EVE New Citizens Q&A

I'm flying missions in the Condor and am using 3 light missile launchers and scourge light missiles. I don't seem to deal much damage and get blown away easily.

I thought the bonus for Caldari was missiles but when I look at the Merlin its bonus is for Small Hybrid Turret. Is there any disadvantage to using the Merlin as Caldari? I'm not seeing that I have any racial bonus so I can't see how it matters.

The reason I want to switch is the Condor gets blasted even in Level 1 missions and I'd like something that can take more hits.

I was putting together some loadouts the other day. It looks like missile loadouts tend to be lower damage, but way better ranges. This will mean for those missions that require a good chunk of DPS you might need to reship. In general though, missiles will be far easier to use, far easier to apply damage. As far as toughness, in frigates and destroyers it's more about how you fly. Keep out at longer ranges against small stuff, get a close orbit on big stuff. As far as maximizing the DPS of your loadouts, do a full rack of weapons, don't mix weapon (as in don't fit both light missiles and rockets, or blasters and rails, go identical), put damage mods in your low slots (magnetic field stabilizer, ballistic control system), you might be able to get a couple DPS rigs fit, and pick the right ammo (most caldari ships have bonuses to kinetic missiles and not the other damage types.)

No characters have any skill that can not be trained by any other character. Prior to the introducion of alpha clones there was no difference between any of the race's except your picture and backstory.

As an alpha clone you are limited to flying only certain ships of your race. Omega characters can fly and use anything that they are willing to invest the time into training.

That being said all of the great advice posted by other's above regarding "flying Caldari" are talking about Caldari ships and not Caldari characters.

To give you an idea of the ships too:

Condor is a fast tackle / attack ship. Destroyers are attack ships too, the idea is "many guns, few slots for defenses, kill the enemy before you're killed" type of mission. Unfortunately, PVE missions have a tendency to involve multiple waves of enemies, and thus they require resilience rather than guerilla type tactics.

Merlin is a full "combat" ship, it has enough slots for shield defense. In the case of a frigate, you're relying on speed and being small as part of the defense, so just put in a small shield booster and 1mn afterburner, and maybe a couple shield hardeners. Make sure you have the speed to go along with the shield repair, for full frigate defenses.

In addition, "resilience" also means you have to have enough capacitor recharge to keep up that shield booster repairing your shields. Look into basic capacitor recharge rigs, or reserve a medium slot for a capacitor booster with cap booster charges.

Finally, to do more damage, look into Magnetic Field Stabilizer(s) to support the rail guns (or blasters) for the Merlin. And a Damage Control (for extra resistances) if you want, in the low slots.

Kestrel is an alternative combat ship; uses full rack of missiles to strike, typically from a distance. Kestrel has a slight problem in that it doesn't have as much power grid as the Merlin; which doesn't allow you to put in a full rack of light missiles, AND an afterburner, AND shield defenses; it forces you to pick. You can boost the Kestrel's grid by using a Micro Auxiliary Power Core in a low slot, but you'll probably still be forced to be a sniper - stay at 15-20km and shoot your missiles from afar, don't let the enemies get close (because you don't have much shield defense). This is difficult with missions because the NPCs have a tendency to fly close to you.

Otherwise, missiles are easy-mode for missions because you can read the mission details on eve-survival.org and load up the resistances and the missile damage types that fit the NPC weaknesses. On the other hand, hybrid guns can only do Thermal and Kinetic damage.

However, either or, both are viable and can be used if you pick the right ship and fit it appropriately, as described above.