Flavor Text Leaves Bad Taste In Mouth

Every item in EVE has a "description" which is where rookie pilots tend to look to learn something about the item. However, this will often lead pilots astray, since the developers in their Icelandic wisdom have chosen to make the item names and descriptions heavy on sci-fi mumbo-jumbo -- "flavor text" -- and light on useful information. Learning how to dig through the cryptic terminology to glean useful information is an important early lesson in EVE. We'll try to give you some shortcuts.

Almost all ship equipment (a.k.a. modules) come in several variations. You can see all the variations of each item in-game, in the "variations" tab in the information window. Some items have many variations, but all fall into a few categories:

Tech 1: the base model. This is named something like "[type of module] I". In the attributes tab each variation shows a "meta level". The base model is meta level 0. Higher is (almost always) better and more expensive. These items commonly drop from NPCs and can also be made by players, and can be traded on the market.

"Named": many items have (up to 4) "named" variations. These offer some combination of easier fit (less powergrid and/or CPU) and more effectiveness than base tech 1. Meta levels 1-4 are the "named" variations and also considered tech 1. Each increase in meta level is an increase in the benefit, rarity, and cost on the market. They are called "named" because their names are especially heavy on flavor text ("Phased Monopropellant Hydrazine Boosters" is a named microwarp drive) and often have no obvious relationship to what they actually do. The description is exactly the same as the description of the base tech 1 item. These items only drop from NPCs and cannot be manufactured, but they can still be traded on the market. They have the same skill requirements as the base tech 1.

Tech 2: most items have a "tech 2" variation. This is named something like "[type of module] II". These are usually more difficult to fit but significantly more effective than the tech 1 variation -- sometimes even more effective than the best (meta level 4) named variation. They are shown as meta level 5. In some cases the tech 2 variation is worse than the best named variation despite being higher meta level, but it is often (not always) cheaper. Tech 2 items are manufactured by other players and do not drop from NPCs, and can be traded on the market. Tech 2 items have higher skill requirements than tech 1.

Faction: some items have "faction" variants which can be purchased from NPC factions such as the Caldari Navy in exchange for loyalty points earned from missions, or manufactured by players who purchase blueprints from the factions. These items are like named items, but the benefits are even better, better than tech 2 in most cases. They are only available on contract or through the faction store (not on the regular market) and are very expensive. It is common to try to scam buyers for these modules who don't understand the contract system, so be careful. These have the same skill requirements as tech 1, so they can be quite appealing if you haven't trained enough for tech 2.

Complex/Commander: certain items have additional variants which are dropped by hidden NPC combat complexes and the bosses inside the complexes, or in some cases by rare-spawn NPCs in 0-security asteroid belts. These are like faction modules, but yet another level of goodness (and cost).

I highly recommend using the EVEMon item browser to help sort this out. You easily view the items grouped by category, search for a specific item, compare it to similar items, eliminate certain variations (like faction gear), and so on.

Ships themselves have the same concept of "variations", with slightly different meaning:

Tech 1: the standard ship types. There are multiple tech 1 ships for each race in each class of ship (i.e. Caldari Cruiser) which are not variations of each other. They can be made by players and are available on the market. Sometimes players sell fitted ships, and these are only available by contract or trade, not on the market; be careful as it is easy to scam these off-market trades.

Named: there is no concept of "named" (or "complex" or "commander") variations for ships.

Tech 2: specializations of the standard ship types. Unlike for modules, a single tech 1 ship can have multiple tech 2 variations. The tech 2 ships are highly specialized for a specific function and have much greater skill requirements than their tech 1 ancestors. They are made by players and available on the market.

Faction: some ships have faction variants which are to the base tech 1 ship what faction modules are to the base tech 1 module: better, but a lot more expensive, and only available from NPC faction stores or on contract. Be very careful buying a faction ship on contract as it is extremely easy to create a misleading contract that looks like a faction ship but is not.

In a future post we'll explain some of the other often-mystifying ways items are organized in EVE, including items designed for certain ship classes (a.k.a. what's the difference between "Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners" and "Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters"?), sub-groups of related items within each size (a.k.a. what's the difference between an "electron blaster" and a "neutron blaster"?), and common sub-types of ships (a.k.a. what's the difference between an e-war frigate and a mining frigate?).

The Mythical (Lack Of) Level Cap

Probably the most common objection I hear from people considering getting into EVE is its lack of level cap. "If there's no level cap," the objection goes, "how will I ever catch up with someone that's been playing for 4 years?" Problem is, that supposes levelling works like most other games, and it's really radically different.

In EVE almost everything has diminishing returns. Whether you're talking about spending 10x the ISK on a ship that's 20% better than the one you have, or spending 10x as long to train a skill to get 5% better at something than the previous 5% took, it's pervasive. It even applies to (most) stacking. Put on 2 modules of the same type into a ship, and the bonus is less than 2x that of a single module and so on.

Training time is no different. Older characters simply don't get as much out of N time training as a young character will. This is due to a few main factors:

• Skill training time is exponential, but the benefits are linear. Say a skill buffs something by 5%. If training it to level 1 takes an hour, level 2 will take about 6x that (6 hours), and level 3 another 6x that (1.5 days), and so on.
• Every skill caps at level 5. So in a real sense there is a "level cap" in that, at whatever thing a skill makes you better at, you'll never be better than a newbie by more than a "level 5's worth" of that skill. What's more, you can get to level 4 a lot easier than level 5, so it's pretty easy for a newbie to narrow the gap between himself and an old character by just one level's worth of a skill.
  
• Better skills have a higher "rank". Don't confuse level with rank. Rank just means it's a difficult skill and multiplies the training time. High-rank skills can take months to train to level 5, for only an incremental benefit.

When it comes to PvP, the "magic moment" comes when you can fly a couple hulls at close to the level of someone with all level 5 skills relevant to that particular hull could. For something like a cruiser, you could conceivably reach that in a couple months. Boom, in a couple months, you can hold your own in a 1v1 with a 4-year-old in the same hull. For a battleship that's probably more like 4-6 months depending on how focused you are. That time works about right for me, since I take 4-6 months to level cap in most traditional MMOs too. I know hard-core grinders will take less time, and as a result hard-core grinders are often put off by EVE's training system. I personally welcome the opportunity to go do something other than grinding with my spare time, like have a sex life.

Now let me not set expectations too high here. You do feel pretty gimped your first month or two playing EVE if you try to dive right into PvP. But that has at least as much to do with:

• Player skill (i.e., your personal, real-life skill playing the game). EVE PvP is hard, and experienced players will be a lot better at it than you.
• Metagame knowledge. Someone that's PvP'ed for 2 years will be able to take the same (seemingly crappy) frigate that your newbie pilot can fly, and fit it 10x better than you can. He'll also know what engagements to commit to and which to run away from with that frigate.
• Finding PvP in the first place. Since PvP is free-form in EVE, being able to find PvP that's likely to be fun is a skill unto itself. And it's harder when you can fly fewer ship types. And don't know your way around. And don't even really have a good sense what "fun" PvP is, etc...

My advice to a budding PvPer is to dive right in, and know you'll get worked over hard core for a long time. It helps if you can get in a gang with experienced PvPers that can give you pointers and reassure you that getting blown up constantly just means you're new, not that you suck. But it can work totally going it solo too, you just have to be patient and learn from all your mistakes. As you get more comfortable with the game, you'll get a better sense what you want to train, and eventually you'll hit that "magic moment" where you stop doing "Show Info" on every potential opponent to check their age...because you don't care anymore.