STIM fights

[Alan]

I have a jump clone with augmentations in the region of Curse. Curse is a 0.0 region not occupied by friendly forces. I left the jump clone down there the last time we had a road trip to Curse that I attended. The augmentations in the clone have appreciated significantly in value since I applied them, largely due to the bot-farm-busting activities of the developer team. I had perhaps only a Sabre in the area and I think I may have already lost it in a previous failed attempt at retrieving this clone. Regardless, I am very light on hardware in this region and definitely do not own anything that I would be comfortable piloting out of Curse solo. This clone has been more or less trapped in Curse for probably two years by now, so there is no rush --- if you're going to be playing this game. I would like your assistance, as a character in a ship neither of which have any particular value, to take the point position for my journey out of Curse. If we run into anything scary, they'll engage you, giving me time to dock up or otherwise make myself safe.

Sure I can definitely help you out. I can use my hauler alt in some random frigate or something like that.

[Jonathan]

PRO TIP
If you train destroyers, then you should grab frigate IV in another race or two. It will mean free SP and reduced training later.

[Alan]

Why is it free SP?

Also, I just found out about the "learning" skills. I probably should be training those at some point.

[Jonathan]

??? Learning skills were taken out of the game a couple years ago. Where are you getting your info? It's pretty stale.

A patch is coming down the pipe (no announced date, but best bet is late January or early February) that will split the Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills into four separate racial skills. Each character will get racial skills at the right level for all the ships they can currently fly. For example, since I have Destroyers V and all racial frigate skills at IV plus Battlecruisers V and all racial cruiser skills at III, I will get all racial Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills at V, which is a fair amount of free SP (3x above what I invested in that area). Obviously you will not have time to train both Destroyers V and Battlecruisers V plus the frigate and cruiser skills before the patch hits, so my advice is to stick with Destroyers (at IV, hopefully). You can select a different optimization point, of course.

Here's my guy, for the curious.

http://eveboard.com/pilot/dwindlehop

Not perfectly up-to-date, but the last 30d or so hasn't been really key additions to my skillset. Anyway, I would probably have 1/3 or 1/2 more SP if I was more dedicated to my training.

[Alan]

Yeah I was at work reading some random page that talked about Learning skills and I was like wtf I should've been learning those.

Anyway, I guess I'll start with Minmatar, it seems like their ships are pretty popular. Unless that's a bad choice. I've got Caldari Frigate at IV right now. I'm thinking of starting out doing ECM, seems like a good way to get killed a lot.

[Jonathan]

I'm obviously Minmatar specced. They're good depending on what you want to do. Lore- and history-wise, Minmatar excel at skirmish PVP tactics. Their ships are generally not well-regarded for PvE. There was a bit of a fad last year for major fleet actions to use Minmatar, but that has not been terribly common in Eve's history. Their cap ships suck and their haulers are merely OK. Last year, the Hurricane was clearly the best of the boats for many PVP situations, but they nerfed it some around Thanksgiving and are about to nerf it again in the new patch. I'm going to sell all my Hurricanes and buy some Amarr Oracles instead (need moar training).

ECM has no use at all in PvE. The utility of ECM in PVP is at perhaps an all-time low, though certainly these things ebb and surge as nerfs and buffs are applied. Primarily it sees use for lopsided ganks and tournament-style consensual PVP. You are correct; you will die much more often than if you flew some other role.

If you want my advice, I guess you are looking for a PVP role which makes you valuable despite your low level of SP. I recommend training for the Minmatar Stiletto and becoming a scout. The tech 1 versions of the interceptor hulls are pretty reasonable boats to ply your trade in before you get fully Stiletto-qualified. It's an incredibly in-demand skill and role; almost no one undocks without a interceptor in fleet. The Stiletto is the best one for most scout purposes. It's certainly the hot seat, but hey if you wanted slow and steady you'd be focusing on DPS boats. I usually scout when I play and I like it the best of all.

[Jonathan]

If you have your heart set on electronic warfare, then I'd direct you to the tracking disruptors. I'm pretty sure these just got buffed and are going to be surging in popularity. The T1 TD cruiser also just got buffed so now you have a reasonable platform to use as a low SP player. I think. I'm kind of less clueful than you might think about recent changes.

Edit: Yes, TDs are the new hotness in ewar. In fact, the Crucifier is a legitimate ewar platform, usable in real fights, despite being only a tech 1 frigate.

[Jonathan]

2013 is likely to be the year of Amarr. Harbinger gets a buff while Hurricane gets nerfed. Cyclone becomes some crazy missile BC while Prophecy gets turned into the meanest drone boat of all. Amarr BSes are top-notch and not going to be stopped. Zealot is a murder spree on wheels. Oracles are cheat codes. You get the picture.

