EVE New Citizens Q&A

always wanted to try eve so took the plunge yesterday and subbed for a month. slowly getting my head round it but I'm not 100% on ships and fitting them out. was looking to upgrade my armour/shields but was unsure of where to start first

any help/guide etc welcome. may have been posted before but I missed it

thanks for the help

In b4 the impending wall of text ;p

Pic a tank and stick with it i.e. Armour, shield or hull, dont fit for both (or all)

The reson for this is you end up with two (or three)half assed tanks and if i can break one of them ,i can break the other.
Better to focus on one and rely on that.

Same goes for guns/missiles , pic one type and match all of them,
think of ships as tools, they are suposed to bused in specific roles and the ships bonuses should indicate somewhat its intended role could be.
Fit for that role and stratigise around that,
If you try and cram more than one role per hull you will most likley suck at both.

When fitting weapons

if it has 4 high slots available use
4x weapon X

and not
1x weapon Y
2x weapon X
1x weapon Z

weapon X, Y & Z might all be small auto-cannons (for example), but they will have slight differences that will translate to things like different Optimal Range, different Fall-Off Range, different Tracking Speeds etc. when fitted to the base hull.

Check the mission guides on eve-survival

It will tell you what the incoming DPS types will be
fit your ship accordingly

for most pve missions, shield tanking is generally 1x Adaptive Invulnerability Field + 1x Specific Hardener
you then choose active or passive for the rest

Active
- Shield Booster
- Boost Amplifier
- Cap Recharge (low-slot &/or mid-slot)

Passive
- Shield Extenders
- Shield Recharges (low-slot &/or mid-slot)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf4lNr3e5Yc

Basic fitting guide (wall of text):

1. Read the ship description and traits, see what bonuses it has. This will give you the purpose of the ship, and will help you determine what weapons are preferred, and possibly whether to use shield defenses or armor defenses.

2. Decide whether you want to fight at long range or up close and personal. Long range does less damage but you may be able to stay outside the enemy's range, and thus avoid damage. Short range does more damage but you'll need to think about defenses.

3. Fit the weapons. Fit all of the ship's high slots with the same weapon. Each weapon type has a long range and a short range version; for example, for Caldari or Gallente, they use hybrids, so railguns are long range, blasters are short range.

4. Fit propulsion (afterburner or MWD). Whether you're long range or short range, you need the speed, so you can be faster than the enemy and control that range, and stay far away or close. Afterburners are used continuously for a small increase in speed, MWD is used for a great burst of speed (and then it will deplete your ship's energy and you'll have to turn it off).

5. Fit defenses. Frigates in general don't have enough slots for what we call a "tank", and rely on speed and small size to avoid damage. You can still fit either a shield booster or an armor repairer, if you have the spare slots. For cruisers and larger, you need an actual "tank": a shield tank is a shield booster, a couple of shield hardeners (for resistances), and possibly a shield extender (extra shield hitpoints); an armor tank is an armor repairer, a couple armor hardeners or energized membranes, and possibly armor plates (if you have the slots). You can also use a Damage Control module for extra overall resistances. Whether you use shields or armor depends on how many slots the ship has: shields use mid slots, armor uses low slots.

6. Fit utility. For PVP, warp disruptor or scrambler is a must, otherwise webifiers help you keep the enemy still so you can shoot it. Damage modules like heat sink, magnetic field stabilizer, ballistic control system, or drone damage augmentor help you increase the damage your weapons do. Capacitor juice is always nice, so cap recharger, or capacitor booster (with charges), can be used.

So the basic idea is: pick a range (long or short), and fit your ship with appropriate modules so that you can control the fight, so that you can keep the enemy at that range and shoot it with all the possible weapons at that perfect range.

This is why you don't mix and match weapons; instead of fitting for every possible scenario and thus dividing your firepower, you want to control the fight and apply the maximum damage in that controlled situation. (Or if you can't control the fight, warp out, refit, and try again).

I didn't have a guide per say but I do recommend downloading both EFT and Pyfa, decide which one you like better and have people link you fits and copy them from clipboard to there to get the green checkmarks and so you can at least fly it with your PG/CPU skills.

