Quick guide to EVE Online

Overview

This is a quick guide to EVE Online for new players. It is as short as possible while still being as informative as it can be. It is just your reference to learn the absolute basics and serve as your first step on your path to knowledge and wisdom about the game.

About

This is a quick guide to EVE Online for new players. You can read additional details about each of the below points as additional sections later in this guide so by reading those additional sections you can learn more about each subject.

This quick guide is as short as possible while still being as informative as possible. It is just your reference to learn the absolute basics and serve as your first step on your path to knowledge and wisdom about the game.

EVE is complex and constantly changing so learning and doing your research is a permanent part of the experience. In the end that is the utmost lesson: to learn and be able to do your own research and be self-sufficient and forge your own path.

Hopefully this quick guide will successfully start you on that journey and serve as your first step. The rest depends on You capsuleer.

Guidelines

Useful channels

Resources

Tools

★ Never fly anything you can’t afford to lose or replace! (Not even in hisec!)

It applies to both your ship and the implants in your clone’s body. You can both lose your ship and your pod thus your clone, even in hisec, you are never safe in EVE ever, nowhere, unless you are docked in an NPC station.

If you play according to this rule you will never face a situation that you can not solve in the long run. Setbacks are part of the game but failure is not.

If you only risk what you can afford to replace then losing it will not break your career and even if you lose something you can not immediately replace if you have a backup plan to fall back to you can regain what was lost so never have all your eggs in one basket and always have a way to regain your losses even if it takes some grinding… or a lot of grinding in the worst case.

My personal preference is never fly a ship more than 5% of your total ISK in your wallet but that is just my personal preference so choose whatever works for you, you may even risk more than your entire ISK reserves and it could work perfectly fine, but always have at least the means to regain your wealth, ship and implants or gain ones that are suitable for whatever you choose to do next.

★ Death and losing your ship is part of the game, learn from it and carry on.

You are taught of this during both the NPE (New Player Experience) tutorial and the Career agent tutorial missions so is one of the first lessons they teach you and that is for a reason: you WILL lose your ship sooner or later, probably more than one, may even lose several ones in a short amount of time as well, so better get used to it right away.

Don’t worry there is nothing wrong about it, we all lose ships, it does not mean you failed, maybe you made a mistake, we all make mistakes, learn from it and try to avoid it in the future. You only fail if you give up and quit, that is the only way to fail the game, you can quit because lack of time or lack of interest, but that is not failure, never ragequit, maybe take a rest, even a short break but don’t let a ship loss or even several discourage you from playing.

Best is to not get personally attached to your ship in a way it would make you feel bad losing it, though personal attachment is still healthy if you still can lose your ship without feeling bad about it. I myself have personal attachment to my ships, I choose unique names for them and remember all the special good and bad moments I have experienced in them, all part of the game and good fun if you don’t get upset about even the negative things, both good and bad are part of the experience, just as losing the ships themselves.

Dying is no different, you will die and reborn, maybe even repeatedly, nothing special here either, we all been there done that, nothing to feel bad about. Learn from your mistakes, embrace your losses and carry on.

★ Trust no one. Beware of scammers, thieves, gankers and people who try to bait you into a fight or lure you into a trap!

 
Yes, trust no one! Not even yourself, especially yourself. If you feel you can trust someone you are cheating yourself, never let your guard down, not even with corp mates, not even with your CEO, nobody is 100% trustworthy, even after a long time they can prove to be malicious.

This of course does not have to ruin your fun or to have friendly relations but don’t get shocked nor upset if someone betrays you, it is all part of the game, usually all in good fun though of course there are antisocial people living their fantasies out in EVE but many simply play the game as intended when they betray you, in those cases it is nothing personal.

