i'm getting into this right now. Switchblade, how much do your starting skills and attributes matter? i've gathered that mining and industry (the things i'm interested in) are dependent upon Intelligence and Memory, but the dude that i am playing at the moment is mainly geared for the running of the ship.
will that matter much if i mean to become a miner/trader? i mean, how hard will it be for me to buy new skills and train them up? so far i've earned about 75k and bought a Bantam (i'm Caldarian, started at the State War Academy in The Forge system, currently mining in Jita) should i create a new character that is more Intelligence & Memory oriented, or does it not matter all that much once you get going?
Your basic attributes directly affect how fast your skills train - a high intelligence will affect intelligence-based skills, that much you've figured out.
the lovely thing about EVE skill training is that getting a new skill is as simple as having the money to afford the book, and the patience to wait for it.
Skill books cost somewhere between 18,000 credits and a few million, depending upon the level of the skill to be trained and various other factors. They aren't created by players, but appear in-game.
My advice to you is to find the nearest School of Applied knowledge. If memory serves, there isn't one in Jita, but there's one in Isanamo (four jumps from where you are) one in Todaki, and one in Vuorassi that I can remember. SoAKs sell skill books cheaper than other places.
One fantastic set of skills to look into is the "learning" set. This consists of two skill books per attribute, and one general skill. Each attribute-specific skill raises your attributes by one point per level (to an obvious maximum of ten extra points) and the "learning" skill improves all your attributes by 2% per level, to an extra 10% to each attribute at level 5. combine this with stat-boosting implants, and you can boost any attribute score you care to name by anything up to about 16.4 points - which has a knock-on effect to your learning speed.
your attribute abilities have no actual in-game effect beyond skill training however - your perception doesn't affect your combat skills, nor does your intelligence affect the yield of your mining lasers. all your attributes do is allow you to learn faster.
In short, no, your attributes as a miner won't hold you back as a fighter, or anything else, beyond adding an extra stretch of time (anywhere between a few minutes and a few days, depending on the skill rank and level) to your training times. This isn't really a handicap at lower-level skills, but at higher levels, the time spent boosting your attributes will translate into weeks of saved time.
If I were you, I'd grab three ranks in each of the learning skills after getting yourself to about level 3 in caldari frigates. That'll see you through until you're ready to move into your first battleship or assault frigate. After you've achieved that, it's then a good idea to finish training all the learning skills.
Please allow me to suggest a career path:
train Learning, Analytical mind and Instant recall to level 3
train Caldari Frigates to level 4.
Train Caldari Cruisers to level 1 and purchase an Osprey (be warned, the Osprey will be expensive. Contact me under the name of "Stitcher" if you need some financial support)
Train Mining to level 4
Buy three Mining laser 2s and fit them to the osprey
Train Caldari Cruisers to level 4.
What you now have is the best mining cruiser in the game, and it's well kitted out. That Osprey hauls in ore with three mining lasers, and your levels in Caldari Cruiser boost the yield of each laser by 40% be warned that it's not a combat vessel, so you'll probably want to keep a combat-focused vessel like a Merlin on standby for dealing with any rats that show up while you're mining.
Train Refining to level 4 (vital for getting your money's worth out of the ore you mine)
Train Gallente frigates to level 3, and then train Gallente industrial to level 5.
This will take a long time, but it'll be well worth it, because when you hit Gallente industrials level 5, you'll be capable of flying the best tech 1 industrial haulers in the game (namely Iteron Mark Vs)
From there, you're basically set up to while away some time mining asteroid belts, dropping the ore thus retrieved into a jettisoned cargo container, and coming back to retrieve it in your Iteron, later on.
From there, I'd advise you to find out the skills needed for you to use cargo expanders, shield boosters, armour repairers, shield hardeners, armour hardeners, and afterburners, in that order, and train them.
Finally, take a look at mining barges on the market, and see what skills you need in order to be able to fly them. Train those. Check to see if you have the skills to be able to use strip mining modules, too, and train those. That done, work towards acquiring a mining barge. Try to go straight for the top, if you can, and buy a Covetor.
Watch as the cash flows in.
If you really want to become a good miner however, mate, the corp I work for are primarily miners, and we have some people who know mining far better than I do. We're called J.I.T. Enterprises. Our bases in that region are in Korama and Oimmo, and you'd find it a lot easier to get the resources together to do what I just suggested as part of a corp.
The only downside is that we're fairly active out in 0.0 space (we're friends of - probably soon to be members of - the Forsaken Empire) so you may want to bear that in mind. If the idea of getting caught up in Alliance politics isn't your idea of fun, then there are plenty of other mining corps out there (such as "Rocks 2 Riches") who do a lot of empire-based mining.
Drop me a line in-game, yeah? if it's possible, I'll try and drop what I'm doing and help out in a mining operation.
