Should EVE Have Longer Trials? Yes, Probably

The dev blog on removing restrictions to trial accounts is out, and the changes look fantastic.

In short, trial account players will have far more options available when trying EVE, including sending and receiving isk, doing higher-end PVE such as level 3-4 missions or incursions, and, something I've advocated for a while, and will be able to join faction war. There is also a host of skill changes for trial accounts, opening up PI, battlecruisers, and tech 2 frigates, but limiting weapons to tech 1 variants and so on. This allows trial account players to experience more and progress further in the game than they currently can. 

With so many fundamental restriction removed, however, it begs a bigger question for EVE: Should trial accounts only be limited to 14 (or 21) days? Why not extend trial accounts to upwards of 1-2 months? Why not even allow trials to be unlimited, but have a hard-cap on skill points? Consider the following:

In one of the best presentations at the last fanfest, CCP Rise's presentation on the NPE, Rise noted that "after one month of playing, 50% of new players leave, 40% head to solo/mission experiences, and the final 10% move towards larger player corporations. This final 10% joins fleets, are on more kills, and are engaged with the game." Players who stay are the players who find a niche--particularly those who join player corporations and do group activities (but it wasn't clear during this presentation whether the larger solo/mission runner group results in less players staying in EVE overall--in any case, they are important, too, since apparently 40% of new players go that route).

EVE is a slow game. It takes a long time to learn. It takes a long time to train a variety of skills. And for most players it takes a long time to enjoy--it is an acquired taste, requiring multiple attempts at the game for many players who finally get hooked. 21 days is not very many skills, and certainly not much time to sufficiently try out different aspects of the game while also managing its large learning curve. A longer trial period might also encourage vets to add more alt accounts. So why not have 1-2 month trials? EVE certainly needs the players.

But what if the ACU count continues its steady decline? What if we get to a point where the weekends are lucky to see 25,000 players online? It is not that EVE has slowly gotten worse over the years: in the past three years alone it has come so far, and in almost every respect is a far better game than it used to be. 

Drastic measures would need to be taken to get the game growing again, fundamentally changing how new players are treated. Maybe the game, in such a state, would need to have unlimited trials--embracing a sort of free to play but not free to skill-train model--or perhaps it would need to grant new players a few million skill points to reduce the tedious period when one starts the game but cannot do many activities. If you've ever watched twitch streams of new players starting EVE, it is painfully obvious to see how the numerous skill barriers prevent them from having an enjoyable time. Are drastic measures--whatever they be--needed now? Depending on how these next few releases go, they at least might be needed soon.

How I Made 15+ billion isk Shooting Starbases – Or, Unorthodox PVP Part II: POS Destruction

(A while ago, I started a series of posts about "unorthodox" PVP styles, partly out of a desire to give every form of PVP in EVE a try, starting with baiting mission runners in my first post. In this second post in the series, I explain the mechanics, tactics, and potential value in destroying offline POSes.)

This story starts back in August. Seeing that I was going to have little time for anything besides the random 15-30 minutes to log in during August and September, I “fixed” Sven's security status and got him into a Stratios with +5 attributes in his clone for skill training. Every day or so I would have 15-30 minutes to log in, so I would do some high sec exploration and work on my completionist goal of trying to visit every system in EVE.

I started in Verge Vendor, visiting some systems I've apparently never occasioned, scanning for combat sites and using dscan to look for the odd mobile structure I might blow up (a compulsive habit I have)—and maybe use to bait for some PVP. By chance, I found myself at a moon, and noticed something strange. Having almost zero experience with starbases, or POSes, I nonetheless noticed that at this moon was a starbase with dozens of modules—guns, research labs, hangar arrays—but without a force field. I was in RVB the year we destroyed EVE University's POS (probably my only other time at a POS), so I at least knew the difference between an active and an inactive POS, as well as the insane amount of people and time it would take to destroy an online POS in high security space.

I was intrigued at this offline POS with modules, so I started doing research, and I started visiting moons and dscanning for such POSes as I explored and visited new systems. As I swept through the Verge Vendor region, visiting a system or two every time I could log in for a bit, I found almost a dozen other such offline towers with modules. I learned through research that an offline tower could have it modules destroyed without destroying the tower itself (besides the guns and otherwise worthless parts). I also learned that all POS modules which could store items, from Ship Maintenance Arrays to research labs to compression arrays, could drop those items stored inside if destroyed. 

