EVE New Citizens Q&A

Wat.

What steve said.

I used to set up ships like this when I was new. Normally, you want one type of gun...not different guns for different ranges. Use drones to increase your dps a bit as well.

Hmz, another typical New Player fit, with the same New Player errors most players in EVE made (yes, even the old veterans which think they are great and don't / didn't make mistakes).

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You are mixing tanks (you have both a shield booster I which is shield tanking and armor repairer + nano plating which are armor tanking)

Best to stick to 1 tank, you either choose shield or armour, which is depending on the race and ship you are going to fly. In general GUIDE LINE*.

Amarr - Armor
Gallente - Armor
Caldari - Shield
Minmatar - Shield OR armor (depending on ship).

* = I say guide line as I've seen Amarr ships with shield tanks, I've seen Caldari ships with armor tanks (mainly the scorpion for instance).

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You are also mixing a lot of guns on your ship. As with tanking, stick to one type and if possible to the same (exception is that guns + missiles can be usefull).

Again here are GUIDE LINES.

Amarr - Lasers
Gallente - Hybrids (usually Blasters)
Caldari - Hybrids (usually Railguns) OR missiles (Caldari have a missile ship line [Kestrel - Caracal - Drake - Raven] and a gun line [Merlin - Moa - Ferox - Rokh]).
Minmatar - Projectile turrets.

All races from cruiser and up can use drones, but Gallente are more specialized in it.

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Why you need 1 type of gun (and if possible the same, so all 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Antimatter Charge S):

Fit 1:
1 x Railgun (long range)
1 x Blaster (short range)

Fit 2:
2 x Railgun

Fit 3:
2 x Blaster

When you use Fit 1:

When you are in range of the railgun (long range from target), it will do damage, but your blaster won't cause the target is out of range for it, when you are in range of the blaster (short range from target) it will hit, but your railgun will miss due to tracking issues (gun can't turn fast enough). This means only 1 of your 2 guns will be effective, and in the gap in between them they won't be usefull at all.

When you use Fit 2:

When you are close to your target you won't hit him, but when you move at longer range, you have 2 guns that will hit the target. This is twice as much as Fit 1, so the key with using railguns (hybrids) / artillery (projectile turret) / long range missiles is to keep range high (known as kiting).

When you use Fit 3:

When you are far away you won't hit the targets due to being out of range. But when you get close both blasters will hit your target. This is again twice as much as fit 1 will be. So the key with Blaster (Hybrids) / autocannons (projectiles) / short range missiles is to get in close (known as brawling).


You want to use the same gun (so all exactly the same) cause this means you can group them to shoot as 1 turret which means you do more damage in 1 go.

Also like mentioned, look at the ships bonuses and try to use them in your advantage. And use the appropriate size guns on ships (frigates/destroyers = small, cruisers/battlecruisers = medium**, battleship = large)

** = The exception to this rule is that the tier 3 battlecruiser uses large guns (BS sized). These are: Tornado, Naga, Oracle and Talos.

Wow! You guys have been really helpful. So, at the risk of embarressing myself, heres what I got:

[Thorax, Thorax I]
Tracking Enhancer I
Signal Amplifier I
Overdrive Injector System I
[empty low slot]
[empty low slot]

1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Cap Recharger I
Cap Recharger I

200mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M
200mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Uranium Charge M
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Thorium Charge M
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Thorium Charge M
Salvager I

Medium Hybrid Locus Coordinator I
Medium Sentry Damage Augmentor I
Medium Salvage Tackle I

With 5 drones I'm hoping to keep distance with MWD and inflict damage. I have to admit I'm a little fuzy in regards to tanking 101. If I focus on armor as a Gallant I imagine it getting uncomfortable watching your shields go up in smoke only to be confident that your enforced armor will kick in. I don't think I'm understanding that properly.

Honestly, using railguns on a Thorax isn't all that popular (speed tends to be a bit better for getting close than for maintaining distance because MWD changes your signature radius) but that will generally work.

However, you're still mismatching your guns and ammo, albeit with less of a terrifying range mismatch this time. Generally speaking, you'll do better using 4 of the 250mm guns and giving them all the same ammo, it will make the ship massively simpler to fly if nothing else. If this taxes your power grid too much, drop the locus coordinator, more 250mm guns is better than the extra range, generally speaking. And use all the same ammo for every gun. If you need ammo of a different type in combat, just stop firing and load all of the guns up with the new ammo in combat.

Also, another thing where you're sort of mixing roles inefficiently: salvager + salvage tackle + overdrive injector. Generally speaking, the loss of speed on the salvage tackle is going to hurt your kill speed more than the tackle will save you time on looting. Balancing it with an overdrive injector may more or less negate the speed penalty, but shrinking your cargo bay kind of screws your looting, cancelling out some of the advantage of the salvage rig. I'd advise just sticking the salvager on there and not doing anything to boost it.

Finally, those empty low slots seem like a good opportunity to fit some sort of tank on the ship. A couple Energized Membranes will up your armor resistances without costing you speed (the most obvious choice being the Energized Adaptive ones). If you don't have the CPU to fit them, remove the "Energized" keyword and use the resulting modules. I would honestly prioritize this over the overdrive injector, you should have plenty of speed from the MWD alone.

Again, this isn't to say your fit won't _work_, this is more in the way of general advice to clean up how the ship flies than anything else.

Your speed isn't actually important, with regards to hitting things. Neither is their speed. At least not directly

What's important is the arc of a circle that they cover, with regards to you, per second. Their 'traversal'.

On the overview, you want to turn on column 'angular velocity'. It's in radians per second. You want the tracking speed of your guns to be higher than the angular velocity.

If you're zooming round a static enemy, that's a high traversal. If they're zooming round you, still high. If you're running towards them, or them away from you, that's low traversal.

Learning to manage your traversal is an important lesson for PvE and PvP.

This is your problem. Don't mix your guns.

If this doesn't say "Lets throw science at the wall and see what sticks" I don't know what does. You, sir, should be named Cave Johnson.

The thorax is a blaster boat.

You need to fit blasters and get on top of rats with a web. Rails have horrible tracking as well. To use them in lvl 2's you would have to kite alot of frigates to keep there relative transversal to you 0.

Use drones. There extremely powerful in early missions.

My advice to you get some drone skills and fly a vexor. You will be shocked at how quickly it tears through missions.

Also the vexor scales with your skills very nicely. A vexor flown properly can easily do lvl 3 missions.

each race has a cruiser good for missions and a cruiser good for pvp. In this case the Thorax is more oriented around pvp and less pve. The Vexor is more PVE oriented, which is why I brought it up.

If you dont want to fly the vexor because you think the thorax is cooler looking fine.

Its your funeral.

We still recommend that you use just the 200mms, or just the 250mm. If you can fit 4 250s, fit them. Otherwise 4 200mms. Then use 'keep at range' or orbit to keep them at your preferred combat range.

I'd suggest not using the sig amp, as the thorax has a base targeting range of 55KM, which is higher than your preferred engagement range.

Possibly adaptive nano plating, or a specific resist modifier, like Thermal plating. If you have the spare CPU for it, a Damage Control I is worth considering. Helps a great deal with survivability, as it boosts all resists, without a stacking penalty.

As a tip, consider the meta 4 nano plating. It's often under valued priced, and gives better resists than any of the tech 1 energized adaptive nano membranes, while being easier to fit.