Question about skills

recotton

I've been getting more and more curious about this game.  It sounds like it is right up my alley.  I love games where once you get immersed, you can find innumerable things to keep you busy.   My main question is:  How can I compete with someone who has been played for multiple years?  i.e. Won't they have a ton of skill points built up that I can never catch up with?  Do you have to specialize and get creative?  I'm just looking for a little insight into this mechanic of the game from an experienced player.

 

Edit: grammar

 

Dragohr

With the new big update, learning skills now only require to be at lvl 4 before you can train advanced ones.. This will allow you to train rapidly.

But even though someone might have had years to train, they will only have a more wide array of possibilities.. That means, you can easily get to fly an assault frigate just as well as a 3 year veteran in a few months.. You will just lack behind in other areas.. You just have to choose carefully!

I know this post might be a bit.. Complicated and miss-spelled.. But there ya go :P

Bahemoth

Yes you can compete with someone like that. and no you dont haveto overspecialize to do so. really after a point all the massive ammounts of skillpoints mean is the ability to do more things effectivley. what many of the naysayers here donot understand is that in eve your tactics and knowledge are what really matter the advantage they can give you dwarf any that can be gained through sp. that being said being creative is never a bad thing in this game and there is nothing wrong with specializing if thats what you want to do.



a little advise if you do start playing it can be overwhelming find yourself a good corp to fly with and teach you the ropes. ide suggest also going on the eve forums and asking some questions and reading stuff



and if you start playing and have any questions feel free to evemail me (ill send you a PM with my IGN)

tobbo

Actually since their latest patch they also upgraded things so you now start with more skillpoints then before. Now you have around 1 mil SP which is roughly 1 months full training.



Then you stick to the path you have decided (learning skills really help!) and in 4-5 months you will without a doubt be able to compete with anyone more or less in the main area you picked.. Having more SP really makes you more versatile and ofc they have an extra edge with that extra 4-5% here and there bonus but it isn't like being lvl 10 fighting someone lvl 50 if the game was level based..



People who say otherwise are just silly and you shouldn't listen to them tbh.



Enjoy and welcome to EVE (if you join)

Taram

Some good answers here.  I'll add mine as well.

Will you be 'behind' someone who's got 3 years in the game?  Sure you will.  It's only natural.

Will you be able to "catch up" to them?  No, because they'll always have more SP than you, but there is a finite ammount of SP you can get in any given area.  So yeah you can catch up to them in specific areas.  No, you don't have to hyper-specialize to do it either.  Especaily considering if you choose something you want to do down the road the skills you train along the way will also allow you to do other things at the same time.



For example... I am training to fly force recon ships...

Along the way I have/will have trained:

Frigates to V

Cruisers to V

Covert Operations to IV (going ahead and getting it to 5 while I'm on vacation at the end of the month)

Cloaking will be at 4 shortly after I get covops V(just the way the training schedule worked out due to the timing of the vacation)

Heavy Missile Specialization III (which means heavy missiles V and a whole bunch of other stuff)

Cruise Missiles to IV (Because Stealth Bombers use Cruise)

Scanning skills

etc.



And... since I will have frigates at five anyway I'm planning to go ahead and grab interceptors as well, and probably destroyers and interdictors.



So, while I plan to 'specialize' in Covert ships I will also be able to fly frigates, cruisers and interceptors.

And, since Battlecruisers also use heavy missiles (I'm caldari) I also grabbed Battlecruiser and trained it to 3, (doing 4 between other skills).  I also went ahead and picked up battleship skills as well since the scorp and raven are both missile based and I have cruise launcher skills ANYWAY I may as well grab them for ratting/lvl 4 missions.