Why not see what's inside? I started a corporation on an alt (another first for me) and did some research on the owners of these POSes. They were all very small corporations, and sites like eve who suggested that they were inactive. I didn't exactly want to target active corporations, as I don't really feel like the war dec system in EVE is fair and it harms new players trying to join corporations far more than it benefits the attackers (something I hope CCP fixes in their corp rebalance soon). Not lacking the money, I declared war on the owners of all the POSes I had thus far found (yet another first for me). The 24 hour timers ran down, and I was free to engage--with no sign of the players in the corporations. One POS now had its force field up, but the others were easy targets. In my first round of POS mod destruction--finding around 9 POSes in the region of Verge Vendor--I was amazed to find drops from labs and assembly arrays in about half of the POSes. I was able to pay for the war declaration costs and then some, but I also started building up a supply of blueprints. As a trader I've always had an interest in industry, but never felt like I either knew enough, or had enough time, to incorporate industry into my trading business. I was getting tech2 and tech1 BPCs and fully researched tech1 BPOs from these POSes, and started doing research on what I might do with them all. 

I started getting loot drops such as: 

 I even ran into some PVP, as a few of the corp members turned up later, including a stabber who was hoping I would be afk at his POS, an auto-piloting viator, and a PVE fit Proteus who tracked me down and waited outside a station for me.

The best had yet to come. I continued these 15-30 minute bouts of playtime in Genesis, Kador, and Kor-Azor, visiting systems I've never been to, exploring and running combat sites (see my post on casual exploration in high sec for some of the results), and scanning for offline towers at moons. I found a few targets in each of these regions, usually with just 2-3 mods such as 2-3 research labs, but occasionally I would come across extensive industry POSes, with a dozen or so labs and arrays.

 This led to not one but two "jackpots," POSes that dropped over 5 billion in isk. On the first occasion it took a few trips in a freighter for all of the materials, with not a few blueprints in the mix as well: 

 The next find was even better, as it contained many fully researched BPOs for cruisers and battlecruisers: 

 In total, from August to the beginning of Octobor, I've made around 15 billion in isk--about half in materials, and then at least another 7 billion in blueprints. However, that's just the base value of the blueprints, as you can see in screenshots like the ones above. Almost all of the blueprints I found were fully researched, adding a huge amount of value. Realistically, the value of the blueprints is closer to 10-15 billion isk. 

I've learned a lot from this little side project: I've learned a bit about POS mechanics, for one, but I've also learned about industry. In fact, as of now, I've sold 90% of the blueprints and have kept a few for myself. I've finally gotten into industry as a result, doing invention on some blueprints and building tech2 items to incorporate into my trading. I've heard it said that every industrialist in EVE is also a trader--that's where most of the profit comes, anyhow--so how and where to sell these items hasn't been an issue. I will be posting soon on have I've incorporated industry into my trading.

Interestingly, I also have never heard from or seen many of the owners or corp members. Using Eve who, I added the corp members of these groups to my watch list, and I've only ever seen a few log in out of the hundreds. Out of the 50 or so corporations I have declared war on, about 13 either activated the force field on their POS or took down the POS or mods entirely .That leaves about 80% of the groups completely inactive. I assume this means that many of the owners of these POSes either quit EVE or went inactive for a long period of time--that seems like the only explanation for why so many of these POSes would have fully researched BPOs just sitting inside them. 

I have also learned that a few other groups of players specialize in this sort of activity, but not enough to make finding these offline POSes impossible--though the competition is there (e.g., on a few occasions some else has destroyed POS mods before I could get to them). For one, there is a constant turn over--groups go inactive without taking their POSes down all the time. Second, obviously, there's a lot of moons in high security space...

This type of gameplay has a lot to recommend it, not the least of which is the potential for making some isk (with the risk, of course, that you won't make any isk after spending a bunch on war dec costs). It feels like a type of exploration, not PVP. I scan for sites, warp to clusters of moons, and look for combat sites at the same time as I look for POSes without force fields up. However, such POSes can be hard to find--only a few in any given region at any given time--and also tedious to dscan down since offline POSes will often be in clusters with many offline, lone towers as well as other online towers.

