EVE New Citizens Q&A

I'm a new player and having a bit of an issue picking a race to start.

I know all about the "you can train to fly any ship" deal, but I want to RP a bit and stick to whatever race I begin with for at least a little while. I don't expect anyone to tell me who to play, I just hope, given what I like (listed below) someone can give me a solid argument for playing one race over the others.

So, here is what I like in Eve, in no particular order...

Drones
Missiles
Cloaking/Covert Ops
Carriers (what I one day want to end up in)
PvP (later, when I'm ready) -- solo and fleet both interest me

Things that cause me issues:
How pitiful the Gallente drone ships (and their skins) look beyond the Tristan and Algos (which are two of my favorites, ofc)
The Arbitrator being my favorite ship while not being a fan of other Amarr drone ships (skins are legit though)
Don't really like Caldari cruisers or BCs (outside of the Blackbird)
Lack of Minmatar drone ships and Target Painting being wholly uninteresting to me

My take:
Minmatar is most "tolerable" throughout their lineup but don't really "shine" (Stabber, Bellicose, and Hurricane are cool though)
Amarr is home to Arbitrator, which I would accept whatever for, plus missiles AND drones' but beyond Arbitrator...meh, very meh
Caldari has coolest covert ops ships (Manticore, Blackbird T2s, Black Widow)
Gallente dominates the Frigate/Destroyer scene

I don't really want to go the pirate faction route but if someone argues heavily enough, maybe I'll see the light.

Any words of wisdom are greatly appreciated.

I've definitely been interested in the Rook. Is it viable in solo PvP? (Not that that is a deciding factor, just curious how it usually holds up)

I absolutely love the caracal.
Chimaera is also getting a revamp art-wise.

Go Caldari, they are the best race.

But you aint gonna solo with carriers, so youre gonna need a good low/nullsec corp to back you up. And even then, most of them wont let you rat or do pvp with them unless youre in a big fleet.

You can't solo in a Rook, because nobody is stupid enough to engage a Rook solo.

Well, you might find someone, but ...

yes, i use them when i can (no ecm fitted) they are fun with dual asb's and rapid light missiles

Long range weapons have a big issue in (solo-ish) PVP: you NEED to get within warp disruptor range (typically 20km) to keep the enemy there, otherwise they just warp off and laugh about you in Local.

Long range missiles have an additional issue: they take ages to get to the target and apply their damage. In a small-ish fleet where someone else is doing the warp disruption for you, and you're the DPS, the enemy is, in theory, not going anywhere, so there's plenty of time. In big fleets, though, with 100+ ships all focusing fire on a single primary target at a time, you'll run into the issue of the target dying from everybody else's shots before your missiles get there, and therefore your killboard / DPS meter numbers will look like crap.

Non-sentry drones have the same issues as missiles.

Otherwise, long range weapons will always produce less DPS than short range weapons. Because you're at range, you can just kite to avoid damage and thus you don't have to fit a tank and can use the low slots for damage mods (heat sinks, mag field stabilizers, gyrostabilizers, etc.). By comparison, short-range guns do a lot more damage, but the ships typically have to use all their slots for a serious tank, leaving little room for damage mods.

EVE does not have a "solopwnmobile" - ship that is just perfect at everything. There's always a tradeoff, always a big glaring vulnerability or issue with each ship. Every now and then we get solopwnmobiles (Svipul, for a current example, Tengu before, Ishtar, Hurricane), but CCP is relatively quick to nerf the ship into oblivion when it becomes the flavor of the month.

So, pick your race based on (facial) aesthetics and/or RP reasons, and pick the ships based on their functionality.

Ships really are tools that you can use for certain jobs. Your questions are a little bit like: "I like rooks and knights in Chess but absolutely hate the bishops, the pieces look just so ugly, so what are your opinions, what pieces should I use in my upcoming match against veteran chess players?"

Have a look at the races weapon systems:

Amarr: Energy Turrets/Drones and a couple decent Missile ships, that often have a big drone bay or even drone boni as well (Malediction, Dragoon, Arbitrator, Damnation, Sacrilege, Armageddon are the ones coming to mind right off the bat)
Caldari: Missiles/Hybrid Turrets, barely any Drones
Gallente: Hybrid Turrets/Drones, barely any missile ships
Minmatar: A bit of everything. Mostly Projectile Turrets, but some Minmatar ships use missiles (Breacher, Bellicose, Cyclone, Typhoon) and some have fairly large Drone Bays as well, but typically no drone boni.

So, the Amarr and Minmatar would be good choices to get both missiles and drones at the same time. However, the specialized ones in those fields are Gallente (drone specialists) and Caldari (missile specialists). There's one faction, though, that specializes in both, and that's the Guristas pirate faction. They are hybrids of Gallente and Caldari, sporting missile boni and a unique drone playstyle with just a few very strong drones, and they are strong ships in PvP as well. Not sure how viable roleplaying a Guristas pirate would be, though.

In terms of roleplaying, the Amarr have the strongest and most active roleplaying community of all the NPC factions (second only to CODE. :v) and I'd say they have the most fleshed out background as well. But to be honest, all these holy warriors start getting on my nerves.

