Quick Update

Not a whole lot is happening on the Eve Online front. Stuff is going on ingame. But I'm not really taking part.
I've realised that I will need to train many many long skills so I'm doing that now, or at least ones which feel long as they give no immediate or real benefit to a certain extent. What am I talking about? the core skills.
Like; Electronics 5, Engineering 5, Mechanics 5, Weapon Upgrades 5, Eletronic Upgrades 5, Frigate 5, Energy Management 5, and a whole bunch more.

All these skills are going to be necessary to get the most out of the ships I will be flying, in terms of fitting them as well as flying them, along with their inherent bonuses.
So they're all necessary if I want to make the most of the ships, which I do, but at the moment it feels as though they do nothing, as they are not really improving much on my existing fits.

So during this somewhat boring skill training time, I've gone off on a tangent in my gaming to some extent.

I recently got Assassins Creed 2 from the Steam Summer Sale, (Thanks!) this is a really great game to run round in and feel somewhat immersed. Ubisoft just break it with the whole meta plot and all the flashy white stuff every now and again from getting you more involved. However, Ezio is a fairly kickass person to play as, jumping around assassinating people with little regard to their security.

I've also been playing PlanetSide 2 again.
I just recently unlocked the Haymaker shotgun in this and stuck a x2 red dot sight on it and the extended magazine. Oh wow, it makes the game fun to play again and changes up the grind for other upgrades for it and my classes.
The reason I went for a shotgun is simply because unlocking it with my 1000 cert's which seemed to take forever to grind, unlocked it not only for my main to classes, Light Assault and Combat Medic, but also for the Engineer and Heavy Assault, which means should I ever feel the need to switch to one of these other classes I've a good weapon to start out with.
I will also point out that my guy is in the TR, I tried NC pre flinch patch and found it grossly annoying when my aim constantly ended up on the moon instead of the enemies face whenever they shot near me. Thus I switched over and enjoyed actually being able to kill the Vanu in a near straight fight.

And going back to Eve Online once more.
It looks like I'm going to be on my own in it for now as my friends who said they would try it on a whole don't have the time to do it justice, or to really get into it. Which is fair enough. But means when I am ready I'm going to be looking for a EU wormhole corp to join. Hopefully in a Class 3-4. I would prefer to find a smaller less well known group play with rather than one of the bigger well known groups.

CCP have also just today held an ingame event which I give them great kudos for doing in that its progressing the storyline of the Empires and so on. But I am also incredibly disappointed with them about the way they went about it at the same time.
If your not aware this was the Battle for Caldari Prime. With the Gallente and Caldari going at one another. Capsuleers were able to help shoot all the things in space as everything was tagged suspect. Thats all cool. The progression is cool as I've already stated.
What isn't cool is that they had already decided the outcome of the fight and it looks as though they also stacked the fight to make sure they got the outcome they wanted. In my book this isn't cool. Here was a chance to allow high sec people to make a difference, or infact anyone to make a meaningful difference to the history of the game, and CCP denied the players it, by deciding that the Caldari would lose and that the Leviathan class titan would be destroyed and parts of it crash onto the surface of Caldari Prime.
How do we know this?
Earlier in the week was some footage from a Dust 514 battle which apparently took place on Caldari Prime in which in the background was visible the burning wreckage of one Caldari Leviathan class titan.
Well done CCP I applaud you in not giving the players a chance to influence the history of the game in a meaningful way and in essence playing the god GM card, by making sure it went a certain way.
They might as well just have made a video of it and uploaded it after downtime in which they removed the titan from Caldari Prime orbit. They've done similar before.
It looks like CCP has recently taken a good couple of steps forward lately and then taken this one back in my opinion.

Anyway that's it from me.

The old me.

Hopefully in this post I will examine the reasons I have chosen to roll anew and see how it goes in Eve Online.

Old me.

The new me.

Why haven't I gone back to my old characters? this can probably be split into three parts.

First, starting afresh allows me to gain a newer perspective of the game itself and what its like to be the low Skill Point player once more based out of high-sec. This has been a little annoying and yet quite good at the same time. I've been mostly just updating skill queues so far on my new character, basing myself out of Hek - Boundless Creation station (aka the trade hub). Ive good access to just about everything I need at reasonable prices whilst still being able to do a little market trading to make some start-up ISK.
Having completed the new player experience I've a greater idea of what it was like starting out.

