EVE New Citizens Q&A

Okay... so... a few things...

- With few exceptions, there is a hard limit to how many drones you can field at any given time. That limit is 5.
The reasons for this limit are that it reduces lag and gives your opponents a reasonable chance to "defang" you (drones can be shot down).

- Some ships have a additional "hard limit" on how many drones and/or what size drones they can field. This limit is decided by ship "bandwidth" (seen in the info tab of a ship).

- Light Drones use 5 m/bits of ship bandwidth. Medium Drones use 10 m/bits of bandwidth. Heavy/Sentry Drones use 25 m/bits of ship bandwidth.
As long as you have the bandwidth, you can launch any class of drone regardless of the ship class.

- Any ship can use any racial drone type as long as they have the skills.
-------- Gallente drones (the green ones) deal the most raw damage but are also the slowest)
-------- Minmatar drones (the red/rusty ones) deal the least damage but are the fastest)
-------- Amarr and Caldari drones (yellow and blue respectively) fall somewhere between the two above and have superior tracking.

- Light drones are generally better suited for taking out Frigates and Destroyers. Medium drones are good against destroyers, cruisers, and battlecruisers. Heavy/Sentry drones are best suited against battleships and larger.
They are exceptions to this. But they are very situational.

- Generally speaking, all ships Cruiser class and larger use drones in some way. Drones are used as a "point defense" mechanism against smaller, faster ships.

- There are two races with "dedicated" droneboats.
----------- The Gallente droneboats are focused combat ships. Generally, their ships can field the most drones within their respective class. However they pay for this by having one less fitting slot compared to their peers and being a little slower.
----------- The Amarr droneboats are "swiss army knives." They may not have the raw damage potential of Gallente droneboats, but they make up for it with respective larger drone bays (for spare drones) and more general fitting layouts.


If you want to go the combat route, look at the Gallente droneboat line first.

Tristan > Ishkur > Algos > Magus > Vexor > Ishtar > Myrmidon > Eos > Dominix > Thanatos > Nyx

Generally, you will want to stick to the Tristan, Algos, and Vexor as they are relatively cheap (especially after insurance) amd offer a wide range of configurations that will allow you to really learn how to use a drone ship.
Once you have a feel for things, you can then move up to larger ships.

However... do not get caught up in the idea of "bigger is better" (it is not). Bigger ships generally have bigger and more glaring weaknesses in exchange for their raw stats.
Plus, they generally require more teamwork to really "shine."


Also... have a look at the link in my signature. It is a collection of short stories from veterans on how they started the game.

Euhhhhhh... carriers can technically only field 3 **groups** of fighters at any given time (and I think it is 5 fighters in each "group"). So there is that limit.

Please bear in mind that when you get into capital warfare things get a little dicey.
I say this because...
- capital ships can only be flown in low, null, and wormhole security space (0.4 to -1.0 space). This means you can be attacked by anyone and everyone at any time for any reason.
- EVERYONE wants a capital ship kill under their belt. So you will need some kind of support from other players to increase your odds of survival.


Other than that... larger drone ships (and even carriers) behave pretty much like smaller drone ships. They are simply slower and more reliant on skills, ship fitting, and planning to survive and be effective (see: there is less margin for error).

Go out with the smaller drone ships and you will quickly get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of drone ships.
However, also experiment a bit with ships of other types too. You want some kind of flexibility when the time calls for it.

Well... look in the "Drones" skill tab in your chararter sheet. That is where you will want to focus your efforts.
Start by aiming for "Light Drones." Once you can have the skills to field 5 of them, begin work on the "drone support skills" (read each skill so you know what they do). "Drone Support Skills" will affect any and all drones you use or may use unless they specify otherwise.

A general goal should be to get the support skills to level 4 and thn mop them up when you "run out" of other, more easily trainable skills within a specialty.

Also try to balance training drone skills with "core support skills" in the Engineering and Navigation skill tabs.
"Core Support Skills" are skills that will enhance the abilities of any ship you fly (ex. more capacitor power, lower CPU cost for certain modules, higher max speed, use less capacitor when initiating warp, etc).

And then throw in "fun skills" like Gallente Frigate/Destroyer/Cruiser level X every so often.


Finally; always keep in mind that this is a "progress game." Don't wait until you have "max skills" before you try something. Do it anyways even if the odds of success are low.
The experience you gain will help you LOADS more than any amount of skills you accumulate.

Hell... there have been cases where a few month old rookies have killed me... a 2009 player with nearly max skills in all sub-capital combat ships.

Then IMHO you should not even be trying to get there.

You don't understand the game, you don't understand the differences between small, medium, large and capital class ships, you don't understand PvP, you don't understand sov warfare, yet somehow you are convinced that you want to do this thing.

Take a step back and learn the game. If you want a carrier it's only for one reason typically and that is PvP. If you want to learn PvP in this game then you need experience and experience means loosing lots of ships to get good so you certainly don't want to learn on expensive ships like a carrier.

