Here's what looks to be a decent T1 fitting for a PvE Coercer: http://www.battleclinic.com/forum/index.php/topic,15517.0/New-Player-Series-PVE-Coercer.html

Ooh, that's a handy tip, Mr. Hardslab! Thanks for the link.

Tom, you might have a very different opinion of the ships were you not flying Amarr. Minmatar ships are downright ugly. By design, given the race's backstory, but still.

You are really getting me interested in playing this game.

What! Minmatar are not ugly, now Caldari on the other hand are ugly.

Here's a pic of a the minmatar destroyer
http://lemegeton.com/images/eveships/Thrasher2.jpg

Or by far one of the coolest Min ships the Hurricane
http://www.mashie.org/eve/ss06.png

First of all. A little bit of advice I forgot to give. Despite your recent cash influx, And this is important Tom. Never, EVER, fly anything you cannot replace with your current income in a reasonable amount of time. Now there are exeptions. Your first lvl 4 mission raven will be irreplaceable for a small bit. Cap ship pilots also have to violate this rule. But generally be careful not to be flying 2 weeks worth of hard isk making unless it is necessary to do so.

Oh and always make sure your ship is insured, And your clone is up to date. Never violate those two rules in ANY circumstance what so ever. :-)

p.s.
Caldari, Were ugly and damned proud of it.

How do I get new agents? All my agents are out of missions (I only had three of them), and I have no idea how to get more

@ crotear. You will need to dock at a station. Look in the right corner there is a tab called agents, press it. Here you will see a list of agents. As you are starting out you can only use low level agents (lvl 1). Also go and visit this site for a complete list of agents in Eve.

http://eve-agents.com/

This might be too late already, but a word of warning:
Destroyers are *not* that much more powerful than frigates unless you have the skill and money to *really* outfit them.

Yes, they have more guns and more armor, but they're slower and larger, both of which make you (much) easier to hit. The combat system in Eve is hugely complicated, and means that bigger ships have significant disadvantages. There used to be a really good flash thingy explaining the combat system on the website, but I can't find it now, after they moved all the guides and help to a separate wiki. But your guns tracking speed, the size of your target, distance to the target, the target's speed relative to you all factor in, and I've found that it is often easier to survive NPC missions in a frigate than a destroyer.

Would you be enjoying Eve as much if you didn't have these "sponsors" of yours? Sure people are helpful to new players, but they are probably especially helpful to you.

@Chijts - What prompts you to make that assumption?

Cubit, you're being deliberately naive.

It depends, EVE is about risk, reward, and the community. Both local and galactic. It is one of the most complex mmorpg's I have played in my long years of gaming. I can safely say that. While having people give you isk makes it easier to start out. It doesnt make it any easier to play. You have to establish an income by yourself that you can depend on. Eventually even the kindest heart loses interest or tells you that you have to fend for yourself. That is why it is so key in eve online to find your role. Everyone is a part of the community and game mechanics, The "pirates" patrolling low-sec making it more dangerous, The vast podering alliances in null space. The many many people in empire effected by forces they have no idea about. It is a wonderful thing.

@somedude - I am not being naive at all. I just think its dumb to assume that Tom is getting special treatment with no evidence to back this up. Its not like he is going around broadcasting "I am the great Tom Chick!" to gain some more $$$. Plus, who is to say that this game diary is done in real time? Tom could have written this months ago and is putting it up in installments.

I know that in my case at least tom will recieve no special treatment if I come across his charachter I will me happy to blow his ship out of the sky and take his stuff just like I do to everyone else

@Cubit,

The assumption isn't that Tom *is* getting special treatment. The assumption is that Tom's experience isn't necessarily going to be indicative of the average new user.

Which is fine, because Tom isn't really isn't praising how easy it is to get ships or anything. He's talking about various aspects of the game and is able to separate it from the idiosyncrasies of his experience.

He has said the community is friendly, but I think most people realize their experiences really depend on who they run into, so everyone's mileage may vary.

But it is naive to think that someone who runs their own board, is relatively well known games writer, and that mentions it on his own board would have a typical experience.

And really, that atypical experience could work both ways as Bacongrease so kindly demonstrated.

I don't have a problem with Tom's reporting on the game. It's entertaining and insightful (overall) like most of his game diaries, so I'm not accusing Tom of anything.

Just you. :)

@somedude:
Isn't it even more naive to assume that the Eve players he *randomly* bumps into will magically recognize him and give him money because of how famous and awesome he is? I think you're overestimating how famous he is.

And of course, as Cubit said, he could have played months ago, and only put up the diary now.

