Of course this post cannot explain the whole game, but i thought to write a short compendium for new players, as they have come up recently quite often.

First the useful links!

http://eve-central.com/ Lists buy and sell prices throughout the universe, very useful market overview!

http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=MissionReports All PVE Missions listed, with enemies, recommended ships/resistances

http://eve.battleclinic.com/browseloadouts.php Browse shipfittings and ratings for them

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/PlanetaryInteraction A general wiki and the PI Section.

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Guides A compendium of guides (some are outdated, be careful!)

Tools:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=24359 EFT is a fitting tool which enables you to plan your Ships and its Components

http://evemon.battleclinic.com/ Evemon is a character planning tool - Plan your Skills, Implants, etc. with it

Of course there are way more tools (EveHQ, Pyfa,...), but that are the ones i use

Getting started:

First get a 21 days Trial from a fellow Eve player. This gives you 7 days of free play and if you activate the account, the refferer gets a plex. It is common that you split the profits from that Plex wich is worth 1 month of gametime.
You can use a Plex to upgrade your account from Trial to Full (you can buy it for FG from several players)!

Do the Tutorial! It gives you a good overlook of the Basics and a very good amount of money early on.

Another very important thing is to boost your Stats by getting Implants. +3 Implants are enough, you need the Cybernetics Skill to level 1, which is about 10 Minutes of Training time, but they save so much Training time in the future!

First you have to choose your path, i will try to cover 2 usual Beginner paths (Mining and Mission running) and 2 early money making strategies (PI and Salvaging).


Mining:

!Do not refine your Ore at the beginning, just sell it until you have the necesarry Skills/Standing or ask a friend. Else just sell the Ore!

If you already have a full account it is helpful to get a Cargo Ship (Hauler), the best choices are the Mammoth (low training time, good cargo) or the Iteron (High training time, best cargo of all haulers)
This will help you to get your ore to a Trading Hub (Jita, Dodixie, Rens, Amarr) to get the best prices for your ore, but this is of course completely optional (see eve-central if this is worth it)

There are quality differences between Asteroids:
http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Advanced_mining#Asteroid_Belts_.26_Ores


You should aim at first for a Venture, the Mining frigate. It is very easy to fly and has a very good orehold.

The skills you need to fly it:

Mining Frigate I (17 Minutes)

Your first venture should look like this:
----------------------------------------------------
[mid]
Survey Scanner II
Small Shield Booster I

[high]
Miner I
Miner I
-----------------------------------------------------
Only mine in 1.0 Security Sectors with this and look for Scordite, it is more valuable then Veldspar!

Then you should extend your skills a bit to highten your output significantly.

Mining Frigate II
Mining III
Mining Upgrades I
Shield Upgrades I
Drones I
Scout Drone Operation I
Drones II
Scout Drone Operation II
Mining Frigate III
(~15 hours training time)

Your Ship should look like this:
-----------------------------------------
[low]
Mining Laser Upgrade I

[mid]
Survey Scanner II
Small Shield Booster I
Small Shield Extender I

[high]
Miner I
Miner I

[Drones]
Hobgoblin I x2
-----------------------------------------
You can now freely mine in every sector with 0.5 Security and up. Sometimes there will be pirate frigates in the Asteroid Belts, but your drones will dispatch them quickly, while you can boost your shield if needed.

You can now Optimize your Ship by adding Miner II laser to it and get the Mining Laser Upgrade II (~4 days training time).

For that i would recommend training Mining and Mining Upgrades to IV, Mining Frigate to IV is optional, because you dont need the Skill anymore when you switch to Mining Barges.

The second and most important Mining Ship for Beginners is the Retriever, the skill Time goes up significantly as you will notice.

Skills after you completed Mining IV and Mining Laser upgrades IV:

Astrogeology I
Astrogeology II
Astrogeology III
Science IV
Industry I
Industry II
Industry III
Industry IV
Industry V
Mechanics III
Jury Rigging I
Mining Barge I (you can fly the retriever and the fitting at this point)
Mining Barge II
Mining Barge III
Astrogeology IV
Drones III
(~8,5 days Skilltime)

Your Fitting should look like this:
--------------------------------------------------------
[low]
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II

[mid]
Survey Scanner II

[high]
Strip Miner I
Strip Miner I

[rigs]
Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I

[Drones]
3x Hobgoblin I

(You can let go of the rig by training Electronics V)
-------------------------------------------------------------
This is a really good mining Ship and from that on you will know how to proceed to a mack or Hulk.