This side project has also given me some experience with the state of POSes in high security space. In my opinion, there needs to be better ways to destroy towers and also more reasons to have a POS. An active POS in high security space, with hardeners and other defenses, is one of the safest assets to have in space--attempting to destroy an online, large POS in high sec requires dozens of people for what will likely be no reward. However, an even safer asset is a lone, offline tower. With the industry rebalance, some players were worried that towers in high security space would rapidly proliferate, since you no longer need standings to set up a POS, and destroying a control tower in high security space is about one of the worst things you could decide to do in EVE. Offline towers with no mods are everywhere. Dozens in each system. And there is zero reason to attempt the tedious work of destroying them (unless it is 1 jump from Jita, but that covers little space), so these towers are going to sit in space probably until the game is closed for good. For the sake of comprehensiveness, I destroyed two small towers solo when I started this project, including a faction small tower (no, I didn't use hammerheads on it the whole time...). Even with 800DPS, it took around 8 hours per tower. With laser and drone DPS, you can essentially go afk, but that's 8 hours or so for what amounts to zero reward, since towers won't be dropping loot. 

I think EVE would benefit from two changes to POSes: First, there should be more reasons to have a POS. I recall back in Ultima Online, housing spots were for a long time very limited. Almost everyone had a house and everyone wanted a house--you could design and decorate them in ways still unmatched in any MMO, but they also had many more uses than the "bank" and towns had (I remember finding my first housing spot, the smallest possible plot of land, and being insanely excited...I also remember many nights waiting for a house to decay, and the ensuing mass PVP as people tried to get all of the dropped loot). In my ideal EVE, POSes are far more useful and useful to every player, and stations are less useful and potentially destructible or ownable. Allowing jump clones in POSes would be a huge first step at this, and something that would make wormhole life far better. Second, though, offline control towers should be easier to remove. There's been lots of good suggestions for how to allow better removal--being able to hack them when offline, having their shields drop to zero when they go offline, and so on--and all of which could add interesting new gameplay.

I'm on a break from this project currently. Is this side project the sort of thing you'd be interested in doing? If you like exploration, you might enjoy it, but finding targets makes finding 4/10 combat sites in HS feel easy! How can you protect your own POS? It is pretty easy and completely obvious: If you go inactive, pack up your modules and put them in a station. Leave the tower and the guns/hardeners/etc. if you have them. If you are quitting EVE, of course, please do pack everything you own in your SMA and leave your modules up so others can have your stuff! 

Phoebe: Hitting this out one of the park

The dev blog on the full changes coming in Phoebe was just released, and I got to say, it hits it out of the freaking park. It's not just the quality of changes, but the quantity as well--approaching or even surpassing, I would say, some of the full "expansions" EVE has had. Dev blogs on many of the changes haven't even been released yet, including multi-sell ability, rebalancing of exploration rewards and the addition of null sec data/relic sites to class 1-3 wormholes, and some much needed removal on restricts with trial accounts...like trail account players being allowed into faction war, a change I've been suggesting for a while now. In addition, the invention changes are coming, which I am hugely excited about, having recently gotten into industry and invention.

I was planning on doing a sort of review of the new "release cycle" after Phoebe, particularly looking at whether the release cycle would bring more changes to the game than expansions, or less. I am a big fan of Hyperion and Oceanus, but I was getting worried about the long-term sustainability of such releases. Phoebe, however, puts those concerns to rest: If you look at all the changes in the past three releases with Phoebe included, there should be no doubt that Hyperion+Oceanus+Phoebe significantly surpasses the amount of content we would have seen in the usual winter expansion (which would be released roughly around the time Phoebe is coming). Plus, much of the content has already been iterated on and looks to keep getting iterated on--something that, with an expansion cycle, we wouldn't have seen until the following point release a few months after the winter expansion, and maybe not even then given that CCP has a history of releasing content and simply moving on.

What we haven't seen a lot of, though, is ship rebalancing, but this is partly explained by the new module rebalance work (which I am also a huge fan of thus far) and the big null sec project. However, with the current "research" event going on, and the comment at the start of the dev blog that "And this is not even everything, we have a few more things that are likely to make it in," there's hope that we might still see either a T3 rebalance, or the introduction of new T3 ships or modules (and the latter would still suggest that a T3 rebalance was approaching). The nerf to bombers on the test server also suggests that a broader bomber rebalance is coming.

