EVE New Citizens Q&A

I was checking the natural state of these ships and bestower is half armor and hull or less of the sigil, slower in warp or normal speeds, easier to lock onto, and bad agility, but the description says it has he best armor of industrial ships, and the impel is the T2 version of bestower with double the armor of Prorator, although slower and easier to lock, but also still has more cargo space.

The sigil has less space than the bestower, but simply outclasses it all the way around other than that. Is this intentional? Cause the impel design doesn't make sense then.

1. You can't just consider the "natural" (unfitted) state of ships, because ship stats can be modified by ship modules. In the case of the Bestower, it starts with 5000? m3 of cargo space, but that gets increased by skills and by Expanded Cargo Hold modules and rigs, and can get to 24,000 - 40,000 depending on what you put in. So in this case, a base cargo size of 4800 vs. 5000 makes a big difference, and the absence of that 6th low slot for 1 more cargo expander can also make a big difference. So basically when you're comparing industrial ships, or any ships, you have to look at the fitted stats.

2. Industrial ships are definitely very unprotected. The limiting factor is their power grid, which is similar to a frigate's, so when you try to install armor or shields on your industrial you can't go big enough because there's no grid to support the bigger plates or shield extenders.

3. In CCP's eyes, T2 ships are a completely different class than T1 (base) ships, even if they have the same role (of transporting things). In the case of the T2 transports, you're gaining cloaking abilities or warp core stabilization, so CCP feels that that more than balances the lack of space or lack of defenses (such as they are).

4. The T1 industrials have been in the game since the beginning, and thus may still have roles or features that were important when they were the only choices for transport, but aren't so important now (due to other ships being available). Bestower, for example, can get stuck in asteroids easily, but provided the biggest cargo options to newbies training industrial ships only to level 1 or 2. By way of comparison, the Iteron line sucked; Iterons 1-4 (they were actually different ships) were worse at carrying cargo than Bestower (trained 1 - 4), and only the Iteron 5 was better than the Bestower with level 5 skill trained.

4b. Then CCP went and "balanced" the industrials, renaming some of the Iteron line and giving them specialized ore or mineral holds, but in some cases they left the old popular ships unchanged, which makes them worse now (as far as defenses) compared to some of the other tier 1 industrials.

Not quite.

The cargo class industrial's PG is in the low 100s. They have a bit more powergrid than destroyers. The speedy-tanky class industrials's PG in mid 200s. You can get good protection and cargo out of that second class. The below will get you 16,000 m3 cargo at Caldari Industrial IV and 45,800 EHP overheated.

[Badger, Cargo]

2x Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
2x Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Thermic Dissipation Field II
EM Ward Field II

3x Expanded Cargohold II
Damage Control II

2x Medium Cargohold Optimization II
Medium Cargohold Optimization I

The DST will outclass them any day of course, but those ships are skill intensive.

Each race has two types of T1 hauler: A fast one with good defenses but small cargo space, and a slow one with poor defenses and lots of cargo space. For the most part, you'll want to use the Sigil to move small, high value items and the Bestower to move large, low value loads.

To compare to the other races:

Slow, flimsy, lots of space- Bestower (Amarr), Mammoth (Minmatar), Iteron Mark V (Gallente), and Tayra (Caldari)
Faster, tankier, not a lot of space- Sigil (Amarr, Wreathe (Minmatar), Nereus (Gallente), and Badger (Caldari)

The Minmatar and Gallente also have haulers that are specialized for carrying a large amount of certain types of cargo - The Hoarder (Minmatar) carries a lot of charges and ammunition, the Miasmos (Gallente) carries a lot of ore, the Kryos (Gallente) carries a lot of minerals, and the Epithal (Gallente) carries a lot of planetary interaction materials.

The T1 haulers serve as the basis for the T2 haulers: The slow flimsy ones serve as the basis for the Deep Space Transports, and the fast tanky ones serve as the basis for the Blockade Runners. The differences between DST's and BR's are not the same differences as the T1 haulers, but the T2 haulers are more specialized for the same role as their T1 counterparts. DST's are ideal for large low value loads, and Blockade Runners are fantastic for low volume high value shipments, especially in more dangerous space.

I respectfully disagree, at least in the case of the speed line. I regularly see well tanked speed haulers carrying 100s of millions that I couldn't possibly kill unless I had a large team on standby and the cost to gank would not be profitable.

