Skill or Skills?

As a Capsuleer there is something you have to know and that is  the difference between skill and skills. When many people who start playing EVE Online and see that it takes time to train a skill to get into a ship or use mod, that think that once the 5 hrs of training time over thats it. They can use that mod like pro. I would count myself in that group. 

I remember as a young pilot training the Small Hybrid Weapons to 5 and thinking that after a 5 day train i was the King of Blasters. I fitted up frigate and took it out....engaged a target and about 30 secs I was back in my pod and back to the drawing board. I decided that the skill I needed wasn't Small Hybrid Weapons 5 but the Small Blaster Spec to 5 and then Gallente Frigates to 5. Each time I finished one I found that I was still lacking just one more to be great....boy was I wrong. 

In EVE you can have 5mil SP or 60mil SP but unless you have trained yourself in the ship and how to you use the mods you die. That is what it means to have skills. Pilots have to know their ships and how to fly them. As in the real world in New Eden it helps if you train with you ships. The more your train in with you ship and fly it the better you will be in it.

There are several ways to train yourself on EVE Online. The first is buy up a lot of ships and mods and go out and pew pew. This method is effective and I how I learned to PVP in EVE. But it will feel you with a lot of heartbreak as you lose ships. More than once I wanted to give up on EVE because I was losing more ships than I was killing. I encourage all that try to keep at it. 

The second method is to download the test server. First its a bit tricky to get on to. Second is you have to realize that your skill points in EVE and on the skill points won't match up. Depending on the last time two servers were mirrored you may be short a couple million SP. That is okay though, cause once you download the test server you can train you toon on there just like on the main, and if you follow Delvblogs to when there are Test event going on, on there you can get upto 1.5mil SP for free. I know several pilots whose toons on the test server have more SP than the ones on the main.  The test server offers a cheap way to test your skills and your ships, I would recommend it for anyone wanted to test out fits for Battle Cruiser class ships and above. For cruiser and lower the hulls are cheap enough the main server that you can use them there. 

In terms of getting skilled in how to fly the ship you just have to keep flying, fighting and dying. and that goes for either the test server or the main. Do not write of new fits the first time you take them out and die. Maybe you didn't test it for the right situation. Talk to other people who have been flying similar fits and how they used time. Ask if there minimum SP requirement to fly the fit. 

The last real thing that I can offer is find a training corp or a good group of guys to fly with. Have experienced pilots show you the ropes and help you out with fittings. I wish that this was something that I did when I first started PvPing in EVE. It would have saved me a lot of loses and wasted time training skills that I really didn't need at the time. 

I will do another post on skills in the near future to help guide some younger players.