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f13.net General Forums => Eve Online => Topic started by: Lantyssa on June 22, 2011, 08:10:33 PM



Title: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 22, 2011, 08:10:33 PM
So I finally broke down and am trying this out.  I'm a true newbie here.

For the moment I'm not worried about the most efficient way to level or any of that.  I'll mess around and see what I like, but I figure I should at least go about setting myself a goal so I have a little direction.  I also know there's probably not a ship that uses all of these, but I'd like to focus on Drones, Lasers, and Shields.  What ships combine those to a reasonable extent?  I'll just be doing missions initially while I learn the in-and-outs, so it only has to be survivable, not the most awesome thing around.

Once I'm more comfortable with the game I'll worry about being cutting-edge.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Phildo on June 22, 2011, 08:44:44 PM
Join the channel 'f13', get tips.  This game sucks if you try to play it by yourself.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Kageru on June 22, 2011, 09:50:03 PM

Drone ships are the specialty of Gallente though they're generally more meaningful on larger ships and in a PvE context. The Gallente weapon is intended to be hybrid turrets but since they sort of suck you can readily put lasers on them.

That said, do the tutes (free ships and skillbooks!), idle in f13 channel and come join us when you feel ready. Eve without the politics and intrigue is a fairly dull game after a while.




Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 22, 2011, 10:07:16 PM
I have two friends playing that are in a small corp, but I'll join the f13 channel for tips.

Gallente ships look ugly from the few I've seen.  I guess I'll have to look at them and see if there are any I like once in.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morfiend on June 22, 2011, 10:21:49 PM
Amarr are about the only ships that use lasers I think, but most Amarr ships are armor not shields.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Kageru on June 22, 2011, 10:29:05 PM
Gallente ships look ugly from the few I've seen.  I guess I'll have to look at them and see if there are any I like once in.

I agree entirely. Fortunately I hate pets so it worked out well.



Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morfiend on June 22, 2011, 10:32:29 PM
Join the channel 'f13', get tips. bug Sam to answer a constant stream of questions. This game sucks if you try to play it by yourself.

Made some changes for emphasis.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Surlyboi on June 23, 2011, 02:13:32 AM
What's your toon's name? I'll log in to and give you shit.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Phildo on June 23, 2011, 03:15:14 AM
Amarr have some drone boats as well.  The arbitrator is a surprisingly good tech 1 cruiser.

Go Amarr over Gallente.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: eldaec on June 23, 2011, 03:40:47 AM
Gallente ships look ugly from the few I've seen.  I guess I'll have to look at them and see if there are any I like once in.

Unfortunately every ship in the game is ugly outside of Amarr.

Also post your character name to receive isk.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Thrawn on June 23, 2011, 05:01:08 AM
What's your toon's name? I'll log in to and give you shit.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Trigona on June 23, 2011, 05:37:35 AM
I think it takes a few months to get a character that is good fun, although there is lots of content for a newbie.  My advice is to pick a ship you want for PvE and concentrate on the skills required to fly it with the appropriate modules.  There is lots of info on various forums about the best way to fit any ship.  Once you have a PvE ship that makes you isk, then concentrate on a PvP ship using the same technique.

Excellent PvE ships include Ishtar (drones ftw), dominix (drones again) and Tengu (probably the best all rounder).  Drakes are a useful pit stop on the way to a Tengu and can be used in 0.0 to good effect.  I hate doing PvE with an underpowered ship, I would aim to get in a Drake as fast as possible and start blitzing missions

The worst mistake a new player makes imo is not being focused and wasting time on skills that are not on the "critical" path.  

You actually have the option to join Bat Country (probably, although it's not my decision).  This is really really good.  Bat Country are PvP focused and will look after you as a newbie.  The goons (which BAT are a part of) supply skill books, ships and lots of advice, they even have a 60 day training scheme which will create a useful character.  I would join them sooner rather than later if I had the choice.

One good skill to have in 0.0 is salvaging in a destroyer - a good way to make isk.  As soon as you can do that I would apply to join.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Numtini on June 23, 2011, 05:56:37 AM
One of the unfortunate realities of Eve is the designers are more concerned with walking in stations and nerfing jump bridges to tend to anything like... balance. So while you may be attracted to a certain race, it's a game where minmaxing (or perhaps better put Minmatar-maxing) is virtually necessary.

I'd train for a Rifter and join BAT.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Kageru on June 23, 2011, 07:26:48 AM

The worst mistake a new player makes imo is not being focused and wasting time on skills that are not on the "critical" path.  


I tend to differ. While you are in empire it's worth exploring lots of parts of the game and training up a bunch of stuff to experiment. The stuff that takes massive amounts of time to train is level V and especially level V of skills that will come later. In the meantime train up some industry skills and build something, shoot an asteroid, play with the different weapon systems. You won't know what you want to focus on initially and waiting makes early eve boring.

