EVE General Discussion

[Vet support question at the bottom]

In my experience of the eve universe I got curious as to what is the best race start off with. Old posts on this topic were before the time of racial lock. I wanted to put a little guide out but didn't know where and I lacked the info on half of the topic so... here's what I can tell new players and hopefully ease the choice just a bit, though it requires some understanding before hand.

Caldari and Minmatar

Shield brothers

Minmatar[UNI]:Hybrid tank meaning you can use armor or shields but is still classified as a shield brother. Known for the highest speed. Has a special ship just for transporting ammo. Their ship designs focus on minimalist ideals (I.E. "With duct tape and some scrap we can make a super weapon")

Caldari [ADV]: Shield users by trade, armor fitting is far less beneficial. Ship design is Tech-Modern (I.E. flat face polygons and peak vertices)

Shield tanking is the art of using shields effectively. Shields have a passive repair feature that armor lacks, and capitalizing on this feature can be exceptionally beneficial. Besides the use of active shield repairers you can boost passive rep to reach high recovery peaks. With the right mods you can get a shield tank to repair at 200+ HP/s, this tactic may seem appealing but you use a lot of slots just on the tank, which makes PVP use less than ideal (Not enough resources for E-war or damage boosters). The features shields have make them good for the player wanting to do PVE activities solo.

Caldari Weaponry

Missiles: The main weapon of the Caldari. Considered "guaranteed" damage, they will almost always hit the target and deal damage but they can be outran and thus avoided. The focus of these weapons is in volley damage rather than DPS. The damage dealt by missiles also won't be applied instantly as with turrets. With no Cap use they are good for ships fitted with active modules.

Railguns: The secondary. These are the turrets the Caldari use but they are not the best users of them. When you start to fit Cruisers you will see the appeal of missiles. A cruiser with Medium guns will have issues hitting small, fast moving targets like frigates at close range. Blasters are close range railguns but again, the Caldari are not the best at using them.

Minamtar Weaponry

Projectile Turrets: The trademark of the Minmatar. Their weapon systems are adaptive. You can choose Auto-canons for DPS, artillery canons for high damage volleys, or both at once to span the entire range and damage types. Other than raw damage they can also deal specific damage types by using different ammo (having EMP for shields and fusion for armor). Their auto-canons also have the ability to hit small targets and keep a decent range, unlike rails.

Missiles: follows the exact same standard but having one less missile slot makes their damage lower than the Caldari.

Notable Accomplishments

The Caldari's missiles are strong right from the start and their auto-rep allows for hit and runs. IN wormhole space even a Caldari T1 frigate can be deadly [in PVE]. With a test a while back I went in with a Condor to start and it was able to beat the 4-5 sleeper frigates at an ore site with minimal [3-5] runs. The kestrel, [Neo somniac: 4 Te-2100, small c5l, 3 small azeotropic extenders, 2 Mark I flux coils, 2 small calefaction catalysts] pummeled the sleepers in far less time [only needing about 1 run].

The Minmatar have a full field range and that has exceptional use. In the Guristas Gala event it was noted that players had trouble with the sites to the point they were driven 75 KM away from the center. A shield auto rep fitted Minmatar cruiser was able to complete the site without having to switch mods or move beyond 15 KM from the center. This had a bosted plausibly of working due to a logic bug in the more advanced AI units. Deploying and scooping your drones continuously eventually caused the enemies to both stop moving and firing. Even in instances where this was not used the ship could and did complete the sites.

Tanks [armor users]

The armor tank is just as it sounds, heavy and fortified. Armor usage focuses on maxing out health and/or resistance without sacrificing effectiveness. Armor lacks an auto repair feature but there are many modules that can apply active repair at a reasonable level. While having high HP you will also be able to apply E-war to turn enemies into sitting ducks. It has more uses in PVP than PVE since you will likely have a team that can repair you remotely (also E-war is less effective on hordes of NPC enemies).

