EVE General Discussion

T1 frigates, while tiny, should still be tanked ...
T2 frigates have some brutal tanks ... (well, except SBs, which are paper-thin)

Flying Caldari, you wouldn't be in an armour fleet, well, unless you're in a Griffin or something ... and even there, the armour tank is really just a token nod at tanking (i.e. making the best of a bad situation -- all your tank slots are filled with ECM, afterall).

Easiest transition, IMO, would be Gallente. They use Hybrid turrets as well, so really the only things you have to "catch up on" are the armor tanking skills, and the hull skills. Starting off in Gallente boats myself, I found that it was "easier" cross-training into Caldari, because I didn't need to learn much -- yeah, fitting shield tanks, and "sniping" (Gallente are brawlers primarily) ... but I didn't have to learn the weapon platform (as I have had to do with missiles and lasers ... I'm still ignoring projectiles in hopes they go away).

That said, armour skills will help you as a caldari (not that you're necessarily fitting armour mods), as that extra 20% (or 25%) armour / hull HP might just be enough to keep you alive.

No, you won't have to cut ties with your heart for a while.

There's lots of options for shield fit, kiting and brawling ships.

Condor and Merlin in T1 frigates, depending on whether you are training missile skills or gunnery skills.Both are typically shield fit.

Then you have the choice in destroyers of cormorant (gun fit mostly) or corax (missile/rocket fit) also shield tanked.

Cruisers you have Caracal and eventually Cerberus.

Once you do want to start cross training, then ships like the Worm (awesome pvp ship if you are prepared to absorb the cost of a loss) or Gila, both of which benefit from the drones as a weapon, but still shield tanked.

Ultimately it's probably good to cross train to all racial frigates, destroyers and cruisers, etc. but if you want to focus on shields and roleplay as you see it for Caldari, then you have a lot of options.

Though Gallente from a Gun basing system would be the logical solution (both have Hybrids), from a RP perspective, go Amarr.

Amarr are armor tanking but from the Lore perspective Caldari and Amarr are allies whereas Gallente and Caldari are enemies.

It depends on what kind of PvP you have in mind.

For example if you get yourself into a corp that's part of an alliance you'll often find that these alliances have fleet doctrines. That means the alliance will tell you which ship to choose and how to fit it. If you intend to walk this road you'll crosstrain into all races and at least get all racial firgate and cruiser skills to V eventually (plus fitting and support skills, of course).

If you intend to go on roams in small groups, typically without logi support, you'll find that you are mostly free to choose what you like. Although it still would be a good idea to make sure your choosen ship fits in with those of your fleetmates (i.e. don't bring a bomber to a ceptor roam).

I'd suggest to get in touch with other people to fly with and ask them. There are some corps/alliances out there that are very newbie friendly, for example BRAVE or EVE Uni. Or maybe join a corp that does faction warfare.

With all that in mind I'd suggest to not train into bombers for now, unless you really know what you are doing. Bombers have a very special role and are not used as much as you might think. Better train into interceptors and assault frigates first . Interceptors are very useful in all sorts of situations and usually fun to fly. If you intend on going to null sec you should train this first, imho. However if you intend to join FW I'd suggest to train into assault frigates first. AFs are very strong and better to fight with if you have small numbers (and don't have to worry about bubbles).

Unfortunately you didn't tell whether you trained into missiles or guns so far. With frigates missiles is a decent choice in PvP which is my personal preference. You get to choose from Crow, Malediction, Hawk and Vengeance. Overall the Amarr ships are better here, mainly because of flexible damage type (you'd be surprised how well some ships tank kinetic damage), although you should train into armor tanking for them (Malediction would be fine with a shield fit, but you want armor reppers on your Vengeance).

fair enough -- I missed the "I wanna RP as hating Gallente" bit from the OP, and went with "easiest cross-train".

Fortunately for you, Caldari master race, and all of that good stuff. I'll try to mostly mention shield/missile boats in this post.

Frigs
T1- Kestrels make hilarious (and extremely effective) kiting ships.
Hookbills are pretty damned strong as well, though being faction, they are obviously a bit more expensive.
T2- Hawks can be damn solid when fit properly.
Manticores are not one of the most popular bombers, but they still work well enough.
The Kitsune is one of the most annoying frigates to deal with in the game, with a good fit, and flown by a pilot with strong ECM skills.
The Crow is the most powerful (and popular) interceptor in the game right now, bar none.

Cruisers
T1- Caracals are still quite popular as pvp boats, even though their heydey has faded a bit from the time immediately following their rebalance.
T2- Cerberus. Again, quite popular, and extremely strong when fit properly.
T3- The Tengu doesn't see much use in PvP as a missileboat anymore, but when set up for rails, they can be extremely powerful.

BC
Just...no. You will be mocked and perhaps slapped around if you ever ask "can I bring a Drake" again. That said, I've heard good things about the Ferox.

BS
Shield battleships are really on the wane, due to their extreme susceptibility to bombing runs. You might still see the odd Rokh fleet here and there, but they just aren't much of a thing these days. Ravens haven't seen fleet pvp use in a very long time, but I have still seen some rather adept pilots pull off interesting solo kills with them.