This is the final installment of Porsche Amarr’s experiences over his two years in EVE University. We would recommend reading up on Part One and Part Two.

PART THREE: Going forward

My main is training up to be a Carrier pilot (just working through Fighters V). My three Omega alts are training into Rorquals (maybe two months to go). I’m not really sure what will come next after that. A move to nullsec (NSC?) might be a logical move to breakout the capitals and try to make some money (watching dscan more than ever before). Wormhole life is very enjoyable though and there are some really good people in WHC.
Bombers Bar fleets have left me quite humble. I have already decided that if I lost a few rorquals to BB fleets, I would actually be happy to be giving other people the content and the thrills that I have had. With the increasing PLEX prices though, I am questioning whether to have three Rorquals sitting in space mining to pay for themselves or not but will cross that bridge once they are trained.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense to return to mining or to get into ratting but I want to see what these are like as incomes sources. Sisi has been useful for the journey for a lot of fitting and fighting practice and Rorqual mining is not that inspiring on Sisi. No idea if it all makes sense, but if I blow billions trying to make billions I can absorb it. That said, I do very much like the feeling of staying ahead in the ISK stakes.

Progression in Eve Uni through titles is quite helpful. I still have the elusive Graduate title to apply for and I am happy that my killboard has been decently populated these days and that I have spent time in many different areas of Eve. On the service component, time as a Personnel Officer should be relevant and I know there are others who give huge amounts of their time in management and support roles across the campuses. It has been surprisingly tricky to land other staffing roles as they seem quite popular but any are still worth applying for if you are interested and can give the time. I try to skim the wiki from time to time and make minor improvements where stats or game mechanics have changed. The wiki is well maintained though.
On reflection, it is interesting that in a normal uni, one can pay fees (aka taxes on PI, profit margins on PI/gas/loot buyback, taxes on ratting, structure fees), study hard and graduate without needing to join a faculty or even the student rep association/council. Eve Uni is a game through and relies on people to give to the uni so that it can operate but let’s see how that plays out.

Lessons

• Mining – Can be a good way to make initial ISK – watch dscan, only fly what you can afford to lose, align wherever possible, fleet up and watch each other’s backs…
• Exploration – Can be a more lucrative and interactive way of making ISK than mining – be prepared to lose ships in wormholes but exploration quickly tends to pay for itself and more.
• Station trading – Skills and standings are essential to make any sort of profit margin when station trading. Plan carefully before shelling out too much ISK.
• Risk=reward – Nullsec or wormhole life will pay better returns on the same activities but for increased risk of loss. Similarly, higher-scale of station trading can make/lose more.
• In fleets – Comms is essential, regardless of whether you are young or old, what languages you speak or your gender. Even listening then typing anything in fleet chat. Nearly all fleets have audible comms through Mumble, Discord, TS3, etc and they are really important to effective fleet coordination.
• Be new when new – Don’t ever have an issue with being new. There are a small number of elitist jerks out there but most fleets, esp in Eve Uni, are excellent and appreciate the importance of training/briefing people. It is not possible to have perfectly-skilled fleets every time, we all start somewhere.
• Play the game – Actually playing the game is really important. That may be station trading, mining, PvP, corp roles or various other things but it is important to decide what you enjoy in the game at any given point and find ways to be doing it. Worrying about ISK can be soul-destroying so if you can find ways to make enough ISK to fund your playstyle, the game will be much more enjoyable.
• Time has some real value in this game – time taken to fly to systems to recover low level PI can actually provide less ISK than other activities. However, as mentioned, if this is your way of playing the game (for example, flying to collect PI allowed me some peace from station trading) then enjoy. PLEX can seem like a disturbing but fast way to make ISK. It may irk some as it likely means that we would pay more for Eve than other games or pay to play but time is a reality and for working people it is easy to lose sight that we can spend tens and hundreds of hours on activities to make ISK that we can genuinely make in one hour at work. Something to seriously consider. I’m not sure I would give back my thousands of hours of game time trading, mining and PIing in place of PLEXing because I strangely enjoyed the long-term scenario playing out but some may crave more real-life efficiency.
• Researching BPOs – Needs to be part of a plan or it will never make money (do what I say, not what I do… no, I really need to sort this out for the amount of training and game time that I have put into this).
• Research agents – Not sure that datacores are worth the skillpoints, even over the very long-term after the ISK generation becomes almost free.
• Manufacturing – Margins seem to be very, very tight in manufacturing. There are many items that sell below their production cost. It is very important to be selective before getting into manufacturing. Some BPCs can be quite lucrative but may have to be found or earned first.
• Learning – Never stop learning and researching in Eve. You don’t have to embrace spreadsheets. There are lots of tools out there to help. Pyfa, Eve Mon, Fuzzworks, Eve Marketer and many more. The Eve community, although we can’t have game mods, are very creative and provide lots of sites and apps to help improve different parts of the Eve experience.
• Eve Uni – Between the services, the wiki, the forums and the classes/fleets, Eve Uni is a phenomenal experience for new players. In a game, a break from reality, a place to chill, it really is wonderful. AMC and WHC have been excellent and are highly recommended for their respective playstyles. If you have read this far, thank you. I hope you get as much joy from Eve Uni and the game as I have so far.

If you want to follow in Porsche’s steps, apply to EVE University today.

This post is pulled from a forum post by Porsche Amarr. See the original post here (forum section accessible to EVE University members and alumni only)