I disagree with both posts.
What exactly are you referring to by “endgame content”, by the way? EVE doesn’t have an endgame.
Secondly a dedicated character is fine for something like production (most people roll a dedicated alt for that), but specialisation wont help you that much.Being able to fly a variety of ships with a variety of fittings is far more useful.
Endgame content = the content only accessable by the players with the most experience and resources.
And as a Corp CEO for over two years, I can tell you for certain that the worst thing a corp can have is have an entire organization with members in a jack of all trades role. And incidentally, flying different types of ships and being able to fit them correctly is one role, the combat/combat support role. Seriously, look at the recruiting posts on the EVE forums for what are considered to be the ‘elite’ corps/alliances. They are all looking for very specific types of players with specific skill sets.
EVE rewards the division of labor unless your corp is so small that you only have 5-10 people logged on at one time for corp events. If you aren’t organised with roles and specific jobs, you have a whole lot of people wasting time trying to do too many things at once, with no real progress being made. You seem fairly new to EVE, so I don’t necessarily expect you to agree, but take my word for it.
Unless you were in early beta, you’re newer to EVE than me.
Most corps have a couple of specialists - often alts - whereas the rest are jack-of-all-trades or combat pilots (so many of EVE’s skill help combat). You’re not barred from training certain skills, are you.
And thanks for the definition of endgame content… examples, please? I’m genuinely curious.
The examples were covered in an earlier post by me.
Alts are for people who can afford to operate multiple EVE accounts. That’s really something of a hardcore playstyle and the vast majority of EVE players only run one, so when choosing recruits, you need to fill specific roles. You can’t depend on everyone you pull in having the resources to operate an alt.
You’re seeing the game through the view of one way to play the game, i.e. the combat grunt. There’s a lot more that goes into managing a group of players for success than you might be led to believe.
Only a BETA tester eh… Young pup. I was in the Alpha, but never got past the UI being tested to actually begin flying anything :-)
Back to EVE Questions: Do you have areas controlled by Corporations that kill anyone who enter it, pirate corporations that roam the galaxy praying on the weak, etc? How much can you do in the game solo is it even viable?
roboczar: Then your definitions of “endgame content” are indeed accessable to people who aren’t in massive corps, who haven’t put in countless hours of play, and who do have lives outside of EVE. Sure, some people have, but it doesn’t have to be you, right? :)
Re: recruiting, etc… it is pretty rare for people to recruit based on exact skillsets. If they want an industrialist and you’ve got some skills for that, they’ll look at you. If they want a combat pilot, having someone actually willing to fly and fight is more important than whether they have ‘wasted’ points in refining. A cursory glance at the recruitment forum shows 90% combat pilot recruitment, and some non-specific “industrialists” stuff, so bleh. I didn’t mean to start an argument over this - I can honestly see how someone else might have a completely different experience to me (that’s part of why I like the game). I just have seen and experienced stuff that contradicts what you’re saying. However when it comes to hardcore industrialists I will bow to your knowledge… I am after all a combat grunt ;)
Instant0: Yes, corps do claim space, yes, pirates do roam around killing stuff in areas that they can get away with it. Solo-wise, if you have a good idea of what it was you want to achieve, you can do most things. I know one guy who flies his own dread and has his own private station :)
Areas of 0.0 are now controlled by Alliances who place enough player owned stations. There’s no automatic defense of territory or anything, it’s just a bit of a status symbol… everyone sees your ‘claim’ when they look at the galaxy map.
Pirate corporations are sort of an anachronism now. The only real independent pirates are the ones that prey on people in the lower security sections of Empire space. Pirates in 0.0 are largely under the employ and protection of various alliances and act more like mercenaries or privateers than what you might consider a pirate.
As for soloing, I’ve seen people do it for years and manage to do incredible things like buy their own freighter or operate a few of their own stations. However, that kind of thing takes heculean dedication, and most solo players end up joining a corporation. After a certain point, a single person who plays maybe 4 hours a day just can’t muster the kind of resources needed to compete in the larger scheme of things. Best way to go about soloing is to fill a niche and stick with it until it starts to pay off.
I want to believe you man, but it just doesn’t mesh with reality. It’s sort of a your word vs. mine game at this point.
(I edited my previous post to flesh it out a little, sorry… also wanted to change the tone a little)
A corp spent a few months saving the money towards a mothership… if you’re willing to spend a little while with a specific aim in mind it’s incredible what a few people can achieve (it’s the reason why my corp does well for its size). I know of small corps with POSes (my current corp is one), etc. It may not be the norm, but it’s doable.
Can people destroy your station while you’re logged out?
… That is a good thing… but also a bad thing… :-)
How does insurance work, do I have to earn enough money to not only outfit my ship , as well as buying it, but I also need a heck-of-a-lot-of-money to insure it?
