The Newbie Guide - Prioritizing Support Skills

I got myself into way more than I bargained for.

It started with a simple post, a short and an extended skill plan for PvP, focusing on Minmatar ships. I was going to follow that up with some popular, tried and true fits for Rifters, Thrashers and Hurricanes.

Except, the questions that were being asked. What are support skills? We sometimes forget that this is not self-explanatory. So I followed up with a reasonably complete list of the support skills.

But it didn't stop there either. More questions. How do we prioritize the skills? There are so many, what should a newbie concentrate on. What are most important getting to level V? What can be left at level IV?

So, here is another post. Which will probably lead to more questions, and another post in a couple days.

Where to begin though? I struggled with this yesterday. I think the best way to begin, is to dissect the skill plans I created previously. There's the basic skill plan, and the extended skill plan. The basic is meant to get a new pilot up and running, with a fairly extensive set of skills in under two weeks. Some people suggested skills for the skill plan, like the one fellow who was adamant that Advanced Weapon Upgrades III (which requires Weapon Upgrades V) had to be in the basic plan. Again, the point of the basic skill plan is to get a new player flying with a good assortment of useful skills in under two weeks, not six weeks. A new player wants to be active and useful as quickly as possible. They don't want to be cooling their heels waiting for long skills to complete.

These first fifteen skills will take about four days to train. A couple of them might already be at level III, some at level I or II. While waiting these skills to complete, learn the game via the tutorial missions that are presented when you first log in to your character. At the end of this short skill plan, you'll be able to fly a Thrasher.

Minmatar Frigate III
Small Projectile Turret III
Propulsion Jamming III
Afterburner III
High Speed Maneuvering III
Mechanics III
Hull Upgrades III
Repair Systems III
Electronics III
Engineering III
Electronics Upgrades III
Gunnery III
Targeting III
Spaceship Command III
Destroyers III

You'll want to train Minmatar Frigate III, Small Projectile Turret I, Propulsion Jamming I, High Speed Maneuvering I, Mechanics I, Hull Upgrades II, Repair Systems I, Electronics II, Engineering II, and Electronics Upgrades I as quickly as possible. In about twelve hours (assuming you created a Minmatar character) you'll be ready to fly your first PvP capable Rifter. You'll be able to equip projectile weapons, a microwarpdrive, a warp disruptor and a stasis webifier, a damage control unit, an armor repairer (or  100mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates), and a co-processor (which will likely be necessary, if you're short on CPU for the fitting, until you increase your fitting support skills at a later time, which I'll discuss shortly.) That gives you a straight up PvP capable frigate in a fairly standard fit.

Here's your PvP Rifter:

[Rifter, PvP Newbie]
Damage Control I
Small Armor Repairer I (or 100mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I)
Co-Processor I

1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Warp Disruptor I
Stasis Webifier I

125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Here is your PvP Thrasher:

[Thrasher, PvP Newbie]
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Damage Control I

Limited 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Stasis Webifier I
Warp Disruptor I

125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

So, now you're flying your first destroyer, the Thrasher. What do you do now? You could race into large ships and larger weapons, head straight towards large projectile weapons and battleships, but you'll end up being pretty piss-poor at PvP. You'll have trouble fitting your ships. You'll have limited range and targeting. Limited mobility. You'll have reduced capacitor during fights. Lack of ship rigging. Simply put, you'll have trouble competing.

This is where support skills come into play. For this reason, I suggest working your way into large ships at a slower pace. Work first on all those auxilliary skills, thus you remain competitive as you work your way towards the larger hulls. There really is no rush, because in any fleet composition, all hull sizes are useful and necessary. A battleship gang is not much of a gang without support frigates and cruisers, and that's the role you, as a newbro, will be playing for awhile.

EVEMon and EFT

There are two third-party programs that I consider essential for every player. EVEMon and EFT (or Pyfa).

EVEMon allows you to manage skill plans. You hook your character into EVEMon via API keys. It will tell you projected times to completion. It will suggest attribute remappings to speed your skill plans to completion. EVEMon will do far more than all this (evemails, notifications, tracking market orders, market transactions, contracts, etc.), but it's main utility is aiding the player in creating skill plans.

EFT and Pyfa are ship fitting tools. Again, you hook your character into the program via API keys. Using character data, it will assist you in creating ship fittings allowable with your skills and implants. It's a convenient method of building out fits offline. You can then import your fittings back into EVE Online. Take the two fits above and start playing with them, especially as your skills start to increase.

Support Skills List

Remember to check the Newbie Guide - What Are Support Skills? post for a complete list of support skills. You can refer to it as reference while reading the rest of this article.

I've listed the various categories below in order of importance. I feel, for example, that fitting support skills should be given priority over capacitor support skills, which should be given priority over navigation support skills. This is all just a guideline though. Your personal preferences will dictate what skills are most important to you and in what order.

Fitting Support Skills

Every ship has some amount of powergrid and CPU. Every module requires some amount of powergrid and CPU. Therefore not every combination of module can be fit to a ship. And what a seasoned player might be able to fit, a new player might not be able too. The seasoned player might be able to fit more powerful weaponry, whereas the new player might have to fit less powerful weaponry.

Fitting support skills either increase the powergrid and CPU available on a ship, or they decrease the CPU and powergrid needs of modules. Fitting support skills give you more leeway and more options in fitting a ship.

