EVE New Citizens Q&A

Not sure if this should be in the skill section or here.

Right now I have two accounts. My first account I made with the vision of being a "hot shot" fighter pilot / bomber pilot. I also planned for supplying Isk and gear to my second account.

For my 2nd account (this one) I plan to play the roll of Warlord with the goal of calling nullsec home one day. I am training skills needed for the Maller/Harbinger with an eye to one day fly something like the Sacrilege/Damnation.
I also thought about something like Apocalypse but I am not sure if this is worth training.

As for my first account...
To achieve my Hotshot fighter goal I have been training the Rifter with an eye to the Firetail and then the Wolf.
To achieve my Bomber goal I have also been training for the Manticore. As you can see the training paths for those two plans don't really mesh well.

I can fly a Badger mk II for the purpose of simple supplying... must I go higher then this and if so what do I aim for?
I can fly a Retriever for mining must I go higher or will this and mission running supply my basic needs?
I also can fly a Drake with the goal of mission running and small PvP. I do admit however I like the look of the Naga.


Do any of you have advice to help make my goals a reality or important things I am overlooking do to my noobness?
Pitfalls I should watch out for? Are my goals even realistic or useful on the battlefield?

Thank you for the advice. As you can see I have joined RvB for short term basic PvP practice (and have been burning through tackling frigs) without fear of it affecting future politics. later I might just join a nullsec group but such a move to fast... I do not think this would be wise for me just yet.

You say "but if you mean leader, you do not need big ships to do that. You need a drive, good leadership and organization skills (not in-game skills, actual skills)".

Thank you for your advice However my questions are about ships and the rolls they fill here. For a leader on the battlefield what ships should I look at? In large warfare (if I even see such a thing) the first thought that comes to mind is passive observer. Maybe a small cloaked ship just watching the fight as I call out orders. Can I do this in a command ship and supply buffs? Or would a long range battleship allow me to engage from relative safety and still call out orders with the added benefit of visibly being on the battlefield. For smaller gangs how do my choices change?

Due to the way fleet comps work and all, a cloaked observer wouldn't work (because you can't target anyone else to broadcast orders) and a sniper wouldn't work (because you'd be way out there and your fleet can't help you). FCs will need to be in something with a nice buffer tank and good resists and have the logis all watchlist you so that you get reps right away, because other fleets will try and kill you if they know that you're the FC.

Command Ships are nice for this because they do have a very good tank, but anything that can be tanked well can work just fine. CSes aren't the only choice for FCing, but they are kinda built for it, so they fill the role well.

However, as Petrus said, there is far more to FCing well than just having the right ship. You need to know the ins and outs of Eve itself. You have to know what all the ships do and what the strengths and weaknesses are so that you can know if your fleet can take on another fleet. You have to understand how movement works in Eve and be able to predict where the enemy will go and how to counter it. You have to know how to understand and predict your enemies and know what they're going to do. You have to earn the trust and respect of your fleet mates so that they'll trust you and follow you blindly into the fight. There are very few people with the dedication and experience to do all of this well.

There's also the fact that you will spend a lot of time as a grunt in fleets learning how fleets work and such before FCing. It's a good learning experience so long as you don't let hindsight make you think that you could have seen something coming when the FC didn't, lol.

And I do understand the hesitation to jumping straight into null, but don't let that keep you away for longer than it should either. You don't need to be able to do much to survive in null, flying a BC with a T2 tank will let you rat just fine to make money and all you need to be effective in a PvP fleet is be able to fly a frigate (heck, I can fly almost all frigates and cruisers and T1 BSes and I've had the FC jump on my offer to switch from DPS into an interceptor because there wasn't enough tackle, fast tackle frigs are always needed).

Nope.

Name-baiting doesn't usually work, since the other fleet is led by a (supposedly) competent fleet commander as well, who knows better than to sacrifice his fleet to go after one elusive target rather than take out the main battle force.

The reason I mentioned "inconspicuousness" is that, in a massive wall of hundreds of Abaddons or Maelstroms, the single one that is the FC is very hard to pick out. When shooting such a blob, the primary target is usually called alphabetically (which is why characters starting with A or Z die a lot more in fleet warfare). If the FC is flying a ship that stands out, it's easier to tell your fleet to shoot him. Command ships mitigate this by being obnoxiously hard to kill, but other ships that stand out are generally a bad idea to fly, unless you're confident you will not die when their fleet all shoot you.

If, on the other hand, you try to evade them using range, they may simply ignore you for a while, and send an interceptor speeding at you instead. Once it's on top of you and has you tackled, they can all warp to where they need to be to shoot you, at which point you're screwed since your fleet likely won't be able to help.


