EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hi

I hope someone can give me some direction or advice.

I'm a new Gallente pilot and I'm learning to fit my Incursus. I've read a lot of information on ammo types and hybrid weapons, but nothing I've found so far explains why there are three types of blaster, each with their own meta grades.

Ion Blaster; Neutron Blaster; Electron Blaster. They each have the same description and use the same ammunition types. The only differences I can find seem to be marginal changes to optimum range and falloff - but not enough (as far as I can see) to differentiate from the longer range railguns.

I'm not sure what is best to fit. I think I understand rightly that blasters are for short range, heavy damage, and railguns for longer range sniping. But I don't get why there's three types of blaster and therefore which I should use.

Any advice or link to a comparison chart would be greatly appreciated.

neutrons are the heavy hitting one set but are also the hardest to fit.

Electrons a are the easiest to fit and have the better tracking but do the least dps

The other ones are sort of a compromise.

A tip for the blaster incursis is dual armour rep it (put two small armour reparers on it)

Also worth mentioning that the client has a compare tool in the neocom panel.

Edit:: ninja'd by vimsy.

Incursus is a fun ship to fly. You can get some good PVP in it.

Without getting too technical the basic aim is to fit neutron blasters, load them with faction antimatter, then get so close to your opponent that you can reach out and slap him.

Enjoy.

The range, falloff and tracking differences are actually quite significant.

I fly a Kronos (an extremely defensively strong tech 2 battleship) in some highsec war situations and depending upon the engagement, I either fit electron blasters and heavy neutralizers, or neutron blasters (with a downgrade to medium neuts providing the extra powergrid).

The neutron blasters can hit at 85km while the electron ones struggle to hit at 55km.

Similarly I fly Catalysts to gank miners in highsec a fair bit. I'll use Neutron blasters most of the time and their range is around 3.5km. I use Electrons to hit the smallest, hardest to track mining ships (specifically Prospects) and they only have a range of about 2km. (Edit: These are with my almost perfect skills and Void S ammo. Different ammo changes the results - I can fire Null S around 10km with neutrons. Different skills will also change them)

As general advice to newbies however, I advise this: "Fit neutrons if you have enough powergrid and CPU to fit a full rack. Failing that, fit ions if you can fit a full rack. Finally failing that, use electrons if you must." Like every rule there's exceptions, times that the added precision of electrons is worth more than the range and damage provided by neutrons, but they are pretty rare, and neutrons are the stronger all-around of the guns.


Finally on meta levels: If you have the prerequisite skills use tech 2 for almost everything. If you don't have the skills for T2, use meta 3 on 'disposable' ships and meta 4 on ships you aren't actively seeking PVP with. In part because my alliance use so damn many T2 blasters (over a million last year) a lot of people produce them en masse, so they are cheap.

Don't underestimate your worth in PVP as a newb. I made that mistake and wasted four months I could have been practising shooting players, losing fights and sometimes winNing them.

Skills only decide close fights. Most fights are won or lost decisively.

These marginal differences are what dictate your "engagement profile" (what can you shoot at and expect to do well against?)

Faction warfare has a lot of frigate v. frigate combat. All the other short-range frigate weapons have similar tradeoffs, so the difference between 2.5 km and 5 km can mean the difference between applying all your damage or only half of it, and the same for your enemy. This is where fitting strategy comes into play.

Let's say I'm flying an Atron (my personal favorite Gallente frig). Atrons are much lighter on tank than the other Gallente frigates but they are faster and have a bonus to falloff, which means they can project their damage further with than other hybrid turret ships. Now if I fit neutron blasters for maximum range, and load null ammo (t2 ammo which gives you extra range at the expense of tracking), I can push my falloff out to the edge of scram range (9 km).

Now I can take this setup against an electron-fit blaster incursus fit for maximum tank. He will surely have more raw HP and repping power, but much shorter range on his applied DPS. If I use my superior speed (helped by a scram and a web) to maintain range around 8-9km, I can win the engagement by having superior applied DPS, while mitigating his damage by keeping range. This is called scram-kiting. The difference of a few km is everything.

On the flip side of my example, lets say I am the Incursus pilot. Instead of fitting electrons I fit neutrons. Because they use much more fitting this requires I drop some tank. However, now I am able to apply decent damage to the Atron and since his tank is much less, suddenly I win the engagment! The downside is I am now more susceptible to tracking issues and am likely to apply less damage to an electron-fit blaster ship that is able to get close to me.

Winning engagements is all about maximizing your own applied DPS while minimizing the damage you take in return. Sometimes this means scram kiting. Sometimes it means orbiting very close and using superior tracking to apply more damage than your enemy. Sometimes it means keeping much further away (~24km with warp disruptor) and plinking away at a slower enemy that can't catch you.

There are quite a few things affecting applied turret DPS:

-Maximum DPS ("paper DPS")
-Optimal and falloff
-Tracking speed
-Relative velocity of target (specifically angular velocity)
-Damage type
-Target resists and HP

Here is an excellent video about turret tracking mechanics which helped me immensely when starting out.

Don't worry if this is all over your head at the moment. You're likely to lose a lot of engagements at first, and it can be tough to figure out where you went wrong. Frigate fights are usually short and brutal. Over time you will start to get a feel for the strengths and weaknesses of different ships and learn to abuse them. That's when you will start to scrape by with victories, and it will be an amazing feeling. Keep at it.