EVE New Citizens Q&A

You can right-click on the MWD and disable the auto-repeat, so that you push the button, it activates for a cycle, and then you have to push the button again to get another cycle. That would be "pulsing" it. Or you can just remember to turn it off once you're in range.

If your job is to tackle, the MWD is there to get you into range ASAP. Once in range, you'll probably want the MWD off, in order to reserve your capacitor juice for keeping the warp scrambler module active and going.

Your ship survives based on speed, agility, and being small. If you're standing still or going straight at the target, they'll probably be able to hit you. You want to manually fly at an angle, so that you approach them but not head-on. You also want to do your stuff as soon as you get out of warp and they see you; don't sit there, MWD to them before they get a chance to target-lock and shoot you.

Energy neutralizers, webifiers, and drones will cause you pain, probably.

How frequently: Whenever you're somewhere you don't want to be and want to get into a position in which you do want to be.

When: On approach to your target, mostly, though if you're just tackling and not actually shooting you might just leave it on while you orbit. In PvE, a single or double MWD pulse can be used to run _away_ from things for range, as well, when you need to be, say, 20km away from an NPC that's trying to maintain 5km and is faster than you.

This and MWD on might do strange things to your orbit.
In the worst case might carry you quite a distance away from your target giving him the opportunity to land a good shot on your Frig that has a signature like a Cruiser....

I hope you are not wasting any high, mid, or low slots toward achieving that cap stability, or else you are gimping your ship for no real benefit. If you go "Buffer tank, capless weapons, good skills - hey, i'm cap stable, how did that happen?" then it's a nice bonus. Lots of people ruin their fit with lots of cap rechargers and the like though. It's a little bit like ripping out all your bathrooms to be able to fit a climate control that can keep the furthest corner of the house at 100f in -70f weather. It's a needlessly nifty ability at the cost of things they you kind've really need.

Similarly, some people avoid cap boosters because they are inconvenient, then waste slots and rigs for capacitor stuff when they could have used ONE cap booster module to replace them all.


Tip: It takes Industry 1 skill to manufacture cap charges. The BPO and minerals take up less volume than the charges themselves, so it makes more sense to NOT haul the larger cap charges around.

I'm curious about why that's so. As I've been looking at various guides I've noticed that the suggested fits are often not cap stable and that surprised me. For example... I've been looking at some builds with active armor tanking and some of their capacitors empty after only a minute or so. To a complete neophyte, like myself, this seems like it would spell certain doom -- as your ship stops getting repaired and your various modules go offline. What's the deal? Is cap stability more or less important in some PvP situations as compared to others?

The average small (1v1 to 3v3 ish) PvP engagement lasts only a few minutes and the fits take this into account. For larger ones many of the fits assume you will have logistics to keep you fed with capacitor. You will find that by abandoning ideas of stability you can make your ships a hell of a lot more effective for just a few minutes. It's a personal thing and depends a bit on your playstyle, but you will find most PvP fits will favour massive effect over effective duration.

Most mission fits (Active tank anyway) are designed to out tank the incoming dps perminently. In PvP it's much less likely you will be able to permatank incoming dps, so it becomes much more a race to kill your opponent before he kills you.