Ships & Modules

I've read that the gallente have no ships in the top 20 for pvp but whenever someone brings it up, they fail to mention why.


Is it because blaster boats are too slow?
Is it because medium rails suck?
Is it because drones can get blown up?
Is it because they aren't shield tanked?

Years of Gallente sipping the weaksauce hasn't left very many players with good Gallente skills. Will take a long while for the recent buffs to filter into the PvP population.

Armor Rig Penalties are a huge part of it.

Thorax with even an 800mm Plate and 3 Armor Rigs is slower then a Shield Cane without Nano's. This problem gets worse when considering Gallente Armor Battlecruisers.

Another thing is that Gallente Cruisers have trouble using their bigger guns because fitting anything less then a 1600mm Plate on a Cruiser is silly.

Large Shield Extender II = +2625 Shield HP
Meta 4 / T2 800mm Plate = +2100 Armor HP

Combine that with the low resists of EANM II's compared to Invuln Field II's and it is 1600mm's all the way. A 15-30% cut in speed and a Battleship sized plate means you are flying a low DPS brick that can't tank a whole lot.

So people Shield Tank their Gallente Boats which is something they are not entirely built for. Shield Thorax, Shield Brutix, Shield Talos, it doesn't need to stop but Armor should be a bit more appealing instead of second string. Want Gallente to succeed you gotta put Armor more in the ring. I'm not talkin running down and catching Cynabals in your Thorax's and Diemos's but matching speeds with Shield Minmatar Battlecruisers a class above while being Armor fit in a Cruiser and being able to move better between Primaries in small gang fights... absolutely.

Gallente got so much better after Crucible (I <3 my Thorax.) but another push is needed and it isn't with ships but the nature of Armor Tanking. 800mm Plates and Rig adjustments are a big step.

My favorite suggestion to this is to have 2 types of Drones targeting 2 different resist types.

EM and Explosive are opposites so Amarr could be modeled after the successful Minmatar drones I.E fast and low damage. Just Targeting Shield Ships instead of Armor.

While on the other end Gallente Drones are all about Damage at the cost of speed. Gal drones target Thermal which is a resist weaker in Shields. Giving Caldari the same stats while they target Armor with Kinetic would make a good match up.

Therefor you tailor your Drone Bay to what you think you will face while players tailor their tanks to what they think they will face. Drone Boats like Missile Boats can use the extra space to carry multiple types. Then we have 2 Drones, accuracy and and damage.

If it ain't broke don't fix it, if it is copy something that works.

There is nothing wrong with Caldari drones.

They'd actually do fine compared to Caldari and Amarr after an armor rig fix which is direly needed.


Winmatar is the main issue though - they're still better at being blaster boats than blaster boats themselves (not really mentioning rails here because they're more Caldari flavoured anyway thanks to their grid+CPU reqs).

The top 20 is entirely dominated by whatever 'doctrine' is trending among the handfull largest alliances in the game.

Gallente is unlikely to trend at those fleet-level scales due to the amount of upkeep required flying Gallente ships.

Drones are one issue, some ships are drone-ships other are turret platforms with plentiful drones on the side. Not only are AoE effects such as bombs from Stealth bombers more common as scales grow, but tending to your drones also become more difficult as size scales up and TiDi enter into effect (more effects on grid, lower reaction times etc.).

The other issue is that most Gallente hulls with an even slot-layout, utility slots and utility drones are better at allround or complicated roles. Large scale combat is usually about simple application and singular roles. Those extra midslots on your armor-tanked ship are not being put to use in a situation that involve sitting still and slamming F1 through F4. At smaller scales when you point, web, move around and deal damage all at once - your ship is more appealing.

These issues, as most issues, have nothing to do with the base speed of the hulls, the medium sized rails or wether you are shield or armor tanked; and everything to do with how the game changes at larger scales toward simple use.

If you want to involve yourself in fleet-warfare, focus on the Capitals (Thanatos is runner-up, Moros is king of it's class, as is Nyx) Talos, the Recons and various tackle (HIC, Dictor etc.).

If you want to fly anything from solo, pair or small to medium gangs Gallente have functional ships in most classes.

Essentially, anything you do that don't involve a coalition of multiple alliances, and grids of 100's.

I think I do have those skills (main char started gallente and fully targeted BS skills directly) however whenever I pick a Brutix on my hangar and undock with, I start thinking about my 80K EHP enough dps Drake perma mwd cap stable or insta lock Cane .

i should add to my comment that i fly gallente almost exclusively cos theyre actually very good ;)

No.
No / Kinda. Mostly you use short range gun systems. If it's long range guns then artillery is generally a better choice because of the alpha.
Well... drones do have some downsides and that is one but it's not a deal breaker. The versatility and damage application of drones are big upsides imo.
A lot of gallente boats actually are nice as shield tanks. Gank Brutix, Gank Rax etc. etc.

Mostly what is comes down to is how PVP actually works.

From my perspective:

A blaster boat is a balls deep kinda proposition. You tackle somebody with hard tackle so they can't escape and apply huge DPS till they explode.

At this point: You are in hard tackle range and cannot easily disengage; You are in neut range.

There's all kinds of stuff that can go wrong with this approach, usually involving decloaking falcons and local spiking or them being cunningly fit to counter you.

You are committed whatever happens though.

In a fast kitey autocannon boat that engages from outside hard tackle range you have more options to control the engagement and are not really committed unless they start bringing recons in.

Both of these approaches are fun but one of these approaches tends to lead to you exploding a lot.

In larger gang situations it's pretty much all about damage projection. Blasters have poor damage projection when compared to lasers or projectiles.