Thanks to Miko Kiyan for this guide.

Learning Skills: A Primer

At the request of Irrius, here's a little primer for our newer players on the learning skills and why they're important.

First off: *THE LEARNING SKILLS ARE PROBABLY ***THE*** MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS IN THE GAME*

"What? But...they don't help me kill things faster or mine more ore or...well...anything." you say.

Right you are, Ken, but you *learn* those skills faster, and the most valuable commodity in EVE is time. It's the one thing you can't get more of, the one thing you can't replace if you lose.

With that said, allow me go into a bit of detail. There are a total of 11 learning skills, 2 for each attribute and the actual Learning skill which adds 2% to every attribute per level.

So, lets say you start out with 10 intelligence at character creation. You train Analytical Mind to level 3 and now you have 13 intelligence. However, let's say you also train Learning to level 5. This would would give you an intelligence, not of 13, but of 14.3, because Learning V adds 10% to your attributes. Now, on your character sheet, you won't see the .3, but it *is* there and has been confirmed by CCP long ago. Why they don't want to just go ahead and show it is beyond me, but that's how it is.

Now, higher attributes are great, but let's get to the goods. In case you're very new, know that your attributes don't do ANYTHING for your character aside from decreasing training time. That's it. And that's why learning skills are *PROBABLY ***THE*** MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS IN THE GAME*.

Example.

Say you want to take Gallente Frigate to from level 4 to level 5. Further, let's say your Perception and Willpower (the primary and secondary attributes for that skill, respectively) are both 10 (for the sake of simplicity) and that you've trained no learning skills.

Using the skill calculator located at www.evegeek.com, you get a training time of ***19 days, 12 hours, 19 minutes and 20 seconds***. "Christ on a crutch!" you exclaim. Indeed. This is an excessive amount of time for this particular skill.

2006.01.12 13:46
Now, let's say that you decide to lower that a bit by training Learning to III, Iron Will (Willpower) to II and Spatial Awareness (Perception) to II. You end up with a training time of 14 days, 18 hours, 47 minutes and 22 seconds. Nearly *five days* saved. FIVE DAYS!

Now, it is the overwhelming consensus on the part of the EVE community that anyone who will be playing for a significant amount of time is ***strongly*** advised to get Learning to level V, the basic attribute skills to V and the advanced attribute skills to IV. Why not V for the advanced skills? Well, for that final extra point, it will take you somewhere in the area of 13-15 days (depending on your attributes the the time) per skill. Now, I'm not going to run the numbers on it, but suffice to say that it will take a VERY long time (couple of years) to recoup the time you spend training. However, some people do it and, once you've finally got them out of the way, it's at least nice to know that *from then on* you'll be training that much faster.

I'll leave the choice up to you.

So, let's take our Gallente Frigate example and apply GOOD learning skills. In this case, Learning to V, Iron Will (Willpower) to V, Focus (advanced Willpower) to IV, Spatial Awareness (Perception) to V and Clarity (advanced Perception) to IV. We end up with a training time of 9 days, 8 hours, 4 minutes and 39 seconds, for a total of roughly ***10 days, 4 hours* saved. Good stuff, huh?

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Sure, I saved 10 days, but what about all that time I spent TRAINING the Learning skills?" Granted. At first, you'll feel like you're losing time while you're training the learning skills, but remember: This 10 days saved is just this ONE skill example. Imagine all the time you'll save on ALL the skill you'll train. You will quickly make up the time you "lost" training the learning skills and you'll end up WAY ahead of where you would be had you not trained them.

But what's the best order to train them to minimize the time spent on all these learning skills? well, I'll be honest with you, I'm not going to run the numbers on all that. However, other people on the forums have listed a couple of different orders, so here they are for your viewing pleasure:

Instant Recall 1
Analytical Mind 1
Learning 1
Instant Recall 2
Analytical Mind 2
Learning 2
Instant Recall 3
Analytical Mind 3
Learning 3
Instant Recall 4
Analytical Mind 4
Learning 4
Instant Recall 5
Eidetic Memory 1
Eidetic Memory 2
Eidetic Memory 3
Eidetic Memory 4
Analytical Mind 5
Logic 1
Logic 2
Logic 3
Logic 4
Learning 5
Spatial Awareness 1
Spatial Awareness 2
Spatial Awareness 3
Spatial Awareness 4
Spatial Awareness 5
Iron Will 1
Iron Will 2
Iron Will 3
Iron Will 4
Iron Will 5
Empathy 1
Empathy 2
Empathy 3
Empathy 4
Empathy 5
Focus 1
Clarity 1
Presence 1
Focus 2
Clarity 2
Presence 2
Focus 3
Clarity 3
Presence 3
Focus 4
Clarity 4
Presence 4

***OR***

Instant Recall 1
Analytical Mind 1
Learning 1
Instant Recall 2
Analytical Mind 2
Learning 2
Instant Recall 3
Analytical Mind 3
Learning 3
Instant Recall 4
Analytical Mind 4
Learning 4
Instant Recall 5
Eidetic Memory 1
Eidetic Memory 2
Eidetic Memory 3
Eidetic Memory 4
Analytical Mind 5
Logic 1
Logic 2
Logic 3
Logic 4
Learning 5
Spatial Awareness 1
Spatial Awareness 2
Spatial Awareness 3
Spatial Awareness 4
Spatial Awareness 5
Iron Will 1
Iron Will 2
Iron Will 3
Iron Will 4
Iron Will 5
Empathy 1
Empathy 2
Empathy 3
Empathy 4
Empathy 5
Focus 1
Clarity 1
Presence 1
Focus 2
Clarity 2
Presence 2
Focus 3
Clarity 3
Presence 3
Focus 4
Clarity 4
Presence 4

Most likely you won't be training them in exactly this order because you might want to concentrate just on Perception and Willpower skills or Engineering skills or whatever. You decide what works best for you; the above two lists are just rough formats.

Ok, so, hopefully I've gotten my point across that *THE LEARNING SKILLS ARE PROBABLY ***THE*** MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS IN THE GAME*. Clear? :)

But:

The fact is that it's going to take you quite a while to get your learning skills up to where they should be. And, of course, while you're training the learning skills, you're not becoming a more effective miner or combat pilot or trader or producer. So, while some people DO go ahead and concentrate JUST on the learning skills in the beginning, don't do so if you're not having fun. If need a to train a different skill to fly that shiny new ship you're eying, do so. Despite what I said earlier, don't let yourself fall into the skillpoint race at the expense of fun. In the end, this is a game and, if you're not enjoying it, there's no point in playing, is there?

Hope this helps :)