EVE New Citizens Q&A

EFT, no doubt has been my life saver since I started. for a while I actually spent more time playing with it, than actually playing Eve

On the note of EFT (eve fitting tool), I would suggest going to battleclinic and their loadouts section. Find a ship you want to fly and look at some of the top rated fittings. Read the descriptions of how you should fly it, and find stuff that sounds fun! Sometimes you can find some off the wall fittings and really start to experiment with EFT, finding new ways to fly every ship.

IMO, the hardest thing to keep in mind is that you can't be everything to everyone. A newbie mistake is thinking "I'm going to fit a little armor tank, a little shield tank, a few missiles, a few lasers... yeah, sounds good, I'm ready for anything!"

No way. Your survivability, particularly if you go into PVP (but this applies to PVE for higher level content too), is dependent on your knowledge of what you can do and what you can't. Everything in EVE is designed to have a counter. Sure, those 1400mm howitzer cannons hit hard ... but only if your target is large or has a low transverse.

Know what kind of combat you are going to go into and fit for it. Then stick to your strengths! If you like the up close and personal, fast and furious style -- never engage at range! You will just get your ass handed to you by someone who is fit for range, and you'll never be as good.

It is better to live and fight another day than to throw away ships at fights that were lost before they began.

personally i use evehq's hqf fitting tool. but yes, fitting tools can be very handy, just so long as you dont really on them completely, as they have been shown to not be 100% correct in the past. they should be used to get a basic idea of whether the fit you are planning will work and in the case of hqf you can then plan a skill queue to train the skills you might be missing (you still need to manually add them to your ingame queue)

Eve HQ is what I use on windows, but there are packaged wine versions in this thread for mac users.

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1305430

How should I fit my ship ?

Fitting is the art of making a ship build that maximizes its effectiveness for its intended purpose. Mastery of it will make you successful at all you do in EVE.

Getting it to fit
The powergrid and CPU that you have available to fit modules is determined from the base amount your ship has available (in your fitting screen) modified primarily by your Engineering (5% extra powergrid/level) and Electronics Skill (5% extra CPU/level) levels.

There is only one type of module (lowslot) that can upgrade your CPU :
* Co-Processor (extra CPU)

For the powergrid there are three lowslot modules :
* Reactor Control Unit (extra powergrid)
* Micro Auxiliary Power Core (extra powergrid)
* Power Diagnostics System (increase cap/shield size/recharge rate and adds powergrid)

Modules :
* Named modules - Higher meta T1 modules generally have lower fitting requirements and equal or better performance than their T2 counterparts. So it's easier to fit best named T1 than T2.

Getting it work
Most setups need capacitor to actually work. The ideal for most mission running ships is cap stability, meaning that you can run all (or most) modules indefinitely without running our of capacitor. Note that capacitor recharge, like shields, is non-liniear and so will you will recharge more as your capacitor power remaining decreases with an optimal around 30 %.

Skills that affect capacitor use the most:
* Energy Management (increases cap capacity by 5% per level)
* Energy Systems Operation (decreases cap recharge time by 5% per level)
* Controlled Bursts (decreases activation cost of a weapon turret by 5% per level)
* Afterburner (increases ab cycle time +10% per level)
* High Speed manouvering (-5% cap needs of microwarp drive)
* Warp Drive Operation (decreases cap use when warping -10% per level)
Many other skills also decrease capacitor use of their respective modules/level.

Modules that affect capacitor size and recharge :
* Med slot Capacitor Battery (add a % to capacitor size)
* Med slot Capacitor Booster (inject a chunk of power into your capacitor)
* Med slot Capacitor Recharger (increase capacitor recharge rate)
* Low slot Capacitor Power Relay (Increases capacitor recharge rate at the expense of shield boosting)
* Low slot Capacitor Flux Coil (Increases capacitor recharge rate at the expense of capacitor size)
* Low slot Power Diagnostic System (increase capacitor/shield size/recharge rate and adds powergrid)
* Various rigs will mess with capacitor size and capacitor recharge rate (notably Capacitor Control Circuit rig)
* Named modules - Higher meta T1 modules generally have lower capacitor power needs when activated than the standard T1 ones.

Basics
Try not to mix guns. Design your ship to work at a certain range and ensure that you can maintain that range by being fast enough.

