Ships & Modules

After a long dormant sleep my account has been reactivated, and I find a character with enough skills to properly fly most t1 frigates and destroyers I could find, and enough money on it's bank account to get quite a lot of them:

http://eveboard.com/pilot/Shiro_Kotaki

Now my issue with the game is as follows: there are just sooo many options when it comes to fitting ships, and when I finally think I've found one, i just end up dead very quickly. So now I have made this plan: I have joined FW, and I will be flying around contested systems looking for fights with pilots who fly low tier ships too... (perhaps scouting out the minor outposts is what I need to do for this)

Question still remains: how to fit a ship. I don't know anything about the modules, like if I should get shield boosters or shield extenders, or if I should get an afterburner or a microwarp drive, or anything like this. I can fly Caldari Frigates (V), Cruisers (V) and Destroyers (IV). I have quite some support skills, simply because I followed the skill path suggested by the certificate system (I love that they added this).

I have tried a Kestrel and a Merlin but they weren't a big succes. On the Merlin, I couldn't even capture a minor outpost because the NPC frigates killed me.

All the PvP setups that I find on google are unusable: they either expect me to fit t2 modules on my throwaway frigates or they assume that it's capable of fielding an amount of launchers which it is not (Did the devs change the amount of turrent points on the frigates???)

So I humbly ask you, my fellow citizens and PvPs. Is there a site out there with cheap, t1, PvP frigate fittings which is UP TO DATE? Or could you suggest a couple? Due to my inexperience I think it's best if I stick to frigates and destoyers for now. Thank you.

Thank you, that would be great! When did the frigate stats change, exactely? Perhaps I could look some info about the guilty update.

Thanks Mike that is really useful. I didn't know the support skills were that important, (Like I said I dont'have much more knowledge about this game other than training the skills required to enter a ships pilot seat and then the skills required to fit it with the appropriate guns)

I'll go and have a look at the certificates you mentioned...

[Cormorant, t1 / meta "sniper"]
Linear Flux Stabilizer

Limited 1MN Afterburner I
Small F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Warp Disruptor I

125mm Carbide Railgun I, Lead Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Lead Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Lead Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Lead Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Lead Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Lead Charge S
125mm Carbide Railgun I, Lead Charge S
[empty high slot]

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

You can change the magstab for a tracking enhancer. or shield extender for tracking computer.

Thanks for the setups, I'll try them out asap. One question though, won't a blaster with antimatter ammo have a super-short range? Won't I have problems getting close enough?

Also another question, why use afterburners instead of microwarp drives?

You always want to use a MWD on a destroyer, especially the Cormorant as it is the slowest of the bunch.

Frigs work with Afterburner, some ships are dual propped, some ships can fit bigger Afterburners to great effect and everything else needs a MWD.

Fitting a limited 1mn mwd to the brawler-cormorant will leave you with 63.6 / 68.75 (with maxed fitting skills).
might work if you downgrade a couple ions to electron blasters and / or put a small anc rig on it.

The weapon upgrade skill will reduce cpu need of weapon upgrades (like dmg mods), launchers and... something else.
The advanced weapon upgrade skill will reduce pg-need of turrets by 2% (but needs weapon upgrade V afaik).

A small ancillary current router I cost around 1m (according to eve-central.com) and adds 10% poweroutput to your ship.

Core skills are the most important skills in the game, they let you fit better modules, make you faster more agile, target from father away, target faster and stronger.

Aside from Multitasking (which still is very useful in for several ships, Logistics and Noctis come to mind) you can't hurt you self by training those to elite.

Reember they are a guide they are a guide, nothing is written in stone in this game, though getting Core, Shield defence, Missiles Control + weapon of choise/Gunnery control + weapon of choise High velocity helmsman on standaard will hut no one.


As an Ex Caldari FW player I can advice you to focus on these Ships, Usualy only T2 Frigates are used, Vets use Faction an T2 Cruisers, I wouldn't go there for a while.

If you're staying with caldari ships, missile ships give a wider choise of ships, if you go gunnery, it will be easier to learn to top ships of other races.


Frigate:

Missile Path:

Kestrel, Crow, Hawk, Manticore, {Kitsune, EMC ship} but by far most used the HOOKBILL (Due to it's abbility to run all plexes) [Worm] (Drone ship with some missiles)

Gunnery:

Merlin, Raptor, Harpy

Destroyer:

Gunnery:

Comerant

Cruisers

Missiles:

Caracal,Caracal Navy isue, (Gila, very expensive though)

Gunnery;
I could say Moa, fact is I can't remember every seeing on in Faction war

Battlecruiser:

Missiles:

Drake

Gunnery:

Naga

That is about it, if you every go on a bunkerbust, Torp Ravens have some use, but no need to focus on that.

I don't really like dual web Hookbills anymore, as popular t1 frig fits (read: Rail Merlin/Incursus + any Punisher Fit) now have a fighting chance against it, AFs will eat you (besides maybe Jag) and even for Destroyers Rail/Arty fits have become more common (Coercer always ripped you apart anyway).
On the other hand, you have the speed advantage over any AF and all Destroyers aynway, go for a TD/Web fit and kite them to your demented hearts content. Other Frigs are as fast as you, so as long as you don't screw up the approach, you should be fine too.



All-in-all the Hookbill is an awesome frig. I don't like it very much stat-wise, but with 5 mids and a missile range bonus it can do sooo many roles and can give a new player training in maybe all aspects of frig pvp