I’ve heard about this game for quite a while. There was an old thread on it, but rather than resurrect a zombie, I thought I’d start a new one.
I’ve done the introductory scenario. I now have two ships, a velator and a scout. And it appears that I can’t do a damn thing with either one. I’ve tried running a couple of distribution tasks, but apparently I don’t have enough cargo space to carry what they want.
For any experienced EVE players, what’s a good starting plan for a noob like me?
It has been a while since I played, but I recall doing some light mining to work my way up to better ships and equipment. That, and running basic level 1 attack missions, but low-level mining is safer.
The big problem is that there’s a LOT of grinding necessary if you want to go it alone, or you have to hook up with a corporation willing to stake you a good ship, etc…
I never had the patience or time to grind it out mining asteroids in high security space, and kept getting my ass kicked in low-sec space, so I ended up eventually quitting.
I played for awhile and had some fun in the game. I loved running the single-player missions, exploring different parts of space, and upgrading my ship over and over. But I quickly ran out of content and was informed in very explicit terms by the community that the game is primarily and almost exclusively based around PvP activities and that all of the stuff I’d been doing (and enjoying a lot!) was basically an extended tutorial. If I wasn’t interested in PvP I was playing the wrong game.
So I quit. I like to PvP now and then but I don’t want to play a game where that’s basically everything you do.
Come play Elite: Dangerous! Deluxe Edition (game + Horizons + one cosmetic pack) is $34.79 during the Steam Summer Sale.
ETA: there is no fee to play Elite. Everything is funded through the game + Horizons + cosmetic DLC.
I own that on Xbox One already. Great game. 
Got it at a major discount during one of those Xbox Live Gold deals.
Are you on the subscription, or on the freebie? Frigates are very limited for cargo space, but I think you can get to a starter hauler on the freebie plan which has more room, though I still don’t think you can do beyond Level 2 missions.
Solo, it is a bit of a grind to get into the next tier of ships, it’s best if you can join a group and people will often spec you the few million ISK to get into a worthwhile ship that can earn money more quickly.
(I used to play a bunch several years ago)
I played for several years and was doing quite well for myself before I quit and I was a Carebear the whole time. I hated PvP and barely did any of it.
It is possible to get along in EVE and not fight. Corporations need people to do Carebear things like hauling and managing orders on the market and mining and running outposts and such. Granted it is not for everyone but I liked it. I’d do that stuff while listening to music or cleaning or doing laundry or watching a movie or reading a book or just chatting with my peeps online (which were mostly in Europe so was interesting). You can’t always be casual and sometimes must pay attention but it is easy to relax.
I learned tricks for traveling in low sec with near impunity (I’d use a CovertOps ship with a good cloak so could de-cloak and re-cloak and jump so quickly it was near impossible for bad guys to get a lock on me).
I also setup Player Owned Starbases inside wormholes which were nearly immune to attack since the entry points would shift. I got good at scanning for the exits and when one would pop out in hi sec space I’d run my freighters through to unload what I produced and buy what I needed.
I also learned a way to quick-warp freighters so I would run a dual account setup and have one ship help flip my freighter to warp in mere seconds (dunno if that loop hole has been closed or not).
It may not all be for you but I had a lot of fun with it and very rarely got killed much less podded. Point is you don’t have to fight if you do not want to. That said going solo is nearly impossible. You need friends in the game.
I’m on the freebie.
I haven’t played in years, but I also would have a second account double-web my freighters for the insta-warp. In order to get around this loophole they would need to change the way that webbers work, to instantly reduce current velocity by the same amount they reduce maximum velocity, but I think like most things involving movement (other than running into something), they’re made to gradually change speed; you only need an instant that your current velocity is whatever percent of maximum velocity that it needs to be while aligned to hit warp. If they required ships to hit a certain speed for their ship types regardless of effects, then webbers would effectively be infinite point warp disruptors.
I liked playing Eve for the challenge of figuring out what to build and how to play the market - economic PvP, basically. One of my main income sources was buying scrap and refining it for minerals. There clearly were others that did so as well, but I think it was a very narrow market - it required some very specific skills that I only went into because I was a pure care bear. I got into building the biggest ships that I could all by myself - Jump Carriers. I had two PoSes where I made the base metal that was used in T2 production, and bought everything else that require moon materials, and assembled all the parts in NPC stations not far from a main hub, and then ship them into the main hub to build at the main NPC station so I wouldn’t have to fly it myself anywhere. I may have eventually gotten my freighter pilot to be able to fly them so I wouldn’t have to wait the weeks or whatever to get a free manufacturing slot in the market hub, but I’m fairly sure I built my first few that way.
Once I started making enough ISK to pay for years worth of PLEX, I sorta lost interest. I had “beat” the game as far as I was concerned, and there simply was no joy left in continuing to make ISK. I made the most complex thing I could by myself, sold it for a profit, and continued to do so. What else could I possibly do in industry by myself? Plus, keeping my PoSes running and manufacturing slots churning stuff out ended up being a job in itself. If there were people I knew personally that I could start an organization with, maybe I would have, but I wasn’t about to try to trust people I didn’t know at all.
Dangit, I keep seeing this thread title and thinking/hoping it’s about former poster Eve being back on the SDMB, or at least active somewhere on the Internet.