f13.net

Warning Slightly OFF-Topic!

Is EVE for me?/Shall I buy the game?

I have a question which I feel doesn't fully warrant an own discussion, and also has been spawned somewhat by this thread, so I'll bring it up here.
I have been considering playing eve for quite a while. At the moment my experience with it consists of spending 1 hour at the portrait creation screen and reading about 80 pages of this thread.
Currently suffering from MMO withdrawal symptoms, enjoy complex sandboxy games and like the sci-fi setting. So, seems fine, BUT:

1) The game seems to be all about big alliance PVP.
Big alliance PVP seems to be about masses of players in their Titans/Dreadnaughts-of-Doom whooshing around and destroying equipment worth billions of ISK and months of playtime. Regular or new players are never mentioned.
Newbies are told to "do the proper thing and buy and old account", except every 10 pages or so someone disagrees and says something like "No, no! You can be totally helpful even with a frigate! Just fly in circles around the enemy causing Lag and screen clutter letting real players win the fight meanwhile."

2) PVP is all about alliances and guilds, as obviously taking on the Goons solo does not work. Yet guilds don't allow in new players, because you could be a SPY!

3) How am I supposed to catch up with 6 years of skill point training?

At the moments my feelings are somewhere between fascinated/curious and scared/confused.  :heartbreak:

Cala

FakeEdit: Yes, this is a serious post. I would be very appreciating of any helpful answer, even if it's just a one-liner or of the YES/NO type.

Split. Don't post gratuitously offtopic questions in the war thread, particularly ones that will engender discussion.

Eeeek! sorry....

No worries.

The only answer I have to your questions is for (3), and the answer is "you don't". Thing is, depending on what you're training for, you pretty much hit a point of severely diminishing returns after 2-6 months. For example, if you wanted to focus on ECM, you could get all IVs in the relevant ECM skills, plus Vs in the more basic ones, within about 2 months, plus another 2 weeks to train Caldari BS to 4 from scratch. Boom, you're a formidable scorpion pilot.

So, in short, if you're worried about going strictly toe-to-toe, DPS-for-DPS up against an older player, the answer is to specialize, and you'll be just as good as he is within 2-6 months, depending on field. You don't need to be that good to be effective in many fields; tech2 sniping is one of the few where you absolutely must do a 6-month skill grind to be viable. ECM, antisupport, and tackling all require far less SP.

If you really want to get involved in 0.0 PVP and feel needed/loved by your corp, train up for an Interdictor. Doesn't take terribly long and everyone's always short of interdictors. Granted, your life consists mostly of "activate bubble, die, get fresh ship, repeat".

1) You're being told to 'cause lag' by morons.  The guys here started out in Frigs and such and were effective. Hell they had whole weekends dedicated to "Frigate Club" where the entire fleet consisted of people in the 'low class' ships.  They're effective for their roles, you just have to find a role you want to fit into. Jamming, Webbing, Sensor Sweeps, Stealth scouting, Interceptors, etc.   One of the frigate clubs I attended we nearly took out some hotshot's $500mil Battleship with our ten little $100k swarm ships.

2) Yeah, this will be a problem for you now.  F13 has moved on to be a part of a bigger alliance and doesn't run the new player stuff like they did. There's probably smaller corps out there that do similar stuff these days, but your problem will be finding a crew that isn't a random bunch of assholes and scammers.  Good luck there.

3) By focusing on a role and filling it.   26million, 40 million or 100 million skill point characters may have years and tons of skill points on you, but that's spread across multiple disciplines.  A 100mil SP character may only be using 5 mil of their SP if they're in a ship-type or role that they're not optimally trained for.  Suddenly they're very killable by a noob pilot who knows what they're doing and has focused on doing it well.    You branch out after you've learned how to do that thing well.

Also, you don't need max-rank in a skill to be effective, and that's where the bulk of a veteran pilot's skill time is spent.  Going from rank 4 to rank 5 is a huge step of training for only a 1% to 5% increase in effectiveness.  You typically only do it because you need that R5 for another skill/ ship or simply have run out of new things to train for (not likely.)


The best thing to do is download the trial and give it a shot. I'm sure the guys are still running the F13 channel and may even look at it often enough to answer questions.

