EVE New Citizens Q&A

So sometimes people will ask this question (which is also my question but I'm looking for the next level of detail down):

"What are the best ships for PvE ratting?"

At which point people will say things like:

Tengu - solo ratting in WH/null

or cheaper:

Drake
Hurricane

Lots of other random stuff depending on experience, pref, etc.

So my question then is OK lets talk Tengu/Drake - WHY do these ships keep getting referenced as good for PvE ratting? I know rats come in different flavors, different strengths and weaknesses, so why do these ships get mentioned more often?

I'm looking for general principles that might help understand what motivates ship choice in a PvE ratting context. Even if say "Drake" really IS "one of the best PvE ratters" it doesn't really help me understand the game until I understand why that is.

Thus:

Any thoughts on both a) "best" PvE ship and b) WHY that is very much appreciated.

Thanks!

I understand that the Drake was REALLY good some time ago, so much that it was one of the only ships used in null sec combat. Those days are long gone but the Drake is still considered a good ship.

The main reason why the Drake is considered a good PvE ship is its very tankable with a large number of medium and low slots to give yourself a reasonable passive tank while at the same time putting out good damage.

Overall it allows the Drake to try to punch above its weight.

Shield/missile boats aren't the go-to for PvE because they're GOOD. They're the go-to because they're EASY.

You pretty much activate your tank, target everything, and re-click the launcher button whenever you're out of ammo. No miss chance (because missiles), no worries about dipping into hull and accidentally getting yourself killed (because you have your entire armor shell as a buffer).

This is popular because the primary thing that'll kill you while ratting is getting bored and falling asleep at the keyboard for a bit. A shield/missile setup'll pretty much prevent that from being a big deal unless you're out for like 20 minutes.

If you're actually competent and capable of paying attention, just warping in from 50 or something and volleying with rails or equipping MWD/blasters will be significantly faster.

(Drones are unfortunately not great in w-space, sleepers will just eat them. If you're wormholing and doing sites you'll pretty much need to roll with the Amarr or Caldari T3. The Proteus can fit blasters but isn't really optimized for PvE, and the Loki is pretty specialized as a PvP boat. You CAN use them, it's just not really min/maxed all the way.)

Thanks a lot for the responses. This helps. So what I'm getting at from some of the above responses is:

• Really strong tank, especially a more passive tank is helpful - (makes things easier, more of a straight forward farming operation, probably easier to watch d-scan too if you're not speed tanking)
• Still need enough damage to chew through the rats
• Drones sub optimal in WH

Follow up questions:

IIs "damage tanking" not viable in PvE? Or does it just take a lot more real world skill/concentration? I would think that from an efficiency perspective, just chewing through the rats as quickly as possible might be a good strategy, even if it might require more player focus than missile spamming from behind a heavy tank. I think that's pretty much what Greybeard is saying, just looking for more thoughts in this area.

I guess more detail on WH vs. not-WH would be helpful too since there seems to be some big differences there.

I agree that the Drake's horrid DPS sorta kills it, but I use a Rail Ferox for pve and it does superb, the shield tank can almost match that of the drake and my dps is pretty high (382 DPS with 1186 on the volleys plus drones). Also if you distance tank by sniping rats, forget any tank problems.

A good combat-PvE ship:

• Can survive the damage incoming from the rats for as long as it takes to complete the PvE (clear the belt, finish the mission, etc). This can be done via plain active tanking (shield boosters/armor repairers), passive tanking (shield regen), or by augmenting it with speed tanking (a la Tengu).
• --- Bonus points if it can do it forever
• --- Bonus points if it can do it hands-free for the player
• Can deal enough damage to kill everything it needs to kill
• --- Bonus points the more damage it does
• --- Bonus points for being easy to use (e.g. missiles)
• Can resist the incoming electronic warfare from the rats
• Is easy to use
• Is low-risk (either by being cheap, hard to kill, or easy to escape in)

The Drake:

• Has a ridiculous passive tank, so it meets all the points regarding tank.
• Has just enough damage to handle most tasks it can tank. Not great damage, but enough.
• The damage it does is easy to use (missiles plus a little bit of drones), and is impervious to tracking disruptors, energy neutralizers, and to the enemies being too close to track.
• As a Caldari long-range ship it has reasonable defenses against both ECM and sensor dampeners from NPCs.
• Is very easy to use (push F1 to win).
• Comes at the cost of just a T1 battlecruiser, and is not as clunky as a battleship.

The Drake is a great PvE ship for the above reasons. Of course, it can't handle everything. There are things it can't kill, and things it can't tank enough against. As a baseline/newbie PvE boat though, it is excellent.

It is also excellent in PvP for a lot of the same reasons, but it requires some tweaking of the fit.

"Great at PvE" and "fun at PvE" can be two completely different things. I was documenting the former.

Generally speaking, you will probably want to have an active tank of some sort when ratting. It doesn't necessarily need to be a heavy tank or your primary means of defending yourself, but you'll want the option of warping out to 200, repairing, and going back in at minimum.

This isn't to say that running buffer or no tank isn't possible, but usually that's restricted to very specific situations where you know the rats and know that you can get away with in. Null ratting in a stealth bomber and just orbiting in close to one or two BS/Cruiser turret rats so they can't hit you while you torpedo them works, for instance. If you are comfortable with the micro jump drives and long-range weapons, you can probably do something similar with those, though I haven't tried that yet.

You really can't pull the avoidance tank or just kill things fast enough that tank doesn't matter in w-space. Sleepers have uniform and relatively high resists and actually fly in reasonable strategic patterns for their size when they can, so you can't generally just blow them all out of the sky before they hit you, and they use a mix of damage types and turrets/missiles so when they're in range there's really no way to negate damage entirely. They're also a lot fonder of whipping out the tackle than many pirate types.

Probably the best overall advice is similar to learning to PvP: start ratting in any given area in a reasonably cheap ship so that you have a good feel for what the mechanics are before committing something expensive to it. The forums are helpful, but not really a substitute for actually seeing things work/not work yourself.