Guide to Skill Learning in Eve Online

Skills affect on game play
Skills have a number of functions in Eve Isk. They dictate the type of ships, weapons, and equipment characters can use. Skills can also influence how efficiently characters can use their equipment. Furthermore, skills give the character access to certain advanced or highly specialized options in the game, ranging from advanced skills relating to researching improved weaponry to managing corporations, factories, and so forth.

skills and Character Death
When your ship is destroyed in EVE, you do not immediately die. You are encased in a goo-filled capsule commonly called a "pod" (see the story "The Jovian Wet Grave" for more on this). If this capsule is destroyed before it gets away to the safety of another system or a station, your character dies and your clone is activated. Being shot down in Eve Isk doesn't always result in the death of the character. Though not visible, your character is tucked away inside your pod, which is then nestled into the ship.

Most lost battles will result merely in the destruction of a player's ship, leaving him floating in a pod he can pilot back to a station where he has another ship stored. If the player does not have a back-up ship, a standard starter frigate will be given to him by the NPC insurance corporation.

To kill a character, the pod itself must be purposely destroyed once the ship is annihilated. The consequences of destroying a capsule are much more severe than destroying a ship. If a capsule is destroyed and the character killed, or "podded," he will reappear in a cloned replica of himself.

The quality of your clone determines how many skill points you retain when the clone is activated. You start the game with a very basic clone. Wise players keep their clones updated so that in the event that they are pod-killed, they lose no training time. When your clone is activated and you had more skill points than the clone was rated for, you stand to lose a percentage of the 'excess' skill points. This means you would have to train some skills back up to their previous levels, losing precious training time.

Character paths

You can split the paths a character selects in two main categories, combat and non-combat. Some of the more popular non-combat activities include: character advancement, exploration, trading, mining, research, manufacturing or numerous other money-making ventures. For more sociable creatures, the in-game chat channels offer an excellent means of engaging others in conversation and making new friends.