Phoebe Madness

As reported on here, here, and here, a huge amount of changes are coming in Phoebe. The ability to now see bookmarks in space, including on grid, is mind blowing. It changes scouting, it changes solo and small gang PVP, it changes FCing, and it makes having good bookmarks such as tactical bookmarks all the more important. What's maybe even better, you can now open the save location tab with a hotkey...and as someone who has made a few thousand bookmarks in EVE, at least, this is a change I've wanted for years. Oh, and a multi-sell ability? Insane. Annnd, the skill queue is now unlimited. Phoebe is easily the best of the releases in the new release cycle.

Some players complain about the past two years of EVE's "quality of life" changes...These "mere" quality of life changes are some of the best things to happen to EVE since I've started playing, though, and I'll gladly take dozens more releases which only contained such improvements.

I am a huge fan of the jump distance changes, especially after the most recent tweaks. The latest update to the jump distance change should help logistics crews, as JFs will have a 10ly range instead of a mere 5. Still, while the actual impact of these changes are hard to predict, they certainly make the universe a lot bigger (except, maybe, for wormhole residents...who will now become some of the most mobile groups in EVE). The distant edges of null sec are about to get more remote than anywhere else in game, perhaps including many wormhole systems. Even FW war zones get a lot bigger. Interestingly, some areas of low sec will become incredibly isolated from capitals. As an example, take Saminer, for instance. Though only 8 jumps from Amarr, with a 5ly jump distance, only 3 (!) other low sec systems can reach Saminer:

Getting a JF here will be no major issue: Travel from Amarr two jumps away to Tash-Murkon and with max skills you are at this low sec pocket in one jump. However, getting other capitals here becomes much more of a hassle. The only jump route into the pocket will be via Gyerzen, which opens up to many more nearby jump options. Black ops ships are getting a max jump range of 8ly, which might be enough to preserve their niche. A large "dickstar" POS in a LS system like this starts to become a hugely unattractive target.

The point is, the jump distance and fatigue changes do not just make space bigger for null sec, they make it bigger for low sec as well. While industry in low sec is still mostly a joke, the changes make it significantly safer for low sec groups to "occupy" remote parts of LS, such as systems like Saminer. Many LS groups and individuals--myself included--have gotten used to doing most logistics via wormholes, often using either low sec to high sec wormholes or low sec to low-sec-bordering-high-sec wormholes. Becoming even more cut-off from capitals, though, means that geography significantly starts to matter. Hopefully these changes will mean more people in space, more people taking gates, and more people taking risks they wouldn't have taken when capitals from the other side of the universe could pop on top of you at any point, short of an empty system besides yourself.

4 Months of Casual Exploration - Some Statistics

Way back at the start of 2013, I got really interested in exploration. As I posted about here, and here, I moved to an isolated area of low sec on a second character and lived as a hermit there, avoiding PVP—a strange experience since I otherwise play EVE largely for the PVP. I posted about my isk earnings over the period before Odyssey, as well as the period after until I finally moved out of low sec to take up trading full time.

Since leaving my home in low sec, however, I have not stopped doing exploration. Instead, since roughly the release of Kronos, I've been doing mostly “casual” exploration in high and low sec, or exploration as a side activity as part of something else.

Typically, what happens is that I foresee I won't have much time to play over the next few days, so I jump Sven into a +5 clone. I do get the random 15-30 minutes to play EVE here and there, so I take this time to explore new systems as part of my completionist goal of visiting every system in the game (currently, I am exploring in blood raider space, around Kador etc., hence the high number of BR sites below). While visiting, I scan the sites and run some of the better combat ones. I've continued to track my earnings, and, looking back, what I am surprised about is just how much isk you can make doing completely casual high sec exploration in spurts of 15-45 minutes of play time, scanning only 1-3 systems per play session.

