Narrowing down my future activities/community

[Tobias Brand]

I've picked up and put down Eve many times over the years, and while each time I do I learn something a little new, I always end up in the same spot: solo flying and feeding rats. A lot of my favorite activities have been non combat oriented things like mining and exploration, but I always find myself insta dying to the first person or group that locks target on me. I have so little experience and knowledge in small scale fights that its easy to feel like the skillgap between me and your average t2 rat is AU apart. Ive participated in a few large scale fleet engagements, but i was but a speck on the grid. I want to fight in these small to mid scale fights, I want to have impact. But most of all, I want to get first hand experience on ship fit advantages and disadvantages, I want to learn so that when im scanning down relic sites and a ship pops in I know just how f*cked or not f*cked I am. I want to know what that gate camp fleet composition is good for. I want to know how good or bad certain tactical described in AARs were. What community is best for me to join for me to gain these skills?

[Arkady Marten]

What a great question! Let me try to put together some thoughts based on my experience with the game, maybe others will chime in as well.

You're asking specifically about what community to join, and I think that's exactly the right question. While you can learn about ship fitting, fleet composition, fighting tactics, from reading pages on our wiki or watching tutorial videos, there is nothing better than to get together with others, both experienced players and those learning about these things themselves, and getting into these kinds of situations for real.

There are multiple ways to learn PvP and start building up a knowledgebase in these areas that you talk about. It's not going to be an instant thing, and I predict that you will progress through more than one community if you play the game for any length of time. Let me give you some perspectives:

The recent faction warfare FW changes have made solo and small-gang PvP opportunities in lowsec more interesting and more lucrative than ever before, and so it's not surprising that it has revitalised lowsec immensely. You can read up a bit about how FW works now, and if this is something that sounds interesting to you, there are dedicated Discord servers for each of the four empire militias that are fighting each other in these battlegrounds. The actual gameplay will be anything from small-gang to larger fleet engagements and also solo PvP. And these militias, in contrast to many other small-gang PvP groups, don't require people to already be good at PvP in order to join.

You are also welcome to join EVE University of course, where we run these kinds of FW fleets quite frequently, but also have other types of content available within easy reach:

• We run a weekly Fight Club where players can get into 1v1 PvP in cheap T1 frigates to learn anything from the basics of using the right modules in the right sequence to grab the other ship and hold it on grid to more advanced topics such as ammo selection, range control, overheating, and so on.
• In both our nullsec and wormhole space staging areas, we have frequent opportunities to undock in small to medium size fleets when there's targets of opportunity to shoot at.
• There are any number of scheduled PvP roams in the calendar at all times, in pretty much all areas of space. Depending on FC interest, you could end up filamenting into sov-null to stir up a response fleet from the residents there, travel the Pochven triangle hunting larger ships, or sitting at a lowsec gate waiting for unsuspecting haulers to jump in and get obliterated.
• All our fleets are open to pilots of all experience levels and in-game skills. We always make sure for example, if we are planning on undocking in a specific doctrine (a given set of ships that work well together), that there's options for those who may not have trained into the main ship types yet.
• We have a large member base with a variety of game experience who are never at a loss to offer ideas and give tips and tricks for PvP encounters, what ships to use and how to fit them, where to go for interesting fights, ... We also run classes on specific topics such as ewar, ship fitting, scouting/tackling, how to use d-scan and bookmarks to keep yourself safe when you don't want to get into a fight, and much more.

This is all in addition to the PvE / mining / exploration activities that our members do on a daily basis, much of it also set up as a group activity and always with a learning component to it. Right now, for example, the newly introduced Homefront sites offer an interesting gameplay geared toward fleets of 5 people, with varying roles needed to complete a site.

The breadth of our members' interests in the game and the variety of opportunities that are available do in my view set us apart from many other groups, even many who like us are explicitly open for newer players. And we fully expect people to spend a certain time with us and then move on to other groups when they feel ready. You could end up in a small, tight-knit lowsec pirate corp. Or in an elite squad in one of the large sov-null alliances. Or in a wormhole group. Or remain in EVE Uni and train the next generation of pilots in the ways of spaceship combat. All up to you!

So, the tl;dr, I guess: See if joining one of the FW militias might be something for you, or come knock on our door and spend some time in the Uni.

[Sera Faluvious]

What community is best for me to join for me to gain these skills?

I would very much suggest the Mentor Program though it is geared towards the newer player you may be able to find a mentor willing to assist you. Other than that I would also suggest you to utilize the E-UNI discord. There is a plethora of people there willing and very able to help out. Keep an eye on the "Ping PVP" channel. From that you will get an idea of the different fleet comps and pvp events that E-UNI participates in. And of course every single thing that Arkady said. Some awesome advice there that I as well plan to use!



Also check out this topic!!!!!

https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=126540