EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi everyone, I will try to keep this brief.

I would like some input from the community because I am finding some of the information I am researching is out of date etc. I can guess that these types of questions have been posted 100 times so please forgive me if it is redundant.

I have been playing for 3 days now :).
I am not interested in: mining, exploring, manufacturing or anything like that, I will keep playing this game because I like to PVE and PVP, moreso the latter when I am skilled enough. I'm not looking for a second job.

I am extremely interested in cloaking/stealth tactics, but have learned that this is not really viable unless I'm going to specialize in this for fleet battle. So it seems it makes sense to wait on that for quite awhile until I find a good corp etc (which also seems hard to do).
So, I plan to work in the Incursus for awhile, complete my tutorials and start doing some missions.

Now - a few specific questions but I really do welcome any advice at all.
Semi Long term:
Am I better to master the frigate ship I am in, or begin skilling for a cruiser or BS now? I think what I'm asking is - will my frigate skills impact other ships positively at all, when I eventually do move to something bigger and better, or am I better to run a frigate mediocre like (not complete mastery) and being focusing on some larger ships now working towards mastering them?
IE - should I plan for a consecutive skill up. . master frigates and move up a rank etc.?

From what I am reading I'm better to shy away from railguns unless I want to become a long range sniper type unit later, and work on turrets and blasters instead, things like that. Is this true?

The stealth/cloaking issue I mentioned above - are the cov ops ships truly pretty limited in small or solo PVP/PVE? Is it best to not pursue this for quite some time until and if I find a pretty good corp and my niche in battle?

My last question is - are there any good resources on piloting and maneuvering a ship in battle, because I am not able to find any though I am piecing things together like manual warp, pulsing... all that stuff from various locations. If there is something good out there I would appreciate it , because I can tell already that piloting is as important or more than your equipment.

Thank you!

Hi. I'll quickly run through very quick and if you need something specified, just ask.




1. You don't need to "wait awhile" to find a good corp. There are a plethora of PvP corporations out there... all you need to do is find them or have them find you.

RvB (the corporations "Red Federation" and "Blue Republic") are locked in a mutual war... so if you like frigate combat with a few ground rules (no killing escape pods and no ECM) this is one place you can look into.

"Agony Unleashed" is a training corporation that takes green newbies like yourself and teaches them the basics (note: the classes will be easier if you read up and experiment with some of the basic mechanics of the game... just ask any veteran to take a moment to teach you).

My personal recommendation is to save up some ISK, buy some ships and mods in bulk, pre-fit them all, and head over to low-sec. Engage the first thing you see and open up a conversation with your killer after you die (you WILL die). Sometimes you will get an asshat, but most of the time you will find someone willing to give you some pointers on what you did wrong or could have done better.
Do this in the same area against the same people often enough and eventually you will be picked you up (especially if you start showing promise).


2. Cloaking ships do not necessarily require "fleets"... at least not all of them. You can experiment with cloaking in a Covert-Ops (Tech 2 frigate) by yourself and maybe harass people in a Stealth Bomber (maybe assist in someone's destruction?).
If you really like Stealth Bombers and want to be in fleets though... I suggest you look into "Bomber's Bar" (exercise that Google-fu!).


Yes and no.

In terms of in-game character skills... not really. One of the interesting things about EVE's skill system is that aside from some "core skills" only a select number of skills will affect any single ship you sit in.
For example; training up frigate sized weapons will in no way affect battleship sized weapons and vice versa (note: weapon support skills do affect all weapons regardless of size).

When it comes to player piloting skills... frigates are the foundation you build on. In a frigate you learn (mostly through your own destruction) how combat mechanics work and how to gauge targets. And because they are, relatively speaking, dirt cheap and insurable (you can insure your ship for up to ~80% of it's hull value) you can keep trying and learning different things.

As you progress up to bigger and more advanced ships though, skillpoints start mattering a little more than before. There is less margin for error in bigger, more specialized ships as they tend to be more cumbersome and/or they are designed to utilize skillpoints more.



More or less. But if you feel you have a firm grasp of the mechanics you CAN skip ahead to bigger stuff. I personally would not recommend it.

What you can do is train up all the frigate related and "core" skills up to about level 4. After than decide if you want to move to the next size up while polishing off the "core skills" to level 5.

