EVE Online

[Lurker the Second]

Jopenono Mni;oen has been playing this for a few days and I spent the first serious session last night doing about the final 75% of the tutorial. He found me online last night and once I was able to re-find the right chat screen we could converse. Unfortunately it was difficult for me to keep the chat screen open and do the tutorial because the screen gets too cluttered for my feeble brain to handle it.

Initial impressions are good. Graphics are great and I didn't have any bugs or serious lag last night during about 3 hours of play. Interface is sweet, but there is an extraordinary amount of stuff to get used to. Just getting from point A to point B is many times more complex than SWG, but I also get the sense that you get used to it fairly easily.

The tutorial naturally has you killing a few "rats" to learn the combat system. Travel and movement in space are not joystick or keypad controlled, so it is very different than what I was used to in SWG. I have too much to learn to really comment beyond that. After the tutorial I'm still completely at a loss to figure out how you really strategically maneuver your ship in combat.

I know grouping is considered essential to really advance in this game, but I haven't gotten far enough to require it and I'm not sure how it works logistically.

[JM -- I haven't been killed yet but I did buy a clone. I bought a 90K clone even though I only had 60K in sp when I bought it. My question is whether the clone is a one-time item or whether I keep using it until I feel I need an upgrade?]

I know JM has a few friends playing. Hopefully Venom will give it a go soon and maybe Kitty will win the lottery some day. Higgs, if you're watching, think about it. It will probably be hard for us to group much except on weekends because of the time difference, but who knows....

[zmama]

why play games all the time!!!
Isn't it time to grow up and behave as adults, what do you think Lurkie?

[Funko]

[zmama]

what is so funny Mike?
Isn't it time for kids they don't grow on treea you know!!

[Lurker the Second]

I'm beginning to think zmama has been chastised at home. I say hang in there. Once we get enough adults playing games all the time, then it will become the norm and we'll be behaving as adults.

[Tizzy]

Originally posted by zmama
what is so funny Mike?
Isn't it time for kids they don't grow on treea you know!!

That would be a cool tree.

[King_Ghidra]

maybe if you're gary glitter

[Venom]

Then we could label tree huggers as sick perverts.

[JM^3]

It hink that you don't have to rebuy a clone after you have been killed (poded)

in which case, you only need a new clone if your current one can't keep up with your skill points

now there is two types of killed, one where your spaceship is jsut blown up (still painful, and loses oyu lots of money) and the other where your pod is blown up (can lose you skill points if you don't have an upto date clone, loses you all implants equiped)

I don't really know much about podding, except that it is considered sorta bastardly

JM

[JM^3]

honestly

I have onlly foughht in the tutorial and one mission I started but that was too hard for me

I have been attacked while mining, but then I normally just flee

JM

[Venom]

Way to be a man. Pussyboy.

[Lurker the Second]

I think sometimes you have two choices. 1) Die in 2 seconds and be laughed at and lose skills and items, or 2) run.

[JM^3]

I have two setups. One has weapons, the other doesn't.

JM

[Funko]

Originally posted by Venom
Then we could label tree huggers as sick perverts.

Don't we already do that?

[Nav]

Played this a few months back. All my ships are inactive in a hanger somewhere. Might re-enter the game over christmas if you guys are around.

Clones: When you die a clone ensures you recover all your experience points. You only need to get a clone that will cover that, just remember to upgrade when your experience out-grows it. The clone doesn't expire.

If you mine in safe space you don't get attacked by rats. Anything below 7 I think gets hairy. Best to mine in groups, it can get quite profitable (if a tad boring) ie with dedicated haulers to speed up the process.

[zmama]

Originally posted by Lurker the Second
I'm beginning to think zmama has been chastised at home. I say hang in there. Once we get enough adults playing games all the time, then it will become the norm and we'll be behaving as adults.

NOOOOOOO I dun wannna be adult


Noooooooooooo

[mr.G]

jesjes grow up!!!

[Tizzy]

You can't make me

[mr.G]

time will tell, jesjes time will tell

[Lurker the Second]

Very frustrating night for me. I finished the storyline missions and instead of getting a decent skill implant I got probably the worst one - charisma +1. Only selling for 200K.

