Ships & Modules

I just came back to Eve after a very long break and am starting to train up a combat toon (before I ran a trader and an indy, so this is fairly new territory for me).

I understand the basics of how tracking and such works and the main mechanics for combat, but I'm trying to figure out which weapons I plan on using.

My goal right now is to fly Caldari Cruisers/Battle Cruisers (maybe one day going up to Command Ships or Battleships, but not anytime soon). So I'm focused on what medium-sized weapons would be best.

I'm going with Caldari ships for now because I want to passive shield tank. I may reconsider this at some point, but for now I plan on sticking with Caldari ships.

My goals for the new few months are to focus on missions and ratting, but I would like to try PvP and possibly FW at some point. The little PvP I have done previously I would always die lol.

I will not be using lasers at all.

So that leaves Hybrids, Projectiles, or Missiles. I know missiles are getting hit with the nerf bat soon, and I know that there was a big change to the turret weapons sometime in the past year which changed a lot of their stats.

Here's my understanding of these weapon choices, please let me know if I'm missing something:

Blasters - very short range, very high damage, good tracking, use cap, thermal/kinetic only
Railguns - longest range, low damage, poor tracking, use cap, thermal/kinetic only
Autocannons - short range, high damage, amazing tracking, no cap, all damage types
Artillery - long range, low damage, poor tracking, no cap, all damage types, and horrible ROF unless you get ship bonuses
Missiles - medium range, medium damage, tracking is irrelevant, no cap, all damage types

I'm leaning away from missiles to be honest. I don't mind using them, but I was hoping to stick to some kind of turret weaponry.

The reason I'm looking at Projectiles is the no cap usage benefit, I like the idea of passive shield tanking and having weapons that don't consume cap. The few PvP encounters I have had previously involved my cap getting sucked dry and I couldn't fight back at all).

I'm looking at flying the following ships:

• Moa
• Rook/Falcon (I'm not sure about this yet, I like ECM but I know these ships die very fast in PvP)
• Ferox/Vulture (this will probably be the main ship I'm going to fly)

Note that the Drake is missing from the list on purpose. I may hop into one eventually because I know how powerful it can be, but I'd like to fly something that you don't see very often and find a way of making it work rather than fly one of the most played ships in the game.

I've also thought about the Naga, but the T3 Battlecruisers didn't exist when I last played so I don't know how they perform. Is the Naga any good or if I'm looking to use large weapons should I just go up to Battleships?

I'd appreciate any input here :)

You should basically not take weapon systems and basis for your decision. You should decide an what tactics you want to fly and then you decide on the ship which in most cases also will set the weapon system you should use. With tactics I mean something like this:

• Heavy tanked, slow, high-dps brawler.
• Fast, high-dps brawler.
• E-War trap.
• Nano-Kiter
• etc.

I'm not very familiar with missiles. If I'm planning to stick mostly to cruisers/battle cruisers - aren't Heavy Missiles the normal choice? What other options are they aside from Heavy Assault Missiles? Are HAM's actually good?



Well the problem is I'm not sure what weapon system I want to use.



Well I'm looking at the other Caldari ships like the Moa and such, it gets a bonus to shield resistance and it's a turret boat.



Any pointers on it? I have zero knowledge on the T3 BCs aside from the fact they fit battleship turrets

If you want high-damage + good tanking + no cap then Drake is the only way to go for Caldari.
If you want mobility then you should take a look at the Navy Caracal... or the Navy Osprey. Both are very agile and fast for caldari ship, especially the Navy Osprey.

For starters, you seem very set on flying Caldari. That being the case, put projectile weapon systems to the side. Caldari gun boats usually get bonuses for using hybrid weapon systems, so when possible you will want to stay there. Projectile weapon systems are Minmitar.

With the tierecide in process, I am no longer overly sure which Caldari frigs / cruisers are great and which are not. You will have to experiment with the changes and get a feel on your own.

Not many passive shield ships are gunnery based. The few noted passive shield tanks are all missile boats. As a rule, unless you are Minmitar, and even then only certain builds, you will be somewhat vulnerable to cap warfare. Vulnerability kind of goes Amarr > Gallente > Caldari > Minmitar.

The advent of ASB's have changed the shielding game quite a bit. It is due for a nerf soon (they are working on changes on test server), but ASB's currently are extremely powerful for small / medium ship pvp atm. Something to look into. Other than that, weather to go with passive or active is going to depend a lot on the ship you are in.

As for what weapon systems to go for, you really have to just get out there, fly, and die. You will get a feel for what you enjoy, and what bores you, or you simply are not good at (For example, I love sniping, but I have found that I am not good at it in game, losing most of the fights I get into with other snipers. However, oddly enough I do very well in brawls and tighter quarter fights, and close-mid range speed fights. Took me a couple of months doing different fits and ships to realize this.)

HAM's are getting buffed this patch. It seems they are trying to make missile systems work more like turret systems in regards to range. Long range - less damage. Short range - hard hitting. A couple of the smaller rocket boats are very respected in pvp as well (Hawk, Vengeance come to mind). Caldari is also getting a new missile destroyer in the next big update.