To add to what Yoru said, after those 2-6 months most skills can only be improved by 2 or 5% which is a difference that can be compensated for by fitting your ship smartly and out-flying your enemy.

Edit: Merusk beat me to it.  But yeah, we're always keeping an eye on the F13 channel in-game.  Or at least I am.

Thanks for the reply.  :-)
My post was a bit flippant, so it might not have been clear, but I don't expect to jump into a 6 year old game and receive insta-grats or mess with the big boys. The War-thread mainly talks about this alliance vs. alliance epic-battle and it's not really clear for me if there is anything else happening on the sidelines. As long/If(?) there is some small pvp-gameplay niche to reach to I'll be happy to work towards that.

*waits for client download to finish*

Cala

It's also worth noting that I was playing in the Big Game of inter-alliance politics within 6 months (having come in 3 years late) by virtue of just being really good at making money in the markets.  Character skill is only a part of the equation.

--Dave

Also, not all alliances are quite as worried about spies, it's shockingly easy to get a spy into most of them.

Easy as in:
"hey, I'd like to you join you!"
"well, you don't look like a spy!"
"I know rite, so we're good?"
"Yeah, welcome!"

Well, I sure don't look like a spy!

(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/5803/calapine.jpg)

Day 1

Managed to fly in a circle, mine an asteroid, queue some skills and dock the ship! All withouth getting killed or scammed. Now it's 4:45 AM and I need some sleep. This can only get better!

On the big alliances, they're great, but Eve is still a sandbox and you can make your own game. My Eve is cat and mouse tactics in little packs of cheap ships in lowsec for ransom or salvage and occasionally cleaning out the local anti-pirate corlp that continues to pay to wardec and provide us with easy targets. I think the biggest thing we've done in our corp since I joined was join a bunch of other 'rats and take out a carrier from some idiot who didn't know what he was doing.

So you don't really need to be in one of those big alliances to have fun in the game.

However, you do need to find the right people that match your interests and who match with you socially. For me that meant joining and quitting Eve four or five times before I finally found a corp that I liked and that was e from a friend who joined them and dragged me back in. That's the real game in Eve, the social game. It makes and breaks how good a time you have and it can also make or break your success in game terms. Social connections are a lot bigger than SP. (Though it will take about eight weeks to do more than tackle something and get blown up.)

The standard advice is join Eve Uni and fly with them until you know what you're doing then start to apply to corps.

Eve rules. I dont play any MMO's these days due to RL shit, but when I come back....its all about the Eve

Well, I'm now a 5-day Eve vet... and apparently I'm a spy to be "de-bagged and raddished" on sight because I had the audacity to post here asking to join the Goons as a total newb. Silly me. That was day one.  :oh_i_see:

Subsequent conversations in the F13 channel have helped me understand, at least in some small way, where this paranoia comes from. Some corps are just very closed for their own protection. This was a new experience for me coming as I do from games like UO, SWG and AoC where joining a big raiding guild - even a "famous" one - was really no problem at all. So now I respect the Goons for their caution and don't expect to get in any time soon so I'm just doing the tutorials and getting my skills up so that if I can get in I'll be "useful".

Eve really is a great sandbox-in-space and I love it for that. The freedom is wonderful - mademe realise just how limited and "on rails" games like AoC are.

The F13 channel still gets a few players and they are very helpful. I'm usually in it (character name: Vain Eldritch) and if you like we can help each other out as needed. I'm only running a few tutorial missions per week atm (RL's a byotch!) but I am of course training all the time and fiddling with EveMon to get a one-year/three-year plan up and I'd be happy to talk skills and learning with you. I'm alsoi starting to play with frig outfits - it's been good so far to see how the different modules work and combine.

Anyhoo, good luck and enjoy Eve - as I said before in my "raddished" thread about "Da Claw!", I've fallen i love with Eve and I intend to be around for a very long time.


 

The fact is that the vast majority of the players are not in 0.0, and have no interest in the big alliance warfare. I think they would say that their play is just as valid as the loudmouths in 0.0, and they would be right.


