EVE Online X Doctor Who

Live Event Guide for New Players (Whovians)

Introduction

EVE Online is a spaceship MMO created by CCP Games that has been deemed the “hardest game” and “spreadsheets in space”. All of the descriptors in the world will not fully give you the EVE experience, you have to witness it for yourself. Just know that EVE takes every traditional video game intuition and throws it out the window.

This guide should help you jump in and get to the content you want with as little pain as possible. The focus will be on the Doctor Who live event, specifically the exploration side.

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Account creation

When starting EVE Online, use a referral link when creating your account. It does not matter who’s referral link you use, just please use one. You get free skill points (similar to experience) with a referral link and it will set you ahead of the curve. If you created an account and then found this guide, it’s almost always worth it to recreate with a referral link. If you have an old account, it’s still better to create another with the referral link. Even if you have old characters because “I tried EVE one time 7 years ago”, just make a new account with a referral link and start fresh.

If you need a link, you can use mine here: https://www.eveonline.com/signup?invc=a70fb12d-01af-4ae4-b51c-94ee860b9d2f

Sign-up for EVE Online through their website (https://www.eveonline.com/) or Steam. Most would recommend against Steam, but if you’re an avid Steam player then no harm in using it.

When creating your account, you will decide on an account name. This is NOT your player name. Keep your account name private. Do not share it with anyone. Nobody should ever ask for your account name.

Account names are within the white box in the launcher, as shown in the screenshot below.

After creating your account, register it for two factor authentication (2FA). It will help keep your account safe.

Character Creation

You can spend as much or as little time in character creation as you’d like. Clothing can be changed at any point while playing, so do not stress if you don’t like the clothing options. You can resculpt your character if you want different features. The things that cannot be changed are the gender and name.

Your starting Empire (Gallente, Caldari, Amarr, Minmatar) do not affect things. Any race can train any skills and the initial skill trains are relatively short. Roleplayers will focus more on a character’s history, but anything can be changed via RP elements.

I’ve noticed many newer players will spend loads of time on character creation. There is no harm in doing so, just know that it’s not required if you don’t want to dedicate time to it and that most of the options won’t harm you regardless of what you pick.

Tutorial

EVE Online’s tutorial has been revamped continuously. In its current iteration, it does well to teach you, as a new player, the UI and the default tools to use in most circumstances. Follow the tutorial and you will be okay.

The tutorial should teach you about skill points (experience) and skill training (“leveling up”). These are critical to what you can and cannot do in EVE. Unlike other MMOs, skill training is passive and is happening real time. If you log off, you should be training skills. If you quit the game, you should be training skills. If you want to try something new, you should train skills to do it.

This guide will work with the bare minimum a new player has for skills, knowing that time will be the “gatekeeper” to trying new ships to work with the content. It will focus on handholding to allow you to join the game as smoothly as possible and enjoy your time.

If you’d like a skill plan, see the appendix for an alpha-friendly 7 day one.

Full Tutorial by Nth Dimensional: From New Account TO Ready for Dr. Who Intersteller Convergence! – Full Detailed Walkthrough

Career Agents

After the tutorial, you will be referred to Career Agents. Career Agents are an old part of EVE that acted as the initial tutorial. If you manage to find them and try the missions on your own, you will see why CCP has given so much focus on an actual tutorial. Career agents will tell you WHAT to do, but not HOW to do it, leading most folks to either just give up or seek outside tools.

Easiest way to find the Career Agents is pressing ALT+M (assuming you haven’t remapped your hotkeys). This will bring up “The Agency” window as shown below.

Click on Agents & Missions and Career Agents on the far right.

This should show you 5 Career Agents (you’ll have to scroll to see the 5th) that are closest to you related to your starting Empire. If you start the game, finish the tutorial, and do nothing else, these should be within 5 jumps of you.

For the Doctor Who live event, CCP has shared that exploration is one key activity. Exploration is using probes to identify unknown signatures, which usually leads to hacking to obtain rare loot. I highly recommend trying the exploration career agent to prepare.

