EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi all I've recently started playing this game and am enjoying it! I am here to ask for advice on clearing up rumors and setting me straight from the start. The topic, ships, weapons, and races.

I have an amarr toon and caldari toon. Both noobs and only couple hundred thousand SP. I want to fly caldari because I think missiles are cool and the caldari ships look cool. Some say fly what you like and you can be good at it, others say "no no, caldari sucks and are carebears". Can eve vets out there tell me if the rumor of caldari for pvp is true, as in, not used for pvp?

I know you can fly any ship and the race creation you start with doesn't matter, but I'm trying to sort out several ideas before I waste time. I don't want to train all my skills in missiles and caldari if (when I'm ready) decide to join a corps, get denied because I've spent months training stuff that isn't useful to them.

Everyone says fly what and how you want and it can be viable, so there is no cookie cutter builds? Ok if that is true then I want to fly a strong, slow tank (shields), firing tons of missiles that deal a big punch, I want to be able to take lots of damage and maintain long range while doing so. Anyone point me in the right direction?

Also, I like amarr because they look cool too, I'm always obsessed with large, slow (tank), heavy firepower ships. The problem I found early with amarr is my weapons quickly drain my capacitor. Any guidance on racial ships would be great appreciated from the experienced players out there.

My ultimate goal isn't however pvp, it is industry and flying a charon. Any guidance is greatly appreciated, IM NOT ASKING what can I fly to be OP, simply are my intentions viable for decent corps and decent pvp.

Thank you for the replies!

This.


Missiles are still useful in PvP. Like all things in EVE, they comes with their own set of pros and cons.

Also, dont stress too much about making the wrong decision. I started as a Caldari character, but eventually joined a corp that flew Amarr ships. So while I trained for those ships I acted as a scout or tackle (as both of those are done by frigates and tank on a frigate doesnt really matter much).

In the end, play as you like. The only wrong way of playing EVE is in such a way that you ajnt having fun playing.

That is a flawed concept.

Unlike guns that hits 2 types of resist you can focus entirely on a ships resist hole using missiles. So you may actually end up doing more DPS then you would with guns. Even if your DPS on the turret ships is rated higher then your missile ship.

I find Heavy Assualt Missile to be my fav weapons system when flying my Amarr T3 Cruiser.

There are plenty of PVP missile boats that do very well, especially in solo/small gang or as fleet support. The number of options form primary fleet DPS boats are reduced, but they still exist (those tengus be crazy). For beginners the Condor is normally the ship of choice.

There aren't any ships that can fly fast enough to evade all your missile dps
some are fast enough to mitigate a reasonable chunk of it though

also provided they are within your maximum range (velocity x flight time) a missile is always going to hit for some damage
you will mostly only ever see your 'on paper' dps figures when shooting at an oversized target
ie when shooting light missiles at a BC

you will only ever score hits (1x dps) though with missiles
misses (0x dps) and penetrating hits (3x dps) are the exclusive domain of guns & drones

Just a quicky, the Cerberus is a powerhorse and can rip holes in a lot of things... Keep an eye out for the Cerberus in the future.
70km + with Rapid Light Missiles, tears Frigates a new hole. And HAM fit it can even hold its own against the bigger ships

Its actually a lot better than its T1 brother.

As for the Navy Caracal, not much point in going for that over a regular Caracal really, bonus to damage via scourge missiles on the regular Caracal no bonus on the Navy version. Also same with shields, Navy Caracal just has more...

You mean the Phoenix? Aye that is somewhat a powerhouse of a rather poor ship my favourite ship in the game that, and its the worst Dreadnaught out there, it needs some CCP love. But I'm still gonna train for it eventually, because it is simply the most brilliant looking ship.

As for what to decide, for me it was a no brainer really, I love shields and the look of the Widow (to which I want to fly eventually) so I knew where I was heading.

Fly whatever you like best, some skills will transfer between the two races, there are some okay Amarr missile boats, but most skills are different and dont transfer to each race. Such as Armour Tanking skills and Lasers (I dont know any one Laser Caldari ship although I have seen an Armour Tanked, Cruise Missile (x4) and Mining laser (x4) Rokh )

Best thing to do (although you may already be doing it with your alt) train both? And decide for yourself which you prefere.

Good old days, I know mining Rokh's where popular but this Cruise Battery, Mining, Armour Rokh was last month... I nearly wept for the sake of humanity.

But I digress, I knew there was something I missed out damnit: Gunnery crossover skills!!!

Yes, missiles suck in PvP. Damage missiles do is based on target's velocity and signature radius. Which means any enemy ship using skirmish links, and show me one that won't, will laught at your damage, and missiles' damage isn't exactly good to begin with.

And before you say that velocity and sig affect turrets as well, it does but can be mitigated by good piloting. Missiles suck no matter what you do.

Missiles are viable.

We have one fleet comp entire based on missiles and another with lots of missile boats in it.

Though note we do not participate in the 2000 man battles in 0.0.

Of course it is better to be able to use both missiles and guns :) But missiles are far from useless in pvp.