Spies can cause a lot of damage. The thing is though that certain entities can become totally dependent on spies, to the point that they cannot fight without them. So the desperate efforts they go through to get spies into their enemies is literally unbelievable. One guy spent a lot of money setting up proxy servers so his real IP could not be traced looking onto their forums. So the counterspy efforts can get a little over the top too.


You cant. Where the real advantage of the old players comes is in the support skills. Making your ships turn faster, the fittings costing less, your ships being tougher, them having more capacitor, etc. Simply saying "well you could be as good as a 6 year old in 2 - 3 months" is ignoring a lot of subtle issues, and tbh if I got my hands on the game I'd pull a lot of stupid "time sink" skills. The learning skills would be ontop of my list.

To elaborate on something else, the reason all you read about in the War! thread is big alliance PVP is because that thread is about... big alliance PVP. It's the big "elder game" draw that generates a lot of the buzz and player politics that make EVE relatively unique among MMOs.

There have been threads here and there about smaller-scale PVP, but those tend not to result in 100+ page threads as they don't lead to massive space drama. Doesn't mean it's not there, doesn't mean it's not fun for the participants.

1) The game seems to be all about big alliance PVP.

You can PvP at smaller levels and still be useful or just not PvP at all, there are other trades that might suit you.

2) PVP is all about alliances and guilds, as obviously taking on the Goons solo does not work. Yet guilds don't allow in new players, because you could be a SPY!

There are many levels to the game, Goons are at the highest level along with other alliances but it doesn't mean to say you can't have fun joining a smaller corp and helping them out on whatever level they are working and pay no attention to the great war.

3) How am I supposed to catch up with 6 years of skill point training?

You can't but then you don't have to either each ship has a time sink limit, you could probably be as good as you are gonna get in a particular frigate in a couple of months.  You can catch up vets skillwise easily within the year if you focus training from the start and heed the advice of people who have been down that line. Again at the risk of sounding braggardish I was soloing three+ year old vets with only over a years training under my belt, mainly cause I trained my skills very inline.

On the flip side to max out carriers & other cap ships might take a couple of years. This pertains to your other question but you can be useful in a frigate very early on and not just causing lag, newbie tacklers are always wanted. If you're interested in that aim to get in an interceptor after you have some experience.

90% of the character in Eve never leave hi-sec.

The Big War gets a lot of attention but it's not the norm.

This is very true. Most epic battles don't see the numbers Jita (Eve's trade hub) alone has to contend with on a constant daily basis. Its just one of 3 major trade hubs and of hundreds of empire systems. (Anyone know the actual count of empire systems?).

I think its fair to say also that a lot of mission runners and wormhole dwellers in empire are bringing in more ISK than 0.0 ratters and miners at the moment, especially those involved in the war as their time is tied up fighting rather than making the dough.

If I was starting off in the game right now, I wouldn't want to be involved in 0.0 shenanigans, I'd rather stay in empire in some small but useful corp and get filthy rich, then worry about where to go and who to join.
 

My current plan exactly.

The important thing is to set yourself short term goals as well as a long term one. It's easy to get stuck in Eve if you don't have a basic roadmap of how you want to proceed. It doesn't have to be super detailed, just make sure that as well as the Grand Plan you also have an attainable short range goal on the boil in addition. This can be anything from being able to pilot a certain ship type, earning a certain amount of Isk, trying out a particular part of the game or whatever. Make sure you're not floundering around with no direction because otherwise you'll likely end up washed up and lost.

I think they made a good move with changing the pre-reqs for the Advanced learning skills from 5 in the basic skills to 4, it cut more than a month off of the time to get into the same range as the established characters.  If they had followed that up with a lot of the other "cock-block" skill 5 Pre-Reqs, slowly phasing them in for things like the Racial Frigate skills for Assault Frigates and Interceptors, then Destroyers 5 and Racial Frig 5 for Interdictors, Astrometrics and Electronics 5 for Covert Ops (as well as Frig 5), working their way up to the really big ones like the half dozen or so Skill 5's you need to fly a wall of battle BS, or the dozen for a really functional Dread, and so on, it would have gone a long way.  Established characters would still have a small edge from their 5's (such as they still have a training advantage over everyone from after the Learning change), but newbies wouldn't be looking at 6-12 month waits to be more than chaff in a real battle.