As far as the max cargo line, Tayra can sport a decent tank (enough to survive a single ganker anyway) as well as be able to fit two cruisers, granted you have to be paying attention and be able to recognize when a ganker is there before you start to align so you can OH your harderners and turn on your DC but it is certainly plausible.

[Tayra, 27.5K OH]
Damage Control II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II

Medium Shield Extender II
Medium Shield Extender II
Medium Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Cargohold Optimization I

All that being said, MWD/Cloak trick as your tank makes you more or less invulnerable as long as you are doing it right. It is amazing how many people I see doing it wrong.

Fair enough, I did notice you said somewhat, I chose my words poorly.

I agree with using the correct tool for the job but unless hauling will be your main activity it is a somewhat substantial time sink to train into the T2 haulers when there are so many other things to train early in the game. Properly utilizing the T1 haulers to their strengths will get you sufficient results.

If you find your shipment is too large or too valuable, contracting it out is arguably the best option assuming you have properly planned for the time it takes.

Still haven't undocked my battle Nereus, thanks for reminding me I still need to do that.

Not everybody can pilot all races of Industrials. It is more common to just train one, and usually the same as the pilot's race. This makes the Sigil very useful to those that can only pilot it.

For many years, the Amarr Bestower was the largest low-skill (levels 1-3) Industrial, so many people have it trained. It is still a respectable hauler.

I think this is both close but not quite accurate at the same time. The big thing he gets to is cost of ship vs cost to gank. Decent T1 anti-gank modules, in the shield, armor, and hull flavor, are the best way to go with high value cargo. The way to determine is cost of loss vs cost to gank, although that means nothing to lowsec or null.



Then you don't understand the importance of warp mechanics or mass/agility ratio. Barring sub-light speed, its basically a destroyer level maneuverability with a big cargohold and a lot of natural tank.

Put "agility and mass for aligning eve online" into google and you'll find a lot of industrial pilots begging for ways to improve align times.

It gets even worse for the poor bestower when we consider fitting. The PG on bestower is abysmal, the CPU is not much better. I put 18k EHP on a sigil in EFT just by stacking large and medium shield extenders. I can get 26k with 800, 400, and adaptive armor mods filling lows. There is absolutely ZERO practical way to tank a bestower so it can take more damage.

None. Its just that terrible due to base stats, because you can't improve percentages on something with tiny amounts and hope for anything good, nor can you improve by integers on something which requires, but lacks, the PG/CPU to add integer-based modules onto it. The only thing it excels in is the cargospace.

Sigil

Expanded Cargohold I
Expanded Cargohold I
Expanded Cargohold I
Expanded Cargohold I
Expanded Cargohold I
-empty-
Large shield extender II
Large shield extender II
Medium shield extender II
-empty-

Rest are empty.

5879m3, 16,708 EHP , 6.6 align time with 4.5 warp speed, sig 232.

Bestower

400mm Steel plate II
400mm Steel plate II
EANM II
EANM II
EANM II
Energized armor layering II

mids+ are all empty.

6000m3, 15,703 EHP, 6.6 align time with 3.0 warp speed, sig 215

I intentionally chose expanded cargo I's to see how bad the comparison is even with an inferior class of mods. Things favor the Sigil even more with EC II's, drop 2 expanders, replace the rest with II.

With all of this, Sigil still comes out with equal PG and a TON of CPU to spare. So okay, we can say that there's holes to fix in the tank, and remove the MSE for EM and an adaptive field, suddenly the EHP of the sigil is even more, and still cant manage to use all that CPU up.

The sigil ends up being a lot more versatile for fitting, a lot tankier, and a lot faster.
The bestower has max cargospace and basically nothing else.

The point was to try to get the cargospace similar to a bestower and see what was leftover, and which one came out on top. But thanks for playing.

I daresay the sigil is exceptional in all areas, except cargospace, yes, you have shown that to be clear.

Thats the problem though. Sigil is so good in all the other areas, Maximized cargospace in a bestower means instant death to virtually anyone. What can you haul that is cheap enough to not pay off for gankers going after a maxed out cargohold bestower? Not very much of value. Salvage? Uncompressed veld?

Bestower is great in one area. Sigil is great in about six areas.