EVE New Citizens Q&A

o/

So I'm nearing the end of my trial and it's looking like I'm going to be here to stay. My main goals for the game are to get involved in the PvP scene but there are so many ships and ship classes to choose from (and a massive skill queue to boot). I'm hoping to get some feedback on what I should be striving for given the time investments with skill queues.

I usually like to play with a lot of in combat tricks up my sleeve rather than having excessive retreating capabilities. High damage output is also attractive, along with sustainability (more focus on damage usually). So I guess you can say a ship that get's in the fight and stays there for a while.

Likewise I'm also a fan of being a pro ***** and ganking people (Stealth bombers are very attractive) when they least expect it.

o7

Most of the time PVP isn't about tricks up the sleeve; you attack with all you've got, and defend with all you've got, because if you don't you'll die. Also, most of the time PVP is a group affair; you maximize your ship for whatever role you'll have in the fleet and you perform that role.

That said, in general, the roles are:

Frigates:
- T1 frigates: tackling (warp disrupt targets so they don't run away), scouts, wolf-pack ops, or beginner/cheap PVP skirmishes.
- T2 frigates: have specialized roles: interceptors (tackle), electronic attack (jammers), cov-ops (scouts), bombers (bombing runs are typically a group affair, as a single bomber won't do much and will die fast after it uncloaks).

Destroyers:
- T1 Destroyers are typically anti-frigate platforms. Some are used as suicide attack ships, when fitted with high first shot damage weapons.
- T2 interdictors can deploy AOE warp disruption bubbles.

Cruisers:
- T1 cruisers: cheap enough to be used in small group skirmishes, as DPS, jamming, remote repair, etc. Versatile ships.
- T2 cruisers: have specialized roles: recons can tackle from huge ranges, heavy attack cruisers have resistance bonuses and can provide DPS, heavy interdictors have AOE warp disruption, Logi's can combat-repair the whole fleet.
- T3 cruisers: have special capabilities (depending on how they're fitted): immunity to warp disruption, move while cloaked, high probe strength, high DPS, defensive resistances. They're expensive, so are often used solo or for wormhole operations.

Battlecruisers:
- T1 battlecruisers: typically used as DPS for small to medium fleet PVP, some can be used as suicide attack ships for tougher targets.
- T2 command ships: provide fleet bonuses (buffs), a job that requires extensive skill training.

Battleships:
- T1 battleships: typically used as DPS for larger fleets or support for capital ship fleets. They have tank, range, and firepower, but are expensive and slow, thus small mobile fleets may not prefer them.
- T2 black ops: they can move while cloaked, and jump-bridge smaller cov-ops ships.

Industrials:
- T1 industrial transports: basic capability to move lots of cargo, when fitted with Expanded Cargohold modules. Not very defended.
- T2 transports: can move under cloak, or have warp stabilization (anti-tackle) built-in.
- Freighters: huge, slow, expensive ships that can move A LOT of goods from station to station.
- Jump Freighters: can cyno-jump, bypassing gates, good for dangerous areas (if they have support).

- Mining Frigate, Barges, Exhumers - used for mining various resources.
- Orca - provides support to a mining operation
- Rorqual - typically used in 0.0 space to compress ore for transport.


Capital Ships:

- Dreadnoughts - used to attack POS and deployed sovereignty units, as their guns do major damage to these structures. Will die very fast to smaller ships if caught unsupported / solo.

- Carriers - support ships that can repair POS / SOV units, carry some spare ships, or do damage to smaller ships with fighter drones.

- SuperCarriers - in addition to providing better support than carriers, they can also damage capital ships with bomber drones.

- Titans - used to jump-bridge whole fleets of capital ships around, or to one-shot smaller capital ships during combat.

Because of the cost of these ships, and the limitations on how they can move or whether they can even dock at a station, once your pilot gets into one, it likely will never leave the ship (too much of a chance for it to be stolen). So if you plan on flying one of these, you may want to create an alt and train it for that specific purpose.

Speaking of races and their ship lineups, each race provides equivalent ships, more or less. The "best in class" varies from ship type to ship type, and from race to race, to the point where each race has a few "best" ships to offer. What determines "best" is typically the bonus that the ship has, slot layout, ease of fitting, and even current PVP doctrines.

Decisions are made based on shield vs. armor defenses, range (point blank brawlers vs. long range snipers), expected resistances, expected support from logi repair, command buffs, or recon jamming, and very often intel (surprise decloaks, bubble traps, bait ships, etc.)

Amarr ships use lasers and sometimes drones, have armor defenses, and may be vulnerable to capacitor energy drains.

Minmatar ships are fast, use projectiles (autocannons, artillery) and missiles, can use armor or shields, and often are able to ignore capacitor drains. Historically they've been used a lot as small scale skirmish / piracy ships.