But I already gave CCP's people that bits of advice in person, obviously it didn't get adopted.

--Dave

I ran a character to Assault Frigates in the 2x bonus to 1.6mil SP. At just over 2mil it's very effective using named gear. I also tried it with another char for cov ops, training was good but named didn't slot in as easily. Freighter pilot also came in at under 1.6 mil so I think CCP is on the right track with level 4 and 5 skill development. AFs in under 14 days meant having to play the frigate which is a good thing, not a bad thing for a noob.

Re the cockblock, T2 weapons and level 5 skills benefits hurt the training post 1.6mil as I only ran lvl 3/4 learning skills as necessary (and +3 implants) but an AF is very nice in high sec and lo-sec and the skills I'm consolidating complement frigates for missions that block out the use of the AF.

What is missing is for noobs to have the importance of a focused build explained to them - because even if it wasn't AFs they went to, a good cruiser or destroyer build could be done in under 1.6mil.

Just my 2c really - I wish my 6 mill first toon was as effective as my 2 mil focused build - but she's getting there.

Setting aside the question of whether it is reasonable to expect newbies to create perfectly optimized training plans that spend the first two months doing nothing so they can do something very focused (it's not), what about 3 years from now, when Tech3 has become the best at everything?  Going to tell the newbs "only 6 months of training and you can fly one particular build of T2 almost well enough to be more than a speed-bump to T3 vets"?

--Dave

What exactly would a noob specialized in AF do that he couldn't do in with more effective SP not being wasted on AF piloting skills and for much less isk?

ohhhh, now the Pros are talking! *snickers*


Going from the theoretical to the practical what would be a good starting path or training goal in terms of skill and ship class to aim at? I am aware it's all down to play style and personal preferences, but at this point you probably know what's good for me better than I do.  :wink:

Cala

I wasn't trying to be snarky i was curious. I haven't played EVE in a long while and was nothing beyond casual even when i played. Was there something specific you wanted an AF for? Or was it just the most accessible "cool ship" you could hop into? When i played AF were worthless for me, they very well may have been changed. I really cant address any of your original questions because i never got into a large corp and have minimal pvp experience.

I also was not smart enough to read about EVE before playing it so was unaware of the awesome training corps i could have joined. I focused on the generic noob path of caldari mission related skills. And then got into probing but they radically altered how it was done and i lost interest (when i played you had to triangulate between probes and it was pretty fucking hard). Id recommend joining one of the noob training organizations gear towards missions or whatever hi-sec isk generation activity you want to get into so you can support yourself. And adventure about. If you keep current on upcoming changes you can easily multiple a few million isk into billions with little to no risk or effort.

After i had 5-6 billion and a nice stable of ships i lost interest again and stopped playing. I should resub and try out all the new stuff like faction warfare,0.0 pvp stuff and the new probe related stuff.

PS. Gaming the system to take advantage of hi-sec mission runners was tons of fun. As was my brief stint in privateers.

If that was meant for me: I wasn't trying to be snarky with the "Pro" comment either. Sorry if it came across the wrong way!  :oops:

Re: Assault Frigates, it was Sentana using mentioning them. I  have some friends with ISK to burn who might help out, so being immediately viable isn't a priority. 3 months+ from now is were my focus is.


Pirating I'd very much like to dabble with!  :grin:

Cala

AFs are still pretty much worthless. Inties are a much better and more accessible T2 frigate choice for low SP characters. You'd still be better off in a random cruiser though than a T2 frigate for solo piracy. Much more effective for fewer SPs and with much less risk.

Heh. I remember one time a pirate interceptor ran from my mining barge in half structure.  :why_so_serious:

Thorax!!! :)

I think everyone made valid points about the gap between noobs and vets and optimizing training plans etc. But at the same time, its the skill building, the grinding and the want to fly the next best ship that keeps us all playing for years, rather than months.