Ships that can be used to FC are ubiquitous enough that I would say that shouldn't be a very big concern.

Mostly the point is that, unless the opposing FC already knows that you're FCing your fleet AND you're flying a squishy ship, it's not that big a deal. By the time you're actually an experienced enough FC for the enemy to recognize you by name, you should know well enough what ship you should fly to avoid becoming primary. And as long as you're flying a decently tanked ship and have had all the logis watchlist you (the FC should always be watchlisted), there won't be any issues.

You're right though, just getting out there and in fleets is far better experience than anything you could ever read. Knowledge is good, doing is better.

And I wouldn't worry too much about training goals right now. There's plenty of time to train for specific ships once you're closer to FCing and you know what you actually need. For now, I would suggest training to be able to fly up through BS in one race well, then branch out and cross-train one or two other races to compliment the gangs that you're usually flying with. Once you're out there doing stuff, figuring out what to train is fairly intuitive.

I have an impression that OP has slightly wrong idea on what FC exactly does.

Player acting as a Fleet Commander is not like some hero character from RPG games, his presence on battlefield has zero impact on gang members atributes/skills/capabilities. His job is to command what fleet has to do. "Fleet warp to gate X and hold it", "Scout go and see who is there", "Are you able to get point on him?" (scout reports point on target) "Fleet jump jump, warp to scout", "Fleet hold your cloak", etc many many more. FC gives orders and it is his job to estimate chances of successful engagement, and during fight he is THE ONLY ONE calling targets to shoot at.

FC can be set as fleet booster and then his Leadership skills affect various parameters of ships in a fleet like locking speed, range of weapons, speed of ships, etc. But it is also possible to be a FC and set other gang member as a fleet booster just because that member has best Leadership skills atm.

Same thing with ships with ganglink fitted, it doesn't have to be FC who flies such ship. Even more, ppl tend to have alts doing exactly this - flying a ship with ganglinks sitting at safe far from place where fight is going on (but of course in same system).

Good FC makes right decisions and leads his fleet into battles. He doesn't have to apply best dps, doesn't have to remote rep gang members, doesn't have to fly shiny ship. He has to know about game mechanics, aggro mechanics, about what ships are viable targets from his fleet and what ships should be avoided if possible. He also makes calls like "Fu*k it, let's die in a fire" and that's also mark of a good FC.

Oh, and last but not least, FC is calling shots in a fleet but if he is a d*ck and a*shole you are more than entitled to tell him to fu*k off and leave a fleet.

That depends on the fleet you fly in.

There is a certain alliance in the game where if you say you don't want to fly with a fail FC (who happens to have an ego the size of a small moon, and is one of the alliance leaders) you will just be kicked out of the alliance by him.

On everything else, I totally agree with Schmata.

I think OP has false idea on what a FC is and what a FC does.

Like said:

FC in drake among 100 more drakes doesn't stand out.
FC in shiny ship among 100 drakes does and will be primairy.

In the end the FC is just a normal pilot in the fleet that gives the orders that others have to follow. That's about all the FC does, boosting pilot doesn't have to be the FC.

Same for boosters, they work as good sitting in a safe POS

And that's why we were already preparing to leave the alliance, the kick came about 2 hours before we would have left on our own.

So your saying when I said this "the first thought that comes to mind is passive observer. Maybe a small cloaked ship just watching the fight as I call out orders. Can I do this in a command ship and supply buffs?" I have the wrong idea of what a Commanders job is?
I think you have misunderstood the nature of my inquirer, no doubt in part by my followup question of FC baiting the enemy.

I am new to Eve but I am not new to the organized chaos of calling out orders to 100+ people in a battle with true consequences that will effect things for years to come. Hell I have even had a few bad story's written of my conquests. I am not new to organization, leadership, or how important personality is. I am however new to Eve so what I am truly looking for is



Now this is what I am looking for.... you even gave context to what "one million effective hitpoints" is on a battlefield.
For small gangs is the Damnation still a ok choice with buffs or do I need to bring something that will contribute more damage to the field like maybe the Sacrilege?

Thank you for the question. My first plan never included the Rifter and as such I already have some of what I need for the Manticore... that and I also don't like the way the minmatar bomber looks.

However I have been repeatedly told minmater is the direction I need to go (for pretty much everything but I am ignoring that) for Frig to Frig combat. The extra time it takes hardly feels that bad but I would love any advice you have.
I have noticed a change in tune with this new patch however in regards to Rifter being king of Frig combat but I have no way of knowing what is true yet.