Remember you can be friends with the guy you compete with or engage in sports or other activities with and despite you do all you can within the game rules to win and make him lose it does not mean hate needs to be involved. If someone is a hater just treat him accordingly and move on, don’t let trolls turn you away from the fun of the game and don’t let competition and betrayal automatically turn you against people who are just playing the game as intended, though also don’t treat trolls positively either, learn to differentiate between the two and treat them accordingly as they deserve.

Also beware of scammers: trade scammers, contract scammers, ISK scammers, “too good to be true” offers, scammers who try to make you make a quick uninformed decision in a hurry and a lot more other forms of scamming. Just as competition, tricking people is also part of the game and is not necessarily out of being toxic, it is part of the game. Learn to avoid being scammed and treat scammer trolls as they deserve and differentiate them from those who just play the game as intended including scamming.

It would be a long list to describe every situation so instead use common sense and prior experience to recognize potential traps, scams and other threats and tricks. If you fall for one don’t let it get you down, learn from it and move on.

★ Better to play for fun than to grind for PLEX, do what you enjoy! When a game becomes a second job it is no longer a game.

If you enjoy grinding then do it, if you enjoy mining do it, but don’t do it just to earn ISK because the tedious grind or mining will suck out every last ounce of fun from your gaming experience.

Yes sometimes you may need to grind or mine some but don’t let the quest for ISK undertake your mindset. You can earn ISK no matter what you are doing, of course not as efficiently as otherwise but for example if you enjoy PvE combat you can do exploration, missions or ratting in general and earn ISK, at the least some ISK while doing what you enjoy, which is lightyears better than doing something that though earns you more ISK but that you not enjoy or outright hate to do.

If you always hear in your head “tic toc tic toc ISK per hour” then you are not enjoying the game, you are having a second job earning ISK, that is no fun. So if you enjoy mining, kudos to you mine all the time if you enjoy it, but if you don’t then do what you find fun doing. There are plenty of things to do in EVE so you always have something else you can do, try new things time to time just to see if you like it, there are always new things to discover. EVE is a sandbox so the possibilities are limitless, and EVE is a game thus you play it to have fun, let that be your primary goal because it is You who is important not the ISK per hour you make, the only measure of success is how fun your gaming experience is not how huge your wallet is.

This is especially prevalent when it comes to the concept of grinding for ISK to play the game for free while also having Omega status. Don’t get me wrong it is doable but most cases just results in a soul crushing experience that you don’t enjoy, there are probably exceptions but those are just that, exceptions. If anything if you want to grind do it in real life, take a few hours of a spare job each month (may even be able to do it at your current workplace as well), that should be enough to pay for a sub especially if you sub for an entire year at a discounted price, spend a few extra hours on grinding in real life and play as Omega that way instead of wasting countless hours a month in-game to earn that Omega status which you may not even achieve.

★ Never autopilot (even in hisec) unless you fly an expendable ship and don’t mind getting podded.

 
The reason for this is the autopilot warps to 12 km from the next object (stargate, station, etc.) and flies to the object at sub-warp speed from there (to jump through the stargate, to dock into station and so on) thus your ship will spend a lot of time in space (especially as you are not there to activate your propulsion modules thus fly at base speed which is often very slow unless you fly a travel fit but even then it takes considerable time to reach the object) where it can be cargo scanned and/or shot at or even tackled (prevented from warping and slowed down to be easier to target and make it longer and harder to escape for example through a stargate or dock up in a station) thus if someone wants to destroy your ship he has all the time and opportunity to do so while you are autopiloting.

There are two main reasons to destroy a ship: for profit or for the sake of it… though most cases it is for both and most cases either is a sufficient reason for most attackers. This applies to hisec too so it is not much different there, there are gankers in hisec so you are not safe there either.

Still if you only fly a cheap ship and have cheap implants only (or preferably no implants at all) then autopiloting can be a viable option but otherwise, especially if you haul expensive cargo in an easy to destroy industrial (low tank and/or slow) then there is a very high risk of getting ganked and podded as this case it is even profitable to gank you in opposition with a cheap fast ship that is not profitable to gank and is not much of a tempting killboard material either.

