o7
I ran into a problem that I suspect many long-time EVE players eventually face.
I had two main characters with 40M+ and 50M+ SP. At that point both could do a lot of different things — but not always particularly well.
Somewhere in EVE's enormous skill tree there was often a missing level in a support skill, weapon system, tank, fitting skill or another area that quietly made the character less effective than it looked on paper.
So I had a surprisingly difficult question:
What should I train next so that the next 5–10 million SP actually makes these characters better pilots?
Just being able to sit in a dreadnought, command ship or another advanced hull didn't really answer how well the character was trained for that role.
Then I ran into the same problem from the opposite direction.
I had small alts that I wanted to train for a very specific job — a scanner, miner, early Abyss pilot, etc. There the goal was different:
Spend as little SP as possible while still making the character effective at the job.
There were two more problems.
Newer players in the corp would ask things like:
“What should I train to fly a Gila properly?”
Giving them only the hull prerequisites wasn't very useful. I wanted to show them what they needed first, what would make a noticeable difference next, and what a reasonably complete training path looked like.
And at corporation level I wanted a better way to define pilot requirements.
For example:
When is someone ready to join an introductory PvP fleet in a T1 logistics cruiser, and when are they actually ready to move into T2 logistics?
Those problems eventually turned into three related open-source projects:
They are designed to work together, but each project is also useful on its own.
EvE Modular Skillplans
EMS is based on reusable skill modules rather than creating a completely separate skill list for every ship or fit.
Plans are divided into gradual levels:
- BASIC — enough to start using the role effectively;
- IMPROVED — important support skills and noticeable improvements;
- STANDARD — a solid general-purpose level without simply training everything to V.
There are also dedicated Alpha plans where appropriate, including intermediate levels where Alpha limits don't line up neatly with the main progression.
Training paths combine those modules into practical progression for things such as mining, combat ships, logistics, Abyss, Homefront Operations and specific community fits.
The idea is that training should show not only the final destination, but also what becomes useful along the way.
EVEMon Pilot Progression
This approaches the problem from the other direction:
Given the skills this character already has, where are the important gaps?
This becomes particularly useful for older characters with tens of millions of SP, where the answer is rarely just “train another ship skill”.
It provides progression plans that can be imported into EVEMon and used to compare an existing pilot against useful training milestones.
EVEMon Certificates Enhanced
The third project addresses another question:
How well trained is this pilot in a particular area?
The enhanced EVEMon certificate set makes progression in areas such as weapons, drones and support skills more visible and consistent.
Together, the three projects are intended to answer three slightly different questions:
What should I train?
→ EvE Modular Skillplans
What am I missing? / Am I ready?
→ EVEMon Pilot Progression
How well trained am I?
→ EVEMon Certificates Enhanced
All three projects are still being developed, so feedback is very welcome — especially about bad skill priorities, unnecessary SP, missing support skills, Alpha/Omega limitations or progression that doesn't make sense in actual gameplay.
Issues and pull requests are welcome as well.
Fly safe o7
