Warfare & Tactics

I wouldnt go to either site, both just money grabbers.

1: Depends how good you are in avoiding being killed. But PVP is about fun and not about ISK, therefore most people don't really care too much about making profit out of it... sometimes it works nicely and sometimes its just a pain.

2: Damage and tanking are more straight foreward... using e-war and cloakies means you really need to know what you are doing. Therefore: Start with damage and tanking.

3: Any race is fine today in general, however it a matter of style you prefer. If you prefer the slowboat tanking approach then go Caldari (Drake) or Amarr. If you like high-damage sniping then Amarr (especially Slicer) is great. If you prefer the high-speed hit-and-run tactics then Minmatar is the way to go. Finally if you like drone management + active über-armor-tanking then Gallente (Myrmidon) are great.

4: Start small, frigates and destroyers including cheap faction frigates and Assault Ships.

5: Join a PVP or Faction Warefare Corp

6: Red vs Blue: Haven't tried this yet.

7: FW: Very good. Plexes allow you to choose your enemy (size wise). Furthermore, FW Corps will help you learn the ropes for PVP. Finally you can earn a lot of ISK from doing FW-Missions and Plexes. This helps to fill you wallet for the inevitable losses you will face.

I would recommend starting a new toon in RVB. I found it a great place to learn, and if you actually ask for advice and help and advice, you will get it. You can also get pre-arranged 1v1 and I found them to be great as the person blowing you up will even try and help you fit better. More importantly while learning as a RL person, your toon gets an opportunity gets the chances to get it skills up. I put plus 4 learning implants in my new PVP toon and spent 5 months in RVB. No podding, and your SP goes up quickly. I learned more in RVB than I have in the NULL blobs I am currently not enjoying. RVB membership is made up of not only HS carebear PVPers, you will come across pirates and null experienced pilots.

1: Is solo PvP sustainable? Can I expect to win more than i lose once i learn the trade?

Solo PVP is more sustainable at the low end than the high end, ISK-wise. When you're flying a T1 frigate and killing T1 (and the occasional T2) frigate, cruiser, battlecruiser, and even battleship, your losses are small and your profits can be awesome. But when you're in a T2 ship, your losses are proportionally much greater. At every level, though, the dedicated solo PVPer can expect to win much more than he loses

2: E-war, cloaking, are they useful for solo PvP? Or is better to invest skills and slots purely on damage/tanking?

The only mandatory modules for solo PVP are warp disruptors or scramblers

The problem with cloaking is it gimps your target lock time, so you'll fail to tackle your target more often before he slips away. EWAR in general is something you employ with "utility" slots--slots not required by your DPS, tank, propulsion, and tackle. Ships that employ cloaks or EWAR do exist in solo PVP, but they are special cases

3: Race, if you should start from scratch, what race would you use for solo PvP? (Because of: active/passive tank, armor/shield tank, racial weaponry, racial ships, et cetera)

Right now Minmatar is the way to go; the Rifter is the #1 PVP T1 frigate, the Rupture is the #1 PVP T1 cruiser, and the Hurricane is probably the #2 PVP T1 battlecruiser. However, Gallente was the way to go when I was starting out, and by the time I could fly an Ishtar, PVP mechanics ("balance") had changed to the point I felt much of my efforts were wasted from a "which race" perspective. You may find by the time you can fly a Hurricane well everyone's doing solo PVP in Feroxes

Minmatar is popular because the combination of speed, agility, and weapons range means Minmatar pilots can often dictate the range at which a fight is fought and break off the fight altogether if things aren't looking so good. Minmatar ships also are often fitted in more than one effective way. However, a good solo PVPer in whatever racial ship you deem "worst" can still beat the average Minmatar pilot

4: Ship size, what's a sensible top size for solo PvP? Frigate, destroyer, cruiser, BC, strategic cruiser...?

The most important factor in ship size is to be able to afford to lose several such ships a day. This means you are more likely to take chances, to try several times using different tactics against certain opponents, and that even when you fail you are able to go right on hunting. For new players this generally means T1 frigates. Frigates can hit all ship classes, and in fact the bigger their opponent the larger the proportion of their "paper" DPS is actually applied. Frigates are also faster than bigger ships as a rule, and so are better at controlling range. Finally, the speed and small signature radius of frigates makes it easy for them to get "under the guns" of larger ships with slow tracking

However, cruisers and especially battlecruisers expand the terrain on which you can fight; being able to tank a jumpgate's or station's sentry guns on top of an opponent's DPS is nifty. Battlecruisers can fit weapons systems that reach out farther than frigates can

Solo PVP pilots who can afford to fly anything end up flying ships of all classes, depending on their mood and the situation

5: are there teaching resources and/or corps for learning solo PvP?

Any competent PVP corp has members who can provide invaluable help and instruction as you learn solo PVP. "Classes" such as those offered by EVE-University and Agony Unleashed are oriented more toward fleet warfare than solo PVP. There are a lot of great solo-PVP-oriented blogs and websites these days; even if they're out of date, you still pick up the way a solo PVP pilot thinks. Get on Google and go to town. However, there's no substitute for experience. The only way you'll ever be an experienced solo PVP pilot is to go out there and get experience. I would say the best way to learn is to practice solo PVP on your own, get instruction and advice from in-game friends or corp mates, and ask questions that arise from your experiences on these forums or somewhere similar

6: Red vs Blue, is it useful in order to learn PvP?