That said, a good ratting boat is going to be funding everything else :)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: JWIV on June 23, 2011, 07:42:01 AM
Never stop flying Rifters.    They're ridiculously fun.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: tgr on June 23, 2011, 07:56:48 AM
Hurricanes are hilarious for podkillings. :drill:


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 23, 2011, 08:19:27 AM
I tend to differ. While you are in empire it's worth exploring lots of parts of the game and training up a bunch of stuff to experiment. The stuff that takes massive amounts of time to train is level V and especially level V of skills that will come later. In the meantime train up some industry skills and build something, shoot an asteroid, play with the different weapon systems. You won't know what you want to focus on initially and waiting makes early eve boring.
I'm an explorer by heart, so while I may have a couple of areas I focus on, I will dabble in other areas.  That'll keep me interested.

Kylantha Fulgens.  Mimitar (the tinkers appealed to me).


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Murgos on June 23, 2011, 09:25:55 AM
This game sucks if you try to play it by yourself.

Made some changes for emphasis.

Honestly, it's not much better when you play it with others either.  The forum?  Those can be fun.  Vent?  That can be a blast.  Heck, even chat has it's moments.  But the game itself?  Not so much.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Merusk on June 23, 2011, 09:31:35 AM
Watching videos of other people flying around in EVE gives me more entertainment per min than anything I ever did in Eve, save the few Bat Country "let's kill random people" events I went on.

I don't even bother to login when they send me free time anymore, and I used to do that just to ooh and ahh at my ships.  They're very pretty, too bad anything fun requires huge time sinks.  (And yes, refitting a ship is a time sink.)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morfiend on June 23, 2011, 10:28:55 AM
Kylantha Fulgens.  Mimitar (the tinkers appealed to me).

If i'm online ill be in the f13 channel and will gladly answer any questions I can. Ether Morfiend Va or Alex Vaunt.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 23, 2011, 01:11:25 PM
Sure.  Tip question one, is how do I get into the f13 chat channel?


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morfiend on June 23, 2011, 02:09:52 PM
Sure.  Tip question one, is how do I get into the f13 chat channel?

If you look to your chat window. Top right of the window there should be a little white chat bubble looking button, click that, then it will open a new window, in that window type "f13" then click the button that says Join.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Fordel on June 23, 2011, 02:41:17 PM
The only thing I would keep in mind with training for the Arbiter, is it can be a 'dead end' for a drone user. Amarr doesn't have any other frames that run drones outside of the Arby and it's T2 spin offs. I seriously doubt you'll actually play that long for it to matter, but it's a consideration.


Other wise the only two realistic drone boat options are the Arbiter (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Arbitrator) (Amarr) and the Vexor (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Vexor) (Gallente), both are affordable cruisers that are amazingly flexible and will easily carry you through most any activity you'd want to do in your first few months.

The two ships are virtually identical, the key differences are the Hybrid Turret bonus on the Vexor and it's four turret slots, compared to a disruptor bonus on the Arby (which you won't care about for awhile probably) and it's two turret slots and 1 missile slot. The Vexor is going to be a better miner and put out more damage with the right guns, but the arby will let you fiddle with a little of everything EVE has to offer ship wise, something your snowflake nature will love   :oh_i_see:


One thing to note, is both Amarr and gallente ships usually favor armor tanks, instead of shield tanks, but you should be able to make a shield tank work on the Arby since it has an extra Mid slot. Still probably better as an armor tank though, lasers + shields on a ship without bonuses for either might over tax your capacitor.



If you intend to go into bigger ships, the big drone boats are the Myrmidon (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Myrmidon) and the Dominix (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Dominix)

If you intend to stay in the smaller classes, then you'll be looking at the Tech2 frames for the Arby and Vexor, which are very very expensive last I checked.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on June 23, 2011, 08:43:16 PM
I don't know how much ships have changed since I gave the game a try years ago, but the most fun I had while playing was flying my little Ishkur (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Ishkur).  Basically a Vexor in a much more nimble frigate shell.  It would take a lot longer to train for, though. 

I also had a passive shield tanked Myrmidon, which was basically a Gallente ghetto version of a Drake that killed things with drones instead of missiles.  It was slow and boring but with small lasers on the hardpoints (because I hated dealing with ammo, the small ones didn't hurt the passive tank and they were only there to kill frigates anyway) it could run any mission except for the harder level 4s pretty easily.  At least it could a few years ago.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Fordel on June 23, 2011, 10:11:45 PM
The Ishkur is a rad little frigate that can handle a surprising amount of content, but it's skill requirements are probably not in reach for the time being and it costs like 4-6x's as much as a Vexor or Arby and it doesn't really handle anything that the other two couldn't. The few deadspace pockets (dungeons Lanty), that the Crusiers won't fit into, aren't going to be worth the effort for anyone flying a Ishkur either way.