Personal experience that my cheap travel Atron was gank attempted during one of my autopilot sessions when I was flying between stations with my trade alt. The attempt failed as my ship was properly tanked but still it was a worthless target, had no cargo inside it yet still the attacker still attempted to gank my ship. Thus even as I rarely log in and rarely autopilot and even when I do only do so in a cheap ship, still there was precedent even in my case for someone trying to gank me while autopiloting so the threat is real even based on personal experience.

This is for hisec. In low or below you are easy prey and CONCORD will not punish your attacker so below hisec the gankers are practically safe to destroy your ship and pop your pod thus the 12 km it takes to reach the next object for your autopilot seems like eternity when it comes to opportunity and time for your attacker to gank you.

★ Before you warp off recall your drones and recover your deployables or bookmark them.

 
Don’t leave those poor drones behind… in their sadness they may become rogue!

People often forget their probes on grid while warping off, jumping through a stargate, docking up in station or under other circumstance, more so in the heat of combat especially if they are near destruction, they may even deliberately leave their drones in such a case.

Not rare for me to scoop up T2 drones during my travels and it is not without precedence to scoop up Gecko drones either, each of which sell for around 80 mil ISK at the moment. Though they can’t be scooped up, same goes for MTUs (Mobile Tractor Units) which instead can be destroyed with relative ease.

The extremely frustrating thing is realizing your mistake just after you entered warp (or while you enter warp and not being able to cancel warp in time). Luckily such haven’t happened to me so far but I can imagine how frustrating it can be and read others in chat expressing their disappointment when such has happened to them.

If you have no bookmark to the location all you can do is scan your drones or deployables down which requires combat scan probes and proper skills and also the luck that nobody else do it before you.

For this reason it is best practice to always bookmark every cosmic signature and anomaly you warp to and same goes for visiting deadspace pockets, also bookmarking each individual room in the deadspace pocket.

★ Before you enter a wormhole bookmark its location, then once you’ve entered the wh bookmark it from the inside as well.

 
The reason for the first is once you enter the wh your scanned down cosmic signatures will be lost, going back to 0% scanned status once you return to the system as when you enter a wh you leave the system you came from. Thus the best practice is to immediately bookmark every cosmic signature you successfully scanned down if you plan to visit it.

Once you enter a wh and warp away from the wh exit/entry you will not be able to warp back to it unless you have a bookmark to it. You can use scanner probes to find it but it may not be a very healthy endeavour if the wh has some locals (resident players) or other explorers besides you as they can scan you down and kill you swiftly. So before you get all excited to warp to some celestial or even a scanned down signature make sure you have a way to leave the wh quickly if you need to escape in a hurry. Best practice is, as always, to immediately bookmark the exit the moment you enter the wormhole.

Note: CCP announced that with the August update scanned down signatures will no longer disappear (get back to 0% scanned status) with a session change and will be kept during a client session. Though (I assume) if you have to sign off or you disconnect for some reason you robably will still lose your scanned sigs so bookmarking them is still a wise choice even after that update is implemented.

★ In flight right click empty space to access personal & corp bookmarks (if any available in the solar system) & other options.

 
A very efficient way of accessing bookmarks available only for the local system, no need to manually sorting as only those bookmarks show up that are available in the local system and none others. You can access the usual options for them as well like warping to them, warping to distance and so on, thus can even be used efficiently in the heat of combat as well.

★ Alts are invaluable!

 
You can have different characters for different roles, can log in to distant areas of New Eden without having to travel there and can avoid standings issues or being targeted by faction and corp war targets just to name a few uses. You can train multiple characters at the same time by having multiple accounts even on the same email address and can sub them later or stay as alpha with (some or all of) them as you desire.

★ If you are new to EVE then it is essential that you complete all the career agent missions.