All told my character CURRENTLY has 6.5 million SP.  (roughly 5 months of training on the current system).  I'll be in covert ops at the end of this month.  I already have:

Frigates V

Cruisers  IV

BC III

BS III

Heavy Missiles IV

Cruise Missiles IV

Torpedos III

Rockets III

Standard Missiles IV



And a whole slew of shield, ECM and other skills.  Not to mention about a months worth of training sunk into mining skills and trade skills (which a new player wouldn't need to do because they can specialize in mining from day 1 and save an entire month of training then just go combat and they'll already have the mining skills they need for corp mining ops, etc.  they'll also have the reprocessing skills to make tons of money reprocessing loot they get from missions/ratting if they go that route.



So... from Day 1 of character creation a player could become proficient enough in no less than 5 ship types in just over 5 months of training time.  By their 3rd month or so they'll be able to fly battlecruisers extremely well if they decide to pick them up and in less than 5 months they'll be in a very well equipped battleship.  (If they choose to fly those, you don't HAVE to, especially with the new battlecruisers that are available.....)



I kill 3 year vets and I have been killed by 3 year vets.  In a gang I bring plenty to the table and am a valued asset to my corp and my alliance. 



So... can you catch up?  No, but you don't need to.  And even when you "specialize" you really aren't "over" specialized.



By the time I have 8mil SP I will be able to fly Covert Ops (level 5) and Interceptors (Level 4) Destroyers (Level 5) and will be just about ready to fly interdictors as well.





If I had, instaed of recon, decided to go for command ships, it'd take a little longer but along the way I'd have picked up assault frigates, battlecruisers, heavy assault cruisers, probably interceptors since you get frigates to 5 anyway and then finally command ships.



If you decide to go for capitol ships you pick up a similarly wide variety of shiptypes along the way.





The only "advantage" a "VET" has over a newer player is that they will have trained multiple "end targets" while the new player will have only trained one end-target type.  After about 6 months.   But both are equally useful, fun and enjoyable to play.  The only time you're really at a huge dissadvantage is like your first week or two of play.  And odds are you'll be in empire anyway so it won't matter.



Hope this helps some.

Minsc

Originally posted by Taram

Some good answers here.  I'll add mine as well.

Will you be 'behind' someone who's got 3 years in the game?  Sure you will.  It's only natural.

Will you be able to "catch up" to them?  No, because they'll always have more SP than you, but there is a finite ammount of SP you can get in any given area.  So yeah you can catch up to them in specific areas.  No, you don't have to hyper-specialize to do it either.  Especaily considering if you choose something you want to do down the road the skills you train along the way will also allow you to do other things at the same time.



For example... I am training to fly force recon ships...

Along the way I have/will have trained:

Frigates to V

Cruisers to V

Covert Operations to IV (going ahead and getting it to 5 while I'm on vacation at the end of the month)

Cloaking will be at 4 shortly after I get covops V(just the way the training schedule worked out due to the timing of the vacation)

Heavy Missile Specialization III (which means heavy missiles V and a whole bunch of other stuff)

Cruise Missiles to IV (Because Stealth Bombers use Cruise)

Scanning skills

etc.



And... since I will have frigates at five anyway I'm planning to go ahead and grab interceptors as well, and probably destroyers and interdictors.



So, while I plan to 'specialize' in Covert ships I will also be able to fly frigates, cruisers and interceptors.

And, since Battlecruisers also use heavy missiles (I'm caldari) I also grabbed Battlecruiser and trained it to 3, (doing 4 between other skills).  I also went ahead and picked up battleship skills as well since the scorp and raven are both missile based and I have cruise launcher skills ANYWAY I may as well grab them for ratting/lvl 4 missions.



All told my character CURRENTLY has 6.5 million SP.  (roughly 5 months of training on the current system).  I'll be in covert ops at the end of this month.  I already have:

Frigates V

Cruisers  IV

BC III

BS III

Heavy Missiles IV

Cruise Missiles IV

Torpedos III

Rockets III

Standard Missiles IV



And a whole slew of shield, ECM and other skills.  Not to mention about a months worth of training sunk into mining skills and trade skills (which a new player wouldn't need to do because they can specialize in mining from day 1 and save an entire month of training then just go combat and they'll already have the mining skills they need for corp mining ops, etc.  they'll also have the reprocessing skills to make tons of money reprocessing loot they get from missions/ratting if they go that route.



