Last Updated on 2022-09-27 by Kshal Aideron

I started playing Eve Online at the end of January 2020. While compared to a lot of other players, I’m a relative newbie. However, this doesn’t mean that I’ve been afk mining. In my short time within New Eden I can fly loads of roles for NPSI fleets including FC (both pvp and incursions), became the CEO of Eve Rookies, founded Eve Rookies Incursions and dedicated my content creation to bettering the experience for other new players.

Chapter 1: The 3rd Time is a Charm

January 2020 wasn’t the first time that I installed Eve. The first time was somewhere in 2015 with a non-existent new player experience. I think there was a tutorial, but I never managed to get undocked. I may have rage uninstalled the game. However, I really love punishment because later when the alpha clone was introduced I tried playing it a second time.

This time I remember getting undocked, but I had no clue what to do. I floated around space, clicking on things. This got me nowhere and I just floated around until someone or something came by and blew me up. Cue the rage uninstall and I swore that was it.

In 2019 a new guy started at work and bragged about playing the “hardest MMO” on the market. Sarcastically I said, “Let me guess, Eve Online?” He wanted to know how I knew and I admitted that my husband still played. I don’t know why I do these things to myself but I introduced the two and they became Eve friends. Eventually they moved out into the same null corp and did Eve things together.

For months I heard about Eve this and Eve that. I got to hear all about their fleets and exploits at home and at work. Well, I have a personal philosophy where I will try something three times before declaring that it’s not for me. I had only tried Eve twice and it had been some time since my last rage uninstall so at the end of January I loaded it up and tried again.

The third attempt obviously stuck. I don’t think my poor husband was expecting what came next…

Chapter 2: Streaming Eve

In the real world I’m an internet marketing professional. While watching other Eve players on Twitch, I noticed that there weren’t any new players (at that time). I didn’t know who would want to watch a 40 year old woman fumble her way through an information dump of a video game. But I was playing so why not experiment with Twitch?

It wasn’t long before I made 2 observations. First, experienced Eve players (vets) seemed to be attracted to new players like flies to honey. Vets love to let everyone know how much they know about the game. So as long as I streamed, I always had someone to help me get over whatever I was struggling with.

Second, getting help from chat vs. my husband was a easier pill to swallow. While my husband would vomit information at me, getting the help in text was in line with my personal learning style.

To this day I credit streaming my start in Eve with helping me really get into the game. Eve is about friendship, community and connection. My Twitch chat got me started early!

Chapter 3: PVE in High Sec

My first month of playing was mostly in High Sec. I started running missions and eventually both my husband and friend left Null to come play with me. This of course ensued in hilarity as both of the guys managed to get ships Concorded due to red safeties. My husband lost 2 Rattle Snakes and my friend lost whatever logi ship he was flying (in separate occasions). I was lucky enough to record my friend getting blown up, which is in the video below.

At the end of the day, I’m into PVP. I didn’t start playing Eve to just play PVE content. So I started lining up cheap frigates to go get myself blown up (repeatedly) in Tama. That is, until I found the NPSI community.

Chapter 4: NPSI Community

I should make mention that because of what I saw my husband and friend go through in Null, I was determined to never join a null corp. The idea of blues in a blue doughnut didn’t appeal to me. Why should I spend several hours sitting in a ship and not get to shoot anything? That’s not fun! I wanted to play on my own terms. Thankfully, there’s more to New Eden than joining a null corp. There’s NPSI!

What is NPSI?

NPSI stands for “Not Purple Shoot It.” These fleets tend to be public, open to anyone regardless of affiliation, experience level and there’s no strings attached! While a lot of the groups are a corporation in their own rights, there’s no need to join to participate! Just show up to the right staging, X up at the right time and enjoy some pew pew!

Redemption Road Newbro Roams

I was given a link to an interview by the wonderful FC and CEO of Redemption Road, Greygal. In it she talked about why she started doing newbro roams and the concept of NPSI. This really spoke to me. So the next newbro roam I made my way out to Berta and managed to get into the fleet.

I can’t say I wasn’t nervous. While today I know this roam was meant for rookies, I didn’t want to mess up and kill the fleet. Little did I know at the time, that would be impossible because Greygal’s fleets never make it home. There’s a good reason that the catalysts are all named ‘Suicide Catalyst.’