Secondly having a new character does not tie me to links and friendships and a history which my previous characters have. In Eve, your corporation history can tell a story and can limit you if you wish to move on. Starting afresh means I've none of that to really worry about. So if I choose to apply to a corporation I'm showing up as a new old player returning. In itself that's not great and I will probably have some explaining to do.

Finally I've grown and moved away from how I was in the days where I was a line member in null-sec. A veil has been drawn back and I can truly see what I was part of and to me I have come to despise it. What I'm referring to here is that null-sec is so broken now that the massive alliances and coalitions they have formed don't want to go to war for real. They would rather just thunder dome once again. No doubt your thinking that I'm yet another person who is totally against the large null-sec alliances, that perhaps I have an axe to grind against them because they picked on me or something. I don't.
What I intensely dislike is the fact that null-sec has reached a stage where it is essentially a big blue doughnut which so many other people have described. That the people at the top are the same people as years ago. That its the same alliances holding space. The same cultures, the same people, the same everything. Yes null-sec has stagnated. This is in part because of CCP, but this is also in part because of the alliances have become too good at what they do and that the people at the top have not moved on or refuse to.
I hold a great deal of respect for some of them, e.g. Shadoo, Montolio, The Mittani each for different reasons. But I also hate them to a certain extent for not moving on to the next challenge, and not allowing new people to step up to the challenges.

 Anyway that's enough of that rant for now, back to the topic at hand.

Starting afresh also allows me as I've previously stated to truly get to know ship classes that I bypassed and skipped when I rushed towards the bigger and better ships of the time, (Battle cruisers and Battleships).

At the moment I'm looking forward to giving the assault frigates and interceptors a good run around with in the future. To this end I've been focusing my skill training on fitting skills and small weaponry support skills and so on that will be needed to get the best from these ships. This will also stand me in good stead for further progression into cruisers, T2 cruisers and T3 strategic cruisers, which at the moment are my goal.

I have however made a slight detour in my skill training to be able to fly the Corax, and Oh blimey. I like the look of it a hell of a lot, CCP art department is really good at space ships now.

A quick and dirty newbies guide to Eve.

So here goes, me giving out useful advice. People in the past have told me I'm good at this, I'm not so sure.
It's likely just going to be a collection of links to useful sites and articles and 3rd party programs but I will be starting out with those golden rules of eve which get thrown around constantly, (in reality its just a list of don't do this or that).

The Golden Rules of Eve Online.

1. Have fun.

This is really overlooked compared to number 2 which is said so many times.

2. Don't fly what you can't afford to lose. 

This can't be stated enough. Its no use spending all your money, selling every ship you own for that Tengu Strategic Cruiser and then thinking you will take it for a spin on a low-sec radar sites or a mission or something and the moment you enter low-sec, you end up finding yourself surrounded by pirates who are ripping you to pieces. Seconds later your waking up in a new clone without an ISK to your name and nothing but a rookie ship.

3. Don't fly what you can't afford to lose. - Yes again.

4. Your going to lose ships and you will get podded. Its just part of the game.

It really is. its not personal and the game allows it, even in high-sec. CONCORD is there to take revenge not to protect. The only way to not lose a ship or get podded is to never undock, in which case you might as well not play.
Best thing to do is as soon as you can afford to, take some T1 frigates to low-sec and look for fights. Your going to lose a heck of alot of them and your pod often as well but you will get used to it and not lock up later with fear when your in a more expensive ship or when it matters more.

5. If something sounds too good to be true

Its a trap! People will try to scam you in this game. Keep this in mind. They will often try to come at you sideways.

6. Don't mix your weapons 

If your fitting guns they want to be all exactly the same, same with missile launchers. So no to having a couple 125mm auto cannons on your Hurricane alongside some 720 howitzer artillery cannons.

7. Don't mix missile launchers and guns, unless you know what your doing! And if your a Noob you probably don't. (A few ships used to have split weapon high slots, e.g. Of 6 high slots, 3 could take turrets and 3 could take missile launchers, though I think this has been done away with with the rebalancing.)

