Ships & Modules

The following is mostly geared toward a person that missions against Sansha and Blood Raiders most of the time. If you are getting lots of Angels and Guristas just stop and cross train almost anything else.

for level 2s Arbitrator all the way. You can still keep training medium laser specs for later level 3s. But the drone skills on the arbitrator will serve you very well for whatever you do later.

for level 3s Beam Harby. You can even make an Arty Prophecy serviceable for non em or therm weak mission rats.

for level 4s I've used anything from a Dual Heavy Beam Armageddon to a Tachyon Beam Abaddon. Most people like the Apoc. The optimal bonus make large tech II pulses doable for missions. However, I could never stomach the stomachless hull shape of the apoc. But really any of the threee Amarr BSs can be made to work for level 4s.

Tech II ships like the Zealot tend to be better in and more important for pvp. If you start getting into pvp you will want to train tech II ships. Until you do you can largely bypass them for missions.

And lastly, you must cross train a second race. Every pilot in this game should have two races trained. It provides you with some insurance against real or perceived over-nerfing. It gives you options for missions and for pvp. And it gives you a more widespread perspective on the game which should make you a better poster in forum arguments.

My best advice to an Amarr primary new player is to train a traditionally shield tanking race as second race. That would be Minmatar or Caldari. It's up to you when you want to start doing that, but I started doing it very early on Lili, my first character. And I've done the same on all my later mains. Again, for the the benefit of ship options for either pve or pvp.

I've got a Navy Omen, and it's been a great missioning ship. It's got lower skill requirements for one thing, and for another, it's cheaper than the Zealot. I use it for a do-it-all highsec exploration cruiser, too -- since it's an armor tanker, that leaves a bunch of mids open for analyzer, codebreaker, and prop mods. I put a salvager in one of the highs, and presto! I can run any high sec plex, anom, or sig out there. I'm not normally a huge fan of Amarr ships, but the Navy Omen really is a great cruiser platform, especially if you have good beam turret and drone skills.

I find faction ships in general to be better suited to PVE than their T2 counterparts. I've always assumed that this was CCP's intention in creating the T1/Faction/T2 tiers. A faction ship is still general-purpose, but more powerful than the T1 version; a T2 hull, by contrast, is more specialized.

QFT

If you train Amarr first, training Caldari is a natural extension.

If you train Gallente, you probably ought to train Minmatar or Caldari ships as well.

Basically, if you train in armor-tanked ships, cross-train into shield-tanked ships. If you train beam weapons, cross train into either hybrids or projectile weapons. (I'm not fond of missiles in general, but they're helpful in lots of situations regardless of what ships you train for. And for lots of Caldari ships, missiles are your main armament.)

Minmatar ships are the only class of ships that can stand by themselves until you class into the BS range, though. They can either shield-tank or armor-tank in a lot of cases, and have a range of damage options. However, this flexibility has a cost in terms of greater skill-training time to be really effective.

mfw i used to fly a 1bil+ drake in lvl3s