So Greygal got us all in a ship, got us undocked, dumped loads of information on us in the form of pvp 101, then took us out to null. I remember jumping into null for the first time thinking there was something big and scary on the other side of the gate. Unfortunately, the system was empty and I’d have to wait a few more jumps to encounter my first battleship. This was a smart bombing praxis.

Long story short, the entire fleet blew up (maybe the scout got out alive). Greygal cackled and got us all back to the station where we reshipped and went out again. At this point I was hooked and started showing up for every Sunday fleet.

Becoming a Scout at 2 Months Old

Around the 2 month mark (maybe a little earlier), I had injected to get into an interceptor. I had read that this was the best way to deal with one of the NPC story arcs and wanted to give it a go. Plus, if I forgot to leave a jump clone in Berta, it meant I could fly to the ass end of nowhere faster.

I vividly remember showing up to a regular Sunday fleet in my Malediction. It wasn’t really set up for PVP, it was set up to travel and I was planning to jump into a destroyer. That’s when I found out the FC moved me down into the skirmish section.

“Um, why am I in the skirmish section?”

In his thick scottish accent, he answered, “because you’re in an interceptor and I only have one scout.”

“I’ve never scouted before!”a

“It’s ok, this is a good time to learn.”

Cue the slow burning panic. My husband walked into my office and told me that I had it. It was around Easter and The Hunt (an event where you first have to DScan a pod for a key) was running. I had gotten really fast at scanning those blasted pods down so at least I had that skill under my belt. I begrudgingly agreed to try it and off we went.

Spoiler, it was fine. This is how NPSI scouts are born.

Chapter 5: Eve Online Public Help Desk

In between flying public NPSI fleets, I was also streaming level 4 missions and other PVE activity. Something I noticed is I was getting an awful lot of brand new players stopping in my chat to ask questions. Suddenly it dawned on me what was happening… the learning curve for the game is so high that new players were turning streamers into “help desks.”

This is especially true for small Eve streamers like me due to not having a busy chat.

Realizing this truth profoundly changed the way I was playing Eve and creating content. I put a “new player questions welcome” in the title of my streams, used the beginner tag, and started making my streams interesting for new players.

I also started creating short, to the point, Youtube tutorials and in January 2021 created this website.

Chapter 6: Joining a Corp

A few months after I started flying with Redemption Road, someone suggested that I start flying with another group called FUN Inc. A lot of their pilots came to support RR (they both were born out of Agony Unleashed) so joining a FUN fleet was a very small step.

After several fleets I got the courage to try scouting for them as well. So every Sunday I flew with Redemption and during the week I flew with FUN.

While I had resolved to stay solo, but flying with FUN was actually fun! I enjoyed the company of everyone and every fleet that resolve wore down until I finally joined in August of 2020. To date Kshal is still a member.

Becoming a FC at 8 Months Into the Game

I truly don’t know how I got thrown out of the frying pan into the fire. It was probably telling my husband (who followed me into FUN) I wouldn’t mind trying to FC at some point LATER in my career. However, due to the fact that I used to lead public raids on an old MMO called Everquest, my husband apparently thought I was perfectly capable of FCing a pvp fleet.

The CEO had put out a message on our Discord for anyone who would like to try FCing. My dear, sweet husband said I’d do it. Yes, he threw me firmly under the bus. Before I could even respond I had a corp fleet scheduled to go out. Cue that slow burning panic once again.

My chosen ship was the Enyo. It had fast become one of my favorite assault frigs since everyone under estimates it. It’s hardy and packs a nice little punch. So 7 of us set out to null and I prayed to Bob that I didn’t welp the fleet. Not only did I not welp the fleet but I managed to successfully lead the fleet in killing a very blingy Tengu. There really is no adrenaline rush like pvp in Eve. Well, there’s really no adrenaline rush that compares to your first blingy kill as FC. Probably took me a half hour to stop shaking and someone else had to take over the fleet.

Needless to say, I was hooked. My first public fleet was posted and I was hoping that people would show up. There wasn’t much to fear, they showed up and we killed things. A few billion isk worth of things in fact!

