EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello Everyone! I'm new to EVE and I really like it so far

Now, to the point. I have recently bought my first offensive ship - a Hurricane, and I thought that when I'll try it out on some belt rats, I'll shoot them once and within a second and they'll pop like a soap bubble... but that wasn't exactly the case.

To give you some detail, I've fitted it with 4x 650mm Artillery Cannons I and 2x Heavy Beam Lasers. Used some EMP ammo + Ultraviolet crystals and I couldn't believe to see how I didn't hit them once. Right now, after some trial and error, I've got some smaller 220mm Vulcan Autocannons I and a Pulse Laser and in general... it works - I can snipe them with the heavy beam and as they get closer - fire the cannons and the pulse laser.

However, and here goes question 1 - will I always have to fly away from them to get some accuracy? Whether I sit in the same spot or move towards them or orbit around them - I still have a lot of issues hitting them, but when I fire my afterburner and move away from them, then they really do pop like soap bubbles Is that it? If I improve my skills, will I ever achieve a point where I can successfully have a rat orbiting me and I'll just conveniently shoot them without moving? Just to clarify - I'm talking about the Angel Cartel rats in high-sec so they're very weak, but also fast and they'll just orbit around you by default. Is moving away from the target and backfiring actually a strategy or do I need better gear, different weapons?

And my second question is - how difficult are the NPC anomaly... places? I mean - I know there are different types, but whenever I find any info about all these Angel Hideaways, Angel Burrows, Angel Refuges etc. no one ever seems to mention the difficulty in some perspective. So could I actually solo with my Hurricane through some of these? If so - which ones? At what point would it become impossible?

Now, I know - I could just go and try out, but I prefer to "gather some intel" here before engaging the operation so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks for your reply, but regarding the anomalies - everything in EVE depends on many thing, but just to have a general idea, is the easiest Hideaway doable for a single Hurricane and a not very skilled pilot or can even the easiest anomaly be so overwhelming that I certainly couldn't make it because, let's say, they've been design for fleets and not single ships?

A mediocre to difficult low sec anom should be easily solo'd in a well fit cane with low to mediocre skills.

You should be minding more than just your tracking though. Mind your range as well. Your fit is likely also a problem. Don't put lasers on a Minmatar boat, for example.

Here see some helpful links for you:

list of all anomalies

get ideas for fits from killboards, not loadouts

EVE Fitting Tool
Load up your api so you can apply your skills to the fits you make

check the wiki for info about the api and how to obtain yours

some helpful info about your hurricane

A quick note about flying away from rats. They are programmed to orbit you our stay at a specific distance. If you get outside of that distance they will mwd toward you. This blows out their sig radius which makes hitting them with large guns easier

And a few more hints:

Generally speaking, ships are optimized with one type of weapon, not multiple.

Yes, you can fit long range and short range weapons to the same ship, but generally it is more efficient to fit all close range or all long range weapons, and adjust your flying & engagement tactics to match your weapons.

Next, the cane gets a bonus to medium projectile turret damage and rate of fire. This makes medium projectile weapons much stronger on a hurricane, especially compared to lasers. In general, you want to fit your ship to take advantage of its hull bonuses.

Thanks. Googling is what I do all the time while mining. That's the "good" part about mining - all you can do is to open the in-game browser and read about ships, fittings etc. But still, nothing like a word of advice from someone who's actually been there and done that.

As for towers - well, of course I wouldn't just kill the first wave while I'm getting shot by towers. Towers would go first while the first wave is weak enough so I can tank it.... assuming we're talking about towers destructible within an hour, that is ;)


Thanks for the links. Regarding lasers - yup, that's exactly what one of the NPC agent from the first missions said - projectile turrets are what a Minmatar ship should use. I've just had to... try and see, but I get the impression that the laser is just making cool visual effects while I'm killing the rats with the autocannons so I'll get some more of these.


Thanks you very much, that gives me a good idea :)

To give you a general idea what I've got fitted - aside from the "what turret do I choose" issue, in mid slots, I've got (writing from memory, could get some stuff wrong, sorry):
- Medium Shield Extender I
- Medium Shield Booster I
- Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
- Experimental 10MN Afterburner I

In low slots, I've got:
- 2x Tracking Enhancer I
- 2x Medium Armor Repairer I
- Damage Control I
- Gyrostabilizer I

And when it comes to the regular belt rats, the most I fought at once were 4 of them and I could have sit there for hours and just turn on the shield booster once in a while and there's no way they could have killed me and I didn't even got the chance to fire up my 2 armor repairers.

So if about 100dps is what they would fire at me and I would get rid of the lasers having the capacitors dedicated to either shield or armor tanking, it sounds not that bad



Thanks for the tips. Yeah, I must have discarded the ranges and foolishly though "bigger guns = bigger damage". And you're right about the ammo, Fusion seems to hurt the rats more than EMP as far as I've noticed.

Anyway, thanks for your replies, I think I'll give it a shot... literally, if anything goes wrong, well... I'm insured so an hour of mining to get the gear back and I'm back in business. Clone upgraded so no skill loss. We'll see what happens.

None taken :) I was aware that the cane may be too much for me at this point, but the reason I've picked it was basically more HP than, let's say, a Rupture so that in case I make mistakes, at least I'll have some time to improvise.

Regarding dual tanking - thanks for the advise, I think I'll concentrate on armor tank then.

Good advice here.

Also keep in mind you don't always have to warp to 0 in anoms. Find a sweet spot where you can kill them while theyre on their intercept path. Or even go with artillery guns instead of autocannons so you can stay way far away. However .. it does make it a pain to collect your loot. Also if you go with arties you will never be able to hit them up close. You will need your drones to take care of the frigates.

Might be better off in a cruiser with 220mm ac's .. they could track those frigates down much more easily. possibly equip a tracking enhancing mod if youre mostly dealing with frigates.

You will have a lot more room for gadgets and damage mods once you settle into focusing on a single tank setup.

Ruptures are fun and pretty tough if fit right.

Anomalies and also exploration sites (which you probe down) and escalations (which are optional continuations of either) have a difficulty rating from 1 to 10. As a general rule of thumb:


1: Any idiot in a failfit frigate
2: Well fit frigate or larger
3: Well fit cruiser/BC/tech 2 frigate
4: Well fit tech 2 cruiser, or tech 1 battlecruiser or larger.
5-7: Well fit tech 2 or tech 3 cruiser, pirate faction cruiser, or a tech 2 or faction battlecruiser or battleship
8-10: A very well fit ship that has been tailor-fit for the exact complex, or a small fleet, or (I believe, not certain on this) a carrier (capital ship)


In highsec, you will encounter level 1 anomolies, 1-4 exploration sites, and (rarely) get offered expeditions that are 5 or lower. Expeditions may be in lowsec even when triggered in highsec.
Lowsec you can probe down 3-7s (IIRC), and anomolies are 1-3, and expeditions can be 10s if you are near a nullsec border.
Nullsec IIRC you probe down 5-10s.

That issue was addressed, in this post as well as others.