November 7, 2014

Getting a NewBro into space - my advice to him, help me do it better.

"Anyone here play Eve Online?" When I saw that on our internal company newsgroup, how could I not jump right in.  We'll call him NewBro here, to protect the innocent from all you evil doers out there.  NewBro played for a while back in 2008, mostly doing mining before he quit.  Now's back and has expressed an interest in high sec missioning or exploration.

NewBro says: "Then I started reading more about probing and exploration and watched a youtube tutorial.  *That* looks like something I’d be up for.  Sneaking around cloaked in low-sec space going treasure hunting and trying to avoid big bad guys.  From what it looked like it could be a fun style of game play for me since I often just have an hour or so to play."

Here's what I've replied with.  Please chime in O Experts of Eve and help a NewBro out!

The thing is that choosing to do exploration and choosing to do security missions, will pretty much be two completely different skill paths to train for.

Edit: He has unspent skill points since he character pre-dates the removal of the learning skills, so he'll be able to skip through some of these fast.


Exploration
Inspiration: see JonnyPew / Sir Livingston's youtube videos 
Skills: the good news is that your Mem/Int mapping will do you well here.  Since you have three bonus remaps, you might want to consider remapping to max Int with Mem as your secondary.  Almost everything you’re going to train here is primary Int, secondary Mem.

Use unspent skillpoints to get to Cybernetics 4.  Buy a +4 implant for every attribute except Charisma and plug them in.  That will make everything else go faster.

Acquire the Astrometrics skillbook and train to level 3
Acquire the Hacking skillbook and train to 3

Those two skills will be enough to get you going, but may take 24h to get you there.  You could even train Astrometrics to 1 and Hacking to 1 first and be ready to go in an hour, if you want to get home, log in and set those up, then log off and do family stuff.

Buy a Imicus such as in this Eve University article: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Imicus

This will be:
[Imicus, Scanning 101]
Core Probe Launcher I
Salvager I
Salvager I

Data Analyzer I
Relic Analyzer I
1MN Microwarpdrive I
Cargo Scanner I

Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Damage Control I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I

Hobgoblin I x4
Hobgoblin I x4
Core Scanner Probe I x16

Now, since you already have some ISK then I would consider buying the Sisters Core Scanner Probe and Sisters Core Probe Launcher.  They are more expensive, but you’ll be working in high sec for a while yet and it will help give you a boost for having lower skills.
You actually won’t be able to use the Relic Analyzer until you train Archaeology.  See if you can fit one of the Scan Upgrade modules instead.

Then get out there and head for some lower traffic areas (away from Dodixie) but staying in highsec and try scanning stuff down.

Skills you’re going to want (copied from the Eve Uni article) down the road
Astrometrics: +5% scan strength, -5% maximum deviation and -5% probe scan time per level
Astrometric Rangefinding: +5% probe scan strength per level
Astrometric Pinpointing: -5% maximum scan deviation per level
Get these all to 3 or 4 and you’ll be able to handle most anything in highsec or lowsec that you want.

Archaeology       Allows you to access loot containers found in Relic Sites.
Hacking                 Allows you to access loot containers found in Data Sites.
Get these to 4

Now ship-wise you’re going to want a CovOps ship for the scan bonuses.  The good news is that the Gallente Helios is great, according to my analysis.
That means you’ll need to get your Gallente Frigate to 5, then train CovOps.

You also have some core skills that I’d highly recommend, but right now this will get you in space and learning to probe things down.


3 comments:

  1. If he wants to get a jump on being cloaky, train into an Astero and train Cloaking IV right away before Covops. That is the fastest path to true stealthiness and a great ship for a Gallente pilot to fly.

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    Replies
    1. Good idea. He'd have to train up Amarr Frig 3 to get into the Astero, but that would be faster than going from Gallente Frig 4 to Gallente Frig 5. However, he has weak core skills so I'm encouraging him to get high-sec exploration down first, during which time he can shore up some skills like the Navigation ones that he should have before taking a shiny faction frigate into lowsec.

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  2. I find the Astero is actually a pretty weak choice if you're going on any sort of lengthy exploration roam compared to the covert ops choices. Majority of actual time spent is traveling (esp in null-sec), and you can't beat the base 8 au/sec warp time. Only real advantage of an Astero is that it retains some combat capabilities, but combat is the last thing you want to risk with potentially hundreds of million in salvage in the hold.

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