Joined

[EricStratton]

Hearing Aan and leng talk about the game caused me to d/l the trial and give it a shot. My toon's info has been added to the roster page.

I see leng's online right now but it costs money to PM him (awesome way to cut down on spam, BTW) and no one is in LoW so I'll just fly solo for a bit. :)

Going thru the tutorial, I feel like I've been buried by an absolute ton of stuff so I'll try to sort my way through it slowly and come here w/ any questions.

I trained *something* this morning while going thru the tutorial but I'll be damned if I remember what it was. I bought the training book for Hull Upgrades 1 and that should finish shortly. Next I was thinking either Learning (1) level 2 or Minmatar Frigate (2) level 2.

[Aananla]

One thing to speed things along is to train the Learning skills as much as you can stand it, though it is hard to stick with something you don't see any immediate gain from.


Welcome aboard! :D

[EricStratton]

Thanks!

Couple questions:

1. I got a blueprint as a reward from a mission. What do I do w/ it?

2. Is there a LoW corporation or one we're all joining or something? Does it matter?

[Aananla]

If you are in a base with manufacturing capability, put the blueprint in the hanger Item window, right click it, select manufacturing, choose a manufacturing facility to make the item. I can't remember which comes next, but it will take some time for the item to be built. Keep checking status. Eventually it will be ready to be picked up.

Each of us playing has managed to pick a different corp. I don't think it matters at this stage. I am in NovaeDyne Industries. They seem ok, but their numbers are no where they need to be. I'll probably switch again when I find a larger community.

[leng]

If you got the blueprint as part of the training mission cycle you'll need to make the item for a handin.
Basically, look at the bill of materials on the BP info window and make sure you have those items in your hangar. Then click on science and industry in the left-hand menu bar (or manufacture on the item r-click menu). Choose an empty production line and submit. Sit back and wait until the process is complete (if it is long run missions or something). When the run is finished click on science&industry, click find (or some such), select the run and click deliver. It will appear in your hanger.

There are 11 learning skills - one general and two for each attribute (the more advanced ones cost 4.5 million each). Empathy (trains charisma) is mostly useless, at least early on) but the others will speed your progress. However, you may want to train a few basics first otherwise things can get a bit dull.

Unless you intend to do nothing but mine in 0.8 or above space you will need to be able to fight a bit. The following are likely to be useful I'm working from memory so the names may be a bit off):
Minmatar frigates
Small projectile turret
Rapid firing
Gunnery
Afterburners
Navigation
Shield Management
Targeting

Various mining skills are also useful for making money if you are going down that path.

Just checked the roster. Engineering is a difficult way to start out. There is not a lot you can do with it to make money initially (although good engineers are very valuable to big corps later). You'll probably need to bolster your fighting skills and run missions or do some ratting to get started.

[EricStratton]

I've seen this term a couple times before - what's "ratting"?

[leng]

The NPC pirates in the asteroid belts are commonly known as "rats".

Ratting involves killing and looting rats. You get a bounty for each rat killed, depending on difficulty, plus the sale value of the loot. Also, once you can salvage, you get additional material which you can either sell or save to use to make rigs (permanently fitted ship-enhancement items).

There are no rats in 0.8+ systems. In 0.5+ they will generally be flying frigates and are pretty easy to take out either with a reasonably well equipped fighting frigate or better still a destroyer). Below 0.5 they get progressively tougher. In 0.4 you will find the occasional cruiser which will be tough in a destroyer especially if not alone. Deeper still they spawn in battlecruisers or ever battleships. Some of their battleships are significantly better than the generally available player BS's. Also, at depth they will use warp scramblers so you can't even run.

[EricStratton]

Well, I lost my first ship today. I had created a Burst (I think that's what it's called) from blueprints I got from the end of the newbie 10 part mission. Then I tried to do The Blockade mission which turns out is sorta famous to those that have done it. I was just overwhelmed. I had to warp out twice. On the third try the next wave had missiles and that was the end of me.

Now I'm building another Burst. Not sure if I'll try that mission again tho.

[Aananla]

Sorry about your ship.

I warped out of that one several times too. I think I ended up "kiting" that one. I warped into the system, got close enough to draw aggression, then high tailed it away from them. I used the afterburner sparingly to keep my distance, and the civilian shield booster to restore my shields. Took forever to finish them all like that.

If you want help, I'd love to if I happen to be on.

[EricStratton]

Sorry about your ship.

I warped out of that one several times too. I think I ended up "kiting" that one. I warped into the system, got close enough to draw aggression, then high tailed it away from them. I used the afterburner sparingly to keep my distance, and the civilian shield booster to restore my shields. Took forever to finish them all like that.

If you want help, I'd love to if I happen to be on.
Kiting sounds like a good idea. If I see you around, I'll let you know if I'm going ot try it. :)

[EricStratton]

Beat it. Turns out the "main" bad guy was the one shooting me w/ missiles. So I warped in, took out one of his friends, warped out, repaired, repeat until it was just him. Then I went straight for him and took him out before he could do me. Pheew. What a pain.