It's also way more constrained in terms of drone bay and cargo space and fitting, doesn't really come into it's own until your skills really start hitting those high marks.



Under sizing the guns on the cruisers is probably a good idea either way, to help with fittings and the simple fact lvl 1 and 2 missions are 99% frigs regardless.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: proudft on June 24, 2011, 12:20:52 AM
My favorite ship for the week or so I played was this one: http://eve.wikia.com/wiki/Thrasher

90% of my love for it was because the bow looked like a diesel locomotive.   But it was handy for salvaging, and I was able to get it pretty quickly.



Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 24, 2011, 06:16:20 AM
So far the Slasher is fun.  It's a total newbie ship, but I like the look.  I should have a Rifter I can fit into today.  That'll hold me until I can get some of the certs I need for bigger ships and drones to play with.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morfiend on June 24, 2011, 08:50:10 AM
So far the Slasher is fun.  It's a total newbie ship, but I like the look.  I should have a Rifter I can fit into today.  That'll hold me until I can get some of the certs I need for bigger ships and drones to play with.

I believe you get a free Rifter when you finish the newbie combat tutorial, but that might have changed.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: JWIV on June 24, 2011, 09:31:15 AM
You get a ton of free ships and skillbooks in the tutorial.  At least in the caldari one, I even got a free Cormorant.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on June 24, 2011, 12:21:24 PM
The Ishkur is a rad little frigate that can handle a surprising amount of content, but it's skill requirements are probably not in reach for the time being and it costs like 4-6x's as much as a Vexor or Arby and it doesn't really handle anything that the other two couldn't. The few deadspace pockets (dungeons Lanty), that the Crusiers won't fit into, aren't going to be worth the effort for anyone flying a Ishkur either way.

It's also way more constrained in terms of drone bay and cargo space and fitting, doesn't really come into it's own until your skills really start hitting those high marks.



Under sizing the guns on the cruisers is probably a good idea either way, to help with fittings and the simple fact lvl 1 and 2 missions are 99% frigs regardless.

The Ishkur isn't about efficiency, it's about fun!  I was able to do L3s in it, when I didn't feel like sleepwalking through them on the Myrmidon.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Ingmar on June 24, 2011, 12:23:32 PM
I used whatever the noob-ish Caldari destroyer was (Cormorant?) which was probably terrible but looked cool.  :awesome_for_real:

That was way before whatever the new newbie experience is now, perhaps I will give it a try at some point again.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on June 24, 2011, 12:27:21 PM
All the horror stories about 0.0 being nothing but supercap blobs kills whatever small chance there was of me giving it another go.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: tgr on June 24, 2011, 12:49:01 PM
All the horror stories about 0.0 being nothing but supercap blobs kills whatever small chance there was of me giving it another go.
It's only supercap blobs if you get into SOV slapfights, or moongoo slapfights. We've got hilarious battlecruiser roams which work just fine.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 24, 2011, 08:26:04 PM
You get a ton of free ships and skillbooks in the tutorial.  At least in the caldari one, I even got a free Cormorant.
I've got freighters coming out of all my ports.  One crafting tutorial quest has you build a Burst, but the print can do five if you're paying attention.  So I have two Slashers, six Bursts, a Rifter, and two Wreaths.  Since I have one tutorial and the final few missions on another to go, I've probably got more ships on the way.  I qualify for the Rifter in two hours. ;D

A lot of skill books as JWIV says, too.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on June 24, 2011, 08:46:07 PM
Didn't I read somewhere they got rid of the Learning skills?  If that's so, you're very lucky.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Kageru on June 24, 2011, 08:48:02 PM

shush, they'll never need to know.

(yes, they're gone, thank heavens).


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 24, 2011, 09:18:19 PM
Oh, the advanced combat tutorial is about to give me a Thrasher now.  Waiting to get my cert before taking the mission though.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Kageru on June 24, 2011, 09:55:32 PM

The certs should be regarded with a certain degree of suspicion. If you read the skills they often have things that fit in the group but are a bit meh or only needed later.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on June 24, 2011, 10:25:25 PM
Save that Thrasher even after you move up to cruisers.  Thrasher's make awesome salvage ships.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on June 25, 2011, 05:10:04 AM
Oh, I save all my ships.  I'm crazy like that.
The certs should be regarded with a certain degree of suspicion. If you read the skills they often have things that fit in the group but are a bit meh or only needed later.
Sorry.  Still learning terminology.  I should have the skills to pilot it now.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Numtini on June 25, 2011, 05:57:11 AM
Thrasher is also a favorite of hulkageddon.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: palmer_eldritch on June 25, 2011, 06:37:28 AM
Having said that, it is worth looking at the certificates, even if you don't follow them religiously. They'll point out basic stuff like "you want to train lasers for this ship, not missiles" or "you want to train shields for this ship, not armour". You may well be smart enough to figure that stuff out anyway, but I know I wasn't when I was a newbie. I was all about the shield skills with my Gallente pilot, because they had shields in Star Trek.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Stabs on June 26, 2011, 04:47:52 AM
I've just got back into Eve after several months of trying other games and I'm really enjoying it. What is noticeably different about Eve is that actions fit into a wider context. In most games it doesn't really matter what you do but in Eve you can quite easily cause a ripple effect. Mining ore in some quiet spot, making ammo and selling lots of it locally might attract an ecosystem of pvpers glad to have a reliable source of cheap ammo which in turn might make your quiet spot less safe to mine ore in.