Here, then, is my general earnings after 4 months (June, July, August, and September) of casual, mostly high sec exploration (prices are taken from the value of the loot when found based on buy order prices from Jita, so the prices are lower than they would be if all the items were sold on sell orders):

Sansha Lookout 2 escalations – 1m, 50m

Sansha 3/10 1 – 105m

Sansha 4/10 1 - 95m
Guristas 3/10 1 -10m
Guristas 4/10 2 - 90m, 90m

Serpentis 1/10 3 – 17m, 1m,

Serpentis 2/10 4 – 1m, 2m, 2m, 3m,

Serpentis 3/10 2 – 125m,

Serpentis 4/10 2 – 65m, 17m,

Serpentis 5/10 1 – 250m

Blood Vigil 1 - 15m
Blood Raider 1/10 2 – 25m, 45m (1,009)
Blood Raider 3/10 20 - 2m, 30m, 4m, 17m, 2m, 25m, 2m, 50m, 90m, 50m, 2m, 3m,

60m, 140m, 3m, 35m, 1m, 1m, 95m, 5m (617m total / 30 av)
Blood Raider 4/10 16 – 1m, 13m, 4m, 150m, 3m, 150m, 3m, 160m, 25m, 150m, 8m, 15m, 12m, 90m, 19m, 1m (804m total / 50m av) 

High Sec Ghost 1 - 40m,

Mordu Rats: 2 (cruisers) - 700m, 500m
Clone Soldiers 25+ - 200m
Besieged Covert Facilities 17 - 1b / (58m av)
Data 5 – 16m, 0, 0, 10m, 8m

Totals: 4b 900m from June 4- Oct 4

A few things are noteworthy about these numbers:

1) Over half of the isk came from low sec exploration—specifically, the two occasions I stumbled across a Mordu (cruiser) rat, 17 besieged covert sites I ran totaling 1b and averaging around 58-60m per site, as well as the clone soldiers and single 5/10 I ran. These sites were run primarily in June and July.

2) Most of the other sites—including almost all of the 3/10 and 4/10 DED sites--were found in high sec as noted above, and found during play sessions of 15-45 minutes. The most common site I find and run are the 3/10 and 4/10 DED sites, which have averaged around 30m and 50m per site respectively. However, the 4/10 can be run in under 10 minutes, while the 3/10 takes substantially longer due to the huge amount of frigates—this site can be run virtually on autopilot, though, and by newer players in almost any ship, including t1 frigates like tristans. These sites were run primarily in August and September, meaning that casual high sec exploration consistently brings in over1-1.5b a month for me. 

3) So far as my experience of doing exploration for the past 2 years goes, I think that right now is the best time for exploration in EVE since at least over 2 years ago. Why? A few reasons: First, when less people are playing EVE, it is simply easier to find sites. Second, exploration has been revamped but is also "old news" in a way--it is not in the spotlight as much, since the recent expansions/releases have been focusing elsewhere. As a result, I am at least personally experiences far less competition for sites than I ever have, in high as well as low sec. Third and partly as a result of less people doing exploration, demand for deadspace modules has gone up, first because of the revamp to pirate class ships (where deadspace mods are often the norm), and second because of the introduction of burner missions, where deadspace mods (particularly small size mods like small armor reps) again make a lot of sense. For example, since burner missions were released, almost all of the small deadspace armor repair modules doubled in price and have nearly maintained those prices since then. An increase of supply with a decrease of demand means that prices likely go up, and that's what we've seen happen. As a result, a drop in a blood raider 3/10 with a small armor rep used to net around 25m isk, but now nets around 40-50m, and the case is the same for many other sites/drops. 

 So, the take home message here is that right now is probably the best time in 2 years to do high and low sec exploration in EVE. Less competition, better prices, lots of capable ships, all combine to make casual exploration in EVE better than I can ever remember it being. 

Suck It, Cap Pilots

For all the times I've had capitals dropped on me while trying to ~solo~, suck it

For all the times a local low-sec brawl was ruined by a null sec coalition (read, PL), suck it

For the mere existence of renters, suck it

For the mere existence of coalitions, suck it

It's a great time to play EVE as a solo PVPer. In fact, the last three years have been pretty good to be a non-cap-owning solo PVPer.

Ten Things You Can Do With a One Month Alt

Way back in the 2013 release of Odyssey CCP introduced the ability to train two (and later three) characters on one account using PLEX. At the time, I thought it was a nice addition but the sheer significance of this change went over my head.

