Your journey in EVE Frontier begins in a secluded solar system, with the New Player Experience. Here you’ll get the chance to learn the basics of piloting, base building, industry, and combat.
The goal is to prepare you to confidently explore and conquer the Frontier, equipped with the tools and know-how to thrive. The entire experience centers on manufacturing a ship using various materials and deployables at your disposal. Once you've manufactured the ship, called the Reflex, you'll be ready to jump out of the starter system to begin exploring the vastness of the Frontier.
Step 1: Scavenge Wrecks for Materials and Fuel
After creating your character, you'll load into the Frontier aboard a Wend. A tutorial will guide you to nearby wrecks containing valuable ore that can be salvaged and used to build your first deployable structures. To find these wrecks, zoom out or press F2 to switch to the Tactical Camera. This view will make the icons representing wrecks clearly visible.
Click on a wreck icon to select it, which will display it in the Selected Item window.
When a wreck or any other object is selected, you will be presented with interaction options like Approach, Warp to, Open Cargo, Orbit, Keep at Range, Lock Target, Track, and Show Info. To loot the wreck, click Open Cargo to auto-approach and open the inventory. In the UI that pops up, click Loot All to transfer the ore and fuel to your inventory. Repeat this process for each wreck in your vicinity. You can now refuel your Wend by opening the fuel menu in your HUD, selecting a fuel type, and applying it to your reserves.
If you want to familiarize yourself with the UI, you can visit this help center page for a detailed breakdown.
Step 2: Find a Base Location
Now that you’ve gathered materials, it’s time to establish a base. Press F3 or select the system camera at the top of your UI. This view shows various locations you can warp to, such as planets, moons, asteroid fields, and combat sites. Choose a planet or any celestial body to warp to and begin your base setup there.
Step 3: Build Your First Base
Once you've arrived at your chosen celestial, open the Terminal and click the Inventory button to view your collected ore and materials that you currently have in your possession. Now you can press B to enter Build Mode. You’ll now see a list of structures you can deploy. Navigate to the Core tab and begin by building a portable refinery. This structure allows you to refine raw ore into useful materials and refine ice into fuel for your ship. If you don’t have enough common ore to build the refinery, you can skip to step 6. Instead of heading to a carbon field, locate a natural asteroid cluster and follow the same procedure described in step 6.
Step 4: Fuel and Capacitor Management
Without fuel, your ship is unable to warp, effectively stranding you in space. You can check your fuel status at the bottom right of the UI. Your capacitor, shown as a white bar, consumes fuel (represented in orange) when mining, warping, or engaging in combat. The ship automatically replenishes the capacitor until the fuel you have loaded in your fuel bay is depleted. Before leaving your base, always make sure that you have enough fuel for whatever task you plan on undertaking.
Step 5: Use the Portable Refinery
After building your refinery, select it and click Interact. You’ll see a list of available refining jobs that can be installed. For example, the Water Ice job refines water ice into fuel, while the Carbonaceous Ore job outputs both carbonaceous materials and water ice.
Step 6: Acquire Ore for Refining
To gather more carbonaceous ore, open the system camera (F3) and look for a site called Carbon Field. Once there, load your synthetic mining lens into your small cutting laser by clicking the yellow arrow in the UI. Select a carbon asteroid, lock it with the Lock Target function from your selected object, and begin mining by pressing 1 or simply clicking on the mining cutter. Monitor your inventory (found in the Terminal) as it fills up. When your inventory is filled with ore, open Personal Assets, right-click on your portable refinery, and warp back to your base.
Step 7: Refine Ore
Interact with your refinery via the selected item window and select the Carbonaceous Ore job. Drag the ore from your inventory to the Input section. Adjust the job quantity, then click Install. When complete, click Deliver to move the output materials to your inventory. To refine water ice, move any leftover input materials back to your inventory first, then repeat the same steps.
Step 8: Refuel Your Ship
Now that you’ve produced fuel, open the Terminal, go to Inventory, and drag the fuel into your fuel bay (the big orange box). Store any extra fuel in your base or your ship for future use.
Step 9: Expand Your Base
To build more deployables, open Build Mode and navigate to the Core tab. You’ll need 50 carbonaceous ore, 50 common ore, and 50 metal-rich ore. You can find these ores in:
Metal-rich clusters - metal-rich ore
Carbon fields - carbonaceous ore
Natural asteroid clusters - common ore
Once collected, use your Personal Assets window to warp to your home base and build a portable printer, storage unit, and refuge. Position them close together so you can access all 3 without moving your ship.
You now have the following structures in your base:
- Portable printer - used to manufacture
- Portable refinery - used to refine ore and water ice
- Refuge - used to change your ships’ fitting and to store ships
- Portable storage unit - used to store any modules, ore, or input materials you want to save for later
Step 10: Gather Materials
With your ores refined, it's time to manufacture modules. Interact with the printer and explore the manufacturing options. You can build items like weapons, mining cutters, mining crystals, and the Reflex hull. Select the Reflex job to view required materials:
- Reinforced alloys
- Carbonaceous materials
- Nomad program frame - (This input material will be covered in step 12)
Begin by collecting these materials to manufacture all the required input materials for the Reflex.
Step 11: Manufacture Weapons and Ammo
To build the Reflex, you’ll need a nomad program frame, which you will need to manufacture from materials dropped by feral drones. In the printer, manufacture one base autocannon and three AC gyrojet ammo 1. After you've built and delivered them, right-click your refuge and hit Use Fitting Service. Drag the small cutting laser to your inventory and fit the autocannon in the high slot where your mining cutter was located initially. The fitting window is where you can see what is installed in the various slots of your hull and change the fittings. Keep in mind, however, that there is a hard cap on how many modules each specific ship can fit, and how much power and CPU it can use. You can see how much each individual module uses by right-clicking on it and clicking Show Info.
Step 12: Combat and the Nomad Frame
Now armed, open the system camera (F3) and warp to a feral drone site. Lock onto a target via the selected item window and fire using the autocannon by pressing 1. To make sure your autocannon can track, stay in range by approaching or orbiting the enemy. Monitor your structure HP beneath No Armor and use your hull repairer when necessary by pressing 2. Be mindful not to drain your fuel and capacitor more than needed. Keep clearing drones in various sites until you loot 10x fossilized exotronics.
Step 13: Build the Reflex
Return to your base and manufacture the nomad program frame. Once that’s ready, you can begin manufacturing the Reflex. When the build finishes, interact with your refuge, right-click it, and select Assemble. Board the Reflex by right-clicking and selecting Board, which will store your Wend.
Step 14: Fitting the Reflex
Open the Fittings window via the terminal. Your Reflex has two high slots, four mid slots, one low slot, and one engine slot. Manufacture a Sojourn engine and any modules you think might prove useful in the printer. You can always re-board your Wend to gather more minerals. It is suggested to fit tanking modules and two autocannons with ammunition before embarking on interstellar travel.
Step 15: Dismantle Base and Explore
You can now right-click all of your deployables and select Dismantle to Cargo Container. This will create a cargo container within 3 kilometers of your ship with the materials used to build them. Make sure to take them along on your exploration mission.
Now your Reflex is fueled, fitted, and packed with any valuables that you want to bring on your journey. Open the map via the terminal and notice a bubble around your current location. This shows nearby solar systems within jump range. Right-click a destination and select Jump using jump drive. This action consumes fuel, so ensure your tank is full and spares are in your inventory.
You are now in a brand-new system, ready to build your next base or dive deeper into the vastness of the Frontier.