Ships & Modules

Hello. Because of lack of time I have to play eve casually. I can mine semiafk with macki or retriever to have some income and I am learning station trading and eventually pi. I have some datacore agents but again, having limited time I can't be bothered to jump throught new eden to get some few millions.
The thing is that my isk income is limited.

I manufactured 60 frigs, and then when I fitted my first punisher to make it "competent" I noticed how expensive the frigate was.
I was lucky with that ship. My first encounter was a navy crucifier, I had many mistakes but I guess the other was not the red baron of eve either. I managed to kill him. Then someone else jumped to help him so I was easily blasted off.

No tears here. I had my share of fun and glory but I realized how expensive was fighting on a t2/meta4 frigate. A lot of expensive modules fitted in a very fragile ship.
My project of mining semiafk to afford learning some pvp is not going anywhere.

So...my question is. What to fly and what to fit?
Using strictly frigates with t1 or cheap meta would be very affordable, but I doubt I could stand a chance in solo encounters and it could be realy bad for small gangs.
I could just buy an assault ship, it makes more sense from a isk efficiency perspective, a t2/meta4/rigged assault ship is only twice, maybe 3 times as expensive as a best fitted frigate, and it is a lot more durable. But I won't feel confident flying that.
I have minnie/amarr frigs and cruiser level V medium projectile and lasser level v rocket v nearly perfect armor average shield. No destroyer skills.

Look at it this way:


More expensive (fit) ships don't necessarily give you more wins, but they do give you more expensive losses. Instead of frantically trying to avoid death to a point where you throw heaps of money at the problem (which generally doesn't work in EVE), accept that you're going to die and WHO CARES. Simply see it as a business transaction; cheap frigs means you got excitement, fun and possibly kills on the cheap.

- If you lose while flying a cheap meta 2 fit frigate who cares, and if your killer starts smacking you can go "it's meta 2 lol, congrats!"
- if you win flying a cheap meta 2 frigate it's awesome, and if your target starts whining you can go "lol, you got killed by a t1 fit frig lulz"

Any of these work just fine on the cheap; Merlin, Condor, kestrel, Incursus, Atron, Slasher, Breacher, executioner. It's generally not the fit that makes the difference anyway, it's your knowledge and the scenario itself. Embrace NOT being overpowered, embrace NOT being "scared" of loss. It makes the game so much more enjoyable.

Navy Executioner? I guess you mean Slicer? And you killed one with a Punisher? Yeah, right, ok. Everyday occurrence I'm sure.

Yeah, looking at that killmail, I guess he entered a 'plex while you were waiting on the beacon? That is literally the only way I can think of where you should be able to kill him. Nope, in 0.5. And you say a friend arrived to help him... war targets? That makes sense I guess, High Sec war deccers are known for their excellent PvP.

But anyway, meta 3 fit frigs are absolutely great for learning the ropes and for gang work. BNI, for example, when flying in small hull gangs nearly always meta 3 fit the entire gang. It makes it very frustrating to fight them because even if you win the engage, they only need to take down two or three of yours to even the ISK of their entire fleet. Basically, meta 3 fit gang is crazy ISK efficient.

For solo:
Your ship, as long as it is fit correctly, will kill the rock to its paper. The quality of the modules decides how easy and fast that is, but you should still win.
You should also never really stand a chance against any scissors you meet, regardless of module quality.
Finally, module quality is a major deciding factor in paper on paper action.

But, flying a meta 3 fit frig around is the best way in the world to find out what enemy ship fits are rocks, papers and scissors in regards to your frig fit.

Edit: Forgot to say bloody well done on that solo kill by the way, good show sir!

There's a difference between wanting to win and putting effort into achieving that but realising that with risk comes losses (and preparing for that by making the right choices, ie cheap stuff), and frantically being scared of losing resulting in stuff like "must use expensive ships, gang links and RR" and "once I have X amount of skill points THEN I'll be ready".

You are right of course that bashing your head against a wall isn't very smart nor does it lead anywhere.