Here's a list of all the basic support skills that will help you fit and fly all ships better :

* Electronics Skill (5% extra CPU/level)
* Engineering (5% extra powergrid/level)
* Energy Management (increases cap capacity by 5% per level)
* Energy Systems Operation (decreases cap recharge time by 5% per level)
* Mechanic (5% bonus to structure hit points per skill level)
* Hull Upgrades (5% bonus to armor hit points per skill level)
* Afterburner (10% bonus to Afterburner duration per skill level)
* Navigation (5% bonus to sub-warp ship velocity per skill level)
* Acceleration Control (5% Bonus to Afterburner and MicroWarpdrive speed boost per skill level)
* Evasive Maneuvering (5% improved ship agility for all ships per skill level)
* Fuel Conservation (10% reduction in afterburner capacitor needs per skill level)
* Spaceship Command (2% improved ship agility for all ships per skill level)
* Weapon Upgrades (5% reduction per skill level in the CPU needs of weapon turrets, launchers and smartbombs)
* Advanced Weapon Upgrades (Reduces the powergrid needs of weapon turrets and launchers by 2% per skill level)

If you plan on shield tanking :
* Shield Management (5% bonus to shield capacity per skill level)
* Shield Operation (5% reduction in shield recharge time per skill level)

If you plan on armour tanking :
* Repair Systems (5% reduction in repair systems duration per skill level)

It is also highly recommended to train Drones as they can be used on most ships :
* Drones (Can operate 1 drone per skill level)
* Scout Drone Operation (Can use light and medium combat drones, drone control range increased by 5000 meters per skill level)

Check out the http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Fitting_ships evelopedia article, especially the Common Rookie Mistakes section.

Here (above quote) are a few bits of very, very valuable advice. Take it to heart and you will succeed.

I would also recommend reading blogs by experienced players (PVP or PVE), there is allot to be learned from people who have the time to flesh out advice and recount their own experiences. Priceless IMO.

EFT.

Get it, use the API to pull in your current skills. If nothing else, get EFT. It will save you time, isk, and help enlighten you on why people give all the other fitting tips/advice.


Fly what you can afford to replace. You don't always need the most expensive module you can fit simply because it's "the best". Eve ship death is permanent. It's not like other MMOs where you get the best you can afford and then simply respawn. Eve doesn't need "the best" for everything, it needs what gets the job done.


Don't fly a jack of all trades ship. You don't need combat, mining, exploration, and remote repair all on one ship. You can have more than one ship. The station hangers are more then big enough. Build one for Ratting/Missions. A separate one for
hauling goods. Yet another for mining.

Stick to one weapon type for your ship, don't mix and match gun sizes, types and ammo. Most ships have a bonus to a certain weapon class/size or subtype. Sticking to that gives you the best bang for the fitting space.
For example:
- Use all Medium Artillery
- Do NOT use Half medium Artilary and half small autocannon.


Stick to one method of "tanking" or handeling and mitigating damage.
Examples:
- Shield Buffer Tanking
- Shield Recharge Tanking
- Shield Booster Tanking
- Armor Buffer Tanking
- Armor Active (aka local Repair) Tanking
- Speed/Signature Tanking
- Hull Buffer Tanking (AKA Hero Tanking)


Don't underestimate the usefulness of drones...

Not to mention that there are helpful wiki pages including Acronym lists for those pilots confused by veteran terms, fitting diagrams that are much easier to understand than plain text, and a helpful group of veteran moderators that are willing to spend their personal time to respond to your questions via PM, however noobish you think they are.

Four tools:
1) EFT
2) Battleclinic (a LOT of bad fits, but ideas from top rated fits are a good place to start),
3) Eve Test Server, Sisi. Try it there to see how it performs with no risk or cost to you.
4) Eve Central to see the prices: http://eve-central.com/ or the market and contract tools in-game; keep the module costs to under the value of the ship hull, in general. Typically, no more than 1/10 the cost of the hull.

Tips:
CPU rules the fitting. PG is much easier to work around.
Avoid Co-processors, reactor control units, as they only benefit cpu/pg and no other performance aspect of the ship.
Use your character, not all 5 character, because getting all 5 takes much more time and gives a false sense of performance than what you can expect to see in game.
Remember alpha. Sure it can tank like a beast, but what if the reps cannot avoid allowing each volley to add structure damage to the target ship?
Remember range. If optimal is 1 km, then your dps is practically 0 until you get to optimal plus falloff. Remember tracking. 0 dps again if you can't hit it. Remember missiles don't care about tracking and have lovely "optimals."