That's what I did a lot in the early days and it was great practice and I also had noticed the necessary parts to what makes a PVP fit vs. a PVE fit and stuff like that.

He wasn't like a traditional teacher so to say and I forget the guy's name now but he helped me understand fits immensely.

You're getting a good mix of general advice and some specific advice.

While I'm relatively new, I have focused on fitting and actually doing trials on variant forms of fits to find out what works best.

A specialized ship does a specialized job very well but can get caught off guard by most other threats. If the task is not in alignment with the ship you really have 2 options for combat: Run or lose the ship. I've found that if I'm not willing to easily lose the specialized ship, I always give it some wiggle room to run away and fit any spare slots with an item or two that will help me escape. Yes, you might lose a small amount of super specialization doing that, but the ship can have a chance at running away (unless that's the ship's specialization - running! Usually called a Travel Fit.)

A generalized ship has the same problem. Yes, it can 'do' a lot of everything but it's not good at anything. Some exploration ships fall into this mold and it's one of the reasons why explorers get nailed... they have to fit a lot of different stuff *or* carry a Mobile Depot with them so they can refit in systems that don't have stations.

I use O.simium.org to do trial fits and give me the optimal fit for my skills. Starting out, Meta 4 items are usually the best item for the fit but you can sometime find lower Meta items that work better on a ship because they take more of one resource and less than another. So, always refine your fit. As your skills increase, your ship resources start to work better for you, and you can fit higher Meta level items.

Also make certain that if you are doing PvE tasks that you fit for the NPC's you'll be taking on in local space. A ship to ship PvP player will probably be smart enough to realize that if they are hunting PvE players and weaponize/defend against just that fitting so it will make you weaker against players but MUCH stronger against NPC's. This applies to fitting for both offense and defense, so pay attention... CLOSE attention to what NPC's are in system. This alone took me from taking a few shots to kill NPC's to instantly downing them and also being able to tank their damage all day long.

One last thing, capacitor is important. I have found that most nasty fights will last at least 3 minutes so if you are burning cap faster than that, you'll need some kind of booster or recharger for your Capacitor. A ship with less than 3 minutes of fight time and standard recharge rates is a loss waiting to happen against a tough opponent. You'll end up downing your offensive and defensive systems to get your cap back and you'll be dead before you get enough back to run away, much less fight. A zero cap ship is a dead one. You may not have to be cap stable, but you do have to have some endurance. Either weapon back (pick a lighter weapon system), accept more specialized defenses, or increase cap recovery.

If you aren't good at combat yet, I think it might be best to learn on a cap stable ship so you don't have to worry about the capacitor in combat yet. Once you are comfortable managing the other systems, you can start playing capacitor games to optimize the offense and defense. Just some personal experience speaking there.

Looks like all the basics have been covered, with one notable exception:

Always make sure to carry Exotic Dancers in your cargohold, they increase your ship's sexiness by 25% per unit, up to a maximum of 125%.

Fly safe, fly sexy.

Thanks for clarifying Ralph.

I was only recommending full cap stable while training... you might be running everything by accident then. It's part of capacitor management to learn what you need on, what you can just 'blip' on, and what should stay off.

I personally design Cap for combat systems only. I use O.sium.org's ability to turn the systems off I won't be using in combat so I get a clearer picture of the real 'combat time' of the ship.

ANY fitting tool has error built into it. You need to test all fits in space, there you will find every error the tool has... usually the person doing the fitting... (at least in my case!)

My Raven was equipped with the following:

HIGH
06 x Cruise Missile Launcher I
01 x SMALL TRACTOR BEAM 1
01 x SALVAGER I

MEDIUM
04 x LARGE SHIELD EXTENDERS
01 x 'HYPHNOS' ECM
01 x MEDIUM SHIELD BOOSTER

LOW
01 x EMERGENCY DAMAGE CONTROL
01 x ARMOR KINETIC HARDENER I
01 x ARMOR THREMIC HARDENER I
02 x WARP CORE STABILIZER I

DRONES
02 x WARRIOR I DRONES
03 x HAMMERHEAD I DRONES

UPGRADES
01 x ROCKET FUEL CACHE PARTINTION I
01 x BAY LOADING ACCELERATOR I


Taken from the official ship fitting guide in the game
Hint: Don't use it.