Most individual activities in Eve are not especially fun if you take them out of context. Fly to an enemy turn on your guns, watch youtube for a couple of minutes, collect loot. Meh. But where it becomes fun is in the context, the long range planning and so on.

(An exception is exploration which is a three dimensional puzzle minigame which is quite interesting to play for its own same - a 3D bejewelled with isk at the end. That's quite advanced though, effectively it's hardmode Eve.)

One medium term goal I would recommend to you is getting to join Incursion fleets. These are pug raids although a lot easier than pug raiding in WoW or Rift. They pay out a lot of isk and are very social and reasonably safe if you stick to high sec.

One last tip. When I first started flying in dangerous space I would always get podded when someone killed me. Then I discovered how to keep the pod a lot safer. If you realise you're going to lose your ship select a celestial several AU away and spam the Warp To button while your ship dies. It's a lot easier to take losing a ship if you don't also lose your implants.

Fly safe! I'll hop into the F13 channel and say Hi, I'd forgotten there was one.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 06, 2011, 11:06:42 AM
Still enjoying the game, and I've learned enough to at least have a basic understanding of things.

Though I'm Minmitar, I've been working on the Caldari ship lines.  (And a smattering of everything else.  Veterans would probably faint at all the 'useless' skills I've trained.)  I rather like mixing in probing, salvaging, and a bit of mining with combat.  [Too damn many wormholes and too few other anomalies though.]

I've got an Osprey for mining, a Caracal for missions and anomalies, and the skills for a Drake or Ferox, with the ability to fit into a Scorpion in five days.  People keep telling me I shouldn't fly a battleship yet, though they kind of shrug and deflect with "I'm warning you not to...", which isn't really helpful to me understanding why.

My thinking is if I can do a Tier 2 mission in a cruiser, I can certainly do it in a battleship and carefully move up as I get it fitted and learn more support skills.  I'm not taking it out into low-sec and I know how to warp out should I be getting overwhelmed.  But they seem to want me in that Drake first, which would be 20 million ISK or 1/3 of the minerals I could put towards the Scorpion.

What is y'all's thinking on this, and if you agree the battlecruiser is the better route to go first, why?  I don't mind listening to reasons if they help me understand the game better, I'd just like something more solid than "because".


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Numtini on July 06, 2011, 12:15:03 PM
You'd be better off going into battlecruisers because the Caldari Drake is a great ship. It's just an incredible tank.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 06, 2011, 12:51:49 PM
It does look nice, but other than it taking five more days and 40 or so million more I don't have to obtain, how is a Drake > Scorpion?  (Or a Rokh, but I like the Scorpion's look more.)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: ajax34i on July 06, 2011, 03:00:52 PM
The Scorpion is a battleship (that means slow, ponderous, you need to tank it up to defend it cause it can't dodge), and it's an electronic warfare battleship (the bonuses listed in the description all have to do with jamming the enemy's targetting), which means two things:

a.  You don't get any bonuses to damage like with DPS-oriented ships (it also fits fewer guns).
b.  You're not supposed to fit many guns, and are supposed to fit electronic warfare modules and jam the enemies.

The Rokh is a battleship designed for damage at long range with railguns (note the bonuses to range that it has).  It has enough powergrid and CPU to fit a full rack of weapons, and/or some defenses, but railguns are meh/average in terms of how good a weapon system they're considered to be, at the moment.  They hit far, but in a lot of cases combat happens at closer ranges (so you lose the advantage that the ship has bonuses for).

The Drake, on the other hand, is a battlecruiser, which means a few things:

a.  It's (slightly) faster than a battleship.
b.  It uses medium weaponry (in this case, missiles), which typically takes less time to train for T2 than the large weaponry battleships require.
c.  It's cheaper.

The Drake is also popular because it has a straightforward fitting plan (put in the shields, put in the missiles), has built-in resistances, and missiles are relatively easy to train for and don't have the same tracking issues that guns have.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on July 06, 2011, 03:02:03 PM
I never used missile ships but if Caldari battleships are anything like Gallente or Minmatar, you'll have to train up all new weapons to get the most out of your battleship or else use weapons you would use on the battlecruiser anyway.  And battleship weapons have a hard time hitting small ships, so you wouldn't want to use large weapons in a L2 mission.  Plus if I remember correctly, battlecruisers have more high slots than battlehips so you can fit more medium weapons on it.  And they're faster than the slow ass battleships.  