(Ninja-)Salvaging

If you have lazy Mission Runner friends, who dont want to salvage their lvl 4 Missions this is a very good source of income. Get a frigate or destroyer with Tractor Beam I and Salvager I and salvage those juicy Battleship Wrecks he left behind.

A little more tricky it gets with not friendly Mission Runners. You have to Scan someones Mission, hop in and Salvage the Wrecks without looting them. This is not a criminal Act and he cannot shoot you down for it. Sometimes he will warp out though and the remaining NPC Ships can shoot you down if you do not pay attention.

If you dont mind the risk, you can even loot the wrecks, because if he shoots you your potential friends in a fleet can shoot him for that. Most Mission runners wont take the risk to loose their ships worth hundreds of millions over a little bit of loot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uim--Yruo This is a guide for those who want to try Ninja Salvaging - but be warned, this will not get you any friends

Planetary Interaction

You need to have full account for PI and a hauler!

PI basically let you buidl mining Colonies on Planets that give you passive income and require very little skills to get started.

Skills i recommend to begin:

Remote Sensing III (later IV)
Planetology III
Interplanetary Consolidation III (later IV/V)
Command Center Upgrades III (later IV/V)

You should aim as a general Tip for Products that are used as a component for POS Fuel (like Coolant, Mechanical Parts, etc.)
Stick at first to P1, or P2 Products, the chains are easy and they give a good profit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeGtgoSBoRc a Video Guide how to setup Planets. Alsos the Link i provided in the first few lines is helpful.

This makes about 10-20 million a week per Planet in Highsec. In 0.0 i make about ~300 to 400 Mil a month by just getting P2 Products on 5 Planets (IC and CCU Skill at IV)


This Post is already really really long, i guess i make a "short" PVE Guide upon request

Also, if you need a 21 day Trial, Fitting advice, Skill planning or if you have others questions regarding eve just write me pm or post it

This post was edited by Socksdryer on May 25 2013 09:20am

sticky?

Good guide.

I would not advise beginners into mining unless they enjoy it.

Spend time doing missions and training up your support skills.

I also would highly recommend for pvpers to join brave newbies.
http://bravenewbies.org/wp/

This will get you into null teach you more in a week than can ever be learned in hisec and you'll have lots of fun and possibly scoop up some serious salvage loot for them iskies!

Mining is something nearly every new Eve Player wants to do, myself included. If everything is new, you can actually enjoy mining quite a bit for a while until it gets a bit dull. So i would not so strongly advise against mining in the beginning.
Especially the good rewards/time ratio can not be beaten by PVE when you must grind lvl 1 and 2 missions

Also i would never recommend a newbie to to into Low- or Nullsec. Explore the Highsec until you think it has nothing more to offer you, or until you think you have a good grasp of the game!

The Second part of the Guide:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Character Development / Skills:

Always Plan ahead! Skillpoints are the most valuable good you have in Eve, and while the game progresses really slow, you should take the time you have and use things like Evemon.

Get Implants! As i mentioned before get at least +3 Implants on all stats. While his seems expenisive at first, it is really really worth it. The Implants in the beginning should be:

Ocular Filter - Basic
Memory Augmentation - Basic
Neural Boost - Basic
Cybernetic Subprocessor - Basic
Social adaption Chip - basic (this one should be bought last, as you will not need Charisma Skills imidiatly)

Every Implant should be 8-9 mil ISK and you need to learn the skill Cybernetics I

When planning for your next Ship always train the Modules (the fitting first) before you learn the requirements of the Ship itself! Nothing is more frustrating then flying an underfitted or even empty ship

Choosing your first ships:

For PVE it is obvious that when you start researching some Cruisers, you should follow up with battlecruisers and battleship of the same race, so this is an important choice.

