Skill planning is the backbone of EVE Online. With over 400 skills and millions of skill points (SP) to train, a clear plan helps you unlock ships, weapons, and industry roles faster and more efficiently.
What Are Skills?
In EVE Online, skills are your character’s way of learning and improving abilities. They determine what ships you can fly, what modules you can use, and how effective you are in combat, mining, industry, trading, and exploration.
- Passive Training System: Skills train in real time, even when you’re logged out.
- Skill Points (SP): Every skill has levels from I (1) to V (5). Each level grants benefits and unlocks higher-tier ships or modules.
- Training Queue: You can set skills to train in order so you don’t have to log in constantly.
Think of skills as your long-term character progression — you don’t grind for XP; instead, you plan ahead and let them tick up over time.
Understand How Skills Work
Passive Time-Based Training
- Skills train in real-time—even while offline.
- Each skill has 5 levels (I–V); each level takes longer than the last.
- Total training time depends on your attributes, implants, and Alpha/Omega status.
Attribute System
Each skill uses two attributes:
- Primary: Most impactful
- Secondary: Less, but still contributes
Train skills aligned with your best attributes for faster progress. Attributes are:
- Intelligence
- Perception
- Memory
- Willpower
- Charisma
Omega clones can remap attributes once per year (+2 bonus remaps), so plan wisely.
Types of Skills
Skills are grouped into categories depending on their purpose:
- Spaceship Command – Unlocks and improves ship piloting.
- Example: Gallente Frigate (lets you fly Gallente frigates).
- Gunnery / Missiles – Improves weapon systems, accuracy, and damage.
- Engineering – Improves ship powergrid, capacitor, and fitting options.
- Navigation – Boosts ship speed, agility, and warp efficiency.
- Armor / Shields – Improves defenses and repair modules.
- Drones – Controls drones (important for combat, mining, and exploration).
- Trade – Expands market abilities, contracts, and taxes.
- Industry – Manufacturing, mining, and resource processing.
- Science – Research, invention, and tech-related industry.
- Social – Improves standings and mission rewards.
This is not a full list, check the in-game skills catalogue, there is a lot.
How to Train Skills as a Beginner
- Open the Character Sheet → Skills Tab.
- Use the Training Queue to line up skills. (Alpha accounts can queue 24h; Omega accounts get unlimited queue length.)
- Follow Career Agents or the New Player Experience — they guide you into basic skills.
- Train Skills to Level III quickly (fast, gives good benefits). Later, push important ones to IV or V.
- Use Skill Books: Some skills must be bought on the market and injected before training.
Maximize Skill Training Speed
Tips:
- Upgrade to Omega: Trains 2× faster and unlocks all skills.
- Use +3 or +4 attribute implants (e.g., Basic Memory Augmentation).
- Remap attributes: Focus on relevant attributes for a group of skills.
- Choose a career path (e.g., mining, PVP, exploration).
- Avoid wasting time on skills you won’t use yet.
- Research the ship or module requirements
- Add support skills (Engineering, Navigation, Capacitor Management).
- Balance short-term goals with long-term mastery.
- Insert skills by priority and length—train shorter skills first to fill gaps.
- Use the skill training queue
Core Skills (Good for Everyone)
No matter what you do in EVE, certain “core” skills help every pilot:
- Engineering (better fitting options, capacitor stability)
- Power Grid Management & CPU Management
- Navigation & Warp Drive Operation (move faster, use less capacitor)
- Mechanics, Hull Upgrades, Shield Management (survivability)
- Drones (most ships rely on drones at some point)
Training these early makes every ship easier to fly.
Use Skill Plans
In the Character Sheet, there’s a “Skill Plans” tab:
- Certified Plans – Official plans for various ships and careers.
- Corp Plans – Created by your corporation – LSE has created a few for members to use.
- Personal Plans – Build your own or import from tools.
Great for keeping your focus and syncing with corp doctrines.
Tips
- Don’t stress about catching up. Skill training is long-term, but new players can contribute almost immediately in fleets.
- Specialize instead of training everything. Focus on a ship or activity you enjoy (e.g., frigate combat, mining, exploration).
- Use free Skill Points from events/tutorials to skip long training times.
- Check “Mastery” tabs on ships for recommended skills.