EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hello everybody

I want to try EVE and i would like to play Amarr because i really like their ship design. Esthetic was alwasy big factor for me in all games so how my ship look is equally important to me as its performance. As much as i love Amarr ship design, i am not really big fan of their background. From what i have read there is nothing wrong with picking let say Caldari and playing Amarr ships. I've read some guides (actually quite a lot of them), different posts and opinions on different forums and websites and i am still confused abou some things.

1. Let say i will pick Amarr as my race. During my research i have found that they seems to be least popular race now and they as a race controll the smallest space in EVE universe. ( http://evepodcasts.com/eve-influence-map/) Will this influence my gameplay ? and how ? Does it really matter in terms of where i can go or how it makes my race and myself stronger or weaker in comparison to other races controling bigger space ?

2. Also i've read many different opinions regarding how Amarr are weak or harder to play. Some said they were rebalanced and are no less powerfull than other races others told me that only a few of their ships are actually good. With so many game updates and changes i am very confused about their current state.
So are they noticeably harder to play ? Do they stand a chance against other races nowadays ?

1)
If you pick Amarr as your race, you can still join any faction's militia when it comes to competing for faction-warfare space. That map is only of faction warfare lowsec. You may never actually even enter lowsec, but if you participate in faction warfare as amarr, then yes, it will have some influence on you. But you could always be an amarrian fighting for another faction, in fact, amarr and Caldari can enter each other's faction warfare zones and and fight together as allies.

When it comes to high security space, you can go anywhere you want as long as standings allow. Faciton standings below -5 will prevent you from entering another faction's space, but interestingly enough Amarr actually controls the LARGEST section of highsec as they are actually have two allied factions, Ammatar and Khandid, that have limited highsec presence and will most always allow you to enter their space thanks to derived standings.

When it comes to null security space, where you can go is determined by individual player alliances so your race doesn't matter.

2)
Amarr have multiple weapon systems: drone boats, missile boats, and lasers. Lasers are their primary weapon above all else, and suffer from doing limited damage types. Enemies with high EM resist may require you to use alternative tactics, such as drones or missiles. Thermal resist is incredibly rare among NPCs, so you can always expect to do *some* decent damage. The big advantage to lasers is that they don't use ammo and can switch crystals instantly.

They are the only race that has almost zero shield capability. Outside of the arbitrator, most amarr ships cannot shield tank at all. Get used to relying very heavily on armor systems. This isn't a bad thing, it's just different and can be a bit more challenging to learn. Other races can get the benefits of crystal implants or ancillary shield boosters to drastically increase their tank, while amarr will never have that same super-speedy-recharge when it comes to tank. You may see an occasional multi-rep heavy assault cruiser, but it's an exception to the rule. Overall they're slow and thick-skinned. Slow to die, but also slow to repair and slow to move around.

With the current meta-balance, they're no worse off than any other race outside of maybe having a mediocre dreadnought, but expect that to be fixed by the time you can fly one.

Amarr is a solid choice in ships, especially pvp ships


They do have a slight problem in the T1 frigates and have the only rookie ship that cant cyno without cargo expanders, but have excellent T2 frigates and arguably the strongest pvp cruisers and battleships in the game.

Missioning outside of Amarr empire can be a pain with lasers, but this is easily fixed by training into drones for the Sentry-geddon

I am only a few days old in EVE myself, but I can attest to both the aesthetic appeal of the amarr ships and their frustrating performance without a lot of skills trained. Presumably this gets a lot better when one has better energy grid or capacitor skill training, but I lost several ships in tutorial missions due to running my batteries dead trying to armor repair and shoot things. Incompetence also played a role in some of those deaths, to be sure. I'm still getting the hang of the UI too.

On the other hand, I'm planning to be an explorer as soon as my skill training allows it, so that gun-free activity should give me time to build up a better skill-set before I get back to zapping things with laser beams.

Gallente are the good one in this game ;) Caldary are traitors and terrorists, ruled by corporation mafia, they are even worse, than amarr. Amarr at least trying to get better last few decades under new government. Minmatar seems to getting worse, slowly moving from freedom fighter to terrorists, who fights, becasue they do not know anything better.

Now seriosly: as long as you keep away from faction warfare, race does not matter. If you join faction warfare you will block half of high sec for good. Amarr/caldary one or Gallente/minmatar one. Other limitation is that you are able to choose from 3 faces in the race bloodlines, and the face you choose is the one you will be looking at for the rest of your carrier. So some people choose race because they can get better looking face there.

Thats all. Ships, weapon systems can be cross trained. Amarr has benefits in PvE (I like ability to change range instantly and do not care about reloading ammunition) and some ships are good in PvP (Prophecy often concidered as the best price/perfomance ratio battle cruiser, for example)

Thats true. Maxx Run's trolling alter ego aka Sabriz is the only exception...

Back on topic.

If you create new gallente char via proper buddy offer, you can get up to 10 milions ISK straight away and 21 days trial. Training armor and drones will open to you Algos/Vexor/Myrmidon/Dominix or Dragoon/Arbitrator/Prophecy/Armageddon PvE path.

After you get bored with missions, you can start PvP carrier, since mission and PvP related skills have much common. Training both Amarr and Gallente will give you access to Sisters of Eve faction ships, hwich are concidered very interesting option for explorers or cloaked PvP-iers.

FW on amarr is much about sitting in def plex and running away as soon as minmatars come, Caldary FW is much about civilian war inside of Caldary militia, minmatars are kind of mixed sitting in plexes and doing PvP, Gallente FW is much more about Pew-pew in once and forever established teams.

Amarr are probably the best all round race and most versatile in terms of ship loadouts of all the races right now. They are also purely Armour tankers, so that makes skill training much more refined.

That's my opinion though, but i do fly all 4 races.