EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello all,

Is there a significant skill requirement difference between piloting a Cruiser and a Battlecruiser? They seem to use the same types of weapons and modules...

Would it be a stretch to directly go for Battlecruiser V instead of lingering to go through Cruiser V before?


Thanks

I didn't realized that size and speed made such a difference...


And would you say its better to aim for a T2 Cruiser (even if I am far from being able to afford them) then jumping to a Battlecruiser?

Gnosis is relatively expensive compared to other BCs but will allow you to use a BC for level 3s while you train up your cruiser skills. (you don't need BC skills to fly a Gnosis)

It's a pretty heavy loss to take for a noob though so keep that in mind if you choose this path.

I recently started a new character and have been using Gnosis extensively so I can train other things, but I already know what I am doing so it's hard to say if it is a wise path for a noob, that said it is the most fun I've had running missions, with low skills you barely have enough tank to survive, got deep into structure a few times, actually made things somewhat exciting. Once my tanking and cap skills were trained, it got boring again so I have moved on to other uses, been having mild success in C1 wormholes.

I give you a thumbs up for finding this out on your own. I usually have to tell this to most new players.

So basically your skills unlock mods for pretty much all sub-capital ships except your weapons and ship skills. Basically T2 hardeners are T2 hardeners same on a Titan as a noob ship. Capital ships have different skills for cap ship reppers but other than that and the weapons all ships essentially share the same support skills with few exceptions.

So what this means is that when considering ship piloting skills small ships and their weapons systems train fast. Medium ships and their weapons systems are not too bad, Large ships and their weapons systems take a decent amount of time and in my opinion should be avoided until you have the support skills trained well. When you get a better idea of how gunnery works you'll understand also some of the problems with large weapons applying damage to smaller targets and how you need better base skills to start off with.

The other thing to understand is that Large weapons really only unlock Battleships and for example large lazors pretty much only get you the 3 Amarr BSs and eventually the 2 T2 versions of those which is one marauder and one black ops which is really a niche ship with a specific role that is not combat but creating jump portals. And note that both T2 BSs are seperate skills. I guess we could include the oracle in here but again a niche ship with a specific role. Pirate faction BSs as well if you cross train other races.

Medium lazors on the other hand open up: 2 Amarr battlecruisers, 2 tech 2 Amarr battlecruisers (one skill for both), 4 amarr crusiers (3 if you exclude logi ) and 6 tech 2 Amarr cruisers ( 5 if you exclude logi ). Tech 2 cruisers are 4 skills for 6 ships. Again cross training to other races can open up pirate faction cruisers as well. You also get the tech 3 strategic cruisers as well.

As you can see medium ships open up a lot more options to you and train much faster than large ships and are by far more bang for the buck. Also as far as isk per hour from PvE combat no matter which path you go you'll almost certainly make more isk per hour if you specialize in medium ships and stay out of battleships until you are well skilled in all the support skills.

You should probably note that all my advice is from purely a PvE viewpoint.

Just my .02 ISK... I have all the cruisers and BC's trained to V and I never fly any of the BC's. I have tried them all amd the BC's are just too slow clunky for my taste. As far as pve goes I find that HAC's can handle anything that a BC can and for pvp I have solo'd plenty of BC's in t1 cruisers. For my money, the cruisers are more fun and more versatile than the BC's.

battle cruisers can fit links (glorious links),
they can be used for good boosting platforms before you can fly a t3 or commandship

At high skills, Cruiser 5 is better as it opens up a lot more options in tech 2 ships (Heavy Assault Cruisers, Logistics ships, Recon/Force Recons, Heavy Interdictors as opposed to just Command Ships).

At low skills, Cruiser 5 is better as tech 1 BCs are balanced around higher core skills than cruisers, meaning that they tend to require higher skills to fit effectively and their capacitor is often worse. Battlecruisers do, however, let you get away with making more mistakes in PVE (as you will have a lot more EHP, so if you screw up, you'll have more time to recover).


The only real use of battlecruisers I recommend at the moment is if you have a definite need for the role played by 'Attack Battlecruisers' (which are very high damage, long range, terrible accuracy and very easily killed ships), then you might want to train for them. You will know already if you have a use for those ships.

My choice of pvp ship, when facing a BC is usually a cruiser (or a frigate if they don't carry drones.) The effect of speed and sig is FAR larger than most people realize. I've run sites in a t1 cruiser, when a buddy of mine warped in a heavy buffer tanked drake he immediately had to warp out again due to the damage while only a few of the rats were capable of hitting me.

But travel time are the best argument for me to stick to cruisers, you do not want to travel 100km to the next gate in a BC.

Both ship types have their uses, though BC's suffer a bit from falling between a BS and a cruiser with that being said cruiser V offers a huge number of choices compared to BC V.

Main Pros and cons for a BC is that it's way more resilient then a cruiser and that's about the good sides, bad sides are larger signature size, slower speed all that extra baggage that comes with sizing up.