Some facts about the races:

Caldari: + Very few Skill requirements to be effective (!)
+ longest range of weapons (Missiles)
+ ammunition for every damage type
+easy to fly
+Shield tanks
+ ships are easy to fit
+ easiest and arguably the best PVE ships
- not very good in PVP with some exceptions
- lower damage then most ships of other races

Minmatar: + Very good in PVP
+ ammunition for every damage type
+ very agile ships
+ decent pve
+ shield tanks
- the ships have a... look you have to like

Amar: + laz0rs *pew pew*
+ cool looking ships
+ good pvp, decent pve
+ the nightmare (Caldari/Amar very good PVE Ship, but expensive)
- fixed damage types
- Armor Tanks

Gallente: + Dronemasters
+ Megathron looks really nice (sadly it looks just nice)
+ Dominix (navy issue) is a good ship
- fixed damage type of ammo
- Armor Tanks
- anything else is average to worst in space


To be fair, you can fly nearly any ship effective, just the amount of skills and ISK required to achieve that state varies alot. I am biased, i admit. You can ofc prove me wrong.

I am a dedicated Caldari Pilot, i like the missiles because they have a really long range and the animations are cool. Another big (!) plus is that those missiles hit for exactly the same damage on max range, like on close targets. On guns you have always a most effective Range and you lose alot of damage when enemies come closer or more far away. So you need to fly around alot.
I´ve put Armor tank as a minus, because that requires Low Slots, which are also responsible of carrying your damage mods. So you always have to choose between damage or tank on Armor based ships. On shield tank it is always: High - Wepaons, Mid - Tank, Low - Damage mods. Shield tanks also tend to be generally more easily fitted - powergrid wise.


PVE:

Some general hints:
- use Eve-Survival! http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=MissionReports
- Go into your Agent Finder (alt+e -> Agents -> Agent Finder) and look for a Security Agent lvl 1 near you.
- It would be good if lvl 2, 3, 4 Agents of the same Corporation (!) are nearby
- You can do Missions with friends (even when the Agent does not accept you yet, if your friend can accept the mission you share te Standing/bounty), the Agent standing increases faster as the Corporation Standing so it could be possible that the Agent can be faster accessible to you that way
- Standing needed for missions at that corp: lvl 1 (min -1 Standing), lvl 2 (min 1 Standing), lvl 3 (min 2 or 3 Standing, not exactly sure), lvl 4 (min 5 Standing)
- (!) Never accept Mission against te other Main Factions (Caldari, Minmatar, Gallente, Amar) (!)
This will lower the standing you have with those factions and you will not be able to enter their systems at some point
- you can spend your loyalty points on many equipments, i would recommend to go for faction ammo and sell it at your local trade hub, as the demand is high, you can expect steady and high prices for them.

- always use ammo and armor/shield hardeners specific to the NPCs you are fighting -> this only requires 5 seconds of your time and will improve the completion time and overall satisfaction of your PVE experience alot!

Here are damage types and weaknesses of the NPC Factions:

* NPC Damage types (damage they deal)

Angel Cartel - Kinetic / Explosive / Thermal
Blood Raider - Thermal / EM
Guristas - Kinetic / Thermal
Sansha's Nation - EM / Thermal
Serpentis/Sevens - Kin/Therm
Mercenaries - all 4
Mordus - Kin/Therm
Drones - all 4 - kin/therm
Amarr Navy - EM / Thermal
Caldari Navy - Kinetic / Thermal
Gallente Navy - Thermal / Kinetic
Minmatar Fleet - Thermal / Explosive
Ammatar Mandate - Thermal
Thukker Tribe - Thermal / Explosive - Explosive Missles

* NPC Resistance Weaknessses (damage they should receive)

Angel Cartel - Explosive
Blood Raider - EM
Guristas - Kinetic
Sansha's Nation - EM
Serpentis/Sevens - Kinetic
Mercenaries - Thermal
Mordus - Kinetic
Drones - EM / kinetic
Amarr Navy - EM / Thermal
Caldari Navy - Kinetic
Gallente Navy - Thermal
Minmatar Fleet - Thermal
Ammatar Mandate - Thermal
Thukker Tribe - Thermal