Then it short of clicked—this is an amazing change. Game-changing, in some ways (e.g., in the amount of alt accounts that have likely closed as a result of this change). Now you can train a month's worth of skills on a second or third character slot and then have that character as long as you have that account, with no added subscription fees--a pretty daring move by CCP if you think about it. What, though, can you do with a “one month alt,” in other words a second or third character on an account that has just one month of skill training? (Besides a mining alt, which I don't even bother featuring here.) It turns out, you can do a huge amount with these types of characters, not the least of which is make a bunch of isk as well as PVP in a variety of ways. So, here's my list of ten things you can do with a one month alt (and, obviously, since a one month alt is useful, a fortiori an alt with more than a month of training is even more useful—some of my alts started as one month alts and eventually branched into other uses featured here, for instance):

I) The Market Trader Alt

Use: A market trader alt is easily one of the best possible uses of a single month of skill training on another character. With a range of 125-225 orders (and an initial investment of isk for the market) you can very easily make well over 800m isk per month, paying for the character's PLEX in no time. This sort of character can set up a market like the one I describe in my tutorial for trading—in fact, my first use for the one month character training was to have a trader for my most distant hub, allowing up to update orders there simply by logging in. Of course, this character can also station trade in a system like Jita etc.

Skills: A character devoted to market trading needs only a small set of skills to function effectively. In a little over two weeks, you can have a character that has 125 market slots by training up to wholesale IV, and that includes accounting and broker relations to IV. For the rest of the month's training, you can just about squeeze in wholesale V and then tycoon to III to increase your orders up by roughly 100.

II) The PI Alt

Use: Very straightforwardly, one uses a PI alt simply to run a colony. One account nets three possible characters that can be running PI, which, in low sec or below, can easily make over 500m a month altogether (in null or wormholes, far more). A single character doing PI is still worthwhile as a source of stable extra income for many players.

Skills: Prior to the ability to train skills on a second or third character at the same time as the main character, players had to pause training on their main for one month or more. This prohibited many players from setting up things like an army of PI alts. A one month character can reach 6 colonies plus enough other PI skills to set up colonies as effectively as is needed. There should be a week or two extra left, so this character can also add other skills, such as for T1 industrial ships or market skills.

III) The Hauler Alt: Transport Ship Version

Use: Having an alt that can fly cloaky blockade runners is incredibly helpful. Before my second character could fly one, I had loot scattered around low sec in dozens of systems from PVP and exploration, but no safe way of retrieving it. With a blockade runner, I was able to collect it all, as well as transport small goods safely to wherever I was stationed in low (in a pinch, you can also use the blockade runner as a scout for another character). With the updates to deep space transports, this skill also gives you the ability to haul relatively large amounts with a decent tank, in the range of 6 packaged cruisers or 24 packaged frigates or one packaged battleship—perfect for a PVP supply etc.

Skills: The skill plans become a little tighter with the following characters, but the useful far increases. With a well-chosen remap and skill implants you can just about fit a race of transport ships into a one month training, but it is hard to fit in many other needed skills as well like cloaking, evasive maneuvering, and so on. This character is probably best suited as a “two month alt” but the usefulness is huge.

IV) The Hauler Alt: Orca Version

Use: An orca is a cost-effective and versatile solution to hauling needs. The decently sized fleet and cargo bays allow for a bunch of packaged ships and many more modules, and the decently sized ship maintenance bay is incredibly useful for transporting fitted ships. One of the first things I did with a second character was get into an orca so I could haul around Sven's stock of fitted frigates. Of course, an orca is also good for mining boosts, but it is an under-appreciated hauler.

Skills: It only takes around two weeks to get into an orca, leaving plenty of time for improving skills which help it fit more, align faster, and so on.

V) The Hauler Alt: Freighter Version

Use: Obviously, freighters are useful, though for almost all of my hauling I would rather use an orca, DST, or blockade runner. However, having an alt that is used simply as a freighter opens up many more possibilities in addition to being pretty convenient.

Skills: You can just barely get into a freighter with a month of training, but without much time for other skills many of which would be nice to have. Ideally, a second month of training is most effective, especially since the upfront investment of the freighter is so much isk anyway, but one month is still doable.

VI) The Exploration/Scanner Alt

Use: Exploration need not be skill intensive to be effective or enjoyable. In one month you can theoretically fly a covert ops frigate, but not effectively. Instead, specialize in a tech 1 exploration frigate with high skills for data and relic sites and you can do null sec relic and data sites with decent success. This null sec data and relic site runner needs only a month of skills to be efficient and make a ton of isk for newer players. If you've seen JonnyPew's recent videos, doing just these sites in null can net a decent amount of isk. This alt can also aid in scanning, which has lots of potential uses even on a player that has only a single account, scanning down signatures or potential targets and then logging back into the main character.