8. Don't trust anyone,

They all want to steal your stuff or blow you up. (Possibly an extension of 4, but if so it needs mentioning again.)

 9. You don't need faction, deadspace or officer modules to be good.

In the majority of cases T1, Meta or T2 modules are enough. Its not the ships and items that make you good in Eve is you, the player that makes you good. Sure they help but they won't stop you being surrounded by armed bastards who want you dead and to loot your stuff.
For example.
Did you really need to fit officer guns and a deadspace tank on your Vindicator? just so you can complete the mission a couple of minutes faster? Nice ship, but T2 guns would have been fine, and that tank is just overkill to the extreme. Spending some money on faction mods can be a good idea, like on Federation magnetic stabilizers.

10. Don't bling out a ship unless you know

1. What your doing,
2. It's a ship worth blinging out for a specific role.
Otherwise you end up like the guy in the link, fitting a module which cost a silly amount to a ship which shouldn't need it and doesn't benefit the role in which its used for.

And as with the pirate code these aren't laws, they're more like guidelines.

My Advice.

My advice for starting out as a new pilot would be this.

Do all of the tutorial missions even if your not interested in industry or mining.
Why?
All the tutorials give good rewards in terms of cash and ships, if you know your never going to need that Venture you can sell it on once you have done them, and make a decent profit.
Train for your races T1 frigates first, find a half decent fit somewhere. Ask around, look on the internet, in wiki's and work out what skills you need to fly it well, and what skills you need for each of the modules.
Chances are doing this will concentrate your skill training towards a quick and achievable goal which you can build from with your future training.
The Goons and TEST have it right, a frigate can change everything.

Getting used to losses.

Once you can afford a couple dozen frigates take a few out to low-sec. expect to die, don't get attached to them. Make sure its insured and your clone is up to date. Learning to accept losses early on will make it much easier later on. And remember each time you get podded and wake up in a station,

UPDATE YOUR MEDICAL CLONE! RIGHT GOD DAMN NOW! DON'T UNDOCK TILL YOU HAVE!

It can also be worthwhile to have a look who killed you. They will most likely upload your loss to a website like eve-kill.net It can give you some useful information. Also you can try convo'ing them. They might be complete dicks, they might not be and may take pity on you, a new player and explain where you went wrong, what to do better. Its all a learning experience.

Plan for the future.

Think what you want to do and begin training towards it. Set yourself goals and work towards them.

See a really cool ship fly past and think, "I want to fly one of those" look it up, work out what skills you need and train for it.

Hear a story about a fight somewhere, and think "I want to be part of something like that!" Find out more about it, what ships they were using and what kind of fight it was and come up with a plan yourself as to how to get there.

Want to build ships to sell them on the market? Start looking at your industry skills, what do you need to be able to build whatever, and begin working towards it, do a few trial runs of making small quantities of ships, get the hang of the industry side of the game and get going, and scale up your operation.

Some highly useful links.

Eve University Wikipedia perhaps the most comprehensive eve wiki out there covering allot of the details and with a good bunch of guides thrown in there.

BattleClinic This can be useful for looking for relatively good fits (loadouts). Beware not all of them are, and its worth reading the comments to see what others say about them.

Dotlan Probably the best third party map out there. It can show you pretty much everything in a manner far clearer and easier to understand than the in-game map.

ISK Guide Download it and have a look through, it gives a good overview of many of the different paths you can choose to tread and how best to begin your journey down them.

 Failheap Challenge A community forum site filled with bitter vets with nothing better to do than post all day. They do however offer some excellent suggestions on fits and ships in the "Ship Setup Hanger."

Offical Eve Online Forums. I wasn't too sure whether or not to include this. But you can find people willing to give good advice on there, but also people who will troll and give bad advice, however the latter two are relatively easy to spot.

Some blog's such as Jesters Trek which is linked to the right hand side are also quite good to look at for some information on ship fittings and other parts of eve. For example his definition of a safe undock or kick out station is well worth a read.

This is not an exhaustive list, there's far more out there and in greater detail, it just depends on what you want to do whether its any use to you.

Your experience in eve is in your hands. Put enough effort in and you can with a little luck be anywhere down the line.