Skill training is an essential part of EVE Online gameplay. Skill training allows your character to have strengths in the areas where he or she needs them most. There are skills for improving the performance of ships, improving relationships with NPC agents, and many more.
Skill Training Introduction
A skill is a book that you can buy on the market. Every skill can be trained up to level 5. Some skills have pre-requisites: skills that you must train first, before training the desired skill. Your current skills limit the types of ships, modules, rigs, implants, and other things that you can use, and they also limit some of your abilities, like selling on the market, creating jump clones, and so on.
Skills and Training Time
The amount of time that a skill takes to train depends on your attributes, the skill's training time multiplier, and the level to which you are training the skill.
Each skill has a primary attribute and a secondary attribute. These character attributes, like perception, willpower, charisma, and so on, are a part of what determines how long it takes you to learn the skill.
The true values of those attributes are truncated in your character sheet, so to determine the exact amount of time a skill will take to train, start with this formula:
True attribute value =
((rounded_up((attribute value from character sheet / (1 + (level of learning skill * 0.02))) *
(1 + (level of learning skill * 0.02)))) + (level of basic learning skill that affects this attribute) + (level of advanced learning skill that affects this attribute) + (implant bonus)) *
(1 + ((level of learning skill) * 0.02)))
To find out how long it will take you to train a skill, use this formula:
Minutes to train skill = (((skill points needed for next level) - (current skill points) / ((primary attribute) + ((secondary attribute) / 2))) * (training time multiplier))
Where to find skill books
Skills are in the form of skill books. You can purchase skills on the market, for sale by other players or by NPC corporations. Typically, NPC universities sell many skill books. In addition, in some cases you can find skill books as loot in missions. Also, you will occasionally be rewarded with a skill by an agent after completing a mission, especially from a tutorial agent.
How to train a skill
To start training a skill, just right-click on the skill and choose Train Now or Train After Current Queue. The Train Now option, not surprisingly, starts training the chosen skill now. The training queue option is a little more complicated.
The training queue is a way for you to queue up several skills to train. As of the Phoebe expansion, released November 4, 2014, you can now add up to 50 skills to your training queue. You can queue skills to start up to 10 years in advance.
Losing Skillpoints
As of the Rhea expansion released December 9, 2014, you will not lose skill points if your character is killed. In previous versions of EVE Online, if you did not have an up-to-date clone, you would lose skill points.