EVE New Citizens Q&A

Who does more damage?
Siege mode dread or a Titan?

Tech 2 siege module says damage boost of 840% and usually dreads have 3 turrets.
Titans have 6 turrets, except leviathan has 7..
And their damage bonus is 100% a level, bring 500% for all but ragnarok that says 125% instead, for a 625% total.

So which would do more damage per second over time..and which does more damage in one single volley?
Which is better?

Nobody uses a Titan for damage per second, lol. Titan is used either to:

a. create jump-bridge to a cyno scout where the fight is, so that the entire fleet can go there (this is called a hot drop), or
b. shoot other capital ships with the titan doomsday weapon

Dreads in siege mode have horrible weapons tracking and thus can only hit stationary emplacements such as POSes and other structures.

Capital ships are not solo weapons, or even that much fun. They need to be backed up and protected by large fleets, otherwise they're just expensive loss mails. And they have specific and very narrow purposes.

They're like the queen in chess; theoretically the most powerful piece, but in practice the opponent would happily sacrifice ANY piece to take your queen out, so you can't really use the queen to threaten lesser pieces. It's purpose is to effect a checkmate, aided by rooks, bishops, or other pieces.

Ok, so, general overview:

Capital Ships:

Titans - teleport the fleet to where the fight is, or if you want to risk it and bring it to the fight, doomsday weapon a la Death Star

Dreadnoughts - do damage to stationary targets, typically POS or other facilities with millions of hitpoints, that would otherwise take forever to kill

Carriers - they can remote-repair other capital ships, or do some damage to capital ships with their large fighter/FB drones

All of these ships are quite vulnerable and extremely expensive, and thus must be escorted by battleships and smaller ship fleets, to protect them as much as possible. Solo pilots can't usually afford them, so they're used like in the military - they belong to the alliance, and you just pilot them. Basically, worry about membership in a 0.0 alliance and gaining their trust before you think about training for one of these things.

Sub-Capital (normal) Ships:

Battleships - heavy damage, extremely slow by today's standards. Their damage can be matched by smaller/faster ships (HAC's, battlecruisers, T3 cruisers), so as a result the veterans prefer those ships, leaving the battleships to the "protect the big boys" role, or to defense fights that involve large numbers and not much mobility.

Tech 2 Battleships - Marauders were an attempt to provide a "utility" battleship that can do damage and also be able to salvage wrecks, tractor loot, etc. People prefer to kill everything and bring a looting ship later, though. Black Ops battleships can function like mini-titans by creating jump-bridges for a cov-ops cloaky task force (they don't have a doomsday weapon).


Battlecruisers - heavy damage, somewhat glass cannon; they are good for a variety of roles, including high-sec suicide ganking, because they can install 7-8 medium or heavy weapons, and thus they can take out a variety of targets in one shot (before Concord comes).

Tech 2 Battlecruisers - Command Ships - these ships require A LOT of skills to be trained, but a pilot with the (Leadership) skills can form rather large fleets AND buff up the entire fleet (increased armor, shields, speed, etc.).


Cruisers - general purpose ships, they are extremely versatile and can be fitted in all sorts of surprising ways. Their firepower is sufficient for any target, so they're preferred for most small and medium skirmishes and piracy encounters.

Tech 2 Cruisers - these have specialized purposes. HACs are mini-battleships. Recons are cloaky ships that can jam or tackle you from 40-60km away. Heavy Interdictors (HIC) can create bubbles or warp disrupt capital ships that are normally immune to warp disruption. Logistics cruisers can repair other ships at decent range and quite effectively.

Tech 3 Cruisers - these are as close as one can get to a solo pwn mobile - a ship that can do everything. You can have DPS, tackling, scanning/probing, AND cloaking, all in one ship, depending on what subsystems you choose.


Destroyers: These are designed to kill frigates. They have frigate-sized defenses, and 7-8 frigate-sized weapons, which means they overwhelm frigates with firepower.

Tech 2 Destroyers (Interdictors): These deploy bubbles; bubbles are AoE warp disruptors that can force ships out of warp farther away from the gate than they originally intended, for an easy kill.


Frigates: Small sizes and fast speeds mean that frigates "defend" themselves via "speed tanking" - just being fast and small and hard to aim at. They're used as scouts, warp disruption tacklers, cyno beacons, or in wolf-pack fleets. A lone frigate doesn't have the firepower to bring down a battleship, but a whole pack of them does. Having good intel about the enemy is absolutely critical in EVE, as is making sure that the sweet target doesn't warp away and has warp disruption on it at all times.

Tech 2 Frigates - these have special purposes: Interceptors are the ultimate speedy scouts and warp disruptors. Assault Frigates can approach cruiser-level damage. Cov-ops frigates are good scouts as they can warp around cloaked, and bombers can be used in large numbers to take out a whole enemy fleet. Mining frigates are good for ninja-mining, and electronic warfare frigates can be very successful at jamming in small skirmish fleets.

For example, a Titan would cost you something like 60 PLEXes, $1200, 60 billion ISK.

But you can't just buy it off the market, it has to be custom-built for you, because these ships cannot dock and are built in space over a duration of several months, at a POS facility that must be in 0.0 and must be defended at all times against attacks, and refilled constantly with components from other industrial POSes and manufacturing sources.