Skills: I would specialize in a tech 1 exploration frigate, getting the relevant skills for data and relic sites as well as basic scanning as high as possible. Adding in a few skills for agility, one month is just enough for a good exploration alt.

VII) The PVP Alt

Use: PVP alt in one month, you say? Absolutely, and chances are you can make an effective alt that can provide a huge amount of fun whenever you log in. My main tip would be to get an alt for Red Versus Blue, where it is easy to acquire ships since it is high sec near Jita, and where low skills are no barrier to having a lot of fun (e.g., open fleets are almost always up). The skills are almost irrelevant, since you can fly in tech 1 frigates with tech 1 or civilian modules in RVB if you so wanted. An added benefit is that in RVB if your fleet wins the field you can freely loot, and if you are flying tech 1 fitted ships you can easily make a profit or at least replace your losses, particularly useful for a newer player.

Skills: Skills are entirely up to you. Haven't ever flown laser ships? Make a one month Amarr frigate and destroyer alt. You can even get up to cruisers with tech 2 weapons, though without room for much else. Extremely tanky ships like maller are popular in RVB, and easily obtainable in a month.

VIII) The Gank Alt

Use: A character that can fly ships like an arty thrasher, high DPS catalyst, or arty can function as a devoted alt for ganking even with minimal skills. Arty thrashers are often used to suicide on pods, shuttles, or T1 frigates in high sec. Catalysts are obviously the ship of choice for ganking miners, and arty tornados are among the popular ships for ganking T1 haulers.

Skills: One month is more than enough time for any of the three most popular ganking ships (and enough for a combination of them depending on how many support and fitting skills you also want). In a month of training it is quite possible to be able to fly a catalyst with tech 2 blasters and an arty thrasher capable of popping pops, along with power grid skills to help with fittings. What ends up being more of a barrier to the one month gank alt is not the skill training, but security status. Recycling alts for the purpose of ganking is against the rules, so one your sec status drops “into the red” you will either have to use security tags to get it back up, or—what's common in groups like CODE.--plan ganks around the limited time you have to avoid high sec police (not CONCORD, who comes when you initiate a gank, but the regular police ships that eventually shoot those with low sec status and enemies of the respective faction). The latter involves warping from gate to gate looking for pods or other easy targets, or using an alt to plan the gank so the DPS character only needs a few seconds in space.

IX) The POS Bashing Alt

Use: Many players at some point have reason to engage in a POS (or customs office) bash, and sometimes in high sec or without the use of dreads. Either to avoid having to use a main character or as an alt on an alt account alongside one's main character, POS bashing characters only really need a month of training to add substantial DPS. A single 900 DPS ship will take roughly 5-6 hours to destroy a small tower in high sec (as I recently learned...) while having a second, hands-free character can effectively cut this time in half.

Skills: The most common route for the POS bashing character is to specialize solely in the Oracle with meta 4 mega pulse lasers, tech 2 heat sinks, DPS rigs, and enough cap rechargers to make it cap stable, bringing it to the range of 700-800 DPS and for a price of less than 100m—easily obtainable in one month of skill training. The only question is just how much DPS you can maximize out of one month out training alone, but anything above 600 will provide more (sustained) DPS than a bomber and knock substantial time off a POS bash.

X) Miscellaneous Storage, Scout and Slot Alt

Use: This alt does not have a single role but does a bunch of things I find well worth the single PLEX for some skills. I've started using an all purpose alt for scouting, storage, and industry slots lately. This alt will have a corporation, a small POS, and has science skills up high enough to do long-term research on blueprints. I also trained jump clone skills up as high as I could in one month, giving this character something like 7 jump clones. I spread them throughout areas in low/null where I sometimes need a scout (e.g., high sec to low sec jumps that are often camped).

Skills: Entirely based on needs—for me, I needed jump clone skills for scouting and science skills for blueprint research.

The list goes on, and I've probably missed a bunch of great one month alts, but those are the ten alts I have found the most useful and profitable. What's next for CCP? It might not be on their radar, but being able to buy extra character slots would help both their finances as well as the usefulness of PLEX for skill training. Maybe someday players will be able to buy a 4^th or 5^th character slot, with the ability to train skills on those 4^th or 5^th characters with PLEX. This likely wouldn't result in more alt accounts being closed, but would likely result in some added slots (say, for a few PLEX) and PLEX for skill training.