EVE New Citizens Q&A

This times over 9000. The Rifter will teach you everything you need to know about pvp combat if you give it time.

If you think you will stay in eve for long train either artillery or missile boats. They are more versatile in damage types dealed.
Since i am unfamiliar with missiles though here is my lest of ships a Novice should aim to perfect in order to have the Ultimate fun in game.

Rifter
Rupture
Cyclone
Tempest

once you got the isk go for the mighty Machariel. Its a ***** to train for perfection but once you have all its needed skills to L5 its as exciting as throwing turpentine in a baby's bathtube.

For laxed travelign around go for the Viator. Good tank can warp cloacked and can transport allot of stufff around.

oh, i allmost forgot. HULK there is no denying it, best ship in game.

Most noobs cannot afford a ship that costs nearly a billion isk just for the hull.
Drake is a more likely ship a noob will look at buying and to be honest i think the Drake is the best ship in the game for newbie pilots looking to do missions etc at a price they can afford and be able to do level 4 missions with ease.

Edit - As for PVP i prefer the Stabber Fleet Issue or a Cynabal and for tanking i think the Hyperion is king for heavy tanking and a fun ship to fly.

Having recently brought several players into Eve for PvE play I have to say that the people I've managed to keep playing Eve all followed the drake path.

The Drake Path:
Kestrel->Caracal->Drake
Train fitting skills, Standard Missiles up to 3, Missile Launcher Operation 5, and lots of Engineering skills. Toss in Jury Rigging 3, Shield Rigging, a couple levels of Electronics and Weapon Upgrades, Afterburner 4, and finally Hull Upgrades 4. Toss in Heavy Missiles at the end and you can have a mostly tech 2 fit tanking Drake in about 17 days.

It takes another 15 or so days to get Tech 2 missile launchers which you want only for their cost efficiency over Arbalests though you may need to add another 5 days to that for better fitting skills to handle their additional power grid/CPU cost.

That means they can get into a well fitted drake in about the time it takes for their "refer a friend" account pass to expire. Though, once they sub they’ll have about 4 hours of training to get into the drake. They should have plenty of money if they did the Tutorials and the Eve starter epic arc which I also highly stress to my new to eve friends.

A couple of reasons into why this recommendation:
I spent about an hour and a half trying to explain to a friend how Projectile Damage works. In contrast I spent about 5 minutes explaining the complexities of missiles.

In summary: Missiles: Your Targets speed, Sig Radius, and Distance matter. The Smaller the target the less damage you do, the faster the target the less damage you do, if it’s out of range you do no damage, use EFT to figure out your range. Train Missile skills to ignore most of that when you have time. Finally, new players should only worry about two ammo types for missioning, Kinetic against almost everything, and EM for everything else (because of the 15-25% Kinetic damage bonus based on training). Ignore assault missiles for PvE, their damage bonus is crap compared to the range loss.

Proper turrets are much MUCH worse to explain: for Projectile, Hybrid weapons, and Lasers you need to know about, speed, sig radius, distance of enemy, distance for falloff, distance for optimal, angular velocity, tracking speed, damage type, capacitor use, and ammo type (short range/medium range/long range) which all affect your damage. Then you’ll want to use Eve survival to look up damage types to know what ammo you should bring as you’ll want Medium range improved tracking for most targets, and low range High damage for harder to kill targets. Depending on the mission you may also want long range low damage ammo as you’ll deal more damage at max targeting range if you’re using artillery. Compound this by the ridiculously short range of Autocannons and Blasters and the horrible tracking of artillery and Pulse Lasers and you now need mechanisms to fix their flaws which is either tracking enhancers and webs for Autocannons (so you can hit the fast moving swarming frigates which seems backwards but even with their better tracking speeds they are still too low) or Drones, Missiles, and Afterburners for artillery as anything that gets close and moves fast is pointless to try and kill with those guns…

Another hour later I have a confused friend.

Drones are actually easier to explain but their training time and ship availability make them less of an option. Few people want to fly lima beans through space, and even if they like the idea of drones getting into a drake is a good start as you then go into a Gila which is a solid level 4 mission runner in my experience. Alternatively you can fly some very nice Pirate ships (the ones I recommend to my drone friends) but they are incredibly expensive compared to their non-faction versions.

