Depends on what kind of indy character. If your going to do mining at all I'd use the same character as many of the extensions translate. If all your going to do is research/production skills you might want to use a second character, but I'd highly recommend against doing so. Splitting your EP between two different things like that is just going to leave you no good at doing either one at least inside a year. It takes roughly 2 years to get to 10s in many combat skills, it takes roughly 8 months to get to 8s in many combat skills. Splitting your EP before getting your combat extensions to 8ish is a big waste of effort IMO.

Really, alts are only good for setting at various stations to help snipe market items.

It depends on what you mean by "more beneficial". If you're looking for an alternate source of income then I would just stick with specializing in pure combat. Basically, the more EP you spend in a role, the more money you can make from it. If, however, you just want to have some industrial ability to play with when you get tired of the combat role then spending a few days worth of EP on some industrial extensions couldn't hurt too much. I wouldn't spend them on your combat character though, for two reasons. First, all the EP you do decide to spend will be less efficient then on a separate industrial agent. Second, when creating an industrial agent, you get quite a few extensions for free that would give you a head start on however far you want to go down the industrial path.

Just keep in mind that any industrial capability will be severely limited, especially compared to any player that chooses to specialize down that road. Although being able to use an argano seems attractive right now, by the time you're ready to spend those EP on industry, agents will be rolling around in heavy mech mining bots left and right. The only useful reason I could see for going industry at all is to fit into a Sequer to give you some logistics capability. Whether to go for a separate agent or not depends on how many ranks in basic robotics you have on your combat agent. Be sure to play around with the Perpetuum Planner to compare all the EP costs involved, no matter what your goals are.

Thankyou. Some really good responses here, and a definate nod towards the maturity and helpful nature of Perp's community.

Some food for thought. I definately do not want to get a 2nd/3rd/etc account as that just seems like a chore, a job outside of my real job, not sure how some folks can stomach that. I remember once having a second account in EVE Online as a hauler for my main back in 2003, I found it worsened my EVE experience, so I dropped the second account and stuck with my main, EVE has been great to this very day with no regrets sticking with one character.

As for my indy character, I'd want him to mine and refine very efficiently to support my future Corps manufactoring, basically to secure my spot for an extra income outside of Combat farming. And as Gerrick suggested, I'll use PerpPlanner to learn how much EP I'd need to get my main to mine and refine, I just preferred to make him strong combat-wise for PVP and hope it won't dip into my EP pool too much!

Again, thanks for the responses.

/this

it's how they designed the game and this is prob your best bet (bang for the buck).

dont be suprised if you cancel you combat account though and just run the miner/industry one after a month
lol

atm there is just more content in mining/industry.

I don't know where all the anger is coming from lol.

There is nothing wrong with running multiple accounts. In fact it makes sense for many reasons but the most important to me is two lines of EP.

I don't play both of my accounts at the same time all the time. I mainly play my Industrial account and jump on my combat account once in awhile just to improve that character which is my main by the way. I don't want to waste any EP on my combat account. All the EP goes towards creating the better combat character. while my second industrial account spends all of it's ep on industrial only skills.

if you have the extra $9.95 a month to spend then it's worth it IMO. Also I should add that owning multiple accounts does not mean you have any less of a life. lol

Star vault stole my money. This is much different. Playing the game, enjoying one aspect of the game, then deciding to buy another account because you have already tried and tested the game, and decide to branch out - is ok in my books. Hell any halfwit can see that this is how the model is designed, and it's transparent.

Theres enough resources you can use to read up and see if this is the game for you. If it causes so much anger, Bizzy, why bother. Just move on. You've theoretically spent 9 bucks on this game (seeing as you're so against multiple accounts). 9 bucks aint much, move on and try the next one.

I totally get the resistance to not buying a 2nd account. I've had alts (on the same account) in every MMO I've played for one reason: to experience more of the game.

You can see just about everything in the game without buying extensions in PO, but extensions make a huge difference. Even the starting extensions you get for making an Indy vs Combat spark are a big difference. So once I settled into the role on this character, I bought a second account to see what it'd be like to be a pure combat drone.

There is no need to buy another account. You can do everything on one. But if you want to see what it's like to be focused on combat AND industry AND logistics, you'll have to get more accounts. And yes, there is a huge difference between a pure combat drone and an Industry spark that likes to pew pew every once in a while, even if they use the same bot.