the servers go down
, from
11am to 12am gmt, have done so for years, its when they do all the maintenance etc. still, as thats lunch time, its a convenient time to stop play and go eat, dont you think :D
as for alt characters, lately theres been a message informing players of a new way of controlling how much memory the game utilizes, but its always been a game that can be run in multiples on the same computer, so if you really need to have a second character, then buy a second account, in reality, though why you'd want to control 2 at a time, or more i dont know, as there are no restrictions on skills, except of course that they all take real time in which to learn, i think perhaps people forget that the game isnt a kill for xp type of game.
My own character started as a miner, so much so that i maxed out all the mining skills, i used to mine in a tempest with 6x miner II's but since they introduced mining barges, i now use a Hulk, which means i can now mine asteriods for 9m isk/hour if i want, but its a boringly repetitive form of play, so i switched to mission running, and now i do level IV missions for the minmatar fleet, and earn up to 30m isk/hour.. of course, the skill and equipment requirements of doing such missions is quite extensive (and expensive!) my mission ship currently is a typhoon, it has 4 x cruise missile launcher II's 2 x 1200mm II's and 2x 720mm II's with armour rigs that boost repair rate and amount and thermal armour resist. i used to concentrate on shield tanking, because i thought that was best, but since i learned armour tanking i've found that its more sustainable than shield tanking. though this probably varies a lot from ship to ship, as some are designed as a shield tanker and others armour, the typhoon is kind of my favourite at the moment 7 low slots is awesome for armour tanking, all the resists are around 75-85 percent on the armour.
what im trying to point out, is that you dont need seperate characters for different activities, given time, you can train one to do it all - if thats what you really want, mine just evolved that way over the years, the important thing is to find your own way, dont get sidetracked into an activity you dont like just because you think you have to - some corps do pressurise the newer players to mine for them i know, personally i dont agree with it, because if a player doesnt enjoy an activity, they might just give up without learning what the game is really about, which isnt mining, thats just an aspect of it.
as for the lack of joystick controls for flight, it is important to learn to manoeuver the ship, but generally, their not tie fighters and can turn on a dime etc, manoeuvering a ship is more a matter of range adjustment, and angle of attack, approaching a target directly gives the enemy ship a better chance of hitting you, so once in range, imo its best to adjust direction 90 degrees to the target ship(s)
well, im not an expert on combat, as i've only recently started pvp, which is a whole other form of gameplay. but the important thing really is to find which method of gameplay is most fun, whatever that may be. :D