If you want to head for PvP directly out of the terminals, then look at spending those EP on nav 10.

If you want to experience PvE or industry before heading to the Beta islands for PvP, hold back a little, and spend some of those EP on other things:
- you might want to add skills so your guns can actually hit something (precision firing etc);
- you might want to have a chance to actually get lock something (accelerated target locking);
- you might want to be able to rep in a fight (energy management etc);
- you might want to be able to mine, refine, build something.

You can always get Nav 10 after a few days, but you won't be useless for the first few days, and be stuck farming Arkhes.

Be careful that the balancing you are asking for does not end up being a courier mission nerf. What those missions does give is some NIC to start getting into decent bots with decent equipment. Take it away and you have EP poor and NIC poor starters, not a fun way to start a game.

Some server problem I suspect.

What I do is be patient - I start the client up, then click the OK button every minute or 2. And I have been able to login within 15 minutes every time. Yesterday was annoying because I had a bunch of network problems and kept losing connection.

I also want to suggest as someone else did above, that some of us might be able to help fixing the problem. Post a snippet of the offending method, and maybe someone have some suggestions. I have some experience working on realtime systems serving a few million users. (I won't throw names around in an open forum.)

Thank You CIR.

1) Do not spend all your EP at once. Keep some in the bank.
2) Do not re-spec if you are struggling. Ask for advice first. You may be fighting the wrong rats.
3) Use the map to plot a route to your mission. Keep the radar open as well.
4) Double click a npc in the "overview" to lock it and set as primary. Double click a can to move into range of it (G key grabs all).
5) Put some EP into "basic parallel assignments" - pick up 2 or 3 missions to the same area all at once.
6) Do some courier missions for ammo. Or farm some racial npc for it.
7) Farming plasma makes good NIC when you are starting out.
8) Your cans live for 10 minutes. They are lootable by others after 5.
9) As in Eve look at the "overview" to see when you are primaried (red boxed). Kite & rep when necessary.
10) As in Eve you can spec into multiple races and weapon types. Re-spec'ing into another race is not necessary.