The importance of alts

One of the many topics that gets mentioned to new players is that of setting up an alt, usually for the purpose of hauling various things from trade hubs such as Hek or Dodixie to deprive war targets of very easy and potentially valuable kills. But what else can you do with an alt and how much time should you invest in them?

Personally I was lucky as the other character on my account, who is now my alt, was geared towards mining and hauling for a small industry corp a few friends had started up. By the time of my application the character in question could fly Exhumers and an Orca giving me amazing flexibility when it came to hauling as well as funding my ongoing PVP operations. Now I wouldn't suggest everyone takes an alt to such a level as this guy was my only character for a few months and therefore has decent skills for what he needed to do.

That said I would suggest that if you are new to EVE that having an alt capable of hauling using a Tech 1 Industrial ship, such as the Iteron III or Badger II, and perhaps mining relatively safely using a Venture or perhaps a mining barge such as a Retriever or Procurer. By doing so you know that if your character needs urgent supplies in a target camped by war targets or feel like passively making some ISK by mining then you can do so without risking your E-Uni character or any other character whop may be in a similar situation of dealing with war targets under a corporation wide engagement policy.

At the moment I have set up Mia Sedgwick with a jump clone which acts as a training clone. this clone sits in a station in a starter system and trains at an optimal rate using +3 implants, as provided by the E-Uni Discount Implant Program, whilst the clone in Aldrat used for fleet action has +1 implants and is only used for the minimum period needed. This mean my alt can still be my main ISK maker for the time being until Mia is ready to run higher level missions and perhaps join the Incursion fleets (more on that another time though).

Beyond these two fairly basic skill paths what other things can you do, well as is the way with with EVE anything you want however I would caution against dedicating too much training time to such an alt as it could detract from your main characters skill progression quite badly. The idea with this kind of alt is to have a low skill point character who can do a role, or two, adequately whilst you get used to EVE and who could in the future be developed further.

By now you may asking, "so how long should I spend training this alt?" Well its tricky but if you use a starting character with no implants and don't use a remap you could have an effective hauler in less than 2 days, including fitting and basic tanking skills, or if you wanted to combine that with mining perhaps a week at most. In any case I'd strongly advise setting this alt up before applying to E-Uni as it will let you focus on your main without starting and stopping your training queues.

Making the call

So it was suggested to me to write the blog as a way to let me reflect upon events down the road and help others from those experiences, to that end this week I'm briefly going to discuss the issue of comms and how to get the most out of them and when you should be speaking.

As I write this I've been in E-Uni for 32 days, in that time I've done my best to take part in all of the Noobs on Patrol fleets I can as well as others that may pop up while I'm online and in all of them I've been a tackler. Now I don't mean a fleet interceptor which is something many new players get confused by, I certainly did in my first week and apologised accordingly; a fleet interceptor is a special Tech 2 variant vessel that's ridiculously fast both at warp and at sub-light speeds.

I and many other players however are plain old tacklers, in many instances basic Tech 1 frigates operating in a squad whose sole role is to stop the enemy running away and slow them down to make it easier for our damage dealing ships to hit them. One of the most important things a tackler can do however is to 'call' their points or scrams, this is done by the use of the fleet comms on Mumble and allows not the Fleet Commander to know the target isn't getting away but allows your fellow tacklers to avoid placing their point or scram on the same target.

While I won't go into the finer points of Warp Disruptors (points) or Scramblers (Scrams) I will say most tacklers will only carry one or the other and having multiple on a target generally isn't needed. There has been however a number of instances where multiple tacklers stayed on a target as they were either unaware if the target already had already been engaged by another person with the same device, point or scram.

So what are the possible reasons for this, looking back I know that in the first week I was still very nervous about making mistakes and would just stay on the primary or secondary until I was certain someone else had it covered before moving on, in short I didn't want to call a point while I was still learning how to fly my ship in the midst of a fleet combat in case I lost it and the target got away.

My next concern was about actually speaking on Mumble, it may sound odd but I didn't want to make an ass of myself so would pause as I made sure I was giving the correct information. As I thought about this could some people just not like speaking up at all, perhaps they get nervous or are shy, after all EVE like any other activity in life will generally have a cross section of people and this may be a reason.