The Career agent missions are practically another tutorial for the game that teach you the basic core concepts and mechanics of the game beyond the starting NPE (New Player Experience) turorial and are an invaluable experience in your EVE learning career, especially so as they give fairly good ISK for a new player, also free stuff including free ships as well as rewards for completing them and also give you opportunity to practice in a fairly safe environment. If you trust my judgement you consider these missions mandatory to be completed.

[Useful channels] List

As long as you are below one month (30 days) old you are automatically joining the rookie help channel even if you left it somehow so you have that for your early days. Though after your first month you are automatically removed and can not rejon from there on.

Aside of that exists the official help channels, each for a different language. This can be useful as well though I heard not so favorable opinions about them as well.

And there is the “EVE University (E-UNI)” help channel which I highly recommend. I have it joined on my main despite I don’t really need it but it is quite active all the time so is also a good place to simply chat around not just to get help and of course once you have enough knowledge of the game you can help others out as well if you know the answer to their questions. You can join it by clicking the channel list, opening the “help” subfolder and there you can find the “EVE University (E-UNI)” help channel.

[Resource] What to do in EVE

A very useful diagram of the potential activities in EVE and what requirements they have. It is recommended for everyone to check it and see what EVE has to offer.

[Resource] Crimewatch

How does the Crimewatch mechanics work. Important to learn to avoid accidentally committing a suspect or even criminal activity and facing unwanted consequences as a result.

People will try to exploit your lack of knowledge of Crimewatch to bait you into a fight where they can engage you without breaking CONCORD law themselves thus legally attacking you. In opposition with suicide gankers these people will not sacrifice their ships for killing you and as a result usually have much stronger ships that punch even harder than suicide gankers, even… especially when they seem being weaker than you, which is often part of the plan from the beginning, no matter how weak someone may appear they can have nasty surprises for unaware, careless, overconfident people who engage them or give them an opportunity to get engaged by them so always stay vigilant and know what you are doing, learn the ins and outs of Crimewatch carefully.

Until you are experienced with Crimewatch it is highly recommended that you keep your safeties on green.

[Resource] Standings

Before you start running missions and shoot stuff in general (both other players and NPCs) it is advised to familiarize yourself with how standings work as it is much easier to avoid standings losses than to repair them once you’ve received negative standings.

Aside of that standings have benefits you may want to achieve by improving your standings with specific factions and NPC corporations. For details you can read the linked article.

[Resource] All gameplay related support articles

Recommended to read and learn the details explained in those articles so you can avoid issues and learn what opportunities you have and how you can achieve what you want during your journey.

It may seem overwhelming at first but you are not in a hurry, consume the information at your own pace. Still every piece of information there is useful and can aid you in your EVE career so completely worth the time and effort to read about.

Also if you have a question it is worth checking the support articles as often there are answers to your question, though it is always wise to do additional research by checking other sources as well.

[Resource] Sisters of EVE epic arc

The SoE Epic Arc is a series of L1 (Level 1) missions aimed to introduce new players into New Eden, mission running, the story and lore and the various places of Empire Space.

It is a good learning exercise and a perfect opportunity to practice your knowledge and abilities and to learn and practice how to fly your ship, use your ship systems, how to combat NPCs and how to navigate in space and how to travel to locations of interest.

Some missions pose a challenge but even those are possible solo by doing some research and buying the proper gear and using the proper ship if you aren’t already flying one that is capable of completing those missions. Though by design such missions are encouraging you to fly with friends or ask for help from other players.

You can repeat the SoE Epic Arc every 3 months so the sooner you complete it the sooner you can repeat it. Aside of the experience, it gives fairly good rewards and also faction standings boost to a choosen faction as well, so even veteran players may find benefit in completing it.

[Resource] Trade hubs

May you want to buy stuff for personal use or to fuel your industry efforts, sell your loot, sell your production or trade in general, you will have to visit a trade hub sooner or later due to hubs offer the largest selection of products to buy and the best focused place to sell to the widest audience.

