Skill Discussions

carriers are probably my favorite ship class in the game. i mainly use them for moving ships around low/null and for the occasional ratting, but i do get to take them out for pvp/support every now and then as well. like people said earlier, they are pretty niche and are not meant to be flown solo. don't let that stop you though, it is possible to safely solo with a capital for moving around or ratting, although you need to be on your top game.

Seriously this. A fitted carrier costs less than a HG implant set, and you don't even need a full fit to make use of its jump drive capabilities. It can carry 2 fitted battleships, or about 8 cruisers. You don't need to be in a corp to appreciate that.

When you can afford to lose one.

Let me tell you about this thing called a slowcat fleet

There is skilling for a carrier, and there is skilling for a carrier for combat.

Anyone in 0.0 should seriously consider skilling for a suitcase carrier. All you need is the base skills to sit a carrier; There are two skills that aren't useful for your subcaps you need, advanced spaceship command V, and jump drive Operation V. Then you train jump cal 4 or 5, and fuel conservation 4 and your done. About 2 months of extra training. While alliance side JF services are going to be a lot cheaper for day to day supply via courier, when you need to move your fitted ships, not having to trash rigs pays for a lot of carrier fuel.

Training a carrier for combat is a lot more training time, and your training a lot of things that are going to be minimally useful in a subcap, or not useful at all. Don't bother unless your Alliance actually uses them and you have a need.

While I've trained it on my Cap character, and even one non-cap character for when I get around to training a cap, If the only jumping you do is of a suitcase carrier, you can probably get by with 4. Any other cap, or if your going to use your carrier for combat jumps, I agree, jump cal 5 is absolutely critical.

Something I'm very much aware of... but 1 extra carrier in a slowcat fleet does not make a big difference. If your alliance can field a slowcat fleet then it's probably fielding 50, 100+ of them.

However, the ability to move your assets about as and when you please. To the individual pilot that's worth far more.

Oh boy proof by induction. I know this!

It's up to you. Training for something and sitting in something are not the same. You should not be sitting in a capital without the ability to jump a significant distance, and you should not be sitting in a capital without defensive and damage skills maxxed or almost maxxed. First you should strive for perfection on the basic core skills and support skills for cap, shields, armor, navigation, etc, before doing anything else in EvE. So in essence you are always training for all ships in the game, since the core skills are useful wherever you are. Then when you want to fly a particular ship and you have those core skills, you won't be killed through lack of skill (although possibly through lack of experience).

I knew very early that I would want to fly Cap ships some day. So, I started doing a skill here, a skill there, that all put me closer to a good Carrier.
A good Carrier will take many months to perfect, but it's not so painful if you pick away at it long before you actually buy the ship.
I don't use mine much at all.. but I am still training cap skills in those times when I don't have any hard core goals.