Warfare & Tactics

Hello,
As i'm being clueless about the diefferent weapons/ships pros and cons, i came here to ask for some much needed advice. My character is 8m sp mostly in fitting as i'm still not sure what to train to be more effective in pvp. Id like to at least be able to contribute in our corp small gang pvp as a dps(ill prefer not to logi, i never liked that role), and maybe in the future try some solo ( i know ill lose badly but it ll be cool).
The problem is, im a low sp character and i dont want to wait an eternity so i can fly correctly t2 ships. i ll prefer to begin with some T1 cruisers (as my corp does only kitchen sink cruiser gangs). Id like to optimize my skilling, and for that id love it if you give me some advice about the pros and cons of races/weapons/ships t1 (mostly) and t2 in the future.
Excuse the bad english, its not my main language XD
And yes, i really looked at the forum posts before and i checked google but its has mostly old stuff and ishtar this ishtar that comments
Thank you

Ships that should always be welcome in a a kitchen sink T1 cruiser gang (excluding logi, since you don't like it):

. Vexor
. Blackbird
. Atron

Vexor puts out good dps even with low SP, you should then train T2 light and medium drones (they're always useful, no matter what you fly).

If you want to do something else other than dps, you can't go wrong with ECM. Train ECM skills to 3 or 4, hop into a blackbird.

For good old tackle, mwd/scram/web atron with hull tank, maybe an ancillary repper to survive a bit more while holding stuff for your mates.


Then, as Loyd said, if you like PVP you'll eventually train everything so IMO it's not really necessary to choose just one race.

Since you mentioned DPS as your primary goal:

Pick a basic weapon system from the 3, Guns, Missiles, Drones.
When you're in doubt about race, train a SUPPORT skill in that category.
Support skills are what makes every weapon shine.

I find that most evident with drones. Weak drone skills = weak drones. And if you never had good drones, the bad ones will not feel very worthwhile. Every race uses drones.

Gun supports affect every race of gun, and all sizes of guns, so they seem like the most bang for the buck.
Hybrids are used by 2 races. Projectiles keep firing even if you cap out. Lasers deliver 1 specific damage type, but they have great range and ammo swap is immediate.

Missiles are used inter-racially, but it's still the same missile. If you do a lot of PVE, then you might want good missiles.
Torps aren't a big thing these days, and Heavies are lame these days also.

I agree with Serendipity about Minmatar ships. They are the most skill intensive race *generally speaking*. That doesn't mean you couldn't train specifically for a Rupture or whatever. It just means you might have a great Rupture, but have terrible skills for a Cyclone. I love Minnie ships for the slot layout, utility, versatility. But I surely did not train them first.

You can train a lot of stuff to IV's and still not have a huge time commitment in. For kitchen sink fleets (I love kitchen sink fleets btw) just try a few different hulls and see what YOU LIKE. Then you can commit to the Cruiser V, BC V, and so on.

First off, I disagree with advise about prioritizing missile training. Yeah, missiles are great, but missile support skills take literally months to train and missile skills will only apply to one weapon system. Not a great choice for a newbie. Gunnery skills take a while too, but at least they will apply to three of the five weapon systems in game. Drone skills also take a long time, but they should be trained as soon as possible because so many ships rely on drones to some extent (Hobgoblin II is the most used weapon in EvE).

Second off, don't race into cruisers. It's a classic newbie mistake, and here's why it's wrong: people tend to assess threats based on the worst-case scenario. If someone sees a Vexor on d-scan, they will assume the Vexor is T2 fitted because that's the worst-case scenario. The greatest mistake is looking more dangerous than you really are. The more dangerous you look in space, the more DPS a force will muster to come attack you with. So, obviously, if you are incompetently flying a cruiser you will do more harm than good simply by raising the threat profile of your fleet and encouraging attackers to come with as much force as they think will be necessary to break your cruiser, if it were T2 fitted.

Thirdly, skill points are all about raising your ship's potential through bonuses. Once you can fit T2 guns, you are only getting a 2% damage gain from training a weapon skill further. It sucks. Hull-specific bonuses are much better, usually offering a minimum of 5% per skill level, and there is always two or three bonuses attached. So the more spaceship command skills you have at V, the more ships you will be fully competent in. It takes roughly the same amount of time to train a cruiser hull skill to V as it does to train ALL four racial frigate skills to V, which means you can be fully competent in all T1, pirate and faction frigates in the game in the same amount of time that it takes to be fully competent in only the T1 cruisers of a single race.

Versatility is your best weapon, because EvE often changes. If you focus too much one one hull or one weapon system, there's a good chance it will be the next thing that CCP nerfs (Murphy's Law). Train the low-hanging fruit first, get competent in smaller ships first and then you can at least be a good help to your fleet while you wait the long wait for cruiser skills to develop.

Drones armor and neuts. Amarr or Gallente.

You don't even have to be good, just make sure you get close then just latch on and sit there while the other guy slowly dies.

Going from Caldari to Minmatar would be better. Then converting over to armor. While Hybrids work with Caldari, shields work more with Minmatar ships. Giving them basic gunnery skills to train with projectiles and shorter training times to move to a different race of ships. Then training Hybrids pushes them into more options in the first race (caldari) while giving them access to some Gallente with the armor and very basic drone skills. Leaving amarr for last on that setup which his just guns and ships.

Given they are starting from scratch, I'd honestly say if you are going to cross train, do two races. Preferebly Amarr and Gallente OR Caldari and Minmatar. Skipping around to fly all races at the start will leave crappy skills and alot of out-of-map training.

Another option is doing a Perc/Intel remap and going Frig, Destroyer for all races and Cruiser for 2-3 races depending on armor/shield. Doing Small Specializations for each racer to 4, since they take I think 35-40 days to do all 8 small specs, then either brawler or kiting for others (Brawler for shield/armor, whichever you trained) and kiting for the ones you didnt. This gives a wider range of ships to play with, without really dumping more than 5 months of random training into ships and weapons if putting the support skills (Traj Analysis, Guided missles and such to 4). Then the remainder of the time is to push up your basic ship support skills to 5at a not very crippled training rate.

All first year training should be done similar to these to give you basic abilities to fly ships decently and still giving you freedom over flying one race. If you are joining a group, see what they fly more of and go with that for your training and stick to it. :) You'll be much happier being able to fly a few things really good than a bunch of things at minimal levels.

The drawbacks are 1) only em/therm damage and 2) VERY capacitor intensive.

Still a good gun system but be aware neuts will hurt much worse. Make sure you skill for and use cap boosters

The big obstacle you run into with drone boats is when you begin to approach battleships.

You end up having to train a bunch of different large weapons systems in addition to heavy drones in order to get ideal performance out of your ships. Whereas with a ship that is just guns or missiles you only have to train one specialization to get basically peak performance.

The Armageddon (when used as a combat ship rather than a support ship) is particularly a pain in the butt until you have like 20 million SP.

Armor. Drones. Blasters. Gallente.

having flown 75% of the ships in eve nad having gal, cal and amarr skills at good levels to fly almost all subcapitals Id say go gallente and then amarr cross train and you unlock some awesome ships.
Drones and armor and gunnery support helps both races even though amarr are energy turrets and gallente hybrid.
Train up frig with t2 guns and then destroyer w t2 guns and tank etc, then crusiser, then level 5 your favourite ship class to either unlock interceptors, assault frigates, covert ops or T3 destroyer, interdictor or heavy assault cruiser, recon cruiser or T3 cruiser.
And as others have said its good to focus on a single weapon system at start.