Soul Crushing

If you don't particularly  care about my skill progression, you're perfectly welcome to ignore this post ;)

I have finally "bitten the bullet" as it were, and developed a year-long(ish) skillplan on EveMon. I was fully aware that what I had been doing before this was simply training for random ships as they caught my fancy, training those skills to a minimal level, then switching to another new ship. It's made my skills a little haphazard, but it's not a major problem in itself.
It's just annoying me because I want to be able to fly a core group of ships perfectly, or near perfectly, and my current approach will not get me that anytime soon. So I decided on what I wanted to be able to fly and do within a year, then planned around that. My total time for this skillplan (as of writing) is 407 days, 22 hours, and  11 minutes.

It's minorly depressing, I'm not going to lie.

But I'm glad I did it. I made a list of the ships I wanted to fly and I found that most of them were frigates, with a few randoms thrown in. Here's the general idea (all are linked for the new guys who don't have a clue what they are):

- Hurricane
- Malediction

Ganky, Hull-Tanky Taranis :)

- Anathema
- Taranis
- Myrmidon
- Purifier
- Vengeance
- Ishkur
- Hawk
- Crow
- Curse
- Pilgrim
- Wolf
- Jaguar

Obviously these are in no particular order, but it's pretty clear I have a serious thing for frigates, especially the Tech II ones :)

So I decided to train for all of them. Well most of them. All of the Assault Frigates, Interceptors, and Covert Ops boats. However there is also Cruise Missile Specialization IV snuck in at the start of the plan to help my Scorpion Navy get into Incursion fleets, along with skills for Tech II rigs. But then my "real" plan begins, starting with Amarr ships, then Gallente, then Minmatar, before finally finishing on Caldari frigates.

There's more when you scroll down...

And I threw in some training for the Sentinel while I was there. It appeared to be a frigate-sized Curse after my near death experience with one, and I wanted a turn to lay down the ass-kicking, insta-neuting surprise on an overly-ambitious pilot.

Here's a few highlights of my skillplan:

- All racial frigate skills to V
- Interceptor V
- Assault Frigate V
- Covert Ops V
- Electronic Attack Ships V
- T2 Small Autocannon Spec. V
- T2 Small Blaster Spec. V
- Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV <- I'll regret not going for V later...
- Rocket Spec. V
- Most scanning skills to IV, if not V
- A load of new drone skills I realised I would need for the Ishkur (IV/V)

Mini Drone-Boat!

As you can see, it's incredibly specialized into frigate hulls, along with a load of navigation/fitting/gunnery/electronics and engineering support skills that I've been putting off for months which will help all my ships. By the end of this plan, I'll be able to fly any frigate in the game, fully T2 fit, with support skills that will actually make me useful. I'll be able to use all T2 Small Weapons (apart from Small Artillery and Small Beams) to IV at a minimum, though the more common skills (projectiles for example) will be to V.

While seeing a 400+ day skill plan slowly tick down is soul crushing, it's also incredibly exciting. I've used my second "new guy" remap, which has cut off around 40 days of training (sweet) and finally upgraded myself to +4 implants, which cut off a few more weeks (Infact not long after newly fitting my +4's I got podded. Typical). Now it's a waiting game...

This is the thing about EVE. You have to create your own goals; what you want to do, to fly or to have achieved by a certain point. You need something to aspire to. Otherwise, you burn out and the game loses its joy. The freedom to do whatever you want is what makes me love playing this game so much.

Anyway EVE worship over, I can't wait to be flying my shiny new ships in the coming months. Think of all the lovely pew pew!

But in the meantime, I've got some rocket skills to ram into my head :(

Fly educational!


Tl;dr Long skill plans are helpful, if depressing :P