Ships & Modules

So I'm just getting back to the game, I have pretty decent support skills for both missile and hybrids and can use T2 light/hm/hams/blasters and rails. I can only fly caldari and galente cruisers at level 5.

I'm looking at different fits and roles and I find myself confused when it comes to what's a needed damage application vs projection and range rate to win or is it so varied depending on if I'm sniping/kiting/brawler.

I see a lot of talk about the HAM Caracal but even with my decent skills I'm only getting around 290-340 dps (depending on rigs) on paper out to 40-50km. Is that about normal? But I still find unless someone else is webbing my target my actual damage is considerably lower.

I need a little bit of overview guidance on what makes a pvp ship good :D

Get off EFT and undock once in a while, seriously...

Missile applied dps is horrible, so are ham caracals and shield thorax.

HAMs with furies need a TP to hit even cruisers, much less frigs. Fine against BCs though.

Speed is also an issue, if they break 250 m/s you're getting significantly lower damage.

Don't look at paper dps, it means little, what matters is if you can apply that dps. Take for instance Vagabond or Stabber. They can push out relatively low dps compared to similar ships and they usually fight far in falloff, reducing this dps even further. However, their impressive speed, low sig and utility makes them immensely powerful when used correctly.

You look at your HAM Caracal and see that it's getting 300 paper dps at 40km. This dps will be applied regardless of whether the ship is 3 or 39 km away from you, but it will depend on the resists, speed and sig radius of the target - the faster and smaller the target is, the tougher time our missiles will have to actually apply that damage. Contrast this to your usual turret ships, which can hit far out, but at increasingly lower damage. However, since their damage depends on angular velocity, there's a chance that they'll oneshot a frigate aiming directly at them, regardless of the size of their guns - that's something missiles can't do. But if a frigate comes close, they'll suddenly face a situation where they might not apply any damage at all, while the missile will still be hitting it for whatever it was hitting it for at those 30km.

So what does make a pvp ship? Look at the ship - what it's good at defines how it'll be used. Does it have excellent speed? That's likely your kiter. Does it use Blasters? That's your brawler. Or it might have a range bonus - that's likely your sniper.

In most cases, you'll want a warp disruptor (long range) or scrambler (short range). Which one you use depends on how your ship is used. Web is often desireable as well, though some ships can get away with not having it. You'll also want a propulsion unit - sometimes AB is better, sometimes MWD is the one you want. All of these are to give you mobility or impair mobility of the enemy. Then you obviously want your weapons, some form of tank (again, some - particularly minmatar - ships can get away with just immense speed and low sig). Note here that pve and pvp differ here - whereas in pve you want a stable tank that will last you a while (active and passive tanks), in pvp, you primarily want to either be able to soak a lot of damage (buffer/ehp) or avoid it (speed/sig tank).

That's the general guideline. Of course, there are situations where you'll skip certain parts of this to help your fleet - for instance, a fleet Drake has no reason to have a point or a web, because it's used in a fleet with hundreds of other drakes and dedicated tackler support, but it usually fits for a permanent MWD to keep up with the rest of the fleet. Meanwhile, Domination needs little dps because its purpose is to apply gang bonuses, not to kill stuff. It does, however, need immense tank to make it harder to kill. Then there's ships like Rokh - obviously built for one purpose (sniping), they're often fitted in another way for small gang use (brawler), because their bonuses reduce a weakness of a certain weapon (in our case, Rokh's blasters can reach further out; this doubles as a damage bonus, since the pilot can downgrade to shorter range ammo for desired distance of the engagement).

So all in all, the best answer I can give you is - it depends on the situation. Look at the killmails a bit, take out a cheap ship and fight a bit, then you'll see what style suits you. Some people prefer fast, agile ships, others prefer bricks, the third like to hit so hard that the target doesn't know what hit it. If you're flying in a fleet, also ask what they'd need - I'm sure you'll find something that's both useful and fun. :)



I didn't know HAMs can use furies :p Besides, there's a reason why you have different ammo, stop using heavy damage missiles against frigates.

My most flown ship: Drake.

Kthnx. I know how missiles work.

thank you so much for the constructive responses and the rest well, trolls will be trolls :D

I'll work with a few things and get out and try it :D

You're an idiot. Ham Caracal is a beast.

And with rage you should be getting way more than 300 dps on it with proper skills