doing is using all the intel available to you to both find targets, and see when you need to run away. There’s many avenues which you can use for this, but finding out what previous kills a potential target has and using your directional scanner are both key, and Pirates Little Helper helps you to use both through a simple overlay on top of the game. Using this, you’ll be able to narrow down the location of ships you can see on your directional scanner, as well as see activity in systems around you. You can find and download this on it’s own site here.
)
Fuzzworks - Industry Calculator
Industry - the creation of new items from resources - is a huge part of EVE Online, given that almost every item in the game is created this way, by other players. As such, it’s something that many players are interested in, but it can often be difficult to figure out exactly what’s needed to make something. The Fuzzworks Blueprint calculator not only does that, but also allows you to figure out if doing so is going to be profitable, so you can make sure you’re making the best use of your building time. The site also has a myriad of other tools, such as a way to figure out how to get the most out of your mission LP, all of which you can find here
)
Dotlan - Out of Game Map
As I mentioned in the beginning, EVE has a huge amount of systems, making Katia Sae’s journey through all of them without dying such an impressive feat. If you find yourself lost, or want to see how systems connect in a way that’s clearer than the in game map, I’d recommend using the site Dotlan. The site also allows for different filters to be put over the top of this map, to identify where people might be doing PvE, or what factions control specific regions of the game.
)
EVE-O Preview - Client Manager
Finally I have to recommend a tool that’s a little more niche in it’s usage, as it’s designed to make playing multiple accounts at once easier, by presenting a small transparent overlay of all the accounts you have open on top of the game client. This allows you to keep an eye on what’s happening to all of your characters without the need to constantly alt-tab between them, and allows you to click on these panels to switch focus to that client. This isn’t something that newer players will get much out of, but given how many activities in EVE scale with more accounts, it’s something veterans will be able to utilise to their advantage. You can find the latest version of this tool here.
)
Using all (or any) of these tools isn’t necessary to succeed in the game, but having a helping hand never hurts. If there are any tools not shown off here that you want to highlight that have helped you to play EVE, feel free to discuss them in the comments below.