Apart from that, Eve's community *is* generally very helpful, and it doesn't seem at all surprising to me that random people gave him a few million ISK. Eve players generally want to encourage newbies to stick around. And it's pocket money for more experienced players, of course.

None of what Tom has reported so far seems like special treatment to me.

It's not a canned report, his character is only like 9 or 10 days old. And yes, Jalf, 5 million isk is really nothing when you pvp in ships that easily cost a couple hundred million and are uninsurable. :)

@JALF,

That assumes that Tom encounters the same level of randomness as your average player. A big correlation of my point is who he encounters may not be random at all.

An even bigger part of my point is it doesn't really matter for Tom's reporting, unless he was advocating the game solely on the premise of its friendly player base.

And yes I know, money is all relative. *rolls eyes*

Actually, it's an entirely fair question. How much of my enjoyment has to do with me writing about this and therefore being given money? Would it otherwise be a prohibitively difficult grind?

Firstly, I should point out that probably half of the money I've been given has nothing to do with me writing about Eve Online. For the first few days I was playing, before I wrote the first entry here, I was offered help in the form of advice *and* spacebucks by perfect strangers responding to my inquiries on the help chat channel. As I'd pointed out earlier, it seems that many of the corporations are on the lookout for new members. If you're articulate and curious in the chat channel, they have a vested interest in keeping you playing and hopefully having you join them. The community is friendly and eager to share the game. Donations of a few million spacebucks here and there are no skin off their back (don't be misled by the high numbers; in Eve, isk are counted like lira in Italy).

Secondly, the spacebucks haven't been much of an advantage for me at this point. I would have been able to buy that Coercer based on rewards for missions and bounty for pirate killing. I've still got all of the 26 million isk I've been given by other players! It's unspent. It's a very nice buffer, and it meant I had no compunction about going shopping for a couple of expensive components for the Coercer. But it's a cash reserve that, frankly, I haven't even began to dip into.

The only way to truly twink another player's character is to magically gift him lots of skill training time. And as far I can tell, there's no way to do that.

So while I agree it's a good question, I don't feel being given free money is either a) unique to my experience, or b) has had an undue influence on it.

Oops, that last JALF was me, brain fart. I don't know why I typed in who I wanted to respond to. I'm an idiot, that's why. Heh.

@Tom,

Does the cash reserve make you less cautious about your activities and able to enjoy them? Would the psychology of your play be different?

Good question, somedude! At this point, I've only died by being confused or being stupid. After ten days or so, the "being confused" part is pretty much gone now that I've wrapped my head around the interface and the combat model.

But the "being stupid" part is still there! I pushed it too far when I lost my first frigate and should have known better. I wasn't even thinking about being able to replace the ship so much as I was driven to kill just one more of those stupid pirates before I warped out to repair. When I lost my ship, I logged out in anger and quit playing for the night, regardless of the fact that I could easily afford a replacement. The emotional reaction was still there regardless of my spacebuck reserves. I'd say that's an important part of the game.

Since then I'm certainly not being willfully reckless. I just finished a really tough storyline mission with my destroyer that took a few tries, and I never felt cavalier about whether or not I get killed.

I don't know whether anyone has said this yet but I would like to thank you Tom.

I've been playing EVE for a number of years now, and over those years I've seen a number of different people write about EVE and they have always seemed to concentrate on the physical mechanics of the game like the UI or the learning curve which is present at the start of the game.

None of them, as far as I can remember, have never talked about how actual playing the game and talking to other players is EVE's instruction manual on how to play the game. Or, what is probably the key foundation to the game, its community.

To me personally I think if anyone talks about EVE then that has to be mentioned, because it is the community of people spread around the world that make EVE what it is today. I hear everyday from people talk about WoW and how great it is but when they talk about the experience they have in it with other people it never seems to match up to EVE's community.

I am happy that you are enjoying yourself in the game. Plus I hope that these threads about your experience's within the game help to give people who don't play EVE a true insight into this amazing game and what is, again in my own humble opinion, a truly unique game.

So thank you once again and I look forward to your next post.

I really liked Eve, but I started it at a time I really couldn't devote the time to enjoy it properly. I can't wait to play it again actually, but I will probably stay a lot more casual about it than I do most games I play.

i really do like the design of a lot of the premium-graphics content. it delights me how commonplace asymmetry features in the ship designs - no atmospheric flight to worry about here. i also have a soft spot for some of the caldari stations, with their wonderful angular geometry.

i wonder how you'll find your upcoming cruiser, Tom - i laughed out loud with a cry of 'wtf?!' upon viewing my first Amarr Omen cruiser in the hangar....