Got sent to another agent but couldn't remember who or where so I picked one of the available agents and took a level one mission to kill serpentis spies. Went to the location and killed a whole bunch of serpentis initiates and saw two red crosses labeled as "serpentis spies", but there were no ships or structures associated with the crosses. I could "look" at them, but not lock onto them to shoot at. So I got tired and went back to the hangar to repair the armor damage I got fighting, and now I can't remember how to repair things. I can't even remember how to open the ship to look at and/or remove modules.

Like I said, very frustrating.

[Nav]

The other ships could have been another player doing similar missions nearby. Therefore you wouldn't be able to lock onto them or warp to them.

It is quite simple to get those dialogs, been a few months since I've played though so I can't remember exactly what to do. If you don't figure it out ask on the corp chat, people in there are friendly and don't mind a noob question

What race are you playing? (I was or am Gallente)

[JM^3]

so to repair things there has to be a repairshop in the station

that is over on the right hand side

click it and a screen should come up.. right click the thing you want to repair, and there should be an option repair quote

I don't understand the serpentis spie bit, how far away were they?

and sucks about the charisma implant, I haven't sold my int implant yet though and am doing ok financially, so everything will be fine (last time I logged on I made 640k)

Jon Miller

[Lurker the Second]

Nav, I am Gallente also. I wasn't clear about the problem I had with the spies. I had no problem getting the dialog ("look" is one of the options but for some reason "lock" wasn't). I'm thinking they were cloaked and I don't know how to uncloak them. Actually, I don't know anything about cloaking except that it exists. They were very close to me (25 or 30 km) and there were no other player ships in the area.

Jon, I think that might have been the problem -- the station probably didn't have a repair facility because I did examine those icons on the left. I still can't remember how to open the screen to equip my ship, though. I will have to run through the tutorial to that point again to find out (or maybe I have to be in a repair facility to get that option!).

[JM^3]

oh, you need to be closer then 25km for the noob ship

I think that even my 2nd teir ship needs to be closer then 20km

to put stuff on your ship, there has to be a fitting bay

JM

[Venom]

Lurker is retarded.

[Lurker the Second]

That's not right, Jon. I can lock on stuff 1000s of km away, I just won't be accurate until they get within a certain range. I think the ideal range for the noob ship is 500 km. It is definitely more than 25. Hell I never got anywhere near 25 km of anything I fought last night.

Venom, although you're right, you're in for a surprise. Hurry up and get this game so you can start leveling up your skills. You can do that even if you're not online.

[Venom]

Not so easy to play without me there to help you, eh?

[MattHiggs]

I've taken a look at the game and defintely thinking about giving it a try after christmas/new year.

[JM^3]

Originally posted by Lurker the Second
That's not right, Jon. I can lock on stuff 1000s of km away, I just won't be accurate until they get within a certain range. I think the ideal range for the noob ship is 500 km. It is definitely more than 25. Hell I never got anywhere near 25 km of anything I fought last night.

Venom, although you're right, you're in for a surprise. Hurry up and get this game so you can start leveling up your skills. You can do that even if you're not online.

umm

according to this website

http://www.eve-online.com/itemdataba...llente/607.asp

the Imicus has a target range of ~37km

the noob ship is a lot lower.. like about half

JM

[Lurker the Second]

Then the distance figures given on the overview are completely haywire. Or else target range for the ship is only one component of your total range, i.e., different weps have different ranges which add to the total range. I dunno, though.

[JM^3]

no

no frigate weapon has a range of over 10km... (well, maybe missiles do)

did you get km and m mixxed up?

because the ideal range for close range weapons is 2000m

JM

[Lurker the Second]

Ok, that's possible, but when I was fighting last night those things were letting me lock at under 10KM and I know most of my fighting was further than 35 meters. I couldn't keep up with those things in my starter ship. I'm going home at lunchtime and I'll log on and check it out before coming back to work.

[Venom]

The metric system strikes again.

[Lurker the Second]

Goddamn those metrics. Space in that game is overwhelming enough without a bunch of ferrin' metrics in it.

