🧠 EVE Online: Skill Planning Guide (2025)
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.
🧭 1. 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 (Important!)
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.
🔧 2. Tools for Skill Planning
🔹 In-Game Tools
- Skill Queue: Drag and drop skills to plan up to 150 skills or 10 years of training.
- Character Sheet → Skills → Add to Queue
🔹 External Tools (Recommended)
- EVEMon (Windows) – Skill tracking and planning.
- EVE University Wiki
- EVE Skillboard – For viewing public skill plans.
- Pyfa – Plan ship fits, then backtrack the required skills.
🚀 3. Skill Planning by Career Path
⚔️ Combat Pilot (PVP / PVE)
Focus: Guns, tanking, drones, navigation, ship command.
Core Skills:
- Spaceship Command
- Gunnery or Missiles
- Navigation
- Engineering
- Mechanics
- Targeting
- Drones
Tip: Train Weapon Upgrades V and Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV+ early to reduce powergrid/CPU use.
⚒️ Industry & Mining
Focus: Resource extraction, production, refining, trading.
Mining Core:
- Mining I–V
- Astrogeology III–V
- Mining Upgrades
- Industry & Reprocessing
Manufacturing:
- Industry V
- Mass Production / Advanced Mass Production
- Science
- Research & Metallurgy
Trade/Market:
- Trade
- Accounting
- Broker Relations
🚛 Hauling & Logistics
Focus: Movement of goods, navigation, tanking.
Core Skills:
- Racial Industrial / Freighter
- Evasive Maneuvering
- Warp Drive Operation
- Hull Upgrades
- Transport Ships (Omega)
🛰️ Exploration
Focus: Scanning, hacking, covert travel.
Important Skills:
- Astrometrics
- Archaeology
- Hacking
- Cloaking (for covert ops)
- CPU Management
- Racial Frigate (for exploration ships)
📋 4. Build a Balanced Training Plan
🎯 Step-by-Step:
- Choose a career path (e.g., mining, PVP, exploration).
- Research the ship or module requirements (in-game or Pyfa).
- 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.
💡 Tip: Use the Mastery Levels tab on ship info to see which skills are important for that ship.
🧪 5. Maximize Skill Training Speed
⚙️ Optimization 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.
- Avoid wasting time on skills you won’t use yet.
🏁 6. What Skills Should I Train First?
🔑 Must-Have Core Skills (All Roles)
| Skill | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| CPU Management V | More fitting power |
| Power Grid Management V | More fitting power |
| Capacitor Management IV–V | Keeps systems running longer |
| Mechanics / Hull Upgrades | Better tanking |
| Navigation IV–V | Move faster |
| Warp Drive Operation | Efficient warping |
| Targeting / Long Range Targeting | Lock more and farther targets |
🎁 7. Bonus: Use Skill Plans (2023+ Feature)
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.
- Personal Plans – Build your own or import from tools.
Great for keeping your focus and syncing with corp doctrines.
🚀 Sample Beginner Skill Plan (Combat Pilot)
diffCopyEdit- CPU Management V
- Power Grid Management V
- Navigation IV
- Afterburner IV
- Racial Frigate IV
- Small [Racial] Turret III–IV
- Gunnery IV
- Weapon Upgrades IV
- Mechanics IV
- Hull Upgrades IV
- Drones V
Time to complete: ~14–21 days (Omega)
✅ Summary Checklist
✅ Choose a focus or ship/doctrine
✅ Use the in-game queue + external tools
✅ Train short skills first, build toward long-term goals
✅ Don’t neglect core support skills
✅ Stay Omega + use implants for max speed
✅ Use skill plans and Mastery levels as guides