So... from Day 1 of character creation a player could become proficient enough in no less than 5 ship types in just over 5 months of training time.  By their 3rd month or so they'll be able to fly battlecruisers extremely well if they decide to pick them up and in less than 5 months they'll be in a very well equipped battleship.  (If they choose to fly those, you don't HAVE to, especially with the new battlecruisers that are available.....)



I kill 3 year vets and I have been killed by 3 year vets.  In a gang I bring plenty to the table and am a valued asset to my corp and my alliance. 



So... can you catch up?  No, but you don't need to.  And even when you "specialize" you really aren't "over" specialized.



By the time I have 8mil SP I will be able to fly Covert Ops (level 5) and Interceptors (Level 4) Destroyers (Level 5) and will be just about ready to fly interdictors as well.





If I had, instaed of recon, decided to go for command ships, it'd take a little longer but along the way I'd have picked up assault frigates, battlecruisers, heavy assault cruisers, probably interceptors since you get frigates to 5 anyway and then finally command ships.



If you decide to go for capitol ships you pick up a similarly wide variety of shiptypes along the way.





The only "advantage" a "VET" has over a newer player is that they will have trained multiple "end targets" while the new player will have only trained one end-target type.  After about 6 months.   But both are equally useful, fun and enjoyable to play.  The only time you're really at a huge dissadvantage is like your first week or two of play.  And odds are you'll be in empire anyway so it won't matter.



Hope this helps some.

That's by far one of the best rundowns of how skilling works in EVE, it shows that you can quickly become a viable part of a corp in short order.

Finwolven

Also, noticeable fact is that skillpoints do not directly (or even indirectly) relate to combat effectiveness.

Your ships fittings do. Whatever you put on your ship decides your tactics and often enough the outcome of the battle. Having options there is a good thing. Luckily, learning to use most modules in the game takes less then a month of skill training.

If you wish to do PVP-combat, or even PVE combat, you can get into _any_ ship (except capital ships) within 6 months of training, and be competitive to any veteran player. Then there's the fact that the lvl5 skills take forever to train up on and give, at best, 5% advantage to a veteran, which can be offset by clever tactics easily.

Note on capital ships: There's nothing to it, every newb wants to own a dreadnought and/or a carrier, or better yet, a Titan. These ships are not meant to be owned by single pilots! They require immense investment, use up fuel that must be mined and are generally only effective when covered by a support fleet. They are NOT solo Pwnmobiles!

LordSlater

I think you will love this one

Zeroxin

Answer: pack alot of missiles and torpedo power and good in-battle navigation/manuveurs and you are ready to go.

Rod_B

friends> brains> fittings > skillpoints

These decide battles in Eve Online, in that order.

Yes you will never have the skillpoints that still-active vet characters have. No, it doesn't really matter much in the long run. I know of a couple of relatively low sp characters in my corp (Evolution), but tbh I;ve never noticed that lack of skillpoints during warfare. Sure, they cannot perform as many roles with a single cahracter as my characters can, and maybe they'll be 5-10% less effective in terms of pure stats when flying the same ship. But all that is easily offset of they react half a second faster then I do, or make one better choice during a fight then I do. In the reality of gameplay, their skillpoints have nar to zero effect.

 

Of course,  the first month to half year are hard in Eve. That's when you can't use all the modules, and only a few ship types, and nearly none of those modules everybode in your corpchat is on about all day (tech2 etc), and you won't have much isk. But there's plenty of content to keep yourself occupied with without worrying about competing with vets one versus one in your first few months. I bet you'll need all tha ttime merely to get to grips with the game, and even then you won't even know more then the basics after a year or so.