And when you finally do move into L4s with a battleship, you can use the battecruiser as a salvage salvage ship if you don't feel like warping out whenever the destroyer hold is full.  Or even just fit a couple of salvage modules in a pair of the many, many high slots if you just want to salvage as you go.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Sir T on July 06, 2011, 03:10:41 PM
Missiles don't have tracking issues but do less damage the smaller and faster the target is, up to a certain maximum level that tepends on the missile. Don't bother lobbing torpedos at a frig, but the Drakes heavy missile batteries (or assault missile batteries if you want to save some power) will do fine.

Dont bother with thise heavy assault missile batteries or whatever they are called.

*edit* The advantage the Scorp has is that you can fit a massive shield tank on it. No other battleship has 8 mid slots so you can wrap yourself in a massive safe bubble. You can use your medium missile weapons on a battleship as well if youwant


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 06, 2011, 04:56:42 PM
That was my thinking, Sir T.  Put it in a protective little shield cocoon and use as many missiles as I can, then put the rest into turrets.

But y'all actually gave me reasons, so thanks.  I think I will start with the Drake, as soon as I can afford it.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Sir T on July 06, 2011, 05:24:44 PM
has anyone esplained passive shield tanking to you? You will need to understand that for a drake

Put simply your shield recharge rate is not linear. its fastest when the shield is at 30% then drops off rapidly. So you want to keep your shield in the middle third if HP. Same for your capacitor.

But the time it takes to recharge is also constant, so if you increase the amount of shield you also increase the amount it recharges per second, sometimes more than a dedicated recharge speed module.

These 2 things are key to understand to build a good shield tank. So don't be discouraged if the enemies wipe off your first third of the shield really quickly. Its the next third that tells you if they are breaking your tank.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 06, 2011, 06:36:51 PM
I more or less understand it.  The intricacies I'm learning, but even my Rifter was effectively a shield tank against T1 stuff.  (One of my first loots was an invulnerability shield and some nice extenders. ;D)

With a loan I got into the Drake and moved over my components.  Going to take it on the test run soon, but I'm pretty confident it'll do just fine with the content I was doing before.  Once I'm comfortable with it, I'll push a little more.  14k hp, 35 hp/s regen, lowest resist 50% and cap stable.  That's without shopping for a couple of upgrades, so I've got room to grow.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on July 06, 2011, 07:02:52 PM
There was a good ship fitting 3rd party program I liked to fool around with before actually fitting out a ship.  Probably something you might want to look at, to fool around with how modules will affect your ship without actually having to buy them.  Eve Fitting Tool I think it was called, but I don't know if that one has been kept up with.  I'm sure there are others around if it hasn't been.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Thrawn on July 06, 2011, 07:17:36 PM
There was a good ship fitting 3rd party program I liked to fool around with before actually fitting out a ship.  Probably something you might want to look at, to fool around with how modules will affect your ship without actually having to buy them.  Eve Fitting Tool I think it was called, but I don't know if that one has been kept up with.  I'm sure there are others around if it hasn't been.

Eve Fitting Tool should just install automatically with EVE.  You almost need it to play the game if you fly any ships.  EVEMon is an equally useful tool for planning and tracking your skill training.  You can even fit out a ship just how you want it in EFT, then import that setup right into EVEMon to have it tell you what you need to train to fly it and lay out a plan for you.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Brolan on July 06, 2011, 08:43:17 PM
has anyone esplained passive shield tanking to you? You will need to understand that for a drake

Put simply your shield recharge rate is not linear. its fastest when the shield is at 30% then drops off rapidly. So you want to keep your shield in the middle third if HP. Same for your capacitor.

But the time it takes to recharge is also constant, so if you increase the amount of shield you also increase the amount it recharges per second, sometimes more than a dedicated recharge speed module.

These 2 things are key to understand to build a good shield tank. So don't be discouraged if the enemies wipe off your first third of the shield really quickly. Its the next third that tells you if they are breaking your tank.


All you have to understand about the Drake is that is very tough and very cheap for a Battlecruiser.  You can afford to lose a few while making newbie mistakes.  Buy a dozen.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: eldaec on July 07, 2011, 02:57:31 AM
Just on battleships, the Raven is what you eventually move too on your current path (pve missile BS). But you don't want or need to worry about that until level 4 missions.

Something you should start to think about if you are missioning is datacores.

Are you missioning for a research corporation? (if you are you'll be able to activate a modest passive income by having a research agent generate datacores once you reach L4)

If not you should probably consider swapping to one.



Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Numtini on July 07, 2011, 04:09:18 AM
I'm very fond of Eve HQ which is a skill planner and a fitting tool. What I like as compared to Eve FT and the other planner is I can import a ship fit directly into a training queue with one click.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 07, 2011, 05:51:15 AM
All you have to understand about the Drake is that is very tough and very cheap for a Battlecruiser.  You can afford to lose a few while making newbie mistakes.  Buy a dozen.
Send me money and I shall! :-P

I've been using both EVEmon and the fitting tool.  I'll give EVE HQ a try.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Engels on July 07, 2011, 08:54:15 AM
I've recently gotten back into EVE, and although I fly Amarr ships, I had a similar problem. I had an Amarr battle cruiser (Harbinger), wanted an Apocalypse, but people kept saying I shouldn't without really explaining. Finally a friend gave me an Apoc and now I sort of understand where they are coming from.

For tier 2 missions, either one will be just fine. For tier 3 and above, however, there are a lot of skills needed to make a battleship survivable in, say, When Worlds Collide. You need good capacitor skills. You need drone skills to take on the frigates that web/scramble you. You need the DPS to get rid of their cruiser class DPS fairly quickly.

In a cruiser, your signature is smaller and you're a bit more agile. Your medium turrets can potentially land blows on frigates.

Essentially, there are all sorts of nested dependencies that add up to making a battleship survivable whereas you can get away with a lot more in a battle cruiser, and if you die, you are out 20 mil, not 100 mil.

Don't get me wrong, I take out my Apoc for missions, but always as support to my friend's Tengu, never solo. Or not yet. Still need to get my skills up. 1 more day till Hull Repair 5 :)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morat20 on July 07, 2011, 01:01:52 PM
I went up the Gallente line (Space Whales!) and had a blast. The Vexor was probably the most fun, but the Dominix (that's the Battleship, right? It's been awhile) has such a ridiculously giant drone bay that L4's, for the most part, are no-brainers. A very few had me warping in and out, but not many.

A few armor hardeners (mostly passives), a really good T2 armor rep, and the top-end Sentry, Heavy, Medium, and Light drones. It was fun to anchor at 80k away, deploy Warden II's or something and blow the crap out of every heavy ship before it got close. Then scoop them and drop Hob 2s or something to blast away the frigates and cruisers.

I always found it funny that doing L3s and higher meant "clear the pockets, then go back to station, swap to a destroyer running 3 or 4 salvagers side by side with tractor beams, and salvage/loot". Of course, everyone did that. :)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: ajax34i on July 07, 2011, 01:12:04 PM
Yeah, the battleship, just by itself and without good modules and good skills, isn't a tough ship that'll last long even against frigates.  You need to train your support / defense skills for it, because it only has one option - to sit there and take the DPS that's thrown at it.  On the other hand, with the smaller ships you may be able to speed-tank, or stay outside enemy range, instead of relying on shields/armor, so you'd need fewer skillpoints to be able to survive.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 07, 2011, 03:34:04 PM
That's all I really wanted to know.  All I got was "trust me", which is one of my biggest peeves.  I need to understand these things, otherwise it just encourages me to try it so I can figure it out on my own.

Really liking the Drake.  Only the first Recon (1 of 3) has put a dent in my shields.  I could have cleared it if I really wanted, but I'll wait until I'm fully equipped.

Of course I have now decided that I think I do want to go for a Megathron.  I really like drones and it's one of the better looking battleships (stupid Gallente have ugly ships otherwise).  So another week will be wasted getting skilled for it.  I'll still work on Caldari Battleships though since I'm close and I do like the looks of the Scorpion and the damage resist of the Rokh.  That'd let me swap between the two as my whims desire.  Not optimal, but that's how I play and EVE actually lets me do it.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on July 07, 2011, 03:41:07 PM
The one thing you have going for you by crosstraining Gallente and Caldari is they both use hybrid turrets.  Unfortunately, Caldari primarily use shield tanks and Gallente armor tanks, so that's a lot of extra training there.  Plus the drone training for Gallente and missile training for Caldari.  Once you get where you want to be it'll be great, but getting there will take a while.

It's funny you think Gallente have ugly ships and went Caldari, since I personally thing Caldari have by far the ugliest ships in Eve.  Asymmetrical and angular for the most part.  I always thought Gallente were the second best looking ships on average behind the Amarri, with a lot of smooth, almost organic looks.  Though the Dominix has the well deserved nickname of 'the flying potato'.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 07, 2011, 03:54:08 PM
There are a lot of Caldari ships I don't like (and Minmitar).  Amarr are the only ones I like the majority of.  For Gallente the "fat man" and Megathron are it.  For Caldari there's a frigate or two, the Caracal, the Drake and Ferox, and the Scorpion.  Minmitar has several smaller ships I like (love the Rifter), but not much for their bigger ones.

