EVE New Citizens Q&A

I am fairly new to EVE with only a couple months under my belt now. My first character was a flop and I ended up making a new one to start fresh. Before anyone chides me for this, he was trained purely as a miner and quite frankly I would have hated myself every time I looked at his skill sheet. Anyway, my new goal is to brush aside all the lame mining stuff I got diverted into by some well-meaning but ultimately not-of-like-mind players and get into what I really started playing EVE for: epic battles and killing giant ships worth loads of money.

My research tells me that the key player in all of this are the tackling pilots, namely interdictor and heavy interdictor pilots. Clearly these are the ships I aspire to fly. Unfortunately, these ships require some measure of training. This begs the question: where do I start my journey, what kind of support skills beyond the obvious prerequisites, tanking skills, energy skills, and otherwise? Finally, what race or races have the best interdictor and heavy interdictor ships for the job of taking down the big targets?

Your words of wisdom will be much appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Good stuff, thanks sir!

It used to be even harder to start without mining or refining. Heck, I started with Mining Foreman 2.

http://www.eve-wiki.net/index.php?title=Starting_skills

Of course you start with Mining 1 so you can at least use the Civilian Miner on your rookie ship without losing an eye or a limb.

I did *exactly* the same thing. Best of luck, sir.

Do a little bit more research. Interdictors don't "tackle" per se, but use a special ability that can only be used only out in 0.0 to -1.0 systems. Heavy Interdictors (HICs) have a similar ability but with a bit more "flexibility" as to what it does and where it can be used.



Aside from what you mentioned, there isn't much more to it. These ships are pretty hyper-specialized in their task and don't possess as much tactical flexibility as other ships within its class.
However, if you want to operate "solo" in a 'Dictor or HIC you might want to max out your weapon skills to squeeze out as much DPS as you can without cutting into your tank (which is a problem all of these ships have).




The Sabre (T2 Minmitar Thrasher) is almost indisputably "the best" Interdictor... possessing the strengths of it's T1 version along with its "new" abilities.

Getting into HICs though... things are a bit more blurry.

The Onyx can get a very high passive regen tank, making it quite useful as a low-sec gatecamper. However, its DPS is a bit anemic (compared to other ships in its class) and has to make choices between tank and utility (as all shield tanking ships do).

The Broadsword is nice as is has a very nice shield resistance profile and has combat performance similar to that of its T1 version the Rupture... which is largely regarded as one of the best cruisers to fly into combat. However, like the Onyx the Broadsword has limited ability to field utility mods (like webs, cap boosters, etc.) unless it gives up some of it's tank.

The Phobos possesses a fair bit of mid-slots while still having enough low-slots to properly armor tank, giving the Phobos the great potential to fit Ewar and/or "self-sustanance" mods (ex. cap booster). In being able to fit for utility, the Phobos can actually "take care of itself" in a hostile situation better than most of the other HICs... especially against smaller opponents.
The downside to this HIC is that it its CPU/Powergrid is a bit tight, which limits it's options in fitting "actual weapons" without cutting into its defense or utility (then again, all the HICs have this problem in some form or another).

The Devoter gains distinction by being able to field the most EHP in its class (both for HICs and cruisers... sans T3s). It can easily top 170k to 200k ehp and have stupidly high resistances, making it a "brick" in every sense. It's pitfall comes though its limited mid-slots (can't fit much utility) and limited weapon hardpoints (it's hard to get much DPS out of it without really cutting into its sole strength). For this reason, you will see quite a few Devoters out in null-sec space at the head of large fleets and can expect them not to primaried (unless you have a metric fuckton of damage and/or the enemy is trying to save what ships they have left).


Now... to get to your OPs title... you want to be a Capital hunter? Realistically speaking, you can hold one down pretty well... but that's about it. Capital ships either possess stupid amounts of EHP (Carriers and Dreds top ~1 million EHP, Supercarriers start at 20 million, and Titans can have in excess of 40 million or more) and/or can repair themselves at a much higher rate than you can punch through (you'll be lucky to get 200 DPS out of your HIC without giving up some of your tank).
However, don't let this dissuade you. "Good" Interdictor and HIC pilots are always in demand from corps to alliances, pirates to SOV holders. The ability to cut through Warp Stabilizers and hold down Supercaps is not to be taken lightly.

And he is completely right to say he wants Dictors or HICs. As stated he wants to go kill capitals, so yes main profession of dictors and HICs is in 0.0, but as far as I know most capitals also reside in there (not counting when PL stations their cap fleet in low-sec waiting for contracts). And HICs can be usefull in low-sec when using the scripts, they can "tackle" 1 capital at the time but it stays there and the owner of the capital will be raging on his end when that happens.

I've seen a Nyx pilot fall for a bait in null-sec (we knew he would bite on the JF we jumped in), soon as he landed 5 HIC decloaked and bubbled him. Then our fun started, with some help from friends we light a 2nd cyno and large capital fleet jumped on the nyx and all he could do is hope his Nyx warped away before we killed it (This was before the changes in log-off mechanics).