Still on the subject of actually talking on Mumble is that of your environment, not everybody has a quite spot they can play away in for several hours and is something you need to be mindful of if you are talking on Mumble, not only for those who may be around you (perhaps sleeping, studying, watching TV etc.) but also your fellow fleet members, can they hear what you're trying to say, is there to much background noise, have you tested the sound quality (which can be done in Mumble via the echo channel) and lastly have you muted yourself, all are issues that I have encountered.

The final issue could be not having a microphone, I know I got a cheap one to start off with (as I'd just bought a computer) as I wanted to make my voice heard if needed, especially in the tackling role. I can't imagine trying to do the role without a mic and where people don't have one and can't get one in a short space of time then what are the alternatives.

A friend of mine who also recently started with E-Uni as well, and has a mic, chose to look at the other roles a new player can fill and he chose EWAR, whether that be sensor dampening or out-and-out ECM this is an area not often talked about, at least recently, which new players can get into just as quickly and cheaply with the added bonus of not needing a mic.

I don't want this to come across as 'you shouldn't do tackling without a mic and some self confidence' however I would encourage any new player to look at all the roles filled by Tech 1 frigates, with perhaps the exception of logistics, and take into account your own personal circumstances as much as what ship you want to fly both now and in the future. 

And so it begins...

Guess I should start with a little bit about me, my name is Jonathan and I'm a third year Surveying student, lots of report writing and travel but it should be worth it in the end. When I'm not studying I can be found playing the awesome science-fiction game EVE online, I'm a relative newcomer to the game joining a few friends in mining corporation with the occasional high jinks that comes when people get bored of shooting asteroids, I'll elaborate on this at some point in the future honest. Other than EVE I can occasionally be found playing League of Legends, albeit not very well, but with both of these games the multi-player aspect with friends, new and old, is what keeps me coming back for more.

For the most part this blog will be about my experiences within EVE online, one of the things I've been looking to do is engage with the community beyond my friends who play, they're a nice bunch but they aren't always on when I am, and learn about the many facets of the game which I'm certain I've only scratched the surface of. So what have I been up to, well at the moment my character Mia Sedgwick is a member of EVE University (E-Uni), an excellent place for new players to learn the ropes.

My hope is that with the help of the amazing pilots of E-Uni, known as Unistas, I can learn about the finer points of gang/fleet combat and in general be a good pilot, sounds simple but after my first few days in E-Uni I was left with a feeling that if only I were to get a few more skills trained that I'd be a worthwhile addition to the fleet, suffice to say that my view quickly changed to be a little further forward looking and in EVE that doesn't mean days or weeks but months and I encourage any new player that reads this to try out a skill planning tool such as EVEMon or for those with iPhone's/iPads the Neocom app, which is very good and free, as they're excellent ways to give you an understadning of the basics needed to fly and fit your ship effectively. As I write this initial blog entry my aim is to be able to fly Tech 2 Interceptors and Assault Frigates which in of itself doesn't sound too tricky, however as I have already learned being able to fly a ship and being able to use it effectively are two very different things, all in I expect it to take me around two months to fly them anywhere near properly so in the mean time I'll be learning the skills needed by using their respective Tech 1 versions, the Atron and Incursus, where I've already had some successes and some rather disappointing losses as part of the university's Tuesday night 'Noobs on Patrol', where pilots of all skill levels take part in a roam into low and sometimes null sec space to help new players get a feel for fleet operations but also PvP combat.

When I was mining away in a Retriever, with what is now my alt, in a safe high sec system I had no idea of the sheer excitement that fleet based combat could bring, I really enjoy being in the heat of battle and as shown by my killboard entry one of my first ever engagements brought me into contact with a carrier vessel, I had little idea of what was actually going on and just focused on my little task but when the dust settled I was thrilled to have made it back ship intact and getting over any concerns I had about getting killed/podded as soon as we got out there, granted I've lost ships but with every fleet I join I can safely say I've learned something new and would like to think I'm already a better pilot (marginally perhaps) than I was three weeks ago when I joined, I guess only time will tell.