[Nav]

wait till you have to take out a satellite station with frikking laser beams..

[Lurker the Second]

Ok I checked it out at lunch. I did have a metric misunderstanding. The thing is last night I killed all the initiate ships that "protect" the spies. I was locking in on them at just under 10K meters and most of the fighting didn't occur until they got to 1500 meters or so. I never got to the ideal range and never would in my ship. I still killed them all, although it was difficult. I suppose I just needed to keep approaching the spies b/c they were further away than I thought.

Anyway, at lunch today I couldn't kill all the initiate ships and got podded for the first time. For those of you who haven't played, when your ship gets destroyed you are left in a pod that can still travel. If your pod gets destroyed you are killed, which can have even greater consequences than losing your ship. NPCs don't destroy pods, so newbies in high security areas don't really have to worry about dying.

As I'm limping along in my little pod someone starts chatting with me and asks me what happened, how's it going, etc. Then he gave me 200K and said buy a better ship. I already had about 350K, which was really enough to do that, I think, although I would have been in trouble if that ship got destroyed. Very nice thing that guy did.

Plus now I know how to repair and refit the ship. Woohoo.

[JM^3]

yah, a better ship is crucial for anything but mining, and needed for that also

you can get insurance on your ships, on a cheap ship it will pay for getting it diestroyed

Jon Miller

[Nav]

Well I rejoined lastnight (for at least a month).

The first time you lose a ship really sucks (even if you have insurance). Trick is to realise when you're going to get beat and warp out right then, as it takes a while for the drive to engage!

[JM^3]

What is your name?

JM

[Nav]

Vonner, I'm Gallente and in the Centre for Advanced studies corp.

[JM^3]

well, I met Nav

we should all be on a CG channel

I made one called CG-NET, but I don't know if I did everything properly

JM

[DaShi]

Nav or anyone, is there still a 30 day or so trial for it? I'd like to give it a try.

[JM^3]

yeah

14 day I think

JM

[Venom]

Are there different servers? If so, which one is everyone on?

[Lurker the Second]

There are only two servers, one of which is a Test server. Just log on to Tranquility.

DaShi, PM me your e-mail address and I will send you the invite for the 14 day trial.

[Venom]

So what about the races? Do I have to be Gallente to play along or can I be someone else?

Also, I'm a bit sad I can't be a fighter pilot. That's what I'm good at.

[JM^3]

you can be whatever you want

RP wise Gallente and Minmater are freinds... but you can do whatever you want (And many do)

JM

[Lurker the Second]

You can be whatever you want. In the end I don't think it matters. Nav and I are Gallente. I think JM is Minmatar, but I'm not positive about that. When you do your character selection, you will see the numbers vary for various attributes (memory, perception, intelligence, willpower and charisma, plus maybe one other that I can't recall). You attributes affect the speed at which you train different skills and the higher the attribute number the faster you will train the skills that rely on that attribute. The general consensus seems to be that it is good to start with balanced stats with the exception that charisma need not be high b/c there are currently a lot fewer skills that rely on charisma. As you play the game, you will be able to increase all the numbers anyway.

You can be whatever you want, but combat is not twitch based like space in SWG. It is more skill, equipment and strategy based from what I can tell.

[Lurker the Second]

Also, you will see that skill training continues while you are offline. Therefore it is a good idea to make sure you are in a position to be training constantly while offline. What I mean by that is each skill has 5 levels to train and the lower levels train really quickly (maybe 15 -20 minutes for level 1 and an hour or so for level 2). So unless you have a level 3 training (those take maybe 5-8 hours depending on your attributes) available when you log off for the night, you will have downtime when your current skill finishes because you cannot queue the training. It is ok to switch training mid-stream from one to another because you do not lose whatever you have accummulated.

Personally, I'd train frigate operations for whatever species you choose. By the time you finish the tutorial you'll be close to level 3 in that and will be qualified to get a decent ship right off the bat. Do the level 3 and higher stuff while you're sleeping and do the quicker stuff while in-game so you can change when the training finishes.

[Venom]

Downloaded and installed the client but had to run some maintainence on the PC last night so I didn't have time to kick off the tutorial.