Fly cheap ships in PvP and learn the game and if after having become competent at PvP you still feel that you want to fly carriers then by all means do so. I'm not trying to talk you out of flying carriers. I'm just trying to let you know that to me it seems ridiculous for you to say that you want to become a carrier pilot when you don't even know what that entails.

FYI most PvPers that I know if given the choice would rather fly a blinged out faction BS or T3 or anything smaller and faster into PvP then a carrier for the same isk. That being said the fighter mechanics and UI have totally changed in the past week or two and I have yet to even undock my carrier and experience them. Again though I have little use for carriers other than as a means to move my stuff around.

I just want to be clear here that I am not trying to talk you out of carriers. I just am asking that you keep your mind open to the concept that once you understand what they are that you might not want to fly them any more. I'd just hate to see you spend a couple years focusing on getting into one only to be disappointed by them when there is so much more to the game.

Also worth noting is that the fighter mechanics and UI have changed largely to make carrier combat more fun and engaging, probably mostly because of the points that I have put forth here.

oh they are still fairly viable, moreso for pvp imo.

yes well after some youtubing, it appears that carriers are right there in power with those old gallente drone boats - actually, far superior given the power creep in the game since then.

it is a long train though, or a good amount of skill injectors from what i can gather.

One thought for the OP.

There is a test server called "Singularity" (also called "Sisi") which you can logon to and test things.
Because Singularity is a testing server, it has some special rules covering what players can/cannot do.
https://community.eveonline.com/support/test-servers/test-server-rules/

All your character information from the live server is copied to the test server, but I do not know how often this is done.

You can buy ships and modules for 100 isk each on the test server, so you can experiment with different ships and fittings fairly cheaply. I just checked Singularity and saw carriers for sale for 100 isk each in a hisec station. Since carriers are normally banned from hisec on the live server I'm not sure if that same rule applies on Singularity (and I don't have the skills needed to fly a carrier so I can't use a carrier even if I bought one).

Be aware that when CCP does copy character data from the live server to Singularity, any ships, equipment, your training queue, your wallet and other data for your character on Singularity will be replaced with whatever you have on the live server when the data copy is done. You could buy a bunch of stuff on Singularity and a while later it's all gone, because CCP did a copy from the live server and replaced all the things you own on Singularity with the things you own on the live server.

You can buy ships and modules cheaply, test out different fittings and tactics, see what works for you and what doesn't. You can also try fighting other players on Singularity, but only with mutual consent, or go to one of the designated PVP systems on the test server (mentioned in the test server rules I linked). Just because some fittings and tactics work well against NPC pirates does not mean they will work equally well against other players.

How do you connect to the test server? Assuming you are using the new game launcher, near the top left corner of the launcher window is the word Tranquility with a down arrow next to it. Click on the arrow and select Singularity, then login as normal.

Depending on when you started playing Eve and when the last data copy was done to Singularity, your character data may not exist on Singularity yet.

"How do I get isk on the test server?" A simple way is to buy a ship and insure it, don't bother fitting any modules to the ship (ship insurance only covers the ship itself, it does not cover modules, ammunition or any other items). Fly the ship to a place where you will be attacked by NPC pirates and let them blow up your ship (they won't attack your pod). Collect the insurance. You now have isk. You can also try "ratting" and will get paid for every pirate ship you blow up, or you can try some missions and get paid for completing them.

One final point to keep in mind, even though ships and modules are cheap on the test server, you still need to train up the skills needed for them. Buying a bunch of ships and modules right now that will need months of training to use doesn't accomplish anything, and that stuff you can't use yet will get over-written when the next character copy from the live server happens.

Although everything the above posters have said is true, there are always exceptions to the norm. Maybe this video will inspire you a bit (it's not by me, found it on youtube).

Do listen to his commentary on the fit he uses and his reasons, and figure how for yourself how much learning about mechanics and ships you need before you step into one. Then go out and enjoy learning them

Carriers are not banned from high sec. There used to be carriers and Dreads in high sec many years ago before my time. What CCP changed is that they banned cynos from high sec and made it so that Capital ships could not use the jump gates. Then about a year ago they opened up jump gate use in null and low sec to capital ships.

So as things are now you can not get capital ships into high sec. However several years ago CCP released a report as to how many capital ships were docked in high sec stations. It was a very very low number but I believe there was one Dread and just a couple carriers docked in high sec stations at the time.

I also recall hearing of a Nyx in Jita during burn jita but the GMs forced him to move to low / null sec.

So while capital ships are not themselves banned from high sec your chances of ever seeing one there are unlikely and your ability to get one there is essentially non-existent at this point. You can not build them in high sec and you can not jump them into high sec.

You're also prohibited, by rules rather than mechanics, from actually using capital ships for basically anything in high security space.

It's pretty dumb #BringBackHighsecCaps