Ive seen alot of posts about how to get new players to stay ingame during there first 30 mins.

However to me, that really isnt the issue, i found the start to be smooth and clear. however once i had completed the advanced training and got level 3 combat, i found myself hung out to dry. pretty much every combat mission i took ended with me dieing seconds into the mission every time.

there is so little description of the missions that i couldnt help feel annoyed that there was no way to tell how difficult a mission was. add to that the insane learning curve of the combat and i think i know why alot of new players will get frustrated with this game.

Just my 2 cents mind.

Before you start to take on the tougher bots, you should learn to strafe + roll at the same time. Most of these bots can't hit you when you do that, their aim isn't so good.

Now, when you can strafe+roll AND aim and hit the bots, you are ready for the higher-level combat missions. (ProTip: Use energy weapons)

Practice doing that until you can kill maybe 100 bots without dying. Once you figure it out, you'll know.

My major issue is, that there is such a huge skill requirement jump between the combat training, and the lvl 3 missions. but there is no way of knowing how big that jump is, untill you have done the missions, died and gotten annoyed with it.

Admittedly, it is a bit of a leap. Am I correct in assuming that you are using Hive Skirmishes to raise your combat XP at this point? If not, that is where the XP, and true experience, is from. Get yourself a light fighter, or my fav: a hog mk2. If you are UIT, go to gray space and get the missions there.

Some people are not necessarily cut out for the VO flight model, which I will note is incredibly responsive, look into getting a more experienced player to show you some combat tips to keep you going.

Best of luck!

There are certain nuances in VO that dramatically increase your survivability. For example, accelerating up, and left, and forwards at the same time is much quicker than accelerating in any one of those directions alone. In other words, the direction you strafe in doesn't just change the direction you strafe in; it changes how fast you move. I haven't found this listed anywhere, only through empirical study did I discover this, and it was the most fundamental game changing moment of my VO career. (Perhaps it's in the tutorials somewhere, but somehow I find that doubtful.)

Learning to succeed in combat isn't necessarily based on one's skill as a pilot, the ability to logically construct scenarios, or dexterity of the hands. What is most certainly is based on is one's experience with the quirky mechanics of this one particular game. This does two things; it attracts an elitist population, and it makes it like EVE. =)

P.S. Make it have flight sim controls, so that players who have prior experience with flight sims will feel more comfortable.

This is the issue tho, i took a hive mission, flew to the sector, only to get instantly killed before i even got control of my ship back by the leviathan that was sat there..

I mean, how am i supposed to know if a mission is impossible there seems to be no indication, hell a easy/medium/hard/dont bother would be better than nothing

If you are dying, then the mission is too hard, or you are attacking the wrong bots. There is an indication to how hard a hive skirmish mission will be also before you take it. I cannot remember the exact terms, but I believe the missions to be listsed as such:

Small Skirmish: Very Easy
Common Skirmish: Easy
Critical Skirmish: Hard
Central Skirmish: Very Hard

You are correct that this should be explained, maybe the first time you take a hive skirmish mission (hive skirmish tutorial maybe, that is triggered at combat 3?)

Also there is another combat "practice" mission after you hit combat 3, its called advanced combat practice. I highly reccomend you take this mission if you are dying in central/critical hive skirmishes. It's a good way to learn how to dodge more than one opponent, and I highly recomend choosing "tycorp assaults" as your fodder.

Welcome to VO.

I think one of the difficulties lies in the fact that new players have such a variety of experience when it comes to the combat model that classifying a mission as "easy" "medium" or "hard" based on levels is not as straightforward as it sounds. Otherwise, do your best to read the mission briefing and glean potential difficulty from that.

Echong yoda, the most logical progression of bots in terms of difficulty seems to be:

Orun collector
Dentek collector
Artemis collector
Tycorp assault
Aputech-5 guardian

...after that try exploring some different bot types and seeing how you fare. In general assaults are fast, accurate, with lower armor while guardians are slow, powerful, with heavy armor.

If you see a mission titled "Corvus System Recon" then don't bother :)

Get a good mentor.