EVE New Citizens Q&A

I was just wondering if I'd be better off training for T2 ship equipment first or training for the T2 ships.

Thoughts?

Seconded.
A T2 ship fitted with T1 modules is a joke.
A T1 ship fitted with T2 modules is a threat.

Some exceptions though.
Best named Armor Plates, Stasis webifiers and Energy neutralizers are as good as/better than their T2 counter parts.

Actually, the real answer is support skills. There's tons and tons of support skills for dps, tanking, capacitor, fitting, navigation, drones and whatnot and it's those support skills that will make the difference between a win or a loss.

T2 or faction ships only work as advertised if back by some proper support skills and the best way to describe those ships is like this: "T2&faction ships can make good pilots better but they don't make bad or inexperienced pilots good". They're quite expensive to lose due to how the insurance system works and you can lose them just as fast as a cheapo t1 version if you don't know what you're doing. Also the prereqs for T2 ships generally have nothing to do with improving your effectiveness and more to do with making them "difficult to get" so generally that won't help you much.

T2 mods is already more like it, the prereq skills for those generally also affect your overal effectiveness with the T1 version of that mod so that's a good thing. Also note that generally T2 mods are cheaper than the best named (meta 4) versions and when it comes to weapons they also allow for T2 ammo which generally gives you more strategies to make use of.


Let me explain how this works and assume you have Minmatar frigate at 4.

Getting the rifter skills from 4 to 5 takes some 7 days or so and it helps your dps and tracking by 5%, would you aim for the Jaguar then you'll need a bunch of skills to 5 like Mechanics and Engineering. While useful skills they don't really add to your effectiveness so in total you're training for some 2+ weeks to get from a Rifter into a Jag and you're not really improving in the mean time. Being in that Jag means you do a bunch more dps, your tank is a lot better but it's slower. Thing is the Jag costs some 30 mil and you get almost zilch back from insurance so every time you lose one it's 30 mil and as you're "clueless" you're gonna lose a lot of them.

Now T2 mods: Generally training for T2 mods also affects some support skills but the issue is that they use more fitting, can use more cap and all that so you need to train your fitting and cap skills better (some fits simply won't happen with all T2 mods and you're forced to use named replacements). Lets assume you want to fit T2 150mm ACs, prereqs are gunnery 2 and motion prediction 3 which are VERY important skills to have but you don't need them very high to allow for T2 ACs. The AC skills itself needs to be 5 ofcourse and that really helps your dps so you could have T2 guns fairly soon which would allow for T2 ammo and that can be handy. Note that T2 weapons (not counting T2 ammo) do 2-10% more dps than meta 4 ones although no one is insane enough to train all the way to claim that 10%, generally ppl stop at 8%, it's a noticeable difference but hardly ground breaking.

Then support skills, lets look at gunnery: There's skills to make your optimal better, your falloff (effectively increasing dps at range), your tracking, your rate of fire, your damage, and ease of fitting. Getting all those skills to lvl 4 is WAY more useful than getting 1 or 2 skills to level 5 in that same time. Also, those skills affect ALL turrets so would you move up into a cruiser or BC for now (for pve for instance) they help you there too. Same with drones, getting to T2 drones takes a bit but doesn't actually improve dps in the mean time, there's 2 dps skills for drones that aren't prereqs for T2 but will massively increase your drone performance so you'd have to be an idiot to rush for T2 instead of getting the support skills up first.


That support thing goes on and on and on, there's so many support skills it gets annoying even but they all have a purpose and on average you're better off training all those skills to 4 or so before making the push for T2 mods or ships. To give you an idea, open your char sheet > skills, go to settings tab and do "show all skills", now go back to skills itself and you'll see all the skills available in the game, stroll through the various sub sections and behold the onslaught of support skills. Rclick > info all of them, see how they affect you and if you put your thinking cap on you'll soon realise that it's support skills that make the difference.

So the "right" order is this: Train all support skills, push for T2 mods, in the mean time learn how this game really works and THEN get into T2 or faction ships.

+1

Now after escalation, Market prices will rise as the influx of Drone Poop, and bot minerals is now gone.

Ship prices have risen. If your new to pvp, dont assume that you must pilot tech II if you can.

Id almost say its a greater test of skill to get out there and kill stuff efficiently with tech I ships.

This you can do with tech II modules and a tech I ship.

Core skills should always come first. The only time they wont help you is if your a station trader.

If you fly a T2 ship fitted with T1 modules, I hope CONCORD ganks you on gate just because

Fer sure....

But, Tech II is a prerequisite for a LOT of corps, no? (Glances at your signature block)

You shouldn't use Noir as a standard for what corps want. Their requirements (particularly the KDR one) are elitist and weird.

That said, don't rush into T2. If you don't know how to fly a Rifter well with T1 equipment, you will fly it just as badly with T2 equipment, and you will likely fly Wolf or Jaguar even worse. Actual flying experience is far more important than the level of your stuff.

And yes, with ship prices going up, T1 (and smaller) ships will become more and more common. There's no shame in flying T1.

In fact, flying a T1 ship allows you to take bigger risks and be more audacious than worrying about a T2 ship that costs 10x as much.

I don't know about the Stasis Webs and Energy Neuts, but last I checked, 1600mm Rolled Tungsten Plates I (best names 1600mm Armor Plates) gave exactly 3 more Armor HP than the T2-version, though the T2-version costs a lot less, so they're better, yes, but not as cost-effective, which is the really important thing when fitting your ship with a limited budget.