EVE New Citizens Q&A

IMO, PVE is PVE, any race's ships can do it.

People typically use the easymode weapon systems, though: missiles, maybe drones, and thus tend to use the ships that provide bonuses (Caldari, Amarr/Gallente).

You can keep the scanning separate from the combat (use a probe ship, bookmark the site, return with a combat ship), or you can go for the "do everything" expensive ships (T3 etc.).

What about jspace?

Would one be forced to choose between one or the other in even as low as C1 or in LS? In the event that this is the case, what tier of ship should one bring, at minimum, to solo LS/NS/WH combat sites? Even if this is a fair distance off, I'd like to have a skill goal.

That damage type information is far over my head. I'll have to look it up.

If you want to do combat (as in PvP) one option could be stealth bombers. Since you are likely gonna train Covert Ops for the T2 Exploration Frigates you really should consider that option since all additional training needed would be Propulsion Jamming and Missile Skills (assuming you don´t have those covered already).

If it's PvE combat you are after the SoE Stratios is probably the best option if you also want to be able to explore at the same time.

There is absolutely no reason why you should ever be PvPing in expensive ships unless the risk of loosing something expensive adds to the excitement for you. To be more clear you can PvP in expensive ship but there is no reason that you have to.

I've said it before repeatedly and I'll say it again here. Eve is not other MMOs. This game is not about gear progression or getting "all epiced out" or anything of the sort. The most common quoted statistic for PvP in this game is your kill efficiency ratio, which is the ratio of isk value of the ships that you've lost versus the isk value of the ships that you have destroyed. Meaning this game is about doing more with less.

In order to be good at PvP in this game you need experience not stats ( that includes stats gained from either skill points or expensive modules etc... ). So to get good at PvP in this game you need lots of experience and since there is no re-spawn mechanic in this game that means loosing lots of ships. So fly cheap is the key. That 100 million isk that you lost in two ships could have easily been 30 ships. Actually if your corp has an SRP ( Ship Replacement Policy ) then combined with insurance you could have actually made isk on each loss.

When you are heading out to PvP in this game you should fully expect to loose what ever you are flying. Consider the ship a loss the second that you undock and that you are in it just for the fun of getting blown up and you'll do just fine.

If you think that getting a ship "all blinged out" or getting "maxed out stats" is going to do anything for you in this game then you are playing it wrong.

First off there is no balanced PvP in this game. You can engage solo with a player and 3 or 30 of his friends can join the fight in a matter of seconds. The same applies for you.

PvP in this game is about match-ups and counters. Knowing what fights you can win and which to avoid are a big part of PvP in this game. Also this is more about the meta-game than anything else. Since PvP is not balanced and it is about countering your opponents weaknesses with your strengths often you are trying to make your opponent think that you are weaker than you are or trying to figure if your opponent is doing the same to you.

"baiting" other players or other various confidence games ( con jobs ) are all part of standard gameplay in Eve.

There are players that have come to this game and learned PvP by going out and doing it solo, however I don't think that most players are comfortable with taking lots of ass whoppings in a short amount of time to learn quickly. That is why I think that fleeting up with more experienced players is a far more common way to learn PvP in this game.

Once again Eve is not like other MMOs. Don't think that you are going to just keep queueing up for fights solo and re-spawning without consequence until you learn the game. In order to learn PvP solo in this game you have to be a masochist.

Just to counter all the "ya but..." arguments that are going through your head right now, I am linking for the second time today this video from the eveiseasy youtube channel. It is a vet on a brand new character going out and winnning solo in PvP in a very cheaply fit Rifter against years old characters in T2 interceptors worth far more isk than his ship. When he made this video new characters only started out with 56K skill points so by the end of the filming of this video he had about the same amount of skill points as a brand new character today. There is a fight in here where he goes up against 3 interceptors and kills 2 before he gets his Rifter blown up which is a huge win in pretty much anyone's book.

If you would like to try out PvP in a casual form and still be able to learn from PvP-oriented players I would recommend one of the many 'Open Fleet' activities that's happening all the time. The idea is that new players should be able to group together and have a blast without all the 'fuss'. Now granted I haven´t really gone into PvP that much either but when I do that will probably be the option I go for.

Still if you feel trial by error isn´t your thing then EVE PvP will probably not be fun regardless of what type of action you go for.

EDIT: On stelth bombers I think the general idea if you go solo is to engage non-combat ships like exploration frigates and not go up against proper combat ships (unless perhaps a PvE-fitted one).

For wormholes I would stick with as cheap as a ship as you can to start. You are going to die a lot more than you do in high/low/null until you get used to it. I've lived in WHs for a while now, and it's a very, very different way of doing things.

If you want to run sites in wormholes (the wormhole data/relic sites that do have sleepers or combat sites) the most efficient way is to use two ships. have a buzzard (since it seems that's the route you're going from your KB) where you drop both the data analyzer as well as drop the cargo scanner, add more scanning arrays. Use that to scan down 4-5 linked WH systems, bookmark everything you find. Come back in an omni-tanked, passive tanked drake or gila to start, for lower level wormholes and run sites in it. Keep a mobile depot and a set of probes/probe launcher in it for when you inevitably get trapped.

A stratios is better and can do everything in low level wormholes, but it's a lot more expensive, so judge for yourself if it's worth the pricetag.

The progression I would recommend for you is helios -> buzzard -> stratios -> tengu for solo exploration

two accounts with a dedicated scanner and a dedicated combat ship is ideal, however

So the way T3Cs work (tengu, legion, proteus, loki) is you have the base hull with no attributes, and you add five subsystems to the hull. Every subsystem gives it unique traits as well as a set number of slots. You need one of each of these:

Defensive, electronic, engineering, offensive, and propulsion subsystems for the ship to fly

Let's take the tengu's offensive subsystems as a specific example. You have four options

* Accelerated Ejection Bay: gives 5 high slots, one mid slot, and bonuses to missile damage
* Covert Reconfiguration: 5 highs, 1 mid, allows you to fit covert ops cloaking devices
* Magnetic Infusion Basin: 5 highs, 1 mid, bonus to hybrid turret damage and range
* Rifling Launcher Pattern: 5 highs, 1 mid, bonus to ECM jammers

One more example, its defensive subsystem, four options again

* Adaptive Shielding: adds 1 high slot, 1 mid slot, bonus to shield resistances remote shield boosters
* Amplification Node: adds 2 mid slots, bonus to shield boosters
* Supplemental Screening: adds 2 mid slots, bonus to shield HP and passive shield recharage rate
* Warfare Processor: adds 1 high, 1 mid, bonus to warfare links

You can look up the rest, but that should give you a general idea of how T3 cruisers work. They are extremely configurable, given the combination of subsystems make the ship, not the hull itself.

The biggest downside is each subsystem (defensive, electronic, engineering, offensive, and propulsion) is its own skill (so to even sit in a tengu you have to train caldari cruiser 5, caldari strategic cruiser, and all five caldari subsystem skills), and any time you die in a T3 cruiser you lose a random skill level in one of those five subsystem skills, and have to retrain it