Noobs Just Don’t Know How to Throw a Fit…

~or “Lessons Learned for Noobs continued”

"The time has come,” said The Bittervet,

To talk of many things:

Of Fits--and Ships--and Implant sets--

Of Brokers Fees--and Bling--

And why your ship is burning down--

And whether noobs have wings."

I have been having a right ‘ol fun time of it these past few days… I got my Venture where I want her for my skills. 2x Hobgoblin Is for defense, in the highs x2 Miner Is and a Salvager I and in the Mids, a Sm. Subordinate Screen Stabilizer I, Sm. CL-5 Emergency Shield Overload I Booster and a Limited 1MN Afterburner I, in the Low a Damage Control I and she is rigged with a Sm. Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer, a Sm. Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I and a Sm. Core Defense Field Extender.

She tanks the Rats w/o having to use the shield booster, that’s mainly there to buff up the shield after a rat fight and JIC, for any potential Player Interactions. The Hobgobs make short work of the rats in the backwater .5 that is Ossogur, and the salvager lets me profit from their loss…  =]

As for mining, in an Anon comment made in “Blingin’ th Burst” I said I was mining Golden Omber as it was the most profitable ore here. Anon said according to the chart I was using, I should be mining Kernite or Plag. And he was basically right, Kernite is more valuable per unit than all the Ombers… but you have to be in Amarr space and I dun’t like Amarr space… so meh.

As for what to mine, I did a RW test… and the results are below. All forms of Plagioclase are the most lucrative giving you over 1m ISK per trip, or 2m ISK an hour. Add to that the highly variable Rat Loot & Salvage, from over 1m ISK to… well, ‘0’, and this is at least a start on buying the basic books etc. one needs in those early weeks. And please gentle reader, keep in mind my char is not even 2 weeks old and has NO HELP ingame, ok?

OK, so while I was I getting my Venture squared away I had refit the Burst for pure ratting and for those occasions when I just felt like shootzing shit what moves a bit instead of rocks. I recently got skilled into some rigs I wanted and while in Rens I noticed that I could fly a Firetail… Now the Firetail frigate has a special place in my soul… for many the Rifter is/was considered the quintessential fighter frigate, but for me it has always been the Firetail.

“What a piece of work is a Firetail! How noble in design, how infinite in fitting ! In style and flight how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel of Death!”

Now Tur (the other Tur, my older brother), has one he’s had for like YEARS… and he’s never really used it… kinda like owning a collector car you never drive ya know? So I bought one and got her fitted up nicely for Rats and I have used her more in the last 2 days than ol’ Tur has used his in over 3 years!

Now while I have been going through this Dropout Noob Test I have tried to catch myself doing things based on my 4 years of experience in EVE, things a noob would not have a clue about… and I turns out fitting was one of those things. I am not anything like Ripard Teg or even my good friend Sov when it comes to fitting and the understanding of how all the various modules not only work but work together… the gestalt of a fit, how the sum of the parts makes a ship intrinsically better or worse for a given situation. Why and how some hulls, with their base Grid, CPU and role bonuses are great with ‘this’ fit and suck with ‘this’ other one.

But I have learned how to recognize a good fit when I see it and where to find good fits to work from. And ALL of my time working on my skills and skill queue, has been spent on getting the correct modules skilled up, not the ‘next’ hull… And this is different from when I was a noob. Back then my ONLY focus was on getting out of Frigates and into a Destroyer… all that other ‘stuff’ would come later. And it showed in the fits I tried to fly and fight with. And All my noob friends were the same way… the goal was not to fly WELL, it was to get a BIGGER ship… and in EVE, that aint how things work.

But this time, without thinking about it consciously, I knew I had to get the right skills for the MODS down first… get into better mods, guns, webs, shield mods… and RIGS! When I was new I didn’t even start to consider the importance of rigs until I had it rather pointedly pointed out to me. Oh, and Implants! I actually intentionally ignored implants when I was a noob… kept hearing how incredibly expensive they were and how bad it sucked to get podded with a head full if ‘spensive gear… “Eff that!” I thought, what a stupid idea… spending your hard earned ISK in the multi-millions for a few silly things that only make your killers howl with laughter when you DIAF… “Not throwing my ISK away on that stuff!” said I. Huh.

Until I learned how much they affect your SKILLING time… then I started learning about them and that not all implants are billions, or even in the millions… and that a basic set can cut hours off a long queue. This time I got a basic cheap full set as soon as I could… and it cut hours off my skill time… Noobs who are here on their own have no way to know about this… and I do not remember the tutorials I went through saying anything about implants… or the real importance of fitting and skilling into good fits, not just the next hull in the tree.

How I remember when I was a newbie about how ALL I wanted was get into that next hull… Then I’d be badass! Then I’d be pwning the rats and able to PvP!! So like everyone else I concentrated on the ship ladder…  Frig to Dessie to Cruiser to Battle Cruiser to BattleSHIP! And then on to the T2’s and the Faction hulls!! I also remember when I finally, proudly got into each new hull that I always had a helluva time fitting them. All T1, meta 4 or even meta 1 mods… even 200mm AC’s onna ‘Cane FFS. Why? Because like everyone else I thought the SHIP was the “thing”… and it’s not. The FIT is the “thing”, the ‘ship’ is just what you carry the Fit on… The Fit is what DOES everything, the ship is just a rack to hang it on.

And that was what led to this post. Ships need Fits, Fits needs Skills for Fitting, Skills need Implants to reduce Skilling time. Teaching our noobs the true importance of Ship Fitting, is as far as I can see, completely lacking in the tutorials. And I see it everyday in Rookie Help chan. Guys asking all about how to get into the next ship class faster. And I realized that this is the wrong way to go about it. That the importance of learning fitting is the key to everything ship related in EVE.

I’m thinking about going back and running the rest of the tutorials now… with an eye to seeing if I can come up with any ideas on how to teach our noobs what they really need to know… how to FIT the ships you fly, not work your ass off to get into ships you can’t Fly properly.

Fly Wreckless and see you in the Sky  =/|)=