Sure its a pain in the ass for new players to not stand a chance in PVP against someone with 40mill more SP than them, but then again, why should they? Its not a pick up and play shooter like Halo or Quake. A noob versus a vet in battle with same SP's, there will only ever be one outcome. There is a lot about PVP and 0.0 as a whole that has to be learned to make it a level playing field, even before taking skill points into the equation. The same can be applied to other areas like trade, production etc.

Its a game of long term goals, targets and constant learning; not just skills but also learning the game. IMO, part of the fun is training for that special something and getting to that stage is all the more satisfying when you get there. I don't see the mad panic for new players to get into 0.0 space. The only real difference between being there and doing factional warfare, or other areas of Eve, is politics.

If you know all you want to do is PVP, then specialize in a ship asap, but if you want to really explore the game, try and dabble in as many areas as you can before specializing.

The only AF worth a damn is the little Drone Carrier one, the Ishkur, and only if you have a hard on for drones.

You mix a bunch of assault frigs with some good scimitar pilots and a few EAS, the result is a lethal little gate gang so you're all wrong I'm afraid.

 You keep editing the configuration of the "gate gang".  Replace AF with a mix of Inty,cruiser or frigates and it would be just as viable. AF do not excel at any given role. They are not fast they do dick for dps a couple can fit a "decent" tank while being completely worthless in any other way. Anything you would use one for can be done better by a frig,inty or cruiser. All the while requiring less SP and isk.

Just curious, how does any t1 frig do something better than a t2? Besides cost less....

Anyway, I always enjoyed AF's...not cause they were really good, but because they can be fun in groups.

Ok I'll reitirate my point for the less enlightened, I have been party to a fifteen man gang of Scimitar/AFs obliterating an equal sized gang of BS/BC/HACs/Recons (AAA) cause the scimitar pilots knew what they were doing, we took no losses for about six of them including an Absolution/Zealot/Curse rest buggered off demoralised . AFs excel at this thing called signature tanking, their natural tank allows them to be repped up a lot quicker than other frigs this would not work in T1 cruisers or t1 frigs and you need to use very specific fits, this is probably their only niche all the same, but you are still wrong.

They are both fodder but one can be insured, costs less and requires less SP to fly. AF are slower,heavier,larger sigs, and lower scan resolution. None of those things are very beneficial for frig class ship that still does piddly damage with no kind of tank. And its not a t1 frig vs AF. Its what can an AF bring to the party that a t1 frig,cruiser or inty cant while being cheaper and insurable.
You used to be able to sneak in AF's passed some gates designed for frigs to speed the process up a bit.

@Amarr yes im sure they do that "signature tanking" far more effectively than an inty which i notice you kind of fail to address.  So i think the AF are worthless still stands anecdotal stories involving a group of retards aside. Anything they can do can be done better by a t1 frig,cruiser or inty while being cheaper and requiring less SP. Which was the point.

Wow, I mentioned AFs and the whole thread went sideways. It was an example of how you can plan at noob level and get to a good point post-Apocrypha with something that you want to do if you focus.

Eg: On one of my accounts (I have far too many) I decided to try a dedicated AF build for fun because people do write them off. I'm sure everyone who has posted has valid points but you know what? I am having fun flying one over a frigate and wow, if it doesn't work, I have a good frigate based skillset that can be used with other builds that don't include cruiser -> destroyer -> BS etc but are frig based platforms or heck, even a frigate itself.

I guess I should have used a well-rounded cruiser as the example so the AF hate didn't generate  :oh_i_see:

I personally think the Jaguar and Ishkur are both fun ships to fly. I mean, I get your point, but I don't agree 100%. Then again, I'm rich and could piss away the cost of them. In AFs, I have 24 kills and 1 loss. It's just plain fun to roam in an AF gang, you get underestimated a lot and score some nice kills. Combined with decent escapability, they can be good for deep roams.

Set, you are right...there is nothing wrong with getting a good skill set with frig sized weapons. Any t2 you get to training to will be required for the cruiser stuff anyway.

I too have never really understood the AF hate. I really liked flying an ishkur back in the day, and got a fair amount of kills using it. Haven't flown one in ages though.