As of writing this guide, we do not know exactly what the event sites will look like. Therefore, I’ve walked through some basics and included guides and tutorials which should help anyone regardless of the details of the event sites. I will update them as we discover more.

EVE University Wikipedia page: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Career_Agents

Explorer Career Agent: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Explorer

Official CCP Tutorial: EVE Online – Unlock the Mysteries of Scanning [Tutorial]

Another Official CCP Tutorial: EVE Online | Academy – How to Scan Cosmic Signatures

Scanning Tutorial: Exploration Character 04 – Basics of Probe Scanning (EVE Online)

Fittings and Fits

Regardless of your starting Empire, you can instantly use any of the exploration fits in this guide. Fits or fittings on a ship are similar to gear loadout in other MMOs. Unlike other MMOs though, there is no “best in slot” for EVE Online. This is due to the sandbox nature of the game, where the “best” items won’t always make you the best pilot.

This section will go into how to get the fit you need and understand how it works. You will not need any external program (no Pyfa or EFT) and we will not overwhelm you with endless amounts of information. Fits in EVE are something which lead to endless debates amongst the players. Everyone has a different opinion and preference and all “rules” have exceptions to them.

You can find your current ship’s fit via the ALT+F hotkey (below).

Using the wrench icon on the left, you can access fittings.

EVE Online has “community fittings” which are pre-populated based on player feedback to CCP. These aren’t the perfect fits, but they are ideal for newer players trying out the game. All of the Exploration fits are able to be used by a brand new player.

Below, you can see the Heron and Starter Exploration. It shows an X, but the modules which cannot be used immediately are not even required to properly use the ship. You can also see the Venture and the Starter Mining fit, which has the checkmark, meaning there are no limits on the fit. My character for the screenshot is Caldari, but other Empires have similar results.

Fits can be dragged/dropped in game to share. You can post them in EVE mails and in chats and others can share them with you. If you save them, they show up in the same area, though not marked as a Community Fit.

Clicking on a fit name in a chat or in the menus shown above will open the fit for easy viewing. See below.

Here is an easy way to see the entire fit and what you may not be able to use. In this example, my brand new character can use everything except for the 2x Scan Rangefinding Array I. These are not used directly for probing and hacking (exploration activities), but they will help make it easier.

If you open a fit and it shows all checkmarks, then it might mean you can’t use the ship. In this instance, if you’re not a Caldari character, it would show a red X on the fitting menu but not within the fit itself (by the Heron name, there’s no X or checkmark).

For any of the starting Empire’s frigates, it’s a 34 minute train with a fresh character. This shouldn’t be necessary unless you absolutely love the look of another ship.

Using this menu, you can select the “Buy All” option if you are in a market hub to easily buy all the items needed for a ship. If you have the items already, you can click “Fit” to fit them to your current ship. You must be an empty ship for the “Fit” to work properly.

This fit shows as 1,400,000 ISK worth of parts for my character. However, we will recommend cheaper options to make it inexpensive for you to get into the content.

If we were to remove all the unnecessary items for the ship, it shows a value of < 900,000.

It also shows all items to be used immediately. The Core Probes Launcher and Scanner Probes are used for identifying signatures. The Relic and Data Analyzer are for hacking sites. And the Microwarpdrive helps with navigation.

Based on the tutorials above related to Exploration, Probing, and Hacking, these are the only things you should need at a minimum. Other items help make it easier or safer, but we’re focused on getting to the content ASAP.

There are many community tools to find and use fits. One of the big ones is EVE Workbench.

Link: https://www.eveworkbench.com

If you find a fit you like, you can always copy the fit and bring it into EVE with a few clicks.

Most tools will have the “Export” feature.

You should be able to highlight and copy the text in the Export window. In EVE, in the fitting window (ALT+F), you can see the “Import/Export” option in the bottom left.

If you click “Import from Clipboard” after copying the text, it will show in game as a fit.

The same can be done from other tools, as well. If you find a YouTube video you like and the creator puts the text in the Comments, you can also copy from there to import into the game. To make it easy, we’ve linked many fits in the Appendix of this guide.

Additionally, here are some guides around fitting.