They usually offer the best prices as well but be sure to price check before you buy or sell to determine where you can do so for the best available price, factoring in travel / hauling distance as well.

[Resource] EVE Uniwiki

The best source of information about EVE Online. If you have a question about the game most probably E-UNI has an article about it, or even more in some cases.

Aside of it a google search is also a good idea as it shows results from many different sources and some other sources are also linked which are specializing in different aspects of the game, however E-UNI usually has the answer to your question, though it never hurts to further research a subject for additional details just in case.

[Resource] EVE-Survival

Invaluable resource for mission runners, explorers, incursion runners and others as well. Though never forget that there are other resources as well such as E-UNI and beyond so as always not relying on one single source of information is healthy and thus preferable.

[Resource] EVE Online Flight Academy (tutorial videos by CCP)

From the developers (CCP) themselves. If you are in need of actual demonstration not just plain text and the occasional pictures then this is the place for you.

[Resource] Official EVE Online forums

A source of information and place to talk with other capsuleers including the option to ask questions as well.

[Tool] Dotlan EVE maps

Vector based EVE maps with detailed statistics including kills in the past hour and past 24 hours, info about stations, celestials, asteroid belts, sovereignty, factional warfare data and so on.

It includes features such as route and jump planner and a lot more. Very useful even just to plan your route but can also be used to find specific stations or other things based on various filters, so can be useful for many different purposes.

[Tools] Market browsers and all regions price checks

You can see buy and sell orders in all regions thus you don’t have to be in the same region to see the (buy/sell) price of an item and can quickly compare various orders and also can see which offer is closest to you and how it compares to other places. They also have some other features as well.

I use eve-central frequently and I found it very reliable so far. I think it is an invaluable tool regardless if you only occasionally buy/sell or if you are a market / industrial tycoon who frequently sells/buys in bulk.

Haven’t used eve-marketdata that much though when I did it seemed just as reliable. It has a very useful extra feature of price history (both in graph and table format) and some other features and tools plus also has a good looking theme and layout.

[Tool] EVE killboard (manual kill submission is also available)

A PvP game is all about destroying stuff so it would be pointless if you can’t showcase your kills to others. That is what zkill is about. It can also be a valuable intel tool, statistical tool, can be used to learn what fits other people use (good or bad examples as well) and so on, it can have various uses.

You can also submit your own kills as well to can brag about your achievements or just to have a journal of your accomplishments.

Appendix

EVE player since 17th Jan. 2017.

By now having alts from all races in every empire faction, though for now mainly fly as Gallente.

I sign in when I have time and in the mood and do whatever I currently feel like doing. Not worthwhile for me to subscribe due to randomly signing in and usually for short sessions only, which is the reason not joining a player corp either. I enjoy the freedom of being a lone wolf.

Exploration (mostly hisec and wh), mission running, ratting (usually anomalies), mining (very occasionally), gas harvesting (wh), faction warfare (on alt), travel (landmarks, sites/places of interest), manufacturing, blueprint copying, trading, corp CEO (on alt).

[link]

Corp, guides, giveaways, public Steam group

The Kherub Angels Steam Group is the official website of the in-game corporation of the same name and also is a public group for EVE Online and EVE Valkyrie players and fans in general.

In general Kherub Angels (both the corp and Steam group) is about helping out and assisting new, returning and veteran players alike and aims to generate and support EVE related community activity and awareness.

★ You can rate this guide positively at the top of this page if you find it useful. You may also add it as a favorite if you feel it deserves it. A convenient share button is also available as well.

★ You can like our related thread on the official EVE forums. You may also post a comment if you so choose so. The thread is located at [link]

★ You can let others (friends or even strangers, on Steam, in in-game local and/or corp chat, or elsewhere on the internet) know about the guide. Word of mouth can go a long way in making people aware of its existence so they can take advantage of it.

Obviously you are not limited to a single one of the above options.