The ones I really like the look of are the Blood Raider ships.  My pirate alt will be going for those.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: palmer_eldritch on July 07, 2011, 04:24:06 PM
There are a lot of Caldari ships I don't like (and Minmitar).  Amarr are the only ones I like the majority of.  For Gallente the "fat man" and Megathron are it.  For Caldari there's a frigate or two, the Caracal, the Drake and Ferox, and the Scorpion.  Minmitar has several smaller ships I like (love the Rifter), but not much for their bigger ones.

The ones I really like the look of are the Blood Raider ships.  My pirate alt will be going for those.

I'm not sure you'd really want to use a ship as expensive as that in PvP (the Blood Raider cruiser will cost around 150m for example) but don't let me stop you. You could always just fly it in Empire saying "arr me hearties" and use a different ship for fighting.

A drake is a fine ship. Once you get your skills up, you can take it ratting and to do anomalies in 0.0 without any problems too.

If you remind us what your character name is I suspect people will happily give you a little isk.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 07, 2011, 04:42:12 PM
The Fulgens 'twins', Kylantha and Ailuria.

I'm okay on money though since there are no immediate purchases I need to make now.  Several people gave me some to get me started.  I'd have a lot more if I didn't make a ship purchase that I ended up giving to a friend because they'd get better use out of it.  (Though if anyone really has ISK burning a hole in their pocket, I won't refuse it. ;D)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Thrawn on July 07, 2011, 05:03:24 PM
Though if anyone really has ISK burning a hole in their pocket, I won't refuse it. ;D

Not if you're just going to give it away to someone else.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: ajax34i on July 07, 2011, 06:37:10 PM
The Megathron is not really a drone ship...  All (most?) battleships have the capacity to field drones, so they can defend themselves against small/fast frigates, which battleship guns cannot hit at all.  The Dominix is a drone ship (it has bonuses to drones and a HUGE drone bay).  The Megathron is a somewhat versatile gunship, in that you can either do long range with railguns, or short range with blasters and a microwarpdrive, and/or armor-tank it up decently.

As far as weapons, every race has long range guns and short range guns, with the short range doing much more damage than the long range (but you must be able to get close, using a MWD, which is not allowed in PVE deadspace areas, so it's mostly PVP fits).  Blasters used to be the kings of facemelting DPS, but due to the nerfs to speed and webifiers, it is now pretty hard to get into the (less than 1km) blaster range and stay there.

Don't forget to consider DPS-enhancing modules such as Magnetic Field Stabilizers (2 in the low slots) when you fit a DPS ship, as well as different ammo types.

Also don't forget to train for overheating - temporarily overheating your armor repairers or shield boosters will often save your ship (by letting you warp out of a bad situation).  Battleships take forever to align and warp out, it's often a good idea to overheat your tank as you sit there for 13 seconds aligning.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 07, 2011, 07:20:53 PM
Not if you're just going to give it away to someone else.  :oh_i_see:
:cry:

It wasn't intentional.  I gave the ship a good home rather than sell it for decimals on the ISK.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morat20 on July 07, 2011, 09:34:46 PM
I like drones. Drones are easy. I fit the Domi to armor tank, and then if small speedy things are flying at me I unleash T2 light drones. If it's battleships, I shoot them from far away with Warden II's or Ogre IIs (I think those are the heavys).

Heck, with the drone skills I had I could eat face with medium drones. I pretty much maxed out my armor tank and drone skills. I think I was angling towards stealth bombers when I quit last time. I was pretty close, I could fly Cov-ops and loved that -- I think I was just finishing up the missile skills.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Nevermore on July 07, 2011, 09:41:16 PM
Battleships take forever to align and warp out, it's often a good idea to overheat your tank as you sit there for 13 seconds aligning.

Or better yet, get into the habit of aligning towards some celestial object if you can when doing missions, so if things go bad you can just warp out to said object instead of having to align then.  Planets or moons are your best bets in Empire, as belts will likely have rats of their own in them.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morat20 on July 07, 2011, 09:45:12 PM
Battleships take forever to align and warp out, it's often a good idea to overheat your tank as you sit there for 13 seconds aligning.

Or better yet, get into the habit of aligning towards some celestial object if you can when doing missions, so if things go bad you can just warp out to said object instead of having to align then.  Planets or moons are your best bets in Empire, as belts will likely have rats of their own in them.
Oh yeah, I did that as a matter of course. Warp in, align on my "run the fuck away" target, deploy appropriate drones. Active armor tank once my shields were gone.

I admit, Battleships are sluggish as hell. I liked my Myrmidion -- had a good balance. Just not tough enough for L4's.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Sir T on July 08, 2011, 03:50:32 PM
Also kill frigates as they can stop you warping off.

I wound up doing L4 missions in an Eos command ship just out of style and boredom last I played. There was a couple that were actually fairly hard even in that, but at least I could watch TV while grinding for the most part.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 08, 2011, 07:47:02 PM
First clone death today.  I took Aluria out to see if I could run some missions for Serpentis or the Archangels.  Some Russian took out my Rifter in seconds, then went for the pod kill.  No ransom attempt or anything, just death.

