EVE New Citizens Q&A

You tell us what are they using.

We don't know, we can't see them. Answer these questions:

1. What ship(s) are they flying?
2. How far away are they when they shoot?
3. How often do they shoot?
4. How fast were you travelling at the time?

That will help us narrow things down.


A good Merlin fit would be;

[Merlin, PVP]

3x 150mm Railgun II

Medium Shield Extender II
1MN Afterburner II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Micro Auxiliary Power Core II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Overdrive Injector System II

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
2x Small Core Defense Field Extender I

You can swap the Medium Shield Extender for a Medium Ancillary Shield Booster if you like.


Just remember to keep moving. You will survive the best by dodging things being shot at you.

OP, looking at your losses there's a few things going on.

- you're low SP and while that doesn't necessarily have to be an issue it may be a problem with where you put those skill points. You REALLY want to get Shield Management, Hull Upgrades and Mechanics to lvl 4 asap, that will give you more hit points meaning you have more time to kill them before they kill you

- both of your losses this month use active shield tanking, one used a normal shield booster (which you really shouldn't in PVP) and the other a MASB. Active shield tanking can work in pvp but your hit points will be low and it'll require player input to make it work, for those reasons most people just don't bother and fit shield extenders. So IF you want to use them it'll take some time to adapt

- you lost your, badly fit, Merlin to a Hawk and while technically you can still win it would require the Hawk pilot to be clueless, that happens more often than you might expect: older players with better ships losing because they lack experience and knowledge or got their tactic countered. Still, that was an uphill struggle from the start given his shield boost power vs your damage types and his damage projection coupled with your fit, low SP and lacking understanding that is a fight you were just going to lose.

- your fits are... not very good. It's a combination of lacking a clear tactic and making some wrong fitting choices. To get help with understanding pvp tactics go here and watch my vid on that subject, the other vids might also be helpful to you.

The fitting choices you make seem to be "fit the biggest guns I can find, even if that means gimping the rest of the fit", which you really shouldn't. Here's a fit for a Merlin that will work on lower SP, it's a scram kiter and can work just fine in plexes. Out in the open an AB ship like that can get caught by kiters (again, see video) so fits really are situational: if you roam around a lot don't use an AB ship, if you sit in plexes on the warp-in point then they're great.

[Merlin, PVP low SP low cost]
Emergency Damage Control I
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster, Navy Cap Booster 50
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
'Langour' Drive Disruptor I

125mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannon, Antimatter Charge S
125mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannon, Antimatter Charge S
125mm 'Scout' Accelerator Cannon, Antimatter Charge S

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I



So: Yes you'll get killed a thousand times before it'll start to make sense. You can help that along with learning about tactics, learning the different ships (your targets) and their preferred tactics and simply getting more experience. Just hang in there and see your losses as a simple "isk for experience" kind of deal. Personally I'd say that while grouping up more will get you more kills right now you're actually better off by taking the more difficult road, doing it yourself. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be in a corp or talk to people, but you learn more from your mistakes if you made your own decisions instead of following others.

you're far better off getting a whole bunch of support skills to level 4, than to get one skill to lvl 5. It's not frigate or turret skill that gets you wins, it's your support skills. Also, there's no reason or point trying to "win the SP race". You're not going to win it and it doesn't really matter all that much anyway. It's much more about understanding and experience than ship choice.

Watch this, it's a pvp vid done in an executioner on a day 20 old character. It's not about ship cost (you get that one for free from the tutorials), it's not about using faction fits, it's not about maximising your skill points.

Don't waste your time on lvp5 skills as a beginner.
Go for lvl4s at max.

Skills allow you to try new things, so use them to reach them.

If you waste days for lvl5 skills, you waste days you could have tried something else.

5 only really matters at the end, when you can actually fly your ship ...
... compared to having the skills and being able to use it.

These two aren't the same at all.

remap remap remap

perception/intelligenceis where you want your attributes if i remember correctly. faster training