EVE New Citizens Q&A

are assault frigs worth it....hmmm.
(yes, have a look through the link in my sig)

ill admit i have no experience with the minmatar or caldari ones but the other ones are ****ing amazing.

Definitely get into PvP . It's a ton of fun.

I'm working my way up to Assault Frigates myself, and they definitely seem worth it, hell Ralph's shenanigans in his Ishkurs are what pushed me to skill into one. I'm just rounding out drone skills first before jumping into them.

I recommend practicing in that Rifter before jumping into an AF though. You're going to want experience to be able to leverage a Tech II ship's power. I'll be able to sit in that Ishkur in less than month, but I likely won't take it out for pew pew for a while. Luckily the Prerequisites are extremely useful for almost every ship, so you can't go wrong steadily training into one. Just don't forget support skills!

Also check this handy skill plan for newbies, it's a very general outline but it's a great starting point: http://blog.beyondreality.se/Newbie-skill-plan-2

Get out there and shoot people!

EDIT: Also forgot this goldmine: http://www.evealtruist.com/p/article-index.html

Start with the newbie articles then branch out.

Assault frigates are good, but cruisers are the most versatile ship class in the entire game and I would strongly recommend you train them at some point. From a solid and cost effective tech 1 lineup to powerful specialized Tech 2 hulls and the amazingly powerful Tech 3 ships. If you want to go for assault frigates first, I'd recommend looking in to doing something besides low level missions for income. A frigate hull is only effective in level 1 and 2 missions and they don't generally pay well. Effective running of higher level missions will require a larger hull. Be warned that the nature of missioning isn't going to change with higher level missions. If you don't find then exciting now, you won't find them all that different at higher levels and should probably seek new income streams. Here is are a few suggestions for you to mull over.

They're slower than normal frigates and not much faster than cruisers. They have more tank than frigates but since they're slower it won't be easy to catch them, and when they face a pvp cruiser they'll be neuted to fck.

The basic use of a pvp AF is to fight idiots, preferably in PVE fits, because those won't have neuts, they'll be too slow (to react), and will have serious trouble damaging a moving frigate. Other than that a small group of AF would work well but then again an organised group of anything will work well.

this^^,
assault frigates are fun for brawling with stuff that's bigger than itself and isn't going anywhere, thats generally recreational bear flipping and small gang stuff with fast tackle(that's not you).

unless I need to fly a doctrine ship for a fleet its either one of my wolves or my claw..... pretty much always. love the wolf

I'm actually working towards an ishkur ATM, sick of domis, and ruptures....

The power of assault frigates is how damn hard they are to hit.

Don't let the low EHP number fool you, you need to factor in their low signature radius (which makes them harder to lock and harder to track), and their speed and agility (which also makes them harder to track).

I suggest trying both cruisers and AFs at some time. They are tools that are used for different things.

wow, I'm surprised by the tepid response in here. I'll come out and say it. Assault frigates are ******* amazing. Some of them (mainly the Jaguar and amarr ones) are kinda weak, but in general AF's provide an extremely tanky maneuverable frigate that packs a punch. They're very versatile ships that active tank very well due to their resist profiles and damage mitigation from their tiny signature radius.

That said, they do have significant weaknesses.
They do not have the buffer of even a t1 cruiser and cannot tank gate guns. This is a major issues in low sec pvp.
They are a frigate sized ship, and have weak capacitors making neuts an extremely effective counter.
They are very slow compared to other frigates and can have some difficulty controlling range.

The speed disavantage is mitigated differently by different ships.
The wolf gets a large falloff range bonus allowing it to output significant damage even with its completely lack of range control.
The Ishkur uses drones as its primary weapon system allowing for fights at extreme ranges, and has a full three mid slots for either a web or tracking disrupter. If it cant' win it can often chase other frigates off.
The enyo assumes that you are fighting larger ships and outputs nearly double the dps of almost any other ship of its size. 450 DPS with 10K ehp buffer is not outside the realm of possibility

For pve they are effective ships for doing level 3 missions or nearly all high sec (and even some low sec) anomalies. PVP try them out anywhere where gate or station guns are not an issue. They are especially effective for baiting mission runners and dismantling certain battleship fits.

Follow the link in my Sig , the last ship loss (Sep 09, 2014) was the ship I used to kill everything down as far as the navy domi.
Flown with mid grade halos and 5 warrior II's