If you want to join a large alliance (0.0 or empire), speccing Amarr is a safe bet. If you want to fly with me, then actually it's a really tough call---I think it is going to depend on which days of the week and which times of day you play, really. If you want to murder guys solo, then I'd direct you to Gallente---assuming you have balls of steel. If, on the other hand, you want to murder solo and win consistently, then you're going to need a second account and probably a Sleipnir + Rapier.

[Alan]

I'm not planning to go large alliance massive fleet stuff mainly because that seems to require a pretty big time commitment. I'd like to get into smaller scale pvp though. What else should I be training for a Stiletto scout?

http://eveboard.com/pilot/Shaylis_Falken

[Jonathan]

More levels in:
Signature Analysis
Propulsion Jamming
High Speed Maneuvering
Spaceship Command
Acceleration Control
Evasive Maneuvering
Navigation
Minmatar Frigate
Shield Upgrades
Engineering

You need to buy:
Interceptors
Astronautics Rigging
Electronic Superiority Rigging
Shield Rigging

[Jonathan]

Energy Management and Energy Systems Operation would not hurt, of course.

[Jonathan]

Large alliance does not necessarily equal massive fleet because there is a huge variety of carebear alliances.

[Jonathan]

We all know what EVE is like: EVE's interface and controls make it very hard to love. But when it comes to what EVE is about?

EVE players love what EVE is about.

[Jonathan]

How are you finding Eve University?

[Alan]

I haven't done any classes yet, but just being in Mumble and chat, and reading the forums has been really helpful so far.

For example, right now, I'm at work looking up something for a project, but am in Mumble, listening to talk about the difference between jump clones and medical clones. Haha.

[Alan]

What do you do for ISK?

Seems like Uni people do market trading or mining, and Goons either scam, suicide gank, or do trading. All of those sound time consuming and/or require a second account.

[Jonathan]

Be poor?

Things I have done, in rough descending order of utility (where utility is defined as some vague isk/effort metric but weighted for the total return expected):
Passive Datacores from R&D agents (about the only money-making activity I can tolerate at the moment)
High sec Incursions - got nerfed so I stopped, but I think they buffed the income again and now I don't know how much I could make
Fly a logistics cruiser in PvP for the FC who gives the loot to logis - fun, but sparse
Gate camp - 100x easier if you find some mates. Right now Rote does not have a culture of camping, which is a bit of bummer from my POV
Nurse station-only buy/sell orders to make isk on the bid/ask spread - reliable, doesn't require much time in-game, does require some dedication & research
Run missions
Suicide gank - 2x easier with a mate. Impossible without some form of second account.
Rat - in the right region and with some luck, you can definitely out-earn highsec missions
Plex - mostly a disappoint for me, but there is isk to be made
Hunt for deals on contracts and then put them up at market price (aka the Dave path to riches) - actually this was quite an earner for me for a while. I got sloppy, got suicide ganked, and lost my taste for it. Might be time to look into it again.
T1 production- peanuts
Bullshit that definitely lost me money

If you want, it's pretty fast to get the agent standing to run L3 missions (also fast for L4 but you're a while away from soloing an L4). I can assist you with this. After a night or two you'll be able to use the (Core Complexion, as my Boundless Creation agents aren't that good) agent any time without my intervention. I blitzed L3s to get the faction standing to qualify for L4 R&D agents; getting the corp standing to do it is much faster than the faction standing. Getting some L3 R&D agents would actually be pretty fast as most of the faction standing can be obtained through COSMOS and similar things, though you may want to run the numbers on the calculator here to make sure the payoff is commensurate with the effort invested. Fortunately, missions pay, too, so you're earning while you build up standing.
http://hussars-online.ru/eve/datacore.php
You'll soon be at the SP level that ninja ratting in Geminate, say, or Great Wildlands, will be a reasonable option. If you join Rote, you can rat in Syndicate pretty safely, but it may be preferable to rat someplace with decent truesec.
If you don't have a second account (I do not), then it is likely you'll have periods that are devoted to isk-making and periods that are devoted to isk-spending. Plan for that. When you are earning, don't quit until you get enough of a stake together that you can coast for a while without anything coming in. The most extreme example of this would be joining a nullsec carebear alliance to farm their anomalies, then ditching that corp for a real corp.
Most of my friends made a bundle on Faction Warfare before it got rebalanced. I did not because of :lazy:. I think it is now simply an OK income source rather than cheatcodes, but you may decide that is for you. You can (or could, at least) make some money on a purpose-trained character with roughly your current level of SP, so you don't need a second account to keep a char in FW.

[Jonathan]

If you fly interceptors for Rote, they'll just loan you the interceptors for free. All you are the hook for then is skillbooks to expand beyond the scouting role.

[Jonathan]

So I now have permission to let you all know that the skill change is scheduled for our Summer expansion 2013 (which most of you know tends to fall in the late spring).

No need to prioritize Destroyer/Battlecruiser training.

[Jonathan]

http://i.imgur.com/O9VZr.jpg

New patch in three weeks. Change your autopilot settings without loading the map! Also, the cool in-space route (pointless, yet awesome).