I don't get the attitude of being overly prepared in regards to trying something new in Eve.

Take PvP for example.

I mean sure I look up tactics of flying a new ship when I start flying one, well at least now that they are at least available! 

I was reading the blog of Dante Edmundo, specifically, his comments about his pvp alt.  He only has enough time to play as a industrialist but wants to train his alt up to be a great pvper skill wise, and then commit him to faction warfare.  (He better be joining the minmatar side!)  I'm not saying he is a perpetrator of over preparing for something, just made me think of it.

I just never got the idea of training towards something you were not already involved in.  It's like mining, sure you start with mining level 1, and then progress from there and see the returns from the new skills as your yield goes up.  I find it to be the same thing for pvp.

I'll admit when I first made Logan, I already knew I wanted him to be pvp full time, but the last thing I wanted to do was train him to be a good combat pilot, skill wise, without actually flying in combat!  I started in a Rifter, back when they had 4 highs, 2 mids and 3 lows, maybe it was 2 lows, I can't remember... anyways,

I lost about 5 of them in such a short period of time I was pretty sure I was terrible at pvp.  At least I tried it first, that rush was insane, even when I wasn't through their shields and they were in my hull!  I died but I was out there  when my clones were around 200k isk each, and the ships were not much more expensive than that, rifters ftw.

Granted I was playing my alt at the time my main as well... but when I wanted to pvp I tried it with my noob minmatar pilot.  I matured quickly, and Logan really took form thanks to the experience of flying in combat, as well as increased skills.  Each skill I trained up I could tell the difference in my guns, ship, modules etc... perceived or not, it made me more confident.  As did flying the ships I wanted to fly into combat time and again.

I feel that if I had trained up all the skills prior to even trying PvP, and lost as much as I did, I would have just given up.  I mean, what's the point if I have all the needed skills and still suck?  It would have been much more discouraging.  I learnt a ton from all those losses, and at the end of the day, it's just a frigate loss.

SO : To all you future pvpers out there, I say, don't try to "get your skills up to par" before trying pvp!  Just dive right in.  Sure the sharks are gonna get you(often) before you become one, but at least you are already expecting to do poorly, and are nicely and suddenly shocked when you do get wins, even if you are under skilled, underpowered and underfunded.  It makes each fight that much better!

I do not condone shit-fits so at least have your frigate fit to win, there are enough fitting threads out there to do that!  Failing that ask me here for a fit for a t1 frig and I will provide one that isn't a shit fit!