EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hey all!

I'm a new player, looking to specialize in Frigates and Cruisers. Currently training all of my support skills(Electronics, engineering, mechanic, etc) to V and then getting all my specific support skills up there. Want to have a nice rounded skill sheet before I fly anything TOO expensive! Like Caldari ships for reference.

IRL I'm in the Marine Corps, so I don't have that much time to play, but I have some extra cash so I don't mind dropping a PLEX or two into the game on occasion, keep me flying interesting ships! I really like the idea of flying Stealth. Also I like Battlecruisers and Command ships.

My questions are these;
1) Can I fly a Stealth Bomber for damage support in a mission running corporation in level 4 missions or would I be better served bringing a Naga?
2) Are Recon ships(specifically the Rook) sought after in PvP?
3) I've heard about stealth ratting in Bombers. Is it feasible?

I'm looking for kicks and interesting things to do, not really planning super long term right now! Any suggestions welcome!

2) There are several very good uses of recons in PVP. For the most part, Falcons are going to be preferred over Rooks though as you are going to want your EWAR at range in 99% of situations and the falcon is far more survivable/easier to position. Not to mention the fact that having uncloaked EWAR ships tends to discourage fights.

Most other recons get heavy use in small gang and fleet pvp as well. Rapiers/Huggins and Arazus/Lachesis are needed for long range tackle in Tier3 fleets. The curse gets used a lot in 3-5 man gangs. The Pilgram can work as a solo bear hunter (killing active tanks and letting the rats do the damage.)

In some fleets though, the recon's role has been taken over by start cruisers. AHAC gangs, for example, almost exclusively comp Loki and Proteus; trading off the slight loss of tackle range for much better EHP and resits.

You might have problems with room aggression in a bomber, but this can be solved by cloaking up in the mission until you know the rats have targets. With blasters, the Naga would probably end up doing more damage, but would have trouble doing the cloaky trick I mentioned above. Also, the Naga has poor range projection and, because of the SB's explosion velocity bonus, is far worse against smaller ships.


I'd say bomber.



The Rook's in kind of a weird place because it's a hybrid ECM and combat ship. Many people who fly ECM boats don't care about anything other than how many jammers they can slap on, so the Rook is not very popular. However, I personally think the Rook is rather great. Especially in a small gang situation, bringing a Rook instead of a Falcon allows you to have jamming without sacrificing DPS. The only real downside is that the Rook lacks a covert cloak so it can't, for example, scout, or hide until needed.

the Falcon technically gets hybrid turret bonuses but it will never end up doing anything remotely useful on the damage front.


You would need to match the rat faction you're shooting to the damage type bonus of the bomber you're flying, and it requires knowledge of how to move around nullec, but yes, it is definitely feasible and profitable.


I would you encourage you to just avoid missions. Hisec Level 4 missions are one of the more mindnumbing things in the game with very little variety, interest, or difficulty. They're pretty much the most poorly-designed element in the game for a number of reasons, most notably being that they're decidedly less profitable when done in a group and thus most people run them solo.

Also, anything below battleship level is subpar. A bomber will give decent damage support, but cannot do anything on its own and will still do less damage than most battleships.



You can, but it's probably better to find a rat faction that is vulnerable than be ratting with subpar damage.

The SB idea is perfectly legit, it's what I used to do to help people in L4s when I was a young warthog.

Is it absolutely the most optimal thing you could possibly do for mission support? No.

Will it work in the sense of decreasing the completion time of missions very significantly? Yes.


Another bonus is that you will probably survive better and burn less time warping around in an SB than with a Naga or other T3 BC. Being dramatically smaller your defense is better, and you can align and warp almost instantly, relatively speaking. So you can see the yellow blinkies come up and be out and back without wasting as much time where you could be DPSing or obsessing about staying aligned, etc.

Basically my advice here is do it. Don't waste points on things you don't really want to fly if you don't absolutely have to.

Know that even with mediocre large hybrid skills a support Naga does an alarming amount of dps, especially in missions it can handle smaller targets as well as long as it's somewhat behind the tanking ship so it won't have tracking issues much. A bomber will always struggle, even with a painter

Rook is a bit of a difficult one, it has an identity crisis and doesn't really know what it wants to be, more dps, perhaps more ECM or put in tank instead? Because of that there's many different fits for many different scenarios and as luck will have it: you'll always have the wrong fit for the situation. It's ok in small gangs sortof but I'd prefer a falcon, much more focussed in its role and the covert cloak is invaluable.

ratting bombers can make full sense if you want to cherry pick BS targets, do fit a web though in case you do get scrammed by an npc frig.