There are modules that will increase powergrid and CPU, but using these means giving up a slot for something more useful, such as an armour or shield or navigation module. Fitting modules should only be used where absolutely necessary. In most cases, viable fits can be made without them. Look into Micro Auxiliary Power Cores and Co-Processors.

There are rigs that will increase powergrid and CPU. These are more commonly used than modules, and usually preferable to modules. Look into Ancillary Current Routers and Processor Overclocking Units.

Implants can also be used to increase powergrid and CPU capacity. These fit into implant slot six, thus you'll have to make the choice between a powergrid enhancing implant or a CPU enhancing implant. Look into Zainou 'Gypsy' Electronics and Inherent Implants 'Squire' Engineering.

The two most important fitting skills are Electronics and Engineering. These should be trained to level V as soon as possible. These skills offer the most immediate increases to CPU and powergrid. They are also quick the train.

If you intend to PvP, then your ships will usually have a number of weapon systems. Destroyers, for instance, usually equip seven weapons. Skills that decrease weapon powergrid and CPU needs are thus important. You can get a lot of powergrid and CPU savings, because of the number of weapons you will generally fit to a PvP ship. So look to train Weapon Upgrades and Advanced Weapon Upgrades for those savings. Weapon Upgrades is a skill that should be raised to level V. After that, it is no hurry to raise Advanced Weapon Upgrades beyond level III.

If you plan to focus on shield early on, then Shield Upgrades will be an important skill for you. Getting it to level IV would be in your interests.

There are no armour skills that reduce powergrid and CPU requirements.

The two fitting skills with the least importance, you can save training them for later, based on where you wish to take your character, are Energy Grid Upgrades and Electronics Upgrades. (The latter skill has importance if you wish to get into covert ops vessels.)

Capacitor Support Skills

Every ship has a battery that every module draws power from. This is called the capacitor (or cap). The capacitor is in a constant state of being drained and charged. If your capacitor is drained, modules will shut down, or you may not be able to start modules without enough capacitor. Warping relies on initial an capacitor amount, which means you may not be able to complete the total distance of a long warp, or in the worst case, you may not be able to initiate the warp at all.

If you're a PvEer, it is usually beneficial to come up with fits that have a stable capacitor usage, which means your modules can run continuously without ever completely draining your capacitor. In many cases, being able to create a cap stable fit will require high capacitor support skills.

PvP fits are usually quite difficult to make capacitor stable, and in a lot of circumstances, a cap stable fit is much inferior to a cap unstable fit. High capacitor support skills will mean less time managing your capacitor during a fight.

Energy Management and Energy Systems Operation are your two most important capacitor skills. The first increase the amount of capacitor available to your ship. The second increases the recharge rate of your capacitor. These are quick trains and should be elevated to level V as soon as possible.

The rest of the capacitor support skills, you can probably leave at level IV for quite awhile, as you focus on other areas of your skill plan.

If you plan to focus on projectile weapons, then the Controlled Bursts skill should be way down on your priority list. Projectile weapons do not use capacitor. Now if you plan to use lasers, Controlled Bursts should be very high on your list of capacitor support skills. Same with Hybrid weapons, but to a slightly lesser degree.

Navigation Support Skills

You want to be as fast and maneuverable as possible. It gives you far more options during a fight. That said, the three most important navigation support skills, the ones I would get to level V most quickly, would be Navigation, Evasive Maneuvering, and Acceleration Control.

Targeting Support Skills

The more enemies you can target, and the faster you can target them, the more options you have during the course of a fight, as the distances and shape of the fight alters over time. Being able to target out to greater distances also affords you greater options.

Targeting to level III/IV is probably sufficient for quite a long while. Long-Range Targeting and Signature Analysis can be trained to level IV and left there while you focus elsewhere. Multitasking is a specialty skill and you can leave it untrained until you really require it.

Weapon Support Skills

Whether you plan to initially focus on gunnery, missiles or drones, I feel all the support skills are important. I trained them all to level V as soon as I was finished with the support skills above. The Turret Control Elite certificate was an exceptionally important group of skills for me.

This entire area of support skills will come down personal preference. But if you're a PvPer, it will and should rank pretty highly. Your success in PvP will depend greatly on your support skills.

Defense Support Skills

Mechanics to level V is all-important, whether you wish to focus on shield or armor ships to begin with.

If you intend to focus on armor ships initially (generally Amarr and Gallente hulls), then Hull Upgrades to level V is very important. Repair Systems can probably be left at level III or IV while you train elsewhere.

If you intend to focus on shield tanking (generally Caldari and Minmatar hulls), then Shield Management to level V is essential. Shield Compensation and Shield Operation can be left at level III/IV while you train other areas of your skill plan.

Rigs

To use rigs (specialized modules that give you further bonuses, along with a penalty, to certain areas of your ship, whether weaponry, navigation or defenses.) To equip rigs, you'll need Mechanics III and Jury Rigging III. From there you can train for specific rigs types via Armor Rigging, Astronautics Rigging, Drones Rigging, Electronic Superiority Rigging, Energy Weapon Rigging, Hybrid Weapon Rigging, Launcher Rigging, Projectile Weapon Rigging, and Shield Rigging.

Overheating

Overheating modules is an important aspect of PvP, so training Thermodynamics I will do you well.

Conclusions

First of all, make sure to read all the comments. There'll be disagreement with my methodology. And that's cool. My opinions on the matter are by no means the only words on the subject. You'll likely gain a lot of additional insight via the comments, and you'll be able to build out your own priorities through the additional suggestions you'll find therein.