Chapter 7: Birth of the FUNny Newbros

Because my streams were aimed specifically at newbros, I didn’t delay my streams when I FC’d. I wanted to be able to explain what I was doing and answer questions in real time. I noticed at some point I started getting quite a few new players in my fleets. However, assault frigs (my ship of choice) aren’t very new player or alpha friendly.

A corp mate that also flew a lot with Redemption Road mentioned that we should start doing weekly newbro roams. After a very brief discussion, that’s what we started doing. Every Wednesday we would gather up all the new players we could find via stream, reddit, the eve forums, and different Discord groups and put them in a fleet. We give them a ship, dump info on them in the form of pvp 101 and off we go to blow up.

We named this fleet the FUNny Newbros.

The really awesome thing about this fleet is we encourage anyone to try any role within the fleet. Want to try scouting? Sure! First time in a dictor? Great! Want to practice booshing that bubble off grid? Go for it. Want to FC? Let me move on over! Because of this fleet numerous pilots have gained the confidence to fly in other fleets or even fly roles.

Chapter 8: Eve Rookies Website

At the beginning of 2021, I decided to make a website dedicated to tutorials and articles aimed at new players. Somehow EveRookies.com wasn’t taken so I snatched it up. Unfortunately, it’s not complete in its knowledge (it’s mostly a one woman project) but I’m working on it!

Chapter 9: Eve Rookies Incursions

In the fall of 2020, Princess Abbie (or DiscoDelboy on Twitch) had found me. He had decided my platform aimed at newbros would be perfect for his new project Nova Prospects Incursions.

Incursions are end game PVE content. There’s several different types of incursion sites but only two are really ran by incursion players. Vanguards, which are a 13 man “dungeon” and Head Quarters which take a fleet of 40. NPI was aimed to focus on the Vanguards because they’re much less intense and the barrier of entry could be made a lot lower for new players.

Unfortunately, we were only able to run a few fleets under NPI. At the time, the 3 Head Quarter groups were vying to pop MOM (the mother ship, i.e. end boss) first. When MOM goes down, the entire incursion goes down and then respawns elsewhere a day or two later. Because both Abbie and I were FCs for our respective NPSI groups, we just couldn’t establish a consistent schedule. We really had no choice but to put the idea of the newbro friendly incursions on ice.

Rebranding the New Player Friendly Incursions as Eve Rookies Incursions

Around February of 2021, the established incursion community agreed to take turns popping MOM. This was the perfect time to try to revive the rookie friendly incursions and rebrand it under Eve Rookies Incursions.

It took the financial help of several different players (not to mention lots of large skill injectors to get Kshal into the booster ship), but we were able to get up and running. The idea of Eve Rookies Incursions is a pilot doesn’t have to invest in their own battleship. If they’re only interested in finding out if they even like this type of PVE play, they can borrow a Praxis for a refundable deposit of 250m.

The great thing about the Praxis is it’s incredibly new player friendly. Unlike the other battleships, there’s no battleship skills needed! If a player has been playing for a few months already, they most likely have the core skills to fly the ship and only need to invest into the large blaster. If they want to create an alpha skilled specifically for the blaster praxis, they can use the 1 million skill points and only have to wait about 3 weeks.

In the mean time, while their skills are cooking, they can come scout sites for us! Our scouts typically walk away with over 100m for the 2 hours plus tips from the fleet!

Eve Rookies Turns 1 year Old

In March 2022 Eve Rookies turned 1 year old. Where we started with just myself as FC, there are now 3 other full FCs. We also currently have 4 JFCs (junior FCs or FCs in training) working on earning their wings!

Also, in the beginning we struggled with filling the fleet once a week. Today we’re running over 5 fleets a week and are about to add US TZ fleets as well! We’ve come a long ways!

More information about flying with Eve Rookies Incursions here

Chapter 10: Running for CSM

Here we are, finally caught up to today. I’m applying to be part of CSM 17.

This is an exciting new chapter to my exploits in New Eden and I have no idea where it’s going to lead. I’m not willing to make any to make any grand changes if elected one of your CSM. I can, however promise to:

• listen and bring community issues to light where I can
• make sure that my CSM activities are centered around you, the new player, and community
• stay impartial (I mean, I literally have no blues)
• lend my real life marketing expertise and knowledge where I can
• be as transparent as I’m legally allowed (i.e. make as many posts for Eve Rookies as I can!)

Stay tuned for future chapters in this story!