It is useful. It could also be detrimental

The thing is, there is more than one kind of solo PVP. RVB gives you great experience in consensual PVP--PVP with rules, limits, waiting until people are ready, etc

However, when people speak of "PVP" often they mean nonconsensual PVP--hunting down targets, catching prize vessels off-guard, swooping in on miners or ratters, catching a warship unprepared to deal with whatever you're flying, etc.--all while avoiding someone else doing any of that to you

7: FW, is it useful in order to learn PvP?ote]

It could be, tangentially. But only if you want to learn PVP, and take opportunities to engage in PVP. Some in FW avoid it if they can. Being in a FW can give you an edge--you will find arenas where rats will attack other players, but not you

You've asked a lot of questions. Now have your friend try this--go out into lowsec or nullsec and attack something; based on that experience, come back to these forums or someplace similar, and ask a question or maybe two. Learn something from what happened. Then go out and attack something again. Do this 20-30 times and you'll be an above-average solo PVP pilot, no matter what ship you were flying.

Your ALT will only train
when your main ain't ( poem for ya right there)
1- No
2- Might be sometimes
3- Minmatar
4- Dessie and cruiser
5- Yes, recently founded Gallente Military Academy (or School, dunno, look for Mark Foederatus, founder) is one of them
6- Oranges
7- Yes, biggest player/kills ratio in game (if compared to Null sec or Hisec)

If you want to learn (solo) pvp .. JUST DO IT!
Dont ask to many questions .. JUST DO IT.
Dont overthink it .. JUST DO IT.

Buy 10 Ruptures, 50 Thrasher and 75 Rifters and get out into 0.0.

Hey, THX to al the good answers! Now I got some food for thought!

I will keep considering this, as I am extremely carebear (to be honest) and this char is a miner so there's not enough earnings to sustain a PvP alt with ship prices rising as fast as minerals do.

eve-is-easy.com is the one still being run by Garmon.

eveiseasy.com is the one that Abbadon still owns.

@op

It is worthwhile for your friend to watch the free vids on eve-is-easy.com, even if he has no intention of subscribing there. Some of them have pretty good pointers and tips.

You can get vital ship knowledge and good practice in on the test server. Good place to start gettin the feel for it in a semi-controlled environment.

1: Only if you pick your fights very very carefully, which today means you won't get much pvp at all. A solo pvp pilot is very rare nowadays and most often is a bait ship. Those people who do solo pvp usually do so against the odds and consequently use ships you can't hope to kill in a T1 frig or cruiser. If you fly around in lowsec you will soon see that most people fly in a gang and use T2/T3/BC+. The only niche you could abuse is anti frigate T1 cruisers, which gets boring really quick. There are a few other edge cases, which i won't elaborate on. For people who can fly better ships solo pvp usually means kill/seperate the bait guy before his gang can arrive. There are people who engage multiple enemies solo and win, but those usually have superior experience (tactics), skillpoints and ships.

2: Ewar is usefull. ECM usually isn't solo, sensor dampening is rare, tracking disruption can be a nice unexpected counter against turret ships if you can dictate orbit or range (and can deal with drones if they have any). Neuting is very important from cruiser and up and its counter NOS is usually important on frigs to keep modules going against ships that apply neuting. Despite what people say a cloak can be a usefull tool. If you fly solo, most often you will have to evade a gang that is after you. The same guys that cry foul on cloaks are often the ones that camp a lowsec gate with a remote sensor boosted web-loki, 2 scimitars and 4 cynabals. With the mwd+cloak trick you can sort of move freely in lowsec. You can also engage people on your terms, be it pve ships or pvp ships. With good skills and timing (decloaking on d-scan arrival) the penalty on a cloak is managable on ships with an utility highslot. A cloak is less usefull in 0.0 however, since the bubbling mechanic negates much of the advantages of mobility. All things considered you won't need a cloak on a frig (because it can usually dictate engagement anyways), it might be worthwhile on a cruiser though.

3: Race has no influence on anything, but a miniscule starting SP investment in racial frigates. Choose what you like.

4:

Frigates are nice for learning, but don't expect many victories in a T1 frig. AFs is where it is at for a newer solo-pvp character, because they combine a reasonable mixture of low SP-investment, low ISK-investment, GTFO potential and killing-potential. I would choose an AF over a destroyer, because an AF can sig tank bigger targets and has diversity, what a destroyer often can'tdo /doesn't have.

T1 vanilla-cruisers work for baiting frigs, also some T1 cruisers like rupture, thorax, vexor and arbi work against some profiles. The problem with that is, that i haven't seen that profile in ages in space. T2 cruisers and pirate cruisers work rather well if you know what you are doing, but are also expensive on the ISK and SP side.

BCs are great but lack GTFO options. If you go solo in this one, you will die to a gang rather sooner than later, also needs high SP and T2 fittings to perform reasonable.

Strategic Cruisers obviously work, but wouldnt be my choice for a new player since they are quite expensive.

Personally i'd say that for new player pvp my option would be AF for solo, for fleet BC.

5: don't know

6: don't know

7: FW usually has a wider range of (read: also less skilled) pilots. I guess there is no reason not to join, exspecially since it provides you with targets you can engage on a gate in a frigate class vessel.