Amarr[ADV]:

Gallente: Known for high damage output and being the favorite of Eve players. Has access to the highest ISK per hour ore in Blue High Sec space. This race also has many extra for transport (5 instead of the normal 2-3) making moving easier as well as trading. Ship designs are rounded

Gallente Weaponry

Railguns/Blasters: Though not the primary choice of the Gallente they can deal far more damage with these than the Caldari to the point where they fight for the crown of DPS kings. This damage output makes them useful in many PVP aspects.

Drones: What the Gallente are known for. Drones allow for an automated attack to be carried even without interaction (assuming hey are deployed before red boxed). They have the ability to "think" and attack on their own which is useful when your guns are jammed by a player or you can't target anyone. Drones do have HP though , so watch their bars, especially since they can't reloaded (they are an entity, not ammo). Not only are they useful in combat but also for mining, picking of enemies while you harvest rocks.

So, how does it look so far? Besides not having any knowledge of armor, does this minor review of the races show what is better for which play style?

Edit Question: Best character model?

Compare all the Corvettes (racial starter ships) and pick the one you like the looks of the best.

Edit; I'm not trying to be snarky or flip here either. The lines and depiction of each of those ships are a good representation of the feel, philosophy, and style that defines the races.

Some people will tell you that race doesn't matter and that you can cross train anything you want. Which is true, however, it takes a very good understanding of the game in order to cobble a character from all the options available.

Whereas the racial combat philosophies are balanced and pretty good right out of the gate. If you pick a race and focus on their specific philosophy you will have a more effective character earlier.

Caldari is of course superior. Easy to apply DPS from missiles, the speed of shield tanks, and ECM.

Gallente would be a good choice for all space (HS, LS, Null).

Vexor and Vexor Navy are great for nullsec ratting and PVP.
Specialized haulers cannot be matched.
Damps are a pain to deal with in enemy fleets.

I started this character as an alpha clone for a variety of reasons. I have older mains (2x 100+ mil). I wanted to see how far my experience could help me out, and verify that what I was suggesting to new players is good advice. I am also taking the time to retrain myself into a new hotkey scheme.

Anyhow, I chose Gallente and would absolutely recommend any alpha do the same. In general I think Gallente perform better at lower SP levels. For my purposes the key deciding factor is the ability to train drones 5 which is quite powerful. There are some issues with drones as a weapon system, but they work well for both PvP and PvE at early stages. IMO they seem to be more effective with less developed support skills. The main trouble with training drones early is the attributes you need for them don't match the most effective early mapping. To help with this, I trained heavily into drones right away, before using my first remap (to half and half perception / intelligence).

I completed the SoE epic arc within a few days of rolling, then moved out to lowsec where I was hunting clone soldier belt rats and even had a few solo PvP kills within a few weeks.

Using hybrids is an entirely viable option as well, though it is damage locked. I think blasters especially are much more friendly for low experience, low SP players than other weapon systems. There is a strong argument for missiles as well, but the raw DPS of blasters opens up more content possibilities early on imo.

Another big bonus for Gallente is that many of the early ships you will have access to have entirely viable fits using every tank type. You will get to experience both buffer and active tanking using shield, armor, and hull tanks.

You can experiment with several different styles of flying. The Gallente have good options for both brawling and kiting that you can get into early on.

Though it hasn't been very relevant for myself, I believe the Gallente selection of T1 haulers is probably superior for anyone wishing to try out industry / mining / trade as well.

Overall, I would recommend choosing Gallente for any alpha player because they are versatile, as well as generally giving the most performance at low SP levels.

and hybrid + drone gnosis is better than any other gnosis.

Vexor Navy is a waste of money on an alpha character due to the lack of heavy drones (among other skills).

I will just talk about ratting and missioning.
Amarr and Gallente can do null ratting in 5~12m/tick.
I do know null corp accepting alpha.

Yes, both of them can do l4 and it will take about one hour to go through something like Angel Extravaganza, which worth about 30m.

For the rest two it will be 3~7m/tick and spend tons of ammo.
L4s are hardly doable for them.
However, I would like to mention that two hookbills (not sure if it's the right name, the caldari navy FR) can beat burner teams and it's quite fun.