Ships & Modules

I want to specialize in fighting but I'm still a real newbie here. I have just finished the military tutorial and am currently flying a Gallente Tristan. I was doing some research on what would be a good next step for me and a Destroyer seemed like a natural choice.

Does that make sense? Does anyone have general tips for using a Catalyst?

So far, I've been using Rail Guns I with Tungsten charges in the Tristan. I orbit enemies at about 7500m and it's been working for me so far but I know nothing. Thanks!

Great! I was under the assumption that frigates were entry level and wouldn't be useful very long. I'll stick to my Tristan for now then.

Also, if you find gallente frigates to be good. Try on the incursus for size. Nice blaster damage and a drone to boot, a great stepping stone to the briliant ishkur which by itself can solo some cruisers and even battlecruisers, I have seen it done. Tbh, the tristran is too slow, is a mixed weapon platform and doesn't really have a great pvp role - The incursus would be better for you.

Good man - I spent a year in frigates, 9 months of which was PvP. Was fun but a little limiting near the end - however it was well worth doing. I'm nearly 3 years in and I still can't fly a BS properly

Wait, what? Destroyers are good for taking out nullsec rats? Elaborate?

I'm planning a nullsec move eventually, and I love thrashers. Useful little things.

Tristan is the king of Gallente frigate line-up, with the most slots and best tank/gank-potential... but has one major flaw and that is the split weapon system (two turret hardpoints and two launcher hardpoints). To get the best out of it requires to train both missile and turret skills, doubling the training time. This means months, and probably the reason why Incursus is much more popular. Incursus is also very nice and does good damage, but is less tanky than other common combat frigates.

I have only recently gotten into frigates (RvB!), and as a drone pilot I had neglected crucial skills to fit & fly them properly:

Weapon Upgrades V
Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV (buy a cheap PG4 engineering hardwire, train to V later)
Engineering V
Electronics V

- those 4 are absolutely mandatory for Gallente frigates, hybrids have insane fitting requirements causing you to make too many compromises with low skills. Luckily those skills are extremely usable on any ship and probably considered fundamental skills anyway.

Besides those, navigation skills are very much needed as our ships are typically slow. Also Mechanic V and Hull Upgrades V to get some tank, and then train T2 small hybrids as fast as you can, they do a bit more damage, but the main thing is the ability to use Null, the tech 2 ammo that increases your range quite nicely.

Oh and I assume this topic is about PvP, right?

Op did lack a particular direction he was going in, Pvp or Pve, but to say the least, dessys are gimped in a few ways that i havent ever really understood why, they are oversized frigates with all the problems of cruisers and none of the benefits. sig, speed, and damage are flawed in the dessys.

this is not to say they dont have uses, Sabres (minmatar interdictor)/ thrashers can make things very interisting and the caldari one isnt bad. but the eris and the amarr one, suckage.

I know many people who have never trained dessys, or traind them up only to use them as salvagers. others i know, fly mostly interdictors. i have yet to meet the person who says its their ship of choice.

As to pve, the -25% rof (+5% rof for every level destroyers trained makes that go away) makes it not a great choice for starting players but more of something to go back to. I would suggest getting one of the cheaper cruisers. or sticking with frigates, training to AF's is pretty quick. ishkurs are one of the best frigates in the game, (for pve) get your drone skills up and you can run much harder sites/ l2 missions.

dessys die pretty fast in L2, and are not allowed in all L1.

as to pvp, frigates will offer you a much better variety of fittings and roles. dessys are your fat cousin who cant play football*. they have too much sig, arent fast enough and generally dont have good fitting options. then they have frigate tanks with none of the benefits of frigates, (speed, low sig)

*the sabre/thrashers are really the only exception to this. sabres because of autocannons, much better fitting options, lower relative sig, and higher speed can take much larger enemies effectively.

Tl:dr

Train cruisers, try them out, go back to frigates they are infinitely useful but not always the best ship for the job. Dessys kinda suck for most things, cept the sabre that has more uses. catalyst kinda sucks till you get to destroyers 4, and good gun skills. great salvager ship though.

Thank you all for the responses. It's all a bit overwhelming but I figure I can stick to my current Tristan for a while while training up to learn Assault Frigates and eventually Cruisers, skipping Destroyers.

Also, PVP sounds way more fun than PVE.

only two things I use destroyers for:

farming angel plexs(use autocannons and get free ammo!), and salvaging

you can cram 4 trax, 4 salvagers, an afterburner, cargo expander and cargo rigs on a cormy and make quick work of it, I usually use my alt for that while I am doing other missions

o

Destroyers are useful enough to train to 1, yes. I wouldn't bother taking it any further unless you want to fly interdictors though.

And if you want to fly interdictors, get an alt to do that. You don't want to be paying clone costs on an 80 million SP pilot...