EVE New Citizens Q&A

Training to fly a cruiser for the first time so I can run level 2-3 security missions. Can anyone recommend or link a simple PVE fit?

Generic fitting advice:

1. Cruisers and bigger ships don't fly like frigates; you can't rely on speed and agility to reduce incoming damage, you have to put in an actual tank (shield or armor).

2. Missions are pretty simple most of the time: you can look up what NPC's you'll be facing on sites like eve-survival.org, and make sure you fit 2 resistance modules to match the listed NPC weapons. Otherwise, a shield booster + shield resistances or an armor repairer + armor resistances = tank. A cruiser doesn't have a lot of slots, so more defenses than that will mean sacrifices in other places.

3. Pick whether you want long range or short range. Fit all your weapon slots with identical weapons suited for that range. In the case of medium missiles, I believe that Heavy missiles are long range, and Heavy Assault missiles are short range.

4. Ensure that you're able to maintain that range by installing a 10mn (medium) afterburner, and optionally a webifier to slow down fast frigate targets.

5. Based on how many remaining medium and low slots you have on the shipt, pick a tank (shield or armor) and install it.

6. If there's room, add damage amplifiers in low slots (Ballistic Control System for missiles), to increase your damage.

7. If your weapon is missiles, and if the ship has bonuses to something like a target painter, make sure to install it. This will help your heavy missiles hit small(er) targets pretty well.

8. The remaining slots, and the rigs, should be fitted with capacitor modules, because PVE combat involves long fights with multiple waves of enemies. So look into medium capacitor booster (with charges), cap recharger, capacitor power relay (don't use this if you have shield defenses), and capacitor control circuit rigs.

As explained in the posts above, missions are relatively simple, you just need strong DPS. Besides the Bellicose, also consider some of the "main combat" cruisers like the Rupture. The Caldari or Gallente ships suggested (Caracal and Vexor respectively) are very popular because they have full bonuses to their weapons (missiles and drones), and the weapons themselves allow you to match the damage that you're doing to the weaknesses of the NPCs (by loading the appropriate missile or drone in your bays). But PVE is easy enough that you can stick with Minmatar ships if that's what you want, and the Bellicose should work ok.

As far as fitting links, Eve University has basic fitting examples for most ships on their wiki. You should check out not just the Bellicose, but the other ships mentioned in this thread.

Thanks for good advice all around! I think I will stick with the Bellicose for now, because I purchased it already and because I have flown a Caracal in the past. Special thanks on the fitting! My fitting skills are not great, but I am moving up to a Cruiser because the level 2 missions already seem hard for my Destroyer and because I want to be able to fly a BS eventually. It may be a few more days before I can do it justice, but I'm getting stomped by rats in big ships and need something that can take a beating.

This is definitely a bit off-topic at this point, but EFT specifically is actually really good at teaching you about sig and speed tanking once you start playing with the DPS graph tool. In my opinion, it's one of the best things about the program, and you don't really have a good idea how your ship is going to fare in practise until you run a few DPS graph simulations.

Most shield boosters aren't made to be cap-stable, you have to pulse them on and off because they use too much cap. The one thing small shield boosters have going for them is that their cap use is very low, so you can permanently run them without capping out. Some ships use them this way as basically glorified shield rechargers, though in practise it's pretty much always deadspace or faction boosters.

So on that suggested Bellicose fit there, could one fit a Large Ancillary Shield Booster and a 50MN MWD instead? Would free up the Rig slots for 2 Processor Overclockings and a Flare Catalyst, as opposed to the Cap Control Circuits.

I made it work on Pyfa but I don't know how it would handle in the field as I've not used a ASB before.

in most cases if you have the fitting room and the cap a bigger booster is better. Being able to rep more shield in less time can cover for some big mistakes. And when you aren't taking any damage it is easy to just not turn the booster on this should let your cap recharge. Many of my current fits are XL boosters with resist mods and a cap booster. I've learned to get through pretty much all missions without using the cap booster, but having it there has saved me a few times.

However in pve since you know what enemy you are fighting you can fit the proper resists and get away with using an undersized booster. This can be useful to free up fitting room for other mods, or to use less cap. Combine high resists with speed/sig tanks and ships like the Tengu can shield tank whole missions with a small booster. Battleships can use a medium booster with a boost amp and then a bunch of resist mods to easily tank most level 4s. Using deadspace equipment can greatly increase the efficiency of the tank as well, many give very good cap:hp boost ratios. The Pithum c-type medium booster is pretty awesome and is only ~25mil right now. I wouldn't run out and buy one to run level 2s, but when you get more isk and are comfortable running level 3s or 4s it is worth trying one.