EVE New Citizens Q&A

Apologies for the newbie question in advance - I spent some time searching the forums and reading the Evelopedia but couldn't find an answer.

I'm trying to understand Pulse vs Beam lasers and which type I should use on my ship. I have very low skill points and am currently flying a Punisher running some L1 missions. Which type of laser is better for me?

I found several threads stating that pulse lasers are better than beams once I get to T2 but that is a long way off for me. I've also tried to look at the stats for the different types of lasers but I am quickly getting confused with all of the numbers.

Along those lines, which crystal is better?

Any help is appreciated

There are two common strategies:
* Use short range and high damage weapons (lasers = pulse) to get in their face.
* Use long range but lower damage weapons (lasers = beam) to hit them from outside their weapon range.

With turrets, you typically carry 3 types of ammo: shortest range, medium range, longest range.

With lasers that means at least: multifrequency, standard, and radio. Lasers have a really short falloff though, so you may want to carry more than that based on your preferred attack range, which will always be optimal or less.

Short range multifreqency does the most damage. It does both EM and thermal damage. Long range radio does the least amount of damage, and only does EM damage. The shorter the range of the crystal, the more thermal damage it does.

Punishers also work great with autoCannons (projectiles). Projectiles are widely considered to be optional on ships without a damage bonus for a specific type of weapon. They also don't use any capacitor, so it can be used to improve tanking. True Amarrians would consider this blasphemy though.

Oops. I meant falloff.