5  Your First Days in Space

Now that you have created your character and you think you're ready to jump into action - hang on!

EVE is not like most games, in which you can skip the tutorial. The tutorial is essential for your success and will guide you through the basic processes of mining and refining ore, interacting with corporate agents, and acquiring your first safe and supervised taste of ship-to-ship combat. You will also learn how to utilize the interstellar market, purchase and install ship upgrades and, perhaps most importantly, earn enough money to upgrade your vessel.

Step 1: In-Space Tutorial

The in-space tutorial is supervised by an insurance teaching drone, which will orbit your ship. To start the tutorial, press the "Next" link on the welcome screen. Please be polite and refrain from shooting down the teaching drone.

The tutorial drone will help you learn basic ship operations. The insurance company is concerned about you and wants to make sure you know how to fly before buying insurance for it!

Follow the given steps. When you have completed one step, the next one will appear in the tutorial window. Press the "next" button in that window to continue the tutorial. Just before you dock, be sure to read any "evemails" (in-game messages) you've received!

Step 2: In-Station Tutorial

• The in-station tutorial picks up when you first dock, as instructed by the tutorial drone. It introduces you to various station services such as the market, ship fitting, reprocessing, and so on.
• The tutorial also introduces you to a friendly corporate agent who is in need of courier pilots to handle some small errands and get you started on making money. We recommend that you finish all the missions you are offered, so that you'll be able to continue your mission career.
• Do not attack other players while in a system rated between 1.0 and 0.5. If you do, you will be shot down by CONCORD (the EVE NPC police force). On the other hand, you can always shoot at wanted NPC pirates (non-playing character pirates), no matter where you are.

Step 3: Legal System in EVE Online

Each character in EVE has a security status. Certain predefined actions or crimes, such as attacking other players or getting caught carrying contraband in a system where it is forbidden, which will affect a character's security status. Additionally, the world of EVE is divided into zones of varying security levels. These determine which crimes affect security status and to what degree. Zones with Security Level 0.0 are completely lawless.

Effects of Security Status

The effects of a low security status vary widely, ranging from access restrictions to certain zones, direct attack by an empire authority, or having bounties issued on character’s head.

New Player Protection

New characters enter the EVE world in high security areas of space, heavily guarded by police ships and sentry guns. Zones with lower security levels are more lucrative in terms of being places where the highest quality items and opportunities can be found. This gives players the incentive to venture further out as they gain skill and experience.

The most powerful characters of various professions – merchants, miners, pirates, bounty hunters, etc. – are all able to maximize their profits in the uncontrolled regions where no laws apply, provided that they can hold their own against other players who might profit from their deaths.

Stealing items

You can steal another player's items to a limited extent. When a ship is destroyed, wreck is left behind floating as space debris. This ship wreck can be opened and emptied by anyone. However, when a player takes items from containers or wrecks in Empire Space, it may result in being criminally flagged to other players. Whether you get criminally flagged, and who you get criminally flagged to depends on who owns the container/wreck and whether, if the player is not the owner, he or she has an implicit right to take from it. This criminal flag lasts for 15 minutes.

Who Owns What, and When

Who gets ownership of containers/wrecks depends on the situation. The possible circumstances are as follows:

• When an NPC is killed by a player, the player who did the most damage to it gets ownership of any loot containers that may drop, and of the wreck left behind by that NPC.
• When players are killed, any containers dropped from their ship are still owned by them. The same goes for the wreck that once was their ship.

When Taking is Not Stealing

If a player does not own loot or jettison containers, the player may still have an implicit right to take these items. However, this can only occur if the owner of the container:

• Has given you a personal standing of 10;
• Is in the same player corporation as you; and
• Is in the same gang as you (and are in the same solar system).

What Happens when you Steal

When a player take something from a container/wreck that does not belong to him or her, as when you do not have the implicit right to take things from others, you will be shown a confirmation dialog asking you if you really want to steal it and warning you of the consequences.

If you choose to go ahead and steal despite the warning, you will be criminal flagged to:

• The corporation of the owner of the container/wreck, if it is not an NPC corporation.
• The owner of the container/wreck (this is not done if the owner's corporation was flagged).

Stealing ships

You cannot steal an occupied ship or a ship in a space station. However, it is possible to steal an abandoned ship. To do this, you will have to eject from your current vessel to board another.

Faction standings

Faction standing is the measure of the relationship between a character and with various NPC corporations. Every NPC that a player deals with belongs to an NPC corporation. All NPC corporations have faction standings between themselves, as well as with all player corporations.

Faction standing will rise against a certain NPC corporation when the character does something beneficial for the NPC Corporation. Likewise, when a character does something disruptive to the NPC Corporation's interests, the faction standing will decrease. For example, if a character kills an Amarr ship, the faction standing of Amarrians will worsen; on the other hand, it will improve the standing of the Minmatars, who are enemies of the Amarrians.