Covert Ops cloaking, Carriers and PvP work with all major factions ships. Cloaking is not really a playstyle, though. There are ships that can fit covert ops cloaks, but their uses vary wildly: Among the Covops Frigs, the Caldari one is considered to be slightly superior, but the difference is really minute. For Bombers, they all do basically the same, but each one has a damage type it specializes in. Kinetic, which the caldari use arguably being the worst one. Recon ships are where it's at, but since each faction specializes in a different kind of electronic warfare, this opens a whole new topic to think about: Caldari use straight up ECM, Minmatar use Target Painters and Webs, Gallente use Sensor Dampeners and Warp Disruptors/Scrams and Amarr use Tracking Disruptors/Energy Neutralizers.

When it comes to carriers (and FAXes), Amarr and Caldari are arguably the most popular ones, because they stick with either strong strong armor- or strong shield-tank, paired with strong cap transfers while Gallente and Minmatar kind of try to do both armor and shield at the same time, sacrificing brute strength for versatility. That does not however mean that Gallente and Minmatar Carriers and FAXes cannot be used.

Overall I'd say, if you want all of what you listed in the beginning, you may want to rethink sticking to one faction. Cross training is common practice, and especially if you want to use mainly drones AND missiles, you may want to consider training both Caldari and Gallente, to get the best of both worlds.

Edit concerning long range missiles: There are two problems with that: a.) as you noticed, you gimp your DPS, and b.) what good is it to be able to shoot an opponent from 200km away, if you can't keep him from just warping off at that distance? In larger nullsec battles, long range missiles are occasionally a viable option, because they allow the fleet to be mobile and position itself pretty much wherever it wants to, and in those situations the grid is usually covered in bubbles anyway, so you don't have to tackle the targets yourself. In smallscale situation, most opponents will simply run away if things start going south for them and you aren't in range to hold them down. For unbonused ships, this range is about 24km (non-heated T2 Disruptor) +/- a bit for faction and heat. But there is again a Gallente/Caldari Hybrid faction that can help with that, at least to a degree, and that's Mordus Legion. The Garmur, Orthrus and Barghest all get 50% more range out of their warp disruption modules, but since they get +200% missile velocity as well, they can sometimes use the "short range" missiles anyway, just with an extended range. The point range for those ships still only reaches out to about 50-ish kilometers (54 with a True Sanshas Disruptor, heat and no links), though, which is next to nothing compared to a Cruise Missile Raven.

Keep in mind that we do sometimes install different guns on ships that have high- / gun slots but no bonuses listed in their Traits. Although, usually it's autocannons or artillery, because it uses no capacitor

If you don't care about the FotM, another way to choose ships is based on your preference towards auxiliary roles. DPS is a somewhat bland role, in that every race can do it, and the minutiae (missiles vs. drones vs. whatever) don't really matter as long as you achieve high numbers and get the kills.

On the other hand:

1. For logistics (healing), clearly there are substantial differences between the races. Two races can do armor repair, two races can do shield repair. Two races can do capacitor+xxx repair, which ends up being a powerful thing for large fleets, because capacitor transfer allows the "healers" to form a "chain" and send each other energy ("mana") at will for the repairs. The other two races have to somehow replenish their own capacitor levels while repairing the fleet's armor or shields, so they're less popular and intended more for small fleets where there's only a single logistics (repair) ship.

2. For covert-ops operation, each race's Recon (cruiser) class has a different bonus, and while a Falcon is absolutely hated for appearing out of nowhere (uncloaking) and immediately perma-stunning you (ECM jams), the Gallente get a huge range for warp disruptors, and the Minmatar a huge range for webifiers, even though these are supposedly secondary abilities. The Amarr ships are just beautiful with their Energy Neutralization; having your capacitor permanently empty is nasty.

3. For jamming, ECM is NOT the only worthwhile jamming method. ECM is a hard stun, so like in all other MMO games, it's pretty nerfed because people don't like being perma-stunned. Target Painting seems weak, but it has a huge range and increases the damage delivery of the whole fleet, a lot if they use missiles, but still quite a bit if they use drones or guns. Imagine a huge 800-ship fleet, a single target painter enhances that whole fleet. Energy Neutralization is awesome, esp. against smaller ships (they're drained in one cycle, which makes them lose their nice speed-based defenses). Weapon disruption can cripple a high-DPS enemy, and sensor dampeners can cripple logistics (they rely on being able to target friendly ships very fast so they can repair them).

4. For industrial roles and transport of goods, there are differences in the speed, capacity, and defenses of the various transports, that may make you prefer one of the races. Training the T2 transports, freighters, or jump freighters takes a long time due to high prerequisites, so you're perhaps limited to one.

The factions are fairly balanced among each other these days. It's more ship classes or individual ships that are a bit out of fashion. Most T1 Battleships and Battlecruisers have become a rare sight for example. Haven't seen a Harbinger in ages. The Rifter is also having a rough time at the moment. But as I said, all factions have a few less popular ships.

Well, an Alpha, and even a brand new Omega has no choice but to specialize. This game is very slow, as far as skill accumulation, so if you try "all ships" from the beginning, it will take longer than your interest in the game can hold. Sure frigates are fast to train, but the bigger ship classes take time.

Also, people who go "all ships" have a tendency to stay in station for the duration (3-4 years) while their skills train optimally. Instead of the more fun practice of picking a ship, flying it for a while to see if it's good, then picking another ship, and so on.