EVE New Citizens Q&A

I won't speak directly to which ship is better for an alpha as I don't really have any experience playing specifically on alphas.

I will talk about tatics here a bit however:

You will need to find your own playstyle at some point. For now I would suggest trying different things out to get a feel for what you like. What it will come down to is if you like guns more than drones or drones more than guns.

Early on drones might be easier as you can sick your drones on the NPCs and use range as a form of tank. To accomplish this and to help get around the bouncing off of asteroids problem as well as get you away from the default WiP ( Warp in Point ) for the asteroid belt, I recommend making book marks several KMs above or below all the belts in the systems that you frequent.

So you would warp to the bookmarks and engage the NPCs at range, probably using modules to increase both targetting as well as drone control range. This will get the NPCs moving towards you and have them fly perpendicular to the horizontal field of asteroids. You will loose some NPC by being too far away to point them using this method but it is a good tactic to practice.

Once you have that down you can experiment with the ships that favor turret dps more. Keeping in mind with both weapons styles you have not only the frigs that you listed but dessies and cruisers to mess around with. Certainly frigs are a good starting place since they are cheap but you might have issues taking down some of the spawns just on having too low of dps to break their tanks.

Belt ratting you are mostly cycling through the normal spawns hoping to get some special spawns. Those special spawns can drop faction stuff but they are also harder to kill.

This is by no means a full explanation nor a comprehensive guide to belt ratting but it is a starting point.

The best choice will depend on your drone skills.

A Tristan is drone-biased, but to get the best out of it you need skills Drones 5 and Drone Interfacing 3 (pre-req drones 5).
Counting the 5th drone, going from Drones 4 to Drones 5 + Interfacing 3 gives you around +60% drone dps.

One other nice thing with drones is that on small T1 ships they have much longer range than guns. IIRC you can make a "45 km Tristan" if you want to (but OFC you can't use the guns at that range, so it's a low dps fit). BTW high-dps Drones (low-slot DDAs) + longer-range guns sound great, but it's hard to fit both on the same ship.


Incursus is a gunship, so if you've concentrated on Gunnery skills it will probably be better.


http://www.eveonlineships.com/eve-races.php?faz=1&fn=Gallente+Federation

Tristan at first, get used to what you can do with what DPS etc, use distance for tanking and GTFO options. When you are more comfortable with the Tristan and want a DPS / Tanking upgrade then switch to the Incursus with short range blasters and brawl the rats close up.

Get in touch if you want a quick in-game ratting run down.

Hello all, thanks for all the helpful responses. I'm very sorry for this late response to your answers. I have, however, read the replies before, and I think that I'm best suited with Incursus (for the time being), since I've mostly upgraded my Gunnery skills. Meanwhile, I have also learnt how to use D-Scan, making safe spots, etc. Thanks for the tips.

Nevertheless, I have some more basic questions. First, I was ganked by a person (I don't know the exact names for people who kill other capsuleers in space) and I lost my first Incursus. The main reason was because I couldn't warp to my safe spots (Warp Scramblers). Also, I made a mistake of not checking my D-Scan too often, hence the death. On my second attempt to ratting in lowsec, I found a lot of capsuleers in the local. However, I did manage to kill some pirate NPCs and got some bounty (I got a 1.4m ISK module, so yey!). I fitted two Warp Core Stabilizers on my second attempt and managed to get away from one capsuleer with Warp Scrambler. I've read from: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Warp_disruption that generally, Warp Disruptor has a strength of 1 and Warp Scrambler has a strength of 2, while a Warp Core Stabilizer has a strength of 1. I was wondering if there is a variant tech which allows a greater strength on both warping and disrupting warps?

Second, I read about the Interdiction Sphere and Warp Disruption Field. I have some troubles understanding the concept. If you could give me just a very very brief overview (I can read the rest in the link), I'd really appreciate it.

Third, I don't quite understand the concept of safe spots. I usually use the Alt+E and make safe spots there. I'm not sure when exactly the location of the safe spot is determined. Is it when I click make safe spot or when I submit the safe spot location? Furthermore, I read there was a shorter shortcut for making safe spots (not Alt+E), but I couldn't recall. Please help :-)?

Thanks for all the patience and the responses guys!

Pretty much what Keno said ^

Just to add...

Interdiction spheres ( Used in Null sec only) are a "probe" like object fired (read: dropped as they don't travel in space like bombs) from interdictors (T2 Destroyers). They cannot be used in High/ low sec. ( the bubbles that is...the ships can be of course).

Heavy interdictors ( aka HICS) are T2 cruisers that can use a High slot module for tackle purposes. This can either be a sphere centered on their ship,which will act like a bubble and catch anything in it's range, or with a script it can be used as a single target warp disruptor with infinite strength. Note: the sphere use of this module is only available in null sec, hics need to use a script for single target in High/ low sec.
Hics certainly used to be a favorite for low sec gate camps, with remote sensor boosts they can lock fast and will absolutely lock down anything that they can target...in conjunction with a dedicated webbing ship they are nasty. Not camped for a while though, so not sure if they are still used this way all that much....also Hics tend to be tanky as hell, so trying to take a Hic down with you if you get caught can be tricky...better off shooting someone else if you want to go out fighting

Speed tank.
It's possible to belt rat in null with a proper speed tank T1 frigate.

GL

I'd choose the Tristan over the Incursus. Range doesn't really matter to drones, so Tristans can start applying DPS sooner than an Incursus, which is what you want in low sec. You want to be blapping rats ASAP and flying off to the next belt or system. If a player pirate warps in on you, forget about your drones, and just get out of there. T1 drones are cheap.