Thankfully I went into it expecting to die horribly.  Used the insurance money to buy a blueprint so I can make more whenever I need.

I think I'd want to be more established to join BC out in space, if the goon systems even hold, but if I can only make it two hops in 0.0 space, I have no clue how someone could make it out that far into low-sec.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Thrawn on July 08, 2011, 08:10:56 PM
I think I'd want to be more established to join BC out in space

This is a common mistake, if you prefer to play in empire play in empire.  But if 0.0 interests you and you want to play with the BC people then join, and join now.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 08, 2011, 09:55:51 PM
I don't see how one could make it that far without being established.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Thrawn on July 08, 2011, 10:02:23 PM
I don't see how one could make it that far without being established.

Set your clone to a Goon station, undock, self destruct your pod, spawn in Goon station.  (unless they've changed that)

Say you are new, get everything you need thrown at you for free.  Join a fleet and tackle something big in a rifter!  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Surlyboi on July 08, 2011, 10:06:41 PM
Give me a couple of days. Incarna fucked my install something awful and now I've got to do a full reinstall and hope for the best. Once I'm in, I'll throw you a decent pile of cash.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Morat20 on July 08, 2011, 10:43:07 PM
I don't see how one could make it that far without being established.
You obviously need a corp, but you can be productive flying tackling frigates, or sucking up and playing miner with escorts. :)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Reg on July 09, 2011, 12:38:59 AM
They're right. Join up now.  If you wait until you think you're established you just take the risk of burning out on the whole game. Plus, once you're out there you'll feel dumb for having waited so long.  :grin:


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Elaen Todir on July 09, 2011, 05:06:19 AM
We have bootcamps and mentor programs to teach you everything you need to know.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: palmer_eldritch on July 09, 2011, 05:47:13 AM
Yeah, just to spell out what you need to do:

Apply to Bat Country. When you are accepted, go to a station and use the medical facilities to change the location of your medical clone. You should see a station called S-DNSM IX in the list. That is your new home, so choose that as the place to put your clone. While Empire stations belong to NPCs, that station belongs to us.

Leave your ship so that you are in a pod and then leave the station. Wait 20 seconds or so, and then right click your capacitor (the orange circle at the bottom of your screen). Choose "self destruct".

You wake up in Bat Country, where they love noobies. (Don't forget to buy a new clone once you get there)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Kageru on July 09, 2011, 06:01:21 AM

Have some allies (though lazy ones) as opposed to be flying through gates into the waiting traps of bored low-sec gate campers. Lose *free* rifters while you work out wtf. Get to see a titan, probably from the pointy end, but hell.. that's fun too.




Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Brolan on July 09, 2011, 06:09:48 AM
Yeah, just to spell out what you need to do:

Apply to Bat Country. When you are accepted, go to a station and use the medical facilities to change the location of your medical clone. You should see a station called S-DNSM IX in the list. That is your new home, so choose that as the place to put your clone. While Empire stations belong to NPCs, that station belongs to us.

Leave your ship so that you are in a pod and then leave the station. Wait 20 seconds or so, and then right click your capacitor (the orange circle at the bottom of your screen). Choose "self destruct".

You wake up in Bat Country, where they love noobies. (Don't forget to buy a new clone once you get there)

Just be sure to finish any business you have in High-sec first.  Once you join BC you will be the target of any wardecs the goons have on them.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 09, 2011, 06:23:09 AM
I don't see how one could make it that far without being established.
You obviously need a corp, but you can be productive flying tackling frigates, or sucking up and playing miner with escorts. :)
I meant physically getting there.  I didn't realize I could set my clone to a station I wasn't at.

Then I'll see about taking care of my high-sec business, sell off the assets I don't need or won't ever want to return for, then go blow myself up.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Kageru on July 09, 2011, 06:43:12 AM

Eventually you'll probably want a high-sec alt in a neutral starter corp to buy stuff, move it around and organize shipping to your main. So you can leave material in Empire and contract it to them or just leave it in storage.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 09, 2011, 07:39:33 AM
Ailuria is my alt.  My main is in a neutral corp working in Caldari space.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Thrawn on July 09, 2011, 08:11:19 AM
Ailuria is my alt.  My main is in a neutral corp working in Caldari space.

SPY! :ye_gods:

(sorry, couldn't help it)


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Stabs on July 09, 2011, 10:49:13 AM
Ailuria is my alt.  My main is in a neutral corp working in Caldari space.

SPY! :ye_gods:

(sorry, couldn't help it)

Hmm.

Sounds like the sort of thing a spy would say to deflect suspicion.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: tgr on July 09, 2011, 01:35:12 PM
Ailuria is my alt.  My main is in a neutral corp working in Caldari space.

SPY! :ye_gods:

(sorry, couldn't help it)

Hmm.

Sounds