(I should also add... "Core Skills" are pretty much all the skills in the Engineering Tab of your character sheet)



Blasters and Railguns utilize pretty much the same exact skills. The only place they diverge a bit is when you hit Tech 2 (the specialization skills).

Experiment with the Tech 1 variants in the meantime. Just remember the 3 main ammo types (that I consider to be useful at least)...

- Anti-matter; highest damage, -50 range (Tech 1 blasters should always be loaded with this)
- Lead; medium damage, -50 capacitor use for the guns
- Iron; longest range, lowest damage



Some of the corporations I listed above can help with this... but truth be told... a lot of what you will learn about battle will come from battle directly. There is always a new tactic or fit that throw even the most experienced pilot off and get him/her killed.

As for piloting tactics and fits... they are literally one and the same. The type of tactics you want to employ will decide what fit you want to use and vice versa.
For example:
- someone who wants to skirmish has to make their ship "light" and project damage well... so they fit less tank and focus more on speed and damage.
- someone who has fit for lots of damage and tank will have to use more "aggressive" tactics than most to make use of that fit.

Interested or not, it's still a good idea to do all the career agent missions. After that move to the epic arc sisters of eve blood stained stars. It's more or less still part of the new player introduction and will take you through the four empire areas. By then, a week or two will have passed by normal play and you should already have a T1 cruiser from the career agents (to complete the epic more so). Then either keep working your cruiser training or go back to frigs.

Stealth is fine for pvp since you pick the targets with the element of surprise. Stealth bombers so-so, made of paper, only best for certain things in a secondary role. But other ships do fine such as the falcon among others. Scouts are near untouchable evasively ...unless they are rigged for exploration mini-games :/

Better mastering frigs if you are going to be a combat pilot and exposed to pvp often. Master to some level anyway, not necessarily maxed as that takes a long time, but you can pvp first day. You can work your core skills while in frigs and not loose too much dieing. Cruisers cost more and w/o the core skills (e.g. targeting, armor/shield etc) you are going to die a lot and be spending more isk compared to your frig getting ganked for the umteenth time.

So skilling while in frigs and learning the game is a good idea if you are going to be in pvp early on. If you are just going to mission and stuff in high sec for a while, to build your skills and wallet, then cruiser would be the choice early on. Alternatively, you can join a corp early on as most offer free frigs to blew up, to blown up, maybe some cruiser scrap metal as well. Some corps are newbie friendly anyway, and also depending on your account status weather trial or active sub. Some will take trials though, many will take subs.

Light railguns = sniper, yes pretty much. I was just on my alt with one tonight, Cormorant destroyer (don't laugh) ...hehe ... sniping with rails. Blasters are nice close up though, very nice. They used to be about worthless, now seem to work better. But there are all kinds of weapons, you just gotta find the right ones for you. You are not stuck with just one racial line of ships, you can train any ship in the game.

Everybody wants to fly cloaky/stealthy fast GTFO ships these days.

Why does nobody like Heavy Brawlers?

I would highly recommend this video which gives a brief description of turret mechanics in EvE and how to take advantage of them when piloting. After all, the whole point of manual piloting is to increase your applied damage and/or decrease your enemies' applied damage, so a working knowledge of how the weapon systems function is very important.

Because.... they.... take.... so.... damn.... long.... to.... warp.... anywhere....

I can't bring myself to fly battleships at present unless I want to field heavy energy neutralizers.

I assumed BS from the 'heavy' before brawler.

My favorite Ishtar fit is a brawler, but I'd call it a light brawler and save the term heavy brawler for either BS'es, brick-tanked Proteuses and a couple of other ships (Sleipnir, etc).

Anyway this is semantics. OP - fast, medium range and agile works in EVE, so does fast, close range and lightly tanked, and so does slow, heavily tanked and close range. Just depends on preference and any intel you have on your opponent(s)' fit(s).

Thanks, I was actually considering exploring alongside the PVP/PVE fit. . . you confirm that cloaking skill and outfit can be good for that.

I sort of skipped frigates and went into cruisers, which was a move I later regretted.

I now can pilot all frigates, which took relatively little time. I spend most of my time in a Assault Frigate now, even though I can pilot nearly everything.

The support skills for turrets / missiles apply to all turrets / missiles.

Similarly for anything to do with navigation, targeting, capacitor, CPU, energy grid (a.k.a. Core Skills).

Love my AHAC.