Ships & Modules

Kinda funny since i'm currently training for a Chimera.

mind you I have Gallente Carrier V and minmatar Carrier IV on this character, and Amarr Carrier V on 2 other characters.

OP seems determined on his course of action despite advice to the contrary. I doubt anyone's gonna stop him, so i'll just throw in my 2 cents.

I can't really speak to the logistics, ie "using it to move stuff around" part since I never really move (I have waaay too much @#%), but when I have moved in the past (lived in Syndicate for 5 years, with a brief interlude in Curse, now live in low sec) it was far easier to just break everything down and use freighters, saving the SMA space across several carriers for a handful of T2 rigged ships. Also owning more cap ships than characters means you'll be making multiple trips anyway, thx jesus for jump clones.

If you're going to be using your carrier for this purpose, which makes the most sense given what you've stated (the "helping out a new, small corp" part, though I doubt that's your intentions) then don't bother with the 18month training plan. Bare minimum prereq's and carrier 1 still gives you the same 1mil m3 SMA space. The only skill time your wasting on training for it (ie skills that can't be applied to your day to day ships) are Advanced Spaceship command V, capital ships III, and Jump Drive Operation I, though i'd still suggest training JDO V, JDC IV and JFC IV so you're only talking maybe 1-3 months depending on how far you train the jump skills.

Yet I'm assuming from your posts that isn't what you are intending. c'est la vie I suppose.

From a "combat" perspective I have used carriers many times, and by combat i mean as triage or repping structures, ie the other type of logistics. Triage is kinda fun but if you're using them for this purpose you'll need more than one. **Unless you have triage, a single carrier is useless*** Even a single guardian (which is kinda useless) is better than a single non-triage carrier, given the responses you'll see to each being fielded. also expect to die. Nowadays a single triage is used almost exclusively as an escalation tool to bring out hostile caps for dread/super fleets anyway. So even if you had the proper support fleet to justify using it, being the lone triage carrier in a small corp/alliance just looking for good fights, expect to get blapped, even if your intentions were pure to begin with.

lastly, speaking as a person with Fighters V on multiple characters, don't bother. I can't remember the last time I used carriers for their damage (actually i can, but that was lulz "faction bs gatecamping" but out of bridge range scenario). I'm sure they're great for running missions and WHs or whatever but for pvp fighters are useless, unless you're in a 50+ carrier cap fleet fighting another xx+ cap fleet in which case, nobody is going to notice the DPS disparity anyway. Seriously Fighters I is enough to use the things and 9 times out of 10 you're gonna be fit for triage anyway and won't even have fighters loaded. T2 heavies, T2 Sentries and the appropriate drone support skills is all you really need.

Again this is just a "For what it's worth" post. Even with everyone posting telling you not to you seem dead set on doing it so go ahead, have fun.

Good luck.

WH space is a totally different beast altogether. Especially when capital ships are involved. Deploying one when in combat in WH is a game changer because it is hard to bring a "counter-argument" in unless the other side was well-prepared for that.

One thing that's been overlooked in terms of usability:
The training path to carriers takes you right through T2 logi ships. Which are popular and useful pretty much everywhere. Well okay, you need to train a cruiser V which isn't needed to fly a carrier, but even that is probably going to change when CCP alters the ship skill trees. But most of the skills overlap completely. So I'd shift your thinking to "T2 logi followed eventually by carrier". Then you will be very useful to your corp relatively quickly, and then you can start the long slog into a carrier that would be your secondary ship after the logi.

Also, even if your corp thing doesn't pan out so well, you can use that logi in relatively small fleets where a single triage carrier would just be an expensive target. Maximize your options.

Ah yes, thank you for the advice there!

-Liang