To destroy a POS (which is more of a tower-with-benefits than a proper station - Outposts are full-on stations) takes a lot of effort and the use of capital ships. The POS isn’t destroyed outright, it’s put into an invulnerable state (“Reinforced”) until it runs out of fuel (usually a few days), at which point you can destroy it. Gives the defenders time to come and support / refuel / drive off the attackers, etc.
To take over an outpost and thus gain sovereignty over the system, you must outnumber the POSes in system with your own first. Easier once you’ve destroyed theirs :P
Insurance is a %age fee that will pay you back the cost of your ship in mineral terms. For most ships that’s not far off what you’d pay for it on the market. My corp sells me ships at mineral price so insurance keeps me covered.
Tech2 ships and some Tech1 ones have a big markup so you lose a fair chunk of cash when it goes bang.
Stations are almost always under attack in EVE. However, you need Dreadnoughts to do it in any reasonable amount of time. It takes 8 hours or more to take down a large station unless you’re well kitted with Dreads. Basically most of the work is taking the shields down, and once those are down, the station goes into what’s called ‘reinforced mode’ where it’s invulnerable until it uses up its personal store of an extremely rare item called ‘strontium clathrates’. Once it runs out of the stores (however long that takes, could be another few hours) it’s a simple matter to finish it off.
I’ve heard of sieges lasting 16 hours with fleets coming and going trying to break the siege, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. I’ve participated in a few sieges against the Forsaken Empire, but they were too hardcore for our alliance.
Ship insurance increases with the type of ship involved. Frigates and cruisers are cheap, battleships are a bit expensive, and everything after that gets worse. I tend to only insure ships if there’s a chance I might lose it in the term of the policy.
I don’t understand how flightless trading scales. I thought hauling was more of a newbie activity. Who is running your courier missions once your deliveries get into low sec space and involve huge collaterals?
Simply put, you don’t hire couriers to take things into low sec space unless you know for sure that they have a reasonable survival rate. Low-sec hauling should be done by trusted, capable associates or yourself.
The people who are doing the flightless trading are doing it in Empire… they’re essentially just playing the market when it fluctuates and accumulate cheap stockpiles to sell off when the price spikes.
I found it made my corp’s manufacturing easier, logisitcally, to be able to trade remotely as well, which is the other major reason to use flightless trading. I could quickly re-stock components due to a reliable set of people I hired to handle contracts for me at a price they agreed on ahead of time. Mind, this was all out-of game. The courier system was something I only used after I had closed the contract, I didn’t use it to find contracts… the system in place is woefully poor for those who don’t look for hired help out-of-game.
Getting trading contracts from other players is extremely lucrative, by the way. You just have to have a feel for what the price-per-jump for hauling common goods is.
That scanning info was very interesting. I spent an hour (with a mate eagerly watching) hunting down some abandoned drones, around a half dozen nice ones. In the end we got down to about 500m KM from them, but still completely failed to get on top of them.
I’m training for probes now. Might be a costly experiment (mind you, drones would be nice to collect, or a frigate or two), but will be fun also! Space lewt!
And instant, skills are trained over time, you just line up the skill you want and wait, there’s no levelling in the traditional sense. I’m REALLY liking that system.
In fact, so much of EVE seems to answer questions MMOG devs and players have been asking for years. It’s quite weird to sometimes see answers, in the game design, to problems identified one’s mind for a year or two.
When I get a chance I’ll pm you with a (private, corporate) guide to scanning… it’s a good read.
With regard to my earlier post about the politics of EVE, things have changed somewhat. The blockaded system, EC-P8R, was abandoned by the main alliance Band of Brothers, leaving just Ascendant Frontier + friends (still a formidable force) holding it. G Alliance (friends of ours) took the opportunity to jump in and basically minced the hostiles - their killboard shows 148 kills (including 77 battleships) to 48 losses (11 battleships) for yesterday. Ouch!
Band of Brothers, who control a vast part of EVE, have just announced that they have set everyone to neutral rather than friendly, which means that everyone is a target. Interesting times.
Hit and run time. It’s always easier to be small and avoid a fight than to be big and be everywhere people might hit you…
Thanks, I look forward to the guide!
Today I found some newby frigates… ok, admittedly, they were right outside the front door of the station, but still!! :D
Heh, blind scanning is like treasure hunting. Just getting to the stuff could be more rewarding that the target itself.
Thanks for the primer, JM.
No problem. It’s one of those things that takes a bit of explaining :)
Thanks for the primer. So far I am pretty sharp at using the scanner, but I am not so sure I’ll be great at finding stuff that isn’t
But I figure I might find lost drones, abandoned ships I can sell the waypoint to, etc etc. We’ll see, should be a laugh.