Fittings:

I will just go into Caldari fittings i have flown myself and know that they are good. For fittings of other races go to http://eve.battleclinic.com/browseloadouts.php

LvL 1 Missions:

Basically your Bantam works fine for lvl 1 (!), if you still want a better ship go for a Kestrel:

[Kestrel, PvE Kestrel]

[low]
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Ballistic Control System I

[mid]
F-b10 Nominal Capacitor Regenerator
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Small Clarity Ward Booster I

[high]
Upgraded 'Malkuth' Light Missile Launcher
Upgraded 'Malkuth' Light Missile Launcher
Upgraded 'Malkuth' Light Missile Launcher
Upgraded 'Malkuth' Light Missile Launcher

Small Bay Loading Accelerator I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I

lvl 2 Missions:

[Caracal, Caracal Mission]

[low]
Cross-linked Bolt Array I
Cross-linked Bolt Array I
Cross-linked Bolt Array I
Cross-linked Bolt Array I

[mid]
Large Shield Extender I
Large Shield Extender I
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I

[high]
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missil*** I, Mjolnir Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missil*** I, Mjolnir Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missil*** I, Mjolnir Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missil*** I, Mjolnir Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missil*** I, Mjolnir Heavy Missile

[rigs]
Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I


Hobgoblin I x2

lvl 3 Missions:

[Drake,lvl 3 PVE]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Cross-linked Bolt Array I
Cross-linked Bolt Array I

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
EM Ward Amplifier II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher, Scourge Heavy Missile
'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher, Scourge Heavy Missile
'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher, Scourge Heavy Missile
'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher, Scourge Heavy Missile
'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher, Scourge Heavy Missile
'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher, Scourge Heavy Missile

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I


Hobgoblin I x5

LvL 4 Missions:

[Scorpion Navy Issue, lvl 4 Missions]

[low]
Ballistic Control System II
Capacitor Flux Coil II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

[mid]
X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
'Stalwart' Particle Field Magnifier
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Field II
Cap Recharger II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Cap Recharger II

[high]
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
Drone Link Augmentor I

[rigs]
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I


Hobgoblin I x5
Hammerhead I x5


Fly safe!

Nice guide!

I would add some stuff myself but currently I am under the weather. If i end up feeling a bit better I might add to the guide.

For now I will leave this very nice flow chat

Cause you know, eve online is commonly known as spreadsheets online.

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/eve-wtd.jpg

(Im not importing it just because its ridiculously huge)

Please tell me where you fly your scorpion navy issue in hisec for level 4s. I want to pop you so hard.

Edit
This is why you fly in nullsec



This post was edited by soreius on May 26 2013 01:35am

I dont exactly know if you want to destroy my ship or make love to my trusted SNI....

No, i think the scorp that way is a decent fitting for beginners. At all skills lvl 5 it packs after patch ~600 dps with Hob I (after patchon 4.6.), and has against angels for example (2 Thermal, 1 Kinetic hardener) 730 sustained dps/922 burst dps tank (cap lasts ~ 3 minutes). And you can shoot at ~100 km range on cruisers because of the Target painter.

And all that for ~ 300-350 mio Isk (after prices go back) and theoretical ~24 days of pure skilltime without implants. Of course you need more skills then that, but i would like to see another ship, that cheap, that effective at less skilltime for lvl 4s

This post was edited by Socksdryer on May 26 2013 01:58am

not sure if bind, but iam missing a building tool.
http://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprints/
http://eveeye.com/undefined

i also thought about a stick

Yes, Very nice guide for starters. IMHO I think you are overstating that Gallente is average to worst in space.

Gallente Ships can also be effective, like the Dominix, Vindicator or the Myrmidon. But compared to ships of other races it is more difficult to fly them or you need way more skills.

I have never heard someone saying "man you have to try out the Vexor, that thing is sooo op!"

edit: and the drone thing. While i understand some people really like drones, the recent patch where NPCs change targets could make the use of drones as your main weapons, especially for beginners, a very frustrating experience.

This post was edited by Socksdryer on May 26 2013 07:43pm