Gallente ships are versatile because they use drones (or close range blasters), and have decent armor defenses.

Caldari ships typically use missiles and railguns (snipers), and have shield defenses, and some have excellent target jamming that can disable a logi repair chain right quick.


Guns of all kinds are preferred in PVP because they hit instantly. Missiles take a while to travel to the target, and if it's not tackled the target will just warp away before the missiles even hit. Drones also take a while to travel, and can be destroyed or left behind, which causes a drone ship to lose its DPS capabilities.

The high-lighted.


Yes, EVE PvP is more about a rock-scissor-paper.

But unlike ship vs ship, it all depends on ship+specific fit+pilot ability vs ship+specific fit+pilot ability.

I highlighted pilot ability, because it is a major factor in a PvP fight (well, any form of PvP besides a blob where you win due to shear amount of numbers fielded).

A pilot with a perfect counter against your ship yet not having the ability to use the ship to its fullest, will still be able to (and in some cases most likely) lose.


p.s. Take up Kane's offer for help. You won't regret it.

I highly recommend that you train as many and as varied ships as possible as there are a myriad of roles that some ships are distinctly better at, an ability to switch between them is a massive advantage for you in a learning capacity.


so train ALL THE SHIPS!

Ok that'll take forever but don't pigeon hole yourself into just one or two things you like the sound of, try everything.

Gallente is a pretty good up close DPS choice.

But given that skill trains up to the 3 level are pretty quick, I'd recommend playing around with each race's frigates/weapon systems and seeing what style you prefer. It doesn't really matter if your ship choice is "optimal" if you feel like you're flying around in a green potato.

Aspire to whatever you enjoy flying. It's more about what ROLE you enjoy more than any given ship.

If you enjoy being tackle, then Ceptors, Dictors, and Hictors are the ships you will be flying most often, and where you want to concentrate your skill training on. If you enjoy 'healing' others then Logi is the ship type of choice. EWAR will favor flying recons.

You will likely train to fly several, if not all, of the ships that fulfill any given role. ie, most Logi pilots can fly all four races' logistics ships, depending on the need at the moment. I fly tackle a lot so I can fly every Dictor and 3 of the 4 Hictors.

You're never restricted however, in the sense that you must pick a 'class' in Eve. Over time, you will find that you will be able to fly most types of ship, some better than others. For example, while I don't have the concentration of logi skills that I do with tackle, I can still jump in a logi if the fleet needs me to.

I will say though, that currently the Cruiser class is by far the most versatile. Getting racial cruiser skills to V opens up more options than any other class of ship.

If you desire versatility, nothing surpasses Gallente drone boats, particularly the Vexor (cheap) and its expensive cousin the Ishtar.

One real benefit is that noone knows prior to the engagement how you are fitted. You could be set up as a point-blank super high damage heavy drone + blaster fit that gets in close (<5km) and melts face. Or, you could be a medium range kiting fit with railguns and sentry drones blasting away from 40km. Or, you could be a super long range sentry sniper fit that applies significant damage at 110km.

The ship is quite skill intensive, but most of the skills will translate to other ships too, as many ships that do not specialise in drones do still use them.

I honestly do not think there is an answer to your question. There are a lot of ships out there and which one is best comes down to personal choices more than anything else. You are a young pilot, so if you want to get into PvP, then you are going to be flying frigates. Frigates are cheap, so you don't have to waste a lot of time grinding for ISK between loses, they also don't require too many skill points, so feel free to try a few of them out.

I personally think the Gallente Incursus is one of the best T1 frigs to learn the game with. It has high DPS, and a great tank. Its weakness is extremely limited range, and requires a cap charger in one of the mids, so you can't fit full tackle. Having said that, there are a number of other T1 frigs that would be just as good for learning PvP.

Keep in mind that I don't PvP but here is my two cents.

A large part of PvP is tactical and information and knowledge is greater than any ship difference. In Eve once you actually engage a module on a hostile in most cases the majority of your "PvP' has already happened. The key to being good at Eve PvP is having an idea of what your opponent is likely to do or how he is likely to be fit etc... and that will mostly come with flying all the ships.

Like other's have said you can get well skilled at small ship pretty quickly and mediums don't take all that long either. Early on you should focus mainly on unlocking various things i.e. once you can use that T2 module train for something else. You should be avoiding level 5 skills for now.

Once you have all the generic skills that apply to all races out of the way (like:tank, propulsion, ewar, generic gunnery skills etc..) it would not take long to get all the racial frigate skills to 2 or 3 and all the racial gunnery skills to 2 or 3 especially since caldari and galente both use hybrids. So you don't really need to get locked into any one race TBH. You can play around with the different races and see which ones you like for what.

Make an EveMon plan that get's all 4 races frigates to 2 and small: blasters, projectiles and lazors all to 2 and you'll see what I mean. Even put them at 3 it won't be much time at all.