Warfare & Tactics

OK, I recognize that there is no definitive answer.
Especially after the tiercide that is ongoing, plus the homogenization of ships.

However, I will ask the question anyway.

Background:
I am building a char that will be used pretty much exclusively for small ships/ small gang warfare.
I plan on flying BC's and smaller.
Whether the char ends up in FW or some organization like Agony, or even RvB is still up in the air.

My combat background runs from high sec warfare to long term wh life, to large null sec sov battles.
But it has been a LONG tome since I have done much of any combat, so I consider myself a neophyte with any combat with the new ships and changes to weapon systems.

So the question is what would be the "best" race and weapon system to focus on for parameters described?
I envision the char will eventually migrate to a second race, since that is inevitable, but I want to keep the skill training to substantially less than a year.

I would go with either caldari or gallente.

Thanks.

So thinking Caldari hulls, hybrids, rockets, small missiles, HAM's, in general.
Sound about right?

You do have to train drones if you want to be effecitve at galelnte. But you don't need to train missiles or shields.

Caldari are good ships. But Gallente have the best gank and tank ships in the game.

I mainly do solo brawling ships (inside scram range) here are my views of best and second best for what I do:

t1 frigate: 1)kestrel 2) tie tristan and incursus
t2 frigate: 1)hawk 2)ishkur/harpy tie
Destroyer: 1)Algos 2) corax
navy frigate: 1)hookbill 2) hookbill
Cruiser: 1)Vexor 2) don't fly a cruiser you will just die in a gatecamp or worse a slow painful death to a boosted kiting condor/hookbill/kestrel etc that you can never even lock.
BC: see second best cruiser.

Yeah others ships are better for disruptor range kiting and fleets. But IMO the gallente are great for fleets too because of the great damage. Gallente ships can be allot of fun to fly.

Just go minmatar. All those nerfs and we're still kickin.

Fact: In low sec armor gangs are very common. If you specialize in Caldari you will not be able to do much in those gangs, save maybe flying a blackbird.

Fact: Gallente have by far the best close range brawler ships. Getting kited is not a problem when both sides are short range, which is often the case in FW lowsec.

Fact: Gallente/Caldari have the best T1 frigate line-up.

My ranking:

Gallente
Caldari
Minmatar
Amarr

This is true.



By "short range" I assume you mean within scram range. If so, you are very wrong. Gallente have awful ships for scram range fighting when it goes up against a rocket condor, rocket kestrel, or god forbid the hookbill. Not to mention if you find something that uses neuts.

Fact: I see a gallente ship around, I get excited because it's an easy kill.



Also false. The Gallente frigate lineup is pretty much this:

a) Incursus: Good for soloing people in cruisers who have no idea how to fit for frigate defense and getting 80 point killmails on BC. Good for boosted pvp against noobs in destroyers who don't know how to fly their ships for 40 point killmails. Otherwise, terrible for killing anything that knows what they are doing. Point is to really use the bonus to reps, you need a cap booster. That leaves you with a scram and prop mod, which puts you in a very very bad position for range control.

b) Tristan - if you fit it like an amarr drone boat (neuts + drones) then it's good against any other frigate that uses capacitor (which is a big weakness for Gallente). If a Caldari missile frigate is dumb enough to let you get into 6km (which many are) then you can neut their mods dry and win, otherwise you pretty much die. Even if you get a caldari frigate neuted dry, if he's smart he'll just kill your drones (which many don't).

Verdict: The tristan is good against other Gallente ships because it exploits their weakness (needs capacitor to fire), otherwise it suffers from a destructible weapon system with a fixed damage type.

c) Atron - Has no tank, needs cap to fire, can get killed by pretty much any Caldari frigate easily by scram range kiting (missile boats), or loses the tank+dps race (Merlin).

d) Maulus - Has a niche as a "damp you you can't lock while my drones and railguns peck you to death" ship. Even after all your drones are dead, it can slowly peck a single target to death. A decent ship for its role. Also good ewar for anti-ecm or anti-logi work. Still suffers from the fact that drones won't be able to really apply damage to a ship that is fast.

Caldari lineup:

Condor - A beast of a ship. 4 mid slots means you can have a prop mod + MSE + point + EWAR of choice (I like the td). It's a practically unneutable tackler with the utility high as well, the capless guns and the bonus to reduced warp disruptor/scram usage. It's also a better maulus in the "kite and apply dps from range role". (Tip: if damped by a maulus you cannot catch, fof's win every time as you move around his drones can't hit you much, and the fof's kill drones then force maulus off). I've seen condors pretty much solo everything in the game (including t3's).

Kestrel - Basically a slower, harder hitting condor with rainbow damage bonuses. Very good for brawling with other ships of your size, probably the best brwaler in its class.

Merlin - Suffers from using hybrids (range + cap) but if you like hybrids, has excellent bonuses and slot layout for maintaining range control and out dps + tanking your enemy.

Griffin - Hands down the most powerful ewar in the Caldari frigate class. One racial jammer can pretty much permajam your enemy.


Basically - I understand some people enjoy the RP of flying their race's ships. But please don't try and tell people that Gallente ships are a good choice (unless you are talking to a Caldari militia member, then by all means, please try to convince them to fly Gallente).

I'd go with a turret based race first amarr/minmatar/gallente. All the gun support skills you train for one of the races also support the remaining two if you decide to cross train. Missle ships and skills primarily stick you with caldari with a few other choices in the minmatar and amarr lines, but none as extensive as the turret ships.

Well, a ton pf different answers, as expected.
But that is good, since many people explained their reasoning.

I am still grinding out BC V before June 4th, so have some time to sort out what race to really focus on once that BC skill is learned.

^This

Every race has good ships for small gang warfare, some more and some less. However I would recommend, you just train for the race and weapon system you like and fly the ships you think look good. When you have gained a little all around knowledge you can easily crosstrain for other ships, especially as you already have BC V, Cruiser III and Frig IV for all of them.