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Fitting_ships

EVE Online | Academy – Fitting your ship

EVE Online – Ship Fitting [Tutorial]

Eve Online: Tutorial for Complete Beginners! – Ep 7: Ship It! Fittings & Comparison Tool

EVE Online Tutorial: Beginners Guide To Ship Fitting

Finding the Event Sites

Currently, we are unsure of how to find the event sites. In prior live events, we were able to find the sites via the Agency (ALT+M). Below is a screenshot during the Triglavian Invasion event. We expect something similar with the Doctor Who crossover.

We will update it when the event is live and we have more detail with screenshots and a guide.

Many community members, myself included, may run public fleets for the live event. To find the public fleets in game, you go to the Agency window (ALT+M) and click “Fleet Up!”.

Here you will be able to see all public fleets and decide which you want to join, if any.

It’s worth noting that public fleets are still subject to backstabbing and scamming. If something sounds too good to be true, then it might be. Be sure you’re ready to lose whatever ship you fly in a fleet, public or otherwise.

Completing the Event Sites

This is still TBD. The event is not live so we are unable to advise on the strategy. We intend to upload screenshots and a step-by-step guide.

Conclusion

Congrats on making it to the end! Hopefully this guide made your introduction to EVE as smooth as possible. I hope you’re able to enjoy the game and find what you’re looking for! This is just the beginning of your EVE adventure!

Big shoutout to folks who maintain new player guides. I’ve used lots of items on YouTube and Google to help flesh this out. There also have been plenty of EVE Partners who I have leveraged resources from, as well!

Rushlock – https://twitter.com/rushlock

Nth Dimensional – https://www.twitch.tv/nth_dimensional

EVE Workbench – https://www.eveworkbench.com/

EVE University – https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/EVE_University

Appendix

A. Common Terms Explained

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/EVE_Lexicon

AWOX – a term to describe someone who backstabs a player via blowing up their ship

CCP – the game developer of EVE Online

CCPlease – a term players use when begging

Concord – NPC police, they do not prevent crime, only punish it

EVE – EVE is not an acronym, just the name of the game

FC – fleet commander, the individual running a fleet

Fitting or fit – the items (modules) on a ship, similar to a gear loadout in traditional MMOs

Fleet – a group of players actively flying together, similar to a “party” or “raid”

GM – game masters, CCP employees who enforce rules in the game

High sec – space where Concord has control

ISD – player volunteers who help CCP with various tasks, including new players

ISK – the currency in EVE Online

J-space – another name for wormholes

Jita – the largest player market in the game

K-space – another name for non-wormhole space

Logi – logistics, can be used to describe the act of moving assets in the game or the act of repairing allied ships

Low sec – space where Concord is not present but faction police are, pirates reign supreme

NPSI – not purple, shoot it; usually a community driven fleet where folks focus on helping those in their fleet, rather than who they are allied with

Null sec – space that is majority controlled by players with no rules

Pearl Abyss – the investors of CCP

tweetfleet – the phrase used in social media, use #tweetfleet on Twitter and Instagram to find the EVE Online community

B. Additional Fits

[Heron, CALDARI INTRO FIT] Nanofiber Internal Structure I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Relic Analyzer I 5MN Microwarpdrive I Data Analyzer I Core Probe Launcher I Core Scanner Probe I x8	[Imicus, GALLENTE INTRO FIT] Nanofiber Internal Structure I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Relic Analyzer I 5MN Microwarpdrive I Data Analyzer I Core Probe Launcher I Core Scanner Probe I x8
[Probe, MINMATAR INTRO FIT] Nanofiber Internal Structure I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Relic Analyzer I 5MN Microwarpdrive I Data Analyzer I Core Probe Launcher I Core Scanner Probe I x8	[Magnate, AMARR INTRO FIT] Nanofiber Internal Structure I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Nanofiber Internal Structure I Relic Analyzer I 5MN Microwarpdrive I Data Analyzer I Core Probe Launcher I Core Scanner Probe I x8

C. Intro Skill Plan

This is an optional skill plan to help you progress as you’re doing the exploration sites. It’s not required and you can modify it as you see fit. To bring it into the game, copy everything in the box below based on your starting Empire:

CALDARI
Spaceship Command 1
Science 1
Science 2
Science 3
Astrometrics 1
Mechanics 1
CPU Management 1
Survey 1
Survey 2
Survey 3
Archaeology 1
CPU Management 2
Power Grid Management 1
Power Grid Management 2
Electronics Upgrades 1
Electronics Upgrades 2
Electronics Upgrades 3
Hacking 1
Hacking 2
Hacking 3
Astrometric Rangefinding 1
Astrometric Rangefinding 2
Astrometrics 2
Astrometrics 3
Archaeology 2
Archaeology 3
Astrometric Acquisition 1
Astrometric Acquisition 2
Energy Grid Upgrades 1
Energy Grid Upgrades 2
Caldari Frigate 1
Caldari Frigate 2
Caldari Frigate 3
Caldari Frigate 4

GALLENTE
Spaceship Command 1
Science 1
Science 2
Science 3
Astrometrics 1
Mechanics 1
CPU Management 1
Survey 1
Survey 2
Survey 3
Archaeology 1
CPU Management 2
Power Grid Management 1
Power Grid Management 2
Electronics Upgrades 1
Electronics Upgrades 2
Electronics Upgrades 3
Hacking 1
Hacking 2
Hacking 3
Astrometric Rangefinding 1
Astrometric Rangefinding 2
Astrometrics 2
Astrometrics 3
Archaeology 2
Archaeology 3
Astrometric Acquisition 1
Astrometric Acquisition 2
Energy Grid Upgrades 1
Energy Grid Upgrades 2
Gallente Frigate 1
Gallente Frigate 2
Gallente Frigate 3
Gallente Frigate 4

MINMATAR
Spaceship Command 1
Science 1
Science 2
Science 3
Astrometrics 1
Mechanics 1
CPU Management 1
Survey 1
Survey 2
Survey 3
Archaeology 1
CPU Management 2
Power Grid Management 1
Power Grid Management 2
Electronics Upgrades 1
Electronics Upgrades 2
Electronics Upgrades 3
Hacking 1
Hacking 2
Hacking 3
Astrometric Rangefinding 1
Astrometric Rangefinding 2
Astrometrics 2
Astrometrics 3
Archaeology 2
Archaeology 3
Astrometric Acquisition 1
Astrometric Acquisition 2
Energy Grid Upgrades 1
Energy Grid Upgrades 2
Minmatar Frigate 1
Minmatar Frigate 2
Minmatar Frigate 3
Minmatar Frigate 4

AMARR
Spaceship Command 1
Science 1
Science 2
Science 3
Astrometrics 1
Mechanics 1
CPU Management 1
Survey 1
Survey 2
Survey 3
Archaeology 1
CPU Management 2
Power Grid Management 1
Power Grid Management 2
Electronics Upgrades 1
Electronics Upgrades 2
Electronics Upgrades 3
Hacking 1
Hacking 2
Hacking 3
Astrometric Rangefinding 1
Astrometric Rangefinding 2
Astrometrics 2
Astrometrics 3
Archaeology 2
Archaeology 3
Astrometric Acquisition 1
Astrometric Acquisition 2
Energy Grid Upgrades 1
Energy Grid Upgrades 2
Amarr Frigate 1
Amarr Frigate 2
Amarr Frigate 3
Amarr Frigate 4

Then, in EVE Online, use the shortcut ALT+X to access the skills page. It should look something like the image below, which is my personal character’s current skill plan:

Go to Skill Plans > Personal Plans > Create Plan

In the “hamburger” menu, select “Import skills from Clipboard”

It should look something like the screen below:

Fill out the name and click “Save” which should show as blue.

Congrats! You’ve imported a skill plan! If you copied the plan based on your character’s starting Empire, you should be able to start training immediately.

If you want to use all of the skills right away, you can immediately train via the 1,000,000 skill points given from a referral account. It only takes ~154,000 out of the 1,000,000, leaving you with an extra 846,000 if you want to use those elsewhere. Otherwise, there is no harm training those skills in real time.