You have to train all the prerequisite skills to be able to enter the ship and pilot it away from the seller.

But you don't want to go through any gate, because if anyone sees you they will try to kill you for the fame of killing a titan, and this is what they'll do: They target-lock you and shot you. This means even if you log off, your ship will remain in space for as long as they keep shoot it. Meanwhile it takes you hours to target any of them because you're so big and they're so small. They'll drain your capacitor to 0 so you can't jump away and to disable all your defenses and your doomsday weapon (if any), and then they'll just shoot you until you die.

So in order to avoid the gates, you need to use your jump drive, which means you need a series of OTHER people (or alts) to be online and in position to provide cyno beacons for you to jump to. So you can jump from beacon to beacon, to safety. You probably won't trust other people with the travel path of your titan, so that means you need 4-6 additional accounts with cyno frigates. And a computer that can log them all in at the same time.

So each jump you take, you need to recharge your capacitor to full, and you're also accumulating fatigue, which means you have to wait longer and longer to "recharge." Meanwhile the cyno beacon you just went to is in everyone's overview, free to warp to. Very very unsafe for you.

Finally, you make all the jumps and take your ship to safety. Which is, where? These ships cannot dock, and cannot enter empire space. You'd have to park it at a POS, somewhere in 0.0. Anyone can take out a POS these days, they'll just bring about 12 battleships or a couple dreads with a support fleet and take it out in a few minutes. Then it's bye bye Titan.

In addition to all this, when you eject your pod from your ship, anyone with the skills to pilot it can insert their pod and steal it from you. Your titan can't dock, so you can't EVER afford to eject your pod from it, to go pilot some smaller fun ship for a few hours. Someone will steal the titan from you if you do. Once you enter a titan, you are stuck in it. People make alts specifically for just flying the titan, and train the skills required for about 2 years, because of this.

It takes 2+ years because it's a 60 Billion ISK ship. You have to have all the skills trained to max. Because you can't afford to die cause you didn't have the last 5% armor, shields, or whatever. The skills take 30-60 days to train a single one, and there are many.

Yep.

Generally in lowsec. Either on solo roams or in Faction War.

They tend to fly interceptors/covops/Assault Frigates/hacs/T3s - in other words small stuff.

They already "stuff it full" and it still can't hit crap. Here's the Moros. Look at what it has in the mid slots.

You need to understand one thing: CCP balances the ships in this game assuming "all skills at 5". The maximum power that you can get out of a ship is what is "balanced." If you don't have all skills at 5, you simply are 'subpar', not using the ship to its potential. We really train for months and years to unlock the "intended" potential of the ship.

More training doesn't unlock extra uses for the ship.

A dread has 4 high slots, 5 mid slots, 7 or so low slots, and is otherwise a super-expensive extremely slow (battle)ship. Actually a battleship has more gun slots and would probably do more damage than a dread. If you fit the big dread guns you can only hit immobile stations, and you have to fit tracking computers and sensor boosters to do that, heh. If you don't fit the dread guns, then you're just a battleship-sized piñata.

I feel like all the wall-of-text advice I typed in my previous posts was a complete waste of time.

EDIT: YOLO means "You only live once" - as in, they're likely going to get killed in PVP and they don't care. Good luck with your yolo dread (or titan).

hm..
the feedback is being taken into account..

i am now thinking..i need to define 2 things..

1. who am i?
2. what is my play style?

close range? long range? big? small?

The answer will likely change based on:

- your understanding of the game, and as you gain more experience
- changes to ships that are made by CCP
- when you find a group of people you like, join their corp, and they need you to train for different things
- your whims and/or how much fun you feel you're having (as valid a reason as any).

So, rather than thinking about titans, why not pick 2 different races and train their frigates and cruisers (and weapon systems for them), and more importantly, use said ships in-game to see how they fly in PVE and PVP. Should take a month or so. Then form an opinion, answer these questions, and form your 2-4 year training plan. All the way to titans if you still wish it at that time.

EDIT: Me, as an example, I like drones, scouting and providing intel on the enemies, and logistics support (healing). I love the various tech 2 cruisers; I can appear from cloak and just jam up some enemy from 40-60 km away, with my friends already on their way to kill him, or I can switch ships and repair their armor / shields / cap. The Gallente heavy attack cruisers just shine in missions (even level 4). With frigates, I have excellent probing skills and love to find enemy safespots in PVP and exploration sites for PVE, or just stay cloaked and report enemy ships and activities. I've trained up my trade skills so I can have 120+ orders on the market, which I can modify from across the region, and I have 9.0 standings with Gallente Federation Navy, Caldari Navy, and Sisters of Eve, for tax breaks, locator agents, and missions whenever I feel like it.

YOLO titans and supercarriers tend to be fielded by people that can afford to pay to replace 4+ titans or supercarriers, will full officer fittings. For everyone else it is a bad idea.

Dreads are roughly 2b, so assume the same rule applies.

This is a really important post and you should probably spend some time with it. I am a fairly new player, approaching 1.5 years in, and do not currently have a single battleship trained.