EVE Guide Attributes & Skills  

Attributes & Skills

Table of Contents

Getting Started]

When you create your character, there are five attributes allocated to him/her. The names of these attributes are: Intelligence, Perception, Charisma, Willpower, and Memory.

As you select certain schools and specializations during character creation your attributes are tailored to reflect what would generally best suit those specialties. For example, a scientist should have higher Intelligence and Memory. A fighter will tend have higher Perception and Willpower. A trader will have higher Charisma, and so on.

Attributes affect your training times for skills. Nothing else.

These attributes are the most important factor to consider when training skills. All skills have a primary and a secondary attribute that apply to them. You can see that information by right clicking on a skill in your character sheet and selecting “Show Info.” Only the two attributes listed for a skill will affect how long it takes you to train that skill. The higher your attributes are for a skill, the faster that skill will train.

If you have a lower attribute as the primary attribute of the skill you wish to learn, the training time for that skill will be longer than if you had a higher attribute. Your attributes can make a very significant difference in the time it takes you to train a skill.

The attribute setup you get at creation will have a big influence on what skills you can train quickly in EVE. If you create your character to be a fighter, Perception will probably be your most important attribute. High Perception means it will not take you very long to learn gunnery skills and command skills, but it does mean that if you suddenly decide to change your career path and move into research, for instance, then your attributes won’t be as good as you’d like and it will take you longer to train those types of skills.

Learning Skills]

You are not stuck with the attributes you get at character creation; however, they will forever determine which skills your character will potentially train the fastest. It is possible to improve your attributes by training the various “Learning” skills. There are eleven learning skills: Two for each attribute and a general learning skill that adds 2% to your attributes per level.

There are 10 skills that increase your attributes by 1 full point per level. The so-called basic set includes “Analytical Mind,” “Empathy,” “Instant Recall,” “Iron Will,” and “Spatial Awareness.” The so-called advanced set includes “Clarity,” “Eidetic Memory,” “Focus,” “Logic,” and “Presence.” By using these attribute-enhancing learning skills it is possible to increase your base attribute by up to 10 points each. The Learning skill adds an additional 2% to your attributes per level. EVE does not display decimals after your attributes, but they are there and they do matter. If you are considering playing the game long term then the learning skills will save you lots and lots of time, allowing your character to progress much more quickly.

Detailed information on the exact calculations behind attributes and how they affect your training times can be found target="_blank here.

People who are very interested in training the various learning skills often ask what order it would be best to train the skills. Though it does vary slightly character to character, the following list will give you a pretty good idea for the most effective order to train the skills. When you finish this list, you’ll have all five basic skills at level 5, Learning at level 5, and all five advanced skills at level 4. (If you do not want, or cannot afford, to train the advanced learning skills, simply omit them from this list.)

Instant Recall 1
Analytical Mind 1
Learning 1
Instant Recall 2
Analytical Mind 2
Learning 2
Instant Recall 3
Analytical Mind 3
Learning 3
Instant Recall 4
Analytical Mind 4
Learning 4
Instant Recall 5
Eidetic Memory 1
Eidetic Memory 2
Eidetic Memory 3
Eidetic Memory 4
Analytical Mind 5
Logic 1
Logic 2
Logic 3
Logic 4
Learning 5
Spatial Awareness 1
Spatial Awareness 2
Spatial Awareness 3
Spatial Awareness 4
Spatial Awareness 5
Iron Will 1
Iron Will 2
Iron Will 3
Iron Will 4
Iron Will 5
Empathy 1
Empathy 2
Empathy 3
Empathy 4
Empathy 5
Focus 1
Clarity 1
Presence 1
Focus 2
Clarity 2
Presence 2
Focus 3
Clarity 3
Presence 3
Focus 4
Clarity 4
Presence 4

For the average player without implants, this process would take about 60 days and you’ll be training 2.36 times as fast as you were to begin with. Though it would eventually be worthwhile to train the advanced learning skills to level 5, it can literally take years to make up the time spent training them. That said, many people do actually max them all out, myself included.

Implants]

Implants, like learning skills, can also boost your attributes and save you significant training time. At the moment it is possible to get implants that add anywhere from 1 to 5 points to any given attribute. You can only plug in one implant per attribute. Implants are destroyed if you try to remove them from your head, so once you have plugged one in it cannot be taken out and reused. Removing the implant will destroy it. Implants are also lost if you are pod-killed.

To be able to use implants you first need to have trained the “cybernetics” skill. (In order to train Cybernetics you need the “Science” skill at level 3). Implants can be obtained by doing agent missions (a lot of them) or by buying them off the market from other players.

Remember, implants will be lost if you get pod-killed; therefore, you may want to think twice about buying and installing a full set of implants if you are likely to be operating in dangerous areas.

General Tips]

To date, charisma is generally considered one of the less useful attributes in EVE. Currently there are relatively few skills that have Charisma as a primary attribute. It is likely that this attribute will become more useful as the game progresses and content is added, but at this point it is easily the least useful. Right now, it is good for people who wish to make a living doing trading and running agent missions, but its usefulness doesn’t extend very far beyond that, especially when compared to attributes like Intelligence and Perception.

Try to maximize your attributes in any areas where you will be doing lots of training. For example, Navigation skills all have Intelligence as their primary attribute and Perception as their secondary attribute, so if you are about to embark on training all your Navigation skills to level 4 or 5 then boosting your Intelligence and Perception will save you a substantial amount of time.

Another thing that people often wonder about is the “Rank” of a skill. It is actually very simple what the Rank of a skill implies. The higher the rank, the longer it will take you to train. Now, it’s not that it takes you longer to gain 1 skill point, it’s that it takes more skill points to finish a level of a skill. A Rank(2) skill will take exactly twice as long to train as a Rank(1) skill because it requires twice as many skill points.

Always have a skill training. If a skill is due to complete in 2 hours and you know you are going to be away for 14 hours, then switch the training to another skill that will take 14 hours or more (you do not lose and progress if you stop training skills or start training other skills). When you get back home you can switch back to finish the original skill and then you will have avoided losing any skill training time.

Here are the various skill groups and which attributes are typically primary and secondary for them:

• Corporation Management: Memory / Charisma
• Drones: Memory / Perception
• Electronics: Intelligence / Memory
• Engineering: Intelligence / Memory
• Gunnery: Perception / Willpower
• Industry: Memory / Intelligence
• Leadership: Charisma / Willpower
• Learning: Memory / Intelligence
• Mechanic: Intelligence / Memory
• Missile Launcher Operation: Perception / Willpower
• Navigation: Intelligence / Perception
• Science: Intelligence / Memory
• Social: Charisma / Intelligence
• Spaceship Command: Perception / Willpower
• Trade: Charisma / Memory

Personally, I think a balance of attribute points in Intelligence, Memory, Perception, and Willpower will serve you best in the long run. Even if you intend to be an ace fighter which requires high Perception and Willpower, a lot of the secondary skills that are required to make a really good fighter (such as Engineering and Electronics) require good Intelligence and Memory. Intelligence and Perception are, in my opinion, the most important attributes in the game.

I hope that you will find this information helpful. I always welcome questions and comments. I’ll try to keep this information up to date for y’all.

By Hardin & Tripoli

---

Converted from Guides
Created:	2006-09-19 17:44:14
Last Changed:	2006-09-19 18:33:10
Author:	Tripoli
Category:	General
Last Edited	1102892
Score:	5.00
Note:	None
Guide ID:	794
Last Changed:	Unknown

EVE Online Wikibase™