AFs are not really fleet ships but good for roaming. Same as the Dominix, and I don't think anyone would argue that the Domi isn't a good ship

Calling it 'AF hate' is overstating it somewhat - at least for me. I don't particularly despise them, I just don't see what they bring to the table for the additional outlay in cash and SPs. The Ishkur is quite nice and is one of the few frigates that can mount a full rack of drones (a full rack of medium drones if you have AF skill to V) but I'm struggling to see why I'd fly one instead of say; a Vexor. If you want the standard frigate advantages of speed and low sig radius then an interceptor is the best choice. If you want a middleweight slugger that isn't as slow and ponderous as a BC or a BS then any reasonably well fit t1 cruiser will fill that role.

You can kill things in an AF, no-one is saying that they aren't capable of it, just that - for me at least - there's always a better alternative for pretty much any role you'd pick them for.

You are a snarky little cunt aren't you?

Wrong, unless you are going to fit afterburners to your inty in which case you are correct but those inties wouldn't last long and yes you should use sensor boosters, but scan res only matters if you are gatecamping I'm talking about roaming around looking for a fight on a gate (this is so the scimitars can jump in and out) different kettle of fish.


T1 frig can't fit everything you need and can't push out even a 1/3 of the DPS in most cases, cruisers can't sig tank cause well they're big.


What if I were to tell you that these retards are all very regular poster on here would that make you go back to SHC with your worthless advice?

Basically this, it really doesn't matter what ship you are flying it's the man behind the controls at the end of the day and jaguar or ishkur are the best AFs money can buy. Enyo/wolf/retri aren't bad either though retribution lacks tackle but still good as DPS support. I'd love to do another frigate club as a lot of people would be able to bring T2 frigs this time around and stealth bombers would really add shithot DPS support.

I'd say the biggest problem with AFs is really that people have their role confused.  If you're trying to be support/dps, then yes, a cruiser is usually a better chioce, however a cruiser isn't going to have a chance against all but the dumbest intys.

AFs are inty killing machines, running on an AB and being immune to scrams (you can scram them back and then burn out of range with your higher speed to disengage), while shutting down your opponents speed makes you the kryptonite to interceptors that pre-speednerf rapiers/huggins were.

They have a place in the EvE universe, their specialization is just /very/ limited, and outside of it a cruiser usually does better.

Their role is very limited this is true the only time I have seen them working was in these signature tanking gangs and the Scimitar pilots needed to be on top of things. But a jaguar being repped by three scimitars while taking damage from over twenty ships comprised of BC/BS for well over a minute is a sight to behold. The one time it fell apart was when a couple of Falcons joined the brigade, screwed up the spider tank but still they managed to take down 10 or so mostly BC out of 20 and lost their whole gang, so wasn't an epic fail easily did as much damage as they lost. When these gangs did work (no falcons showed up) the fight would go on for about 10-30 minutes that was the fun thing about them was kind of a war of attrition.

An Ishkur can only run 5 lights with bandwidth now. :(



The Ishkur is what you use when a Vexor is too big or too slow or too fragile. It's bonuses give it fairly impressive range for a frigate, and drone flexibility is always keen. It's fairly unique in it provides functionality that is not normally found on a Frigate sized ship. Most Frigates have a drone bay between 0 and 1.

It is not a matter of opinion. Nobody gives two shits about your moronically contrived "hypothetical" situation that you believe somehow redeems the entire fucking class of ships.


What if i were to tell you that you this sentence makes no fucking sense and i have no clue what your stupid ass is talking about?


Ishkur is almost the exception. And even that ship is kinda iffy with the nos and bandwidth changes. You can kill shit in any ship with AF 99% of the time there is a cheaper ship that will do a better job. Barring the ever so practical 15 AF Scimitar spider tanking setup.  :uhrr:

You can say the exact same thing with a HAC vs a Battlecruiser. I don't see people lining up to say HACs are useless though.

Jeesuz man it's not hypothetical what the fuck is wrong with you, you braindead or something?

Asking "Is Eve For Me?" in the Eve forum guarantees a "yes" answer, because people like me aren't reading.

I tried it and it wasn't for me. I grew up playing Elite on the C64 and I was looking for massively multiplayer Elite, and Eve wasn't what I was looking for.

