EVE New Citizens Q&A

Most who are at all familiar with recruiting and training newer pilots know that telling them to skillsink into ewar off the bat then throwing them away like used condoms after they realize they now suck at everything else, is counterproductive. Newbs need to be on their way to self-sufficient playstyles: missions, ratting, ganking, or whatever they can be doing between hand-holding sessions in gang/fleet. So I really wouldn't call ecm a great investment for newbs or a reason to pick caldari as a first pvp race.

Smithers is really dominating the intelligent discourse here and presenting a lot of valid points. Even if I think that the tengu is the most overpowered thing in this game and in desperate need of a nerf, i'm 100% behind the fact other caldari ships are comparatively disadvantaged, especially to the newbies. People glossing over this just to make a point about minmatar being balanced, and I think they are fairly close now that gallente are in a better place, just make themselves look like roleplayers.

If you want the best answer OP, it has been presented here already but I will condense it down:
1. All races have good pvp ships.
2. Minmatar have the most effective low-sp combat ships
3. If you prefer to choose another race, caldari or otherwise, you're only setting yourself back a few months at best gaining parity. As some others have pointed out, a good merlin will wipe the floor with a standard rifter, he just needs a few million more skillpoints to do it.
4. Follow the metagames, watch killboards, and see what the pvp corps are flying. Cut through the forum bullshit and you'll quickly realize the ammount of uniformed spin that blasts new players on a daily basis.

Excellent questions. In my opinion the answer, unsurprisingly, is both.

In my opinion, the best and fastest course for a new player is select a single combat ship class and focus their training on that. The more you resist the temptation to detour, the quicker you will have SOMETHING you can fly competitively against anyone. But what ship class?

Here the choice is perhaps less clear. Eve PvP ships can be grouped based on combat style and tactics, and often the same ship (with different fittings) can be utilized for multiple styles of combat. It is my opinion that the more versatile the ship in terms of fitting options, combat roles styles and tactics it potentially supports, and range of opponents it can engage, the better the training investment it becomes for the newer player. In simple terms, some ships offer more bang for the training (and isk) buck.

With this in mind two classes of ship stand out: frigates and assault frigates, and battle cruisers. Both stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of training time invested, cost, and the range of potential targets they can engage and fleet types they can contribute to. Further, they are well balanced across all races.

If you find you enjoy flying smaller, faster ships, go with AF’s. If you enjoy something larger, with more DPS and tank, and better overall versatility, work on your BC skills. Better still, pick either one, and when you get good with that grab the other.

How good?

In my opinion you should train your PvP weapons to T2, and all weapon support skills to 4. Your tank, shield or armor, should be T2 with those support skills at 4. The same applies to your engineering and electronic and navigation skills. You should work as well on T2 small and medium drones, and be able to deploy ECM drones. The easiest way to plan your training is to go to someplace like Battle Clinic, pick a build, and train until you can properly fit it. Stay focused, and you will be there in a couple months.

As for skill points: do not allow yourself to be intimidated by pilots with more skill points or bigger better ships. Victory is not determined by who has the most SP’s or ISK on the field, but in the choices you make and the tactics you employ.

Finally, do not get too caught up in the solo PvP game. Eve PvP is a team sport. You are training to contribute to that team. And many good PvP corporations welcome new players who are smart, relaxed, and interested in learning.

Have fun, and fly it like you stole it.

+1

I lived out of an npc station in curse for years with the ability to fly nothing more than frigs. A bomber takes some skilling, or at least it did for me as I started minmatar/gunnery, but the payoff when you can utilize one to the fullest is in spades. It can drop an unwary hauler in seconds, travel in relative safty, effectively pop battleship rats (careful with the target-painting varieties ), and get you into some wonderful stealth gang operations.

My progression went something like: Rifter - Thrasher - Ceptors - Dictors - CovOps/Bomber - Assault Frigates with a good deal of support skill training going on between each of those. Becoming an experienced scout/tackler is not easy, despite being one of the first roles a newbie can become proficient in, but it is rewarding and you will become loved by your corpmates.

Sounds like you're all set after such a long thread.

My main is Gallente. After a big old mining time sink, she trained up Gallente ships and weapon stuff fairly well thru' battlecruisers. I'm gradually crosstraining her into Minmatar, and one day, I'll also train Amarr. Plus I finally nailed down Stealth Bombers.

I'm ultimately going for versatility so that I can fit into all kinds of PvP fleet builds. I'm also aiming for excellent shield and armour tanking. After playing a while, starting race doesn't seem very important. If you can figure out what you want to do well, you can work out you want to train. I find veteran players very helpful, they sure cut back on how many mistakes I end up making.

Cheers,

Pixxie T
>^^<

Minmatar ships are awesome PvP ships!