Final note..... if you are new to pvp, start small. Pick a couple of frigates you really like, and buy 15 of each. Fly them until they are all blown up (yep, you read that right). Each one that dies, tweak the next one just a tiny bit based on your own feedback from the previous ship. It is hands down the best way to learn all the little nuances of EVE pvp and game mechanics. Do not move up to Destroyers, Cruisers, or BC's (and dont do BS's at all until the Devs do a pass at them for pvp, or your in a group) until you are more comfortable with them, or you are very ISK rich.


Anything else, don't hesitate to ask. You may get the occasional troll, but by and large this forums is filled with a ton of very eager and knowledgeable players who want more bodies out there shooting back in pvp in particular. They will have a ton of useful advice (as some have already started doing above).


Welcome back!

~Z

caracal. tengu. nighthawk.

I think OP might be blurring the line between Passive tanking and Buffer tanking. Passive means you fit for maximum shield recharge rate, paired with high resists so that your shield regenerates fast enough to mitigate incoming damage. This is not viable in PvP due to the number of slots required and the problem that you will probably get volleyed past the magic 33% mark (where peak shield regen occurs) especially if facing multiple targets. This is only viable on ships like the Drake and Rattlesnake.

Buffer tanking means you just slap an extender or two with resists on and hope you can burn the enemy down before they do the same to you. Shield buffer fits gain a small passive tank based on how the shield recharge works in this game, but it's mostly just nice for repping up between fights if there's no station around.

For Caldari gun-based PvP, I would start with the Merlin, then work towards the Moa (wait till winter) and the Ferox. Naga can be scary in blaster configuration, especially if you go for the dual webs setup. Fragile though, so defnitely not a rookie ship.

As for Blasters vs Autocannons, looking at the stats without ship/skill bonuses applied means little. I would play around in EFT with a few fittings before deciding what to spend ISK on. The range bonus for Caldari means you can use the higher damage ammo at longer range than a non-bonunsed hull.

That said, messing around with fits is really fun. Back before tiericide, I had some fun with the laser Merlin

Actually, it's more like:

Optimal = 100% chance to hit, assuming no other factors are affecting accuracy.
Optimal + Falloff = at this range, your chance to hit is 50%. Hit chance decreases in a linear fasion* from leaving optimal until this point.
Optimal + Falloffx2 = your actual maximum range. Out beyond this point, your chance to hit is 0%.

Edit: * I think. It may follow a parabolic arc or some sort of S curve or something.

OK, let me pull in some numbers here off Evelopedia.

Let's say I'm going to fly a Moa: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Moa



So let's say I get Caldari Cruiser up to 4, that's a 40% bonus to Hybrid optimal range.

Now let's assume I'm going with a blaster fit or an autocannon fit.

I'm not really familiar with the differences between the different types of blasters, so if I'm making an unfair comparison here let me know (I selected the Vulcan simply because it has almost the same CPU and PG requirements of the Heavy Electron Blaster).

Heavy Electron Blaster I: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Heavy_Electron_Blaster_I
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon I: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/220mm_Vulcan_AutoCannon_I

Now to compare the stats (not taking skills/ammo into account here):

Heavy Electron Blaster I
Damage: 1.75x
Optimal: 2km (becomes 2.8km with ship bonus)
Falloff: 3km
Rate of Fire: 3s
Tracking: 0.12
Activation: 2.8Gj

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon I
Damage: 2.31x
Optimal: 1.8km
Falloff: 8.8km
Rate of Fire: 4.73s
Tracking: 0.12144
Activation: 0

The Vulcan has a higher damage multiplier, uses no cap, can switch damage types, and has a significantly higher falloff range.

The Electron has better optimal, better rate of fire, but uses 2.8 cap juice to fire.

Based on those stats, it seems to me like the Blaster will rip apart anything with 2.8km, but between 2.8 and 8.8km the autocannon will do better and can start hitting the target from much further away (almost 20km as opposed to about 8km that the blaster could hit based on what was posted above by Goldensaver).

I'm really struggling here to see why I would want to use a blaster over an autocannon. Yes it does more damage up close, but realistically how easy is it to keep a Cruiser within 2.8km of your target?

What am I missing here that makes blasters better than ACs on a Caldari ship?

The short answer is, yes.

--Blasters are the shortest range, highest damage, and (i think) best tracking in game. Medium cap use.
--Projectiles have a bit longer range, less damage (dps) but higher alpha (each hit is a bit harder), and 0 cap use.
--Lasers (important note, T2 with scorch specifically) have the longest optimal, fastest reload, worst tracking, and highest cap use.

Blasters are absolute chain saws, but you have to get very close. Projectiles have the advantage of choosing damage types, and are decent range. Lasers have the best range, but only one damage type, and high cap use.


Also keep in mind, that with that Moa, you can use rail guns instead of blasters if you want to, and get some very nice range for a sniper (a Railgun II is base 15k optimal if i remember correctly, with somewhere around 8k falloff. With a 40% bonus that would put you at around 21k optimal for shooting).


Again it all comes down to experimentation. If you decide you are going to base your ship around the weapon system instead of the other way, however, and are really stuck on those Projectiles, I strongly recommend you start training Minmitar now. You want to try and get every little ship bonus you can when you are in pvp. Little points make big differences.