Ships & Modules

As someone who started with armor tanking and moved to shields I can maybe explain something where others are not.

For starters, shields are WAY more skill intensive and specialized than armor.

With armor you only have to focus on 4 [types] of skills:
- Hull Upgrades (for that Damage Control)
- Mechanics (for that extra armor HP)
- 4 armor compensation skills (for better passive resistances)
- Repairs Systems (to reduce the time it takes for your local repper to cycle)

With shield you have to focus on:
- Hull Upgrades (for that Damage Control)
- Shield Management (for that extra shield HP)
- Shield Operation (for better shield recharge rate)
- 4 shield compensation skills (for better passive resistances)**
- Tactical Shield Manipulation (for access to active shield hardeners)
- Shield Compensation (for lower shield booster consumption)

**The 4 compensation skills can be largely ignored unless you are gunning for a particular fit that needs them.

Things to know and understand about shields:
- Shield boosters operate in a manner that is almost opposite from armor reppers. They cycle VERY fast and use a lot of capacitor. Thus, making a "cap stable" active shield tank is not really possible without severely gimping the ship overall (exceptions apply).
- Shields in general have less HP than armor, but they regenerate with time (in a manner almost exactly like the capacitor).
- Boosting your shield's raw HP will also increase your shield's regeneration ability... which adds to your overall tank.
- With the above in mind, some ships can be fitted to maximize the shield regeneration rate to effectively BE the tank. Doing this often comes with a heavy price as you may severely gimp your capacitor's ability to recharge.
- Shields do not have access to passive omni-resist mods like armor does... but it can use an active omni-resist hardeners that you can overheat and gain more resistances out of when you are in a pickle.
- Shields may not slow you down the way armor does, but it does increase your signature radius making you easier to probe down, target, and hit.
- Your options with rigs are a bit different. Safeguards will lower shield booster cap consumption while Purgers will increase passive recharge. Never mix or confuse the two.


With regards to Caldari ships:
- I've found that they favor range above all else. The Caracal only seems gimped to you because you are probably trying to use it like a Gallente ship. Stay as far away from your enemies as you can and use range to your advantage.
- Drones are not the forte of the Caldari, so don't expect them to have very large drone bays. Hell... even their drones are not all that good. Switch back to using Gallente drones and make life easier for yourself.
- Missiles are smexy when used right. But the skill tree is vastly different and MUCH more specialized that the turret ones. They also behave differently too. Check over each skill and try training up the ones that help with damage application.


TL;DR... what you should do:
- Throw away the idea that your fit has to be cap stable. Your tank should be made to last long enough for you to kill all your enemies (or minimize the incoming DPS so you only have to pulse the booster).
- To flesh out the previous point; max out your fits to deal as much damage as possible.
- Use range to your advantage.
- Shields are more "specialized" compared to armor. Try to focus on one specific form of shields and not mix and match.

I do not know what you are doing wrong but I have both Gallente and Caldari specced characters and gallente are pure crap in PVE compared to the Caldari.

Kestrel Caracal Drake all Passive regen + Afterburner smack lvl 1 to lvl 3 or lvl 4s in case of the Drake
From the more fancy ships: Cerberus, NightHawk, and Tengu are also fine PVE ships.

Scorpion Navy Issue is great as well and a solid lvl 4 mission ship
But IMO

Fury Cruise missile cap injected XL booster CNR smacks down lvl4' and is hands down most versatile ship to mission in.
Google Liangs CNR or something like that to get the basic idea of the fit.

then there is the Golem.
This one while having gret DPS on paper is bit too odd for me and requires micromanagement to be really effective.
I prefer the CNR.

Gallente alternative:

High End

Navy Issue Dominix [Shield tank gank + Sentry version] This is good but bit like the golem quite hands on and Extremely skill intensive. It suffers a bit also from the fixed damge type of the hybrids.

Megathron Navy Same thing like Domi but Armor tank of course with sentries as well [good ship but only against its enemies]

Low end

Both Vexor and Myrmidon are slower then the Caracal and Drake in classic missions.
For ratting in low or null I actually prefer these since they do not need the ammo.

Ishtar and Cerb are comparable in PVE scenarios with Ishtar being bit more flexible and better tank against Guristas.
T3 cruisers really the gallente one and PVE LOL
Command ships LOL

Overall I can say that Caldari >>> Gallente in PVE situations.

Must be either bad fits, wrong tactics or both if you have the opposite experience.

The Caracal makes it very easy to do T2 missions when passive tanked on a low skill character with craptastic capacitor skills.I used one to grind Ishukone Corp level 2 sec missions against Guristas.

Highs:

5x Meta 3 Assault Missile Launchers (I think they are called Rapid Light Missile Launchers now), load kinetic missiles

Mids:

1 Large Shield Extender
10MN AB
Passive Thermal Resist Amp
Passive Kinetic Resist Amp
Adaptive Invulnerability Field

Lows

2 x Ballistic Control Systems, or 1 and a CPU mod if you need it.


Train Missile Bombardment and Missile Projection to Level 3 so that you can easily hit at over 30km. Then just keep your ship at 30km from any cruisers. Frigates will come close but get eaten alive by your assault missiles.

Your DPS is low on paper but due to the low explosion radius it is always consistently applied.

Please read before getting your panties in a bunch. Six months ago they weren't that expensive.

This is overwhelmingly true. Rapid Light Missile Launchers are better for Level 2s than HMLs. Man, that really is a cumbersome name.

Arbalest HMLs have always been 12-14m each. If you found some for less than that, you were incredibly lucky.

Yeah, getting T2 stuff without level 5 skills is epic as hell.

I don't have anything to add, but arby launchers on a caracal? You realize that just one of those costs more than the ship hull?