EVE has an initial set of missions designed to teach you the basics of the basic lifestyles in EVE. Combat, ship control, mining, courier runs, and industry. At the same time you get used to the format of PVE missions in EVE and dealing with the Agents who offer such missions.
I've already run into problems with these in the first two days. Attempting to complete the military missions chain without the basic gunnery mission chain led to a pathetically equipped Destroyer. The birth of the good ship Revenge, so there is an upside. I've since spent a lot of time preparing myself for the eventual demise of the Revenge too. I can sense the nature of this game. It is unforgiving, and the players in it hardened by this fact. I'm as likely to lose that ship owing to actions by a player reading this blog as by messing up in a PVE mission again. Hey ho.
The final mission ends with being asked to build a ship for someone. There is a bonus reward for doing it in under six hours. Unfortunately all the manufacturing assembly lines in the base I'm currently docked at, and am calling 'home', are booked up for days.
If I go and build this ship somewhere else then I have no ship big enough to transport it back. I do have a ship, an Iteron class cargo hauler, that could transport it but I can't use it on a trial account (or I can't learn the skill to use it on a trial account anyway).
Then I discover that I can unfit all the elements of a ship and "package" it for transport even if I've used it before (this answers some of the question : how the hell do I move my ships to a different system).
I could buy a cheap shuttle and fly to the system where assembly lines are available, build one ship, fly it back, strip it and repackage it. I end up with a shuttle at the other port but what the hell right? Luckily from one of the earlier tutorials I have an extra copy of the ship type I need to build. I unfit and repackage it and complete the tutorial in 10 seconds. I now have a blueprint I can use to build 5 copies of the same type of ship in future. Thanks to the mission reward giving me another Iteron class ship I also have 2 industrial cargo haulers that I can't use.
I have a destroyer I can kit out with extra cargo holds and mining lasers in addition to guns to do mining in more dangerous systems. Each system in EVE has a security rating. It ranges from 1.0 down to 0.0 or even negative for all I know. Right now I'm not venturing lower than 0.5. Lower than that and there are no police ships. I could be attacked by any player who decides its a good idea and they won't have to pay the consequences. I'm still wary of PVP. I have no way of judging how it will go. I need to fit a cheap ship out for it, one I can afford to lose, and try it to at least have some frame of reference. Maybe later...
I have a frigate that seems suited to fast combat and a frigate that seems suited to low level mining. I've a shuttle and (somewhere) my original tiny ship. I've enough cash to buy an extra destroyer so I can have one tooled up for mining and one for combat if I can't be bothered refitting every time.
I haven't even got into shield vs armour "tanking" methods for combat. I've found out that you can get remote repair systems and train in them - effectively making yourself a healer I think. A role from other MMO's that I'm familiar with. I'll avoid doing that here.
I need to go mining in lower security space to get the rarer ores to refine to get the minerals to make the frigates in the blueprint I just got.
haven't even joined a Corporation yet. A Corporation is like a guild in other MMO's except, typically in EVE, way more complex.
I'm thinking of paying a tenner to get a full account, learning how to pilot my cargo hauler, fitting a single mining laser on it, and leaving it mining while I watch the footie tonight (and keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't get blown out of the sky). There has to be an easy way to make initial amounts of cash for a mining barge, huge ships specialised in mining carrying mining equipment.
I'm feeling flush with over 2 million credits and being able to afford a second Destroyer if I wish. Then I look at some ship prices. Then I hear that you can build outposts and capital ships that cost in the billions and take months to build....
NOTE: this post, the last, and the next few have been grabbed wholesale from gibbering emails rapidly hammered out in the mornings before work and then sent to a few friends who also play MMO games. I'll try to improve on grammar and spelling once I get the backlog out. That's "try" as in "probably not".
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