It remains tempting as intelligent people play it, it's sci-fi and it has huge political and strategic depth, all of which threaten to hook me. My best MMORPG experiences were massive intercity PvP conflicts involving alliances in SWG, and Kunark-Velious era EQ1 where nothing was instanced and competing for raid spawns was a brutal game of alliance politics.

But Eve's not the game I was looking for and it's a huge timesink with an insane learning curve. A side issue was the engine makes me feel my ship is a fixed point around which space moves, whereas Elite/Privateer/WCIII/Freespace make me believe I'm moving through space. There's no suspension of disbelief.

I want a different space game. I don't want to discuss with Eve nerds why they think I'm wrong, I'm just answering your question as a non-fan.

At threads like these I'm always reminded of CCP Wrangler's classic quote from 4 years ago.


I had the "I am the center of the universe" feeling very briefly, but overcame it with an affection to constantly Look At other objects and pan my camera and zoom into things for greater detail pretending it was my space periscope. Often I center my camera on things I'm shooting at while going ARF ARF DIE YOU BASTARD THIS IS FOR BLOWING UP MY STEALTH BOMBER 10 MINUTES AGO and watching the elite frigate rat explode into cosmic dust.

If it was a noob asking what is a good ship to begin adventuring around in I would give a similar opinion towards HAC's. HAC's also have a ton more versatility and use compared to AF's its not a good analogy.


Ok, its not hypothetical just extremely irrelevant in trying to redeem AF's. You can do amazing things with any group of ships. Spider tanking AF's at a gate (and yes you specifically said gate gang) doesn't change anything. Anymore than the guy with a 20 to 1 k/d ratio in an AF does. And when i said "retards" i wasn't directing that at you. I was referring to the mixed gang of BS/BC/Recons/HAC's that you destroyed with the AF squad. Nobody is trying to claim AF's are without worth. Just that you can do better with less.

It's not hypothetical: when we were in Providence Amarr used to hang out in HED most nights a week with a gang pretty much made up as he describes killing lots of AAA.  He's not a theory-crafter (although I notice he's down to a little over ten kills a day at the moment, so Atlas must be learning to avoid blops).

I would argue many more HAC's are much more similar to a Ishkur in that they have unique abilities not normally found on a standard cruiser hull.


Then again, maybe I haven't looked at HAC bonuses in awhile outside of the Ishtar  :oh_i_see:

Hai Guyz! *cough* I don't want to derail the thread with non-AF related posts, just thought to say Thank you for the advice and give a short update:

Day 4

I was lucky and got a recommendation for a really nice PVP-corp (not in 0.0 space of course) that helped me out with some implants, lots of advice and most importantly nice company.
Being thrown into Eve not knowing anyone is definitly "meh". Having great fun getting to know the basics in my Kestrel aka "Fluffy Kitten One"

Cala

Correct its just irrelevant.

Gratz mate - I still haven't bothered with a corp but play with mates from an Aussie/US/UK/Netherlands forum - one day I'll get around to a corp. Is the kessie fun? I skipped past it into a Merlin and am now wondering why I didn't mess about with it a bit more. Now... work your skills up to AF.... [evil grin]  :grin:

Just as an aside - instead of taking my baby militia AF pilot out I did my first Sleeper wormhole run with a few mates (in a Scorpion). I highly recommend it when you get a ship that can absorb damage well. I was just doing ECM and tossing missiles but the AI on them seems to leave the normal mission mobs for dead.

Some of us might have actually wanted to talk about AFs cause we used to organise frigate clubs with all the members of F13 allowing vets and noobs to be on an even footing and have a bit of fun. Even though it's been a while since we have done one of these it's still relevant and I was tinkering with the idea of doing one, AFs would certainly be welcome, so could you stop being a giant douchebag.

I know you didn't want to discuss this with Eve nerds, and everything else you said was true, but it's not a timesink unless you want it to be.  I might get two hours a night if I'm lucky. Once every few weeks I dig deep and rack up three hours.  2-4 days a week I don't play at all.

Offline training is pretty cool.

Now what you do is work hard and move up their ranks, then get rolls, then one day clean the corp of everything they own and start your own space empire with the earnings. Such is the way eve is supposed to work.