Skill Discussions

Although the certificates aren't perfect they do list the skills you need to inject and train. Your core certificates plus turret control and defence certificate. If you have those skills you would be good to go. Train stuff to 4 before you work to 5. The only exception would be a few rank one skills you may want to get to 5.

The best way to make a training plan for any ship is to first figure out your target ship and fitting. Obviously, a lot of the skills you'd train to competently fly a Dominix Navy Issue are going to be different from those you'd train to fly a Raven Navy Issue (for example, the former is most likely going to be armor tanked and make use of railguns and light, medium, sentry and even heavy drones, while the latter will be shield tanked and make use of missile launchers and only require flights of light and medium drones).

So you find the fitting for the ship you want to eventually fly in L4 missions. That comes first.

Then what you need to do is sift through all the skills in the game (EVEMon is good for this, obviously) and find those which have some, any, bearing on the ship itself, its modules, or your character's ability in flying it.

So you're going to look at the following:

i) Gunnery/Missile Launcher Operation -- Anything that makes your target weapons more powerful

ii) Drones -- Train up any skills that pertain to the drones you'll be fielding in your target ship (if you need T2 sentries, get ready for a longer training time, but if you just need T2 lights and mediums, that's not such a tall mountain to climb).

iii) Electronics -- Electronics, Long Range Targeting, Signature Analysis, Targeting (and possibly Target Painting, if you're going to use a painter on you ship). The other skills are less likely to be useful for PVE ship fittings.

iv) Engineering -- Shield skills are in here, so if you're running a shield tank on your target ship, this is stuff you need to get. Also, there are some important fitting skills here: Engineering, Energy Systems Operation, Energy Management. These are going to be useful for literally any ship you fly in the game.

v) Mechanics -- More tank skills in here, in the form of Mechanics and Hull Upgrades. Also, this is the home of armor tanking skills. This category is basically "Engineering" for armor tankers (though both types of tanks need skills from each of the categories, obviously). And this is where you train for rigs, as well, which you'll definitely be putting on your target ship.

vi) Navigation -- These skills aren't hugely important for most people running L4s in battleships, but they are nevertheless good to train anyway. Better navigation skills means you'll align and jump more quickly, but generally speaking, you probably won't be running an AB or MWD on the average mission BS, since it takes space away from a heavier tank or your overall damage dealing capacity. That said, I wouldn't generally prioritize these skills.

vii) Spaceship Command -- This should be pretty obvious. Battleships, like any other ship, have certain minimum requirements in order to fly them. A huge thing when you're running L4s, however, is really shooting for a higher level in your racial BS skill. It can't be overstated how much of an advantage you get from having level 5 in that skill, in terms of the bonuses conferred upon your vessel. For example, a Dominix Navy Issue with BS5 will have +25% hybrid weapon damage and +50% bonus to drone hitpoints and damage. That's above and beyond any other bonuses you get from other skills for these things.


So you're going to find that the main points of differentiation when it comes to training up for a BS is what kind of tank you'll need (armor or shield) and what kind of weapon system you're using (hybrids, projectiles, missiles, lasers). You'll definitely need some drone skills either way, and you'll definitely also want to have good fitting skills, especially for T1 battleships, which are a tighter fit than their T2 faction counterparts.

I hope that's helpful.

Wow, thanks ^^
With this I finally know where to start a bit... And move my way up in the carebearing ranks xD

Fly safe o7

The reason why I said look at the certificates is because they include every skill with a few exceptions. Controlled bursts for gunnery being one not on the turret control cert because it doesn't apply to all guns. With Evemon you can plan training for the certificates.

Most people train the very basic skills to 3-4 then remap to a specific skill plan.

I suggest training the "Core" and "Defense" first with one remap then the "Turret Control" cert with another. I guessed you were talking about Amarr ships since you mentioned "large pulse/beam energy turret". I would just train for T2 light drones. Drones also have their own certificates but I wouldn't remap just for that.

Eve can be confusing but once you learn the basics it's rather simple.

Also concern using a Tech 3 cruiser instead of a battleship for level 4 missions.

Don't forget your social skills like negotiations and connections.

And don't take any missions that'll have you attacking another empire. You will regret it.

Don't listen to her, just kill every Gallente and Minmatar you encounter. Those people are not human, they are animals, living in the life of luxury and sloth. Which is why it is logical to kill those scums, to cleanse the world. I have bad standing with them so every time I enter their territory they want to shoot me, but I'm too fast for those suckers.

But really, being hate by "goody" factions are really satisfying. Makes people wonder: wut da hell you did pissed 'em off ?"

But if you are miner or trader, then it would be a bit of a problem.

Also..

All praise the Caldari State!

I was working on my drone skills for a little while, got Drones and Drone interfacing on V, with Scout Drone Operation on the way to V, will be done in 2 and a half day, so I potentially COULD start the Drone race specialization for T2's right now... Although for the time being I'll focus more on my own actual ship, so that my harbi can at least hold together in lv3's xD

The hard part for me personally still is choosing between amarrian ships, which I LOVE, and a shield tank ship... Although considering I'll be missioning in amarr space against Sansha's (And I might eventually go for incursions) I guess amarrian ships are better.

Therefore, for the time being I'll get my cap skills on IV at least first, then prioritize tanking skills, and some more offensive later on.
According to EVEmon it will take me about 360 days to fly an apoc with it's fitting's and cert's skills all on V... Which probably still misses over 45% of all related skills, so I best get started with it soon :P

Aside from primary drone skills (T1 good usage... the few I got now :P), fitting skills required to get my fit together, and at least skills to be able to use a decent tank (Damage Control II and heavy passive tank, with the armor reps), I was planning to train most to IV max before jumping in the BS. I can run missions with my corp so I should have a pretty safe testing period to see when exactly I'd be able to run them easily without any warpouts.

...Worst case scenario I get an abaddon, forget to load drones, and get scrammed and shot before I made enough money to replace it :P And I don't think that's gonna happen, especially not after I started to really see the strength of drones and prepared so much for them. (...Maybe too much, WAY too much... Or maybe not. Guess I'll see xD)