Of the five people I have helped bring into the game three are currently playing. They ALL went missiles and Drake. The other two tried to do something different. One went Hybrid Guns (as much as I tried to sway them from that route) and quit because it took them 2-3x as long to clear missions as the missile boats did. The other went drones and got bored before they really got into any of the interesting aspects of the game.

Of the people playing Drakes, one is heading towards a Caldari Navy Raven, one is currently flying a ridiculously over powered Tengu, and the other is heading towards Covert Ops/Stealth Bombers with a Tengu mission runner.

I would have loved to bring more players to Minmatar but my own experience with the race has been one of jealousy. While it will eventually pay off, the training time is extreme. What I have noticed is that my friend in the Tengu that started three months after me has a significantly easier time killing in level 4 missions with a similar tank. His Tengu can pull 400dps at maximum targeting range (80k), and a passive shield tank with an EFT value omni-tank of 400 on a good looking ship.
To get anywhere near those DPS numbers in my Loki I have to use drones and short range ammo meaning I have to be within 15k of my target. To get anywhere near that range I have to use long range ammo that hits for only half of what my short range ammo does. The ship is powerful and a really good place for new players to target for level 4 missioning. With the flexibility it offers they have several avenues they can start exploring to see if they enjoy that gameplay.

Thus, the drake is a great way to set up a player for mission based financing of their careers. It’s pretty easy to bring a 3 week old player into level 4’s with an experienced pilot to help clean up. They’ll only be pulling 150-200 dps but they’ll be able to survive long enough with a basic tank to at least leave the mission if they get too much aggro. Inside a week or two of moderate missioning (2-3 hours a night, or 10-12 hours a week) they should have enough money to fund whatever ship they want to get into next.

_WAter_

I've always been partial to the Vexor myself. Easy to get into and fairly light training to make it a good Mission runner. It's a great start anyways.

People suggesting BC and higher need to think, we are talking about the next ship for a Noob. Those ships aren't really realistic to move into quickly, not if you want to fly it with any of the skills needed to fit it properly and not if you want to be able to afford to loose it and get another one and fit it with no trouble.

The problem is that if they EVER decide they want to move beyond PvE and get involved in any kind of PVP, they'll have a significant retraining process to get access to a lot of the good PVP ships. I made the switch a couple of months ago and am VERY glad my skillset is in Amarr and lasers; I can move to another race and turret type in less than a month and keep my near-perfect gunnery skills.

*Minmatar for PVP

If you want a durable, versatile Ship, go for the Myrmidon. It can do anything, except throw missiles at stuff. It can use any kind of gun, because it doesn't get a gun-bonus (meaning "throw medium Artillery or Autocannons on it"). It can do any type of Tank. And it can be a great back-up-Logistics. Oh, and did I mention it can double as a Field Command Ship?

If you shield tank it, you get 6 low-slots for Gyrostabilizers, Tracking Enhancers and Damage Control Units. If you Armor Tank it, you get a tougher tank that can run 2 T2 medium armor repairers sustainably, while having your med-slots free for either EWAR or Cap-recharging. Either way, it's a great, versatile ship. The Drake is also a pretty okay ship, but it's not as versatile. It is only good at hurling missiles at stuff and Shield Tanking, because of its resistance bonus.

For a more fun ship, go Rifter. Nothing beats the Rifter in versatility or awesomeness. Mostly because anything you can do, you can do in Rifters. Maybe except for soloing a Titan...

Ishtar. Because of those little friendly drones and 5:5:5 slots.

For new Players they should focus on Frigates. The piloting skills you use and perfect in frigates translate to all the bigger shinier ships. Also focus on core skills first before worrying about the top damage skills. All the skills like electronics, engineering, shield management , shield operation, mechanic etc... all help make any other ship you move up to better.

Also if you fly the frigate you can worry about being good and not worry about the cost of replacing the ship. Remember new players don't have huge wallets.

For new players wanting to learn how to survive in scary Null Space I suggest they get some training in a good corp.

http://ouch.artofwar-alliance.com/showthread.php?tid=2400 teaches Null survival.

Personally I think High Sec is scarier then Null Sec Space. I at least know who is going to try and kill me in Null.