Never being one to invest time in something that might not catch on, I think it’s fair to say 13 years into Eve Online’s existence I can take my first crash course as a beginner with a fair amount of confidence.
I’d like to say my first day will be in charge of a leviathan-esque battle-ready super capitol ship; with myself in battle attire, sipping on a brandy and smoking a cigar as I point to the distant stars.
In reality it’s more like pint of cider and dressing gown… but still lets rock ever onwards.
First off, we seem to be playing Sim’s in space. I spend way too long creating my avatar, one Ves’ron Yeldi. My name, losely, is based on the 40k Tau codex, meaning Robotic ‘Winged One’.
After we get chatting to some AI bot we flung out into space where we pilot our capsule over to our awaiting ship. Inside we hit the big red button and speed off to warp
“Make it so Captain!”
Out current mission, after picking up our ship, it to carry back an item from a local Amarr Cargo Rig. We manage to fly over no problems, grab some loot and then head back to the Royal Amarr Institute to dock.
A few more words of wisdom from Aura, our friendly AI unit, we mark our mission completed and receive a book. A book?! Who uses books. Well it turns out we do, skill books.
With our new book somehow being absorbed into our head, we’re learning ship repairs don’t ya know, we head out and destroy a fuel dump.
I try to be clever and loot from the wreckage, but alas there is nothing but twisted metal. Activting one of the jump gates I easily dispatch two pirate ships, taking only minimal damage myself.
I can’t help but feel the feel within Eve is a bit clunky, perhaps I’ll learn how to auto-rotate, or look at target automatically. Hey ho, the learning curve has begun.
Getting our docking request accepted back at the Amarr Institute, we complete our second training mission and get a boosted armour repair unit to substitute our older one with.
The multiple windows, within the game is going to take a bit of getting used to, but it shouldn’t be too hard. I’m sure there’s short cuts for window management too.
We continue our next training mission by trying to get some documents, but for the life of me I can’t get my head around the navigation. After jumping, or is it warping, between 2 locations several times, I finally find the helpful AI bot tells me a bit more info than the mission.
Amarr Academy Offices looted and documents received.
I keep making the rookie mistake of travelling to places and having the jump finish 100KM away from the target, which then means you have to approach it using the steam-powered engines (aka slow)… which takes literally MINUTES! Eughhh.
Who has minutes to spare?!
Now it looks like the first stage of basic training with the helpful Aura bot is coming to a close; she’s hinting of multiple seperate training ventures coming up with other agents. I have a feeling I’d dabble in a bit of mining to begin with, then onto some sort of military combat.
I’ve heard the learning curve for Eve Online is pretty steep, however I seem to be hanging on just enough at the moment. I would say my biggest problem at the moment is disorientation. I obviously don’t know what the ‘layout of the land’ is like, but I struggle to tell if I’m in the correct area, or one gate away, or even which area I should be heading to.
Oh well, who said captaining a ship would be easy.
Now I’m back and safely docked, I think it’s time to put the whisky and cigar down.
Captain Ves’ron Yeldi signing off.