Good faction standing allows a character to gain higher level agents from the NPC Corporation. This can lead to better missions and access to restricted areas or equipment that is controlled by the NPC Corporation.

Step 4: Storyline Missions

Once you have completed all the tutorial missions, your agent will refer you to another one. You will then be given a chance at the storyline missions. They will give you better insight into EVE and possibly a handsome reward. You should already have all the knowledge you need to complete those missions.

The Storyline Missions are intended to be used to get familiar with EVE, so they are not the most exciting missions EVE has to offer.

Step 5: Off You Go

While still a rookie, you have progressed to a stage where you are ready to go out on your own. But before doing so, here are some pointers for a fun time in EVE.

Skills

One of the first things you should do is purchase and train the basic "Learning" skills. They help lower the total amount of time it takes to learn a new skill by increasing your attributes (Intelligence, Willpower, etc.). This is a very good thing to do early on, as the sooner you do this, the more skill points you will have in about two months' time.

Since there is no effective maximum of the amount of skill points you can have in EVE, you always want to have a skill in training. You should always set a skill to train when you log off as your skill training progresses in real time. Get your learning skills and "learn to learn" as soon as you can afford it - it will all pay off in the long run no matter what. Getting the learning skills and training them will also familiarize you with the general skill training process.

For more information about skills please refer to guide on skills.

Ships

Every player seeks a better ship and configuration. Early on in EVE, you will find that you can fly the largest frigate class ship with the corresponding frigate skill (Gallente Frigate, Caldari Frigate, etc.) at level three. This level of frigate skill can be reached quite quickly, but level four is a prerequisite for training cruiser skills. When you have the skill to fly a new frigate class ship and leave the rookie ship, do so as soon as possible. The new player ship is very weak and is given out freely upon destruction. Even a small frigate, which requires only a level two frigate skill, is vastly superior to the new player ship.

• Train your frigate skill and get a good ship soon as possible, but don't risk ships or modules (ship equipment) that you cannot afford to replace.

For a complete list of all ships and their capabilities you should check out the item database.

Making Money

Many players initially wonder how they should make money. As explained earlier, there are many ways for you to earn ISK. Early on, mining and agent missions are best as you don't have many skills, much world knowledge, or faction standing. Both are quite profitable in the beginning.

Mining

There are many forms of mining, ranging from solo prospecting to large scale strip mining by industrial corporations. The latter requires considerable planning and coordination, but solo mining does not require much skill or knowledge. That sounds like the perfect job for you! Don't worry; every dashing space hero and galactic corporate mogul had to start somewhere. Who knows, maybe you're flying the very same starter frigate one of them sold during their first upgrade.

Agent missions

Missions from NPC corporation agents can be very profitable, especially at the higher levels. Agent missions can generate substantial profits, but can also be very time consuming.

Bounty Hunting

The combat pilot can try his hand at bounty hunting. You can hunt NPC pirates, all of which have a bounty on their head, or player-pirates, whose bounties are limited only by their victims' hatred and the cash they're willing to put up for revenge.

• You are not allowed to freely attack other players unless their security rating is below -5.0.

Research Agents

Research agents allow you to form an NPC research team in order to develop new technologies. Should your team be successful, you will be offered a new blueprint at the next technology level from the common pool. These can be sold for large sums; there are players that have made substantial fortunes from selling blueprint originals on the market.

Production

Sometimes overlooked, it is possible to turn a profit by acquiring blueprints and the relevant resources to start a small production business. Sell where you have little competition and enough resources to continue construction.

Trading

Trading is mostly carried out by experienced players, as it requires good knowledge of trade routes and market prices. There are trading-only corporations in the EVE Universe which are very wealthy and powerful.

Inter-regional trading is time-consuming and often dangerous, but can prove very profitable.

Corporations

One of the best things you can do is to apply for membership in a player corporation that is active and of a decent size. Larger corporations are not necessarily better, as you will be one of many, while smaller corporations are often very active and ambitious. Choose a corporation that has the same goals and game style as yours, and be certain to ask before joining what they focus on and what role you will have. Corporation activities may include mining, fighting, trading, and manufacturing, among many others. Most corporations combine some of the above and might be a good start for you until you have decided which path you want to follow; however, you can always change corporations. Corporations can offer protection, friends, resource sharing, and much more.

Map

It helps to understand how the map works and how to use the scanner. Both are necessary for efficient navigation through the world of EVE. See Starmap for more information.

Explore

Explore EVE! There are 5000+ systems and thousands of people out there. We wish we could tell you exactly what to do early on in detail but that's what EVE is all about: exploration, corporations, money, greed, friendships, the list continues. If we told you exactly where to go and what to do, it wouldn't be your destiny anymore, would it? Explore Eve with caution. The residents, both players and NPCs, of the various systems can be dangerous.