Learning 1. Skill Training

As posted in the New Eden forums I am keen to start occasionally summarizing my experience so hopefully all those other new capsuleers can get a little more out of their active capsule time when they have terrible skills...  Just like this capsuleer!   ;)

'First cab off the ranks', to steal an ancient earth term...

Skill Training Choices

This is by far the HARDEST choice of all.  Your tutorial agents will give you lots of skill books, some are useful others...  well...  not so much, especially in the early stages...  I found the biggest challenge I had at the start of the game was to fit a ship I liked so it actually did a purpose...  After discussing in the rookie channel and with my new alliances overlord Kenshin I decided to prioritize a number of 'fitting' skills.

What Should We Train First?

The most important skills are 'CPU Management' and 'Power Grid Management' these 2 skills give the largest boost to your ships CPU and Power Grid which are what is used by ship modules fitted to your spaceship.  As you can see I then trained them to level 4 before anything else.  This has enabled me to fit more fire-power, capacitor upgrades and/or tank to my ships to assist me to be much more effective in combat.  So here is my initial list I suggest.

• CPU Management to 4
• Power Grid Management to 4
• Hull Upgrades to 4 - this allows you get the tech 2 damage control, which I am currently training for... (as well as some tech 2 armour tank modules).
• Weapon Upgrades to 4 - Decreases the CPU requirements for ALL guns and makes them easier to fit

...Pheobe update - As per the update released 4th November we can load up an unlimited skill queue which this a lot easier.  Especially for us new players as if we go away for a weeks holidays we don't have to stress about our skill queue and 'game time' going to waste any-more...

What Next?

Well its up to you and what ships you decide to fly.  Personally I've decided to go support ships instead of direct damage dealing ships.  I've also decided to look more at armour tank based ship hulls (Amarr and Gallente) over shield (Caldari and Minmatar).  CCP has given us some great tools and somewhat basic advantages which unfortunately just aren't at the 'front of mind' for new players until of course another player tells you about them.


ISIS


I touched on this in another journal.  This tool is skimmed over in the tutorials and is handy to 'start' pointing you in the right skill training direction for your ship choices.  Although it is not the end... Unfortunately as I eluded to in a previous post it is a little incomplete, as Amarr ships like the Tormentor and Crucifier do not include any drone proficiencies in the mastery levels even though they are probably the second most important utility.  I suggest to make sure you check the capabilities of your ships before selecting your exact skill training queue.

Certificates

This tool is somewhat hidden in the user interface as a secondary option.  I only found it through using an app on my phone and looking for the in game version.   This allows you choose specific areas you would like to specialise on .  For example as I have chosen the Crucifier and Maulus and these both use drones as primary DPS such as armour tanking, drones and tracking disruption/sensor dampening I have chosen certificates to specialise in and get to level 3 ASAP.  As well as working on getting core skills like CPU management previously mentioned to level 5.

You can access this tool by going into your character sheet and selecting the 'Certificates' tab.

Certificates Tab

Here I have selected 'Light Drones' level 2 to see what skills I need to buy and load to be able to get a Mastery Level of 2.

Neural Remaps

Another point that is not spoken over much in the tutorials (if at all as came to think of it I cannot remember them mentioning it) is Neural Remaps.  A Neural Remap is the ability to move set skill training attributes such as Intelligence, Memory, Perception, Willpower and Charisma to better align with the training we select, as each skill has a set of 2 attributes that shorten your training time.

As a new capsuleer we can do this 3 times (due to a bonus 2 remaps).  Once the bonus remaps are used you can only do this once every 12 months. 
  
Some people make like to do the numbers...  Although to make things easy I will suggest to download a tool like Neocom for your iPhone (I'm not sure what the equivalent is on the Android).  You can load certificates and chosen ship hulls/modules into a skill training plan. The tool will then tell you the best remap for that skill plan. 

Hope this helps,

Materia Out!