In a change to our irregularly scheduled posting...

... Something for the new guys out there.

There has been a few 'new to eve' guys join our corp recently, and whilst most of them joined slap-bang in the middle of the Criminal Element war (I know, dont take on unknown newbies during wars as they are probably spies, but these were friends of existing members), they couldn't do too much except fly frigates and tackle during excursions, so they spent a lot of time training skills when we were preparing to jump out of station, and flying when they could.

Most of them fall into the new player trap of 'bigger is better' and 'I have the skill to fly this ship, so I'll get in it' only to find that what they actually posess, if they dont have the correct support skills, is a few million tonnes of scrap metal.

I've made reference to a post originally by F'nog on the Eve Online Forums which details some very useful skills that all pilots should see about investing in, which will help fit tech 2 equipment, and bolster their basic skills at flying their prized buckets of scrap metal so hopefully they dont turn to scrap quite as quick.

Take a look and see if theres any other skills you would reccomend to looking into training.


Firstly - Basic 'all ship' skills:

Electronics (more CPU)
Engineering (more Powergrid)
Energy Management (more Cap)
Energy Systems Operation (Higher cap regen)
Long Range Targeting (target farther)
Signature Analysis (target quicker)
Targeting (target more things)
Energy Grid Upgrades (some very useful modules such as cap rechargers)
Repair Systems (don't have to pay to repair ships)

Defensive skills (priority on the specific type you tank with, but should invest in all due to the benefits if you lose your primary means of defence)

Shield Management (more shields)
Shield Operations (regenerate shield quicker)
Mechanic (more structure)
Hull Upgrades (more armor)

Movement skills - Not particularly important for a mission runner if they know what they are doing (and keep aligned, so do you dont have to turn from combat) but very useful in PVP

Navigation (fly faster)
Evasive Maneuvering (turn quicker)
Spaceship Command (turn quicker)
Warp Drive Ops (warp farther) - This is more useful for general day to day, not really combat-critical.
Acceleration Control (go faster w/AB/MWD)
Afterburner (go faster)
Fuel Conservation (use less cap)
High Speed Maneuvering (use MWDs) - currently almost a necessity in any form of PVP, not useful as much for the mission runners due to deadspace issues preventing use of MWD's

Drones Skills - Most ships can use drones to a greater or lesser extent, the ability to deploy 5 drones is always a bonus.

Drones (use drones)
Scout Drone Ops (use combat drones)

Combat skills (depending on your choice of weapon)

Gunnery/Missile Launcher Ops
All Support Gunnery/Missile skills (this is a catch all, theres a LOT of support skills, some are more useful than others early in the game)
Weapons Upgrades (improved CPU use)
Advanced Weapons Upgrades (improved powergrid use) - Not a priority for me, I've yet to find a ship which struggles with powergrid after Engineering 5, as long as you're fitting ship specific modules.


Add to that, your ship skill of choice to at least level 3 that the skill requires (i.e. so you get 3/5 of the bonus that your ship gets from its mother skill, levels 4 and 5 are where the training time starts to get fairly large) and you should have plenty to be getting on with.