Learning Skills Part 2: Starting Skills

Skills represent what you can and cannot do and how well you are at doing them. As such your skills will dictate your learning progress speed for professions.

Info on Attributes and Skills

Today I will talk about starting skills.

Starting skills for all individuals are based on:
Race
Career
Specialty

As such take this into account when you look at your character creation choices before choosing a career path. As this list is very long I have linked a chart to look at them here+.

Here are the base categories of skills and their purpose.

Corporation Management
Corporation management skills are not nearly so diverse as, for instance, gunnery, but play a vital role in organizing players (and NPCs). There are two separate root skills: Corporation Management, and Anchoring.
Corporation Management
Corporation Management, and the advanced versions of the skill, limit the number of members allowed in the corporation.
Anchoring
This skill allows the use (in regions of security level 0.7 and below) of secure containers and deployed warp disruptors.

Drone**
These skills permit, and enhance, the pilot's ability to command and control drones.

Electronics* ^
Electronics is the field of sensors and computer systems, both offensive and defensive. The vast majority of this category deals with targetting: - improving yours (or your friends') - degrading theirs.

Engineering*
Engineering skills center around the powergrid and the shields, and things affecting either one.

Gunnery**
These are all skills influencing direct fire weapons, as opposed to launched ones (missiles/rockets).

Industry
The Industry category is a curious beast, as it has two base skills: Mining, and Industry.
Mining
The mining-based skills are focussed directly on extracting resources including ore and ice.
Industry
The Industry-based skills are again divided, into skills that help production, and skills that reduce waste in refining.

Leadership
Leadership skills are all about providing bonuses to your team mates.

Learning*
Learning is a skill tree that contains skills that advance your skill learning by increasing attributes and lowering learning time. Training these skills can both be very useful and yet absolutely useless. But hopefully you will manage to balance them out. Note that if you max out all skills it will take years for you to gain any time.

Mechanic*
Mechanic skills break down into several categories: skills related to repair systems, including remote repairs, skills related to modifying a ship: rigging, and armor hardening, skills related to construction of new ships, or in tearing apart old ones.

Missiles**
As might be guessed by the title, skills in this category deal with handling launched weapons, as opposed to direct-fire weaponry, or autonomous free-flying devices.

Navigation*
These skills all influence the performance of your ship in maneuvering, both tactically and strategically.

Science*
The Science skill category centers on research, but it has a few tie-ins with other disciplines as well. Research aside, science skills are involved in advanced mining and processing techniques, advanced survey abilities, in the use of jump clones, and use of cybernetics.

Social
Social skills are all about getting more out of your missions (money, influence, etc.).

Spaceship Command*
Almost all skills in this category provide a bonus to piloting ships of that type only. The bonus provided depends not simply on the ship category (IE Amarr Frigates), but on the particular ship involved (IE Tormentor vs Crucifier). Beyond this ship-by-ship performance increase, skills in this category primarily serve to restrict access to ship types, as noted by the number and layering of prerequisites.

Trade
The trade skills category improves your ability to conduct trade, both on the open market, and in creating individual contracts.
Trade
Trade is what makes the entire economy operate. Increasing the number of allowed sell oder up to 300.
Contracting
Contracting is the means whereby a player can establish an auction, post courier tasks, create secured (or unsecured) loans, make offers to swap items, and other forms of formal contracting.

* - Common criteria for all pilots. All pilots will work within these fields regardless of intended profession or play style.
** - Combat Skills. All pilots should work some degree in these fields for a defensive measure.
^ - Combat Related. Some of these skills are related to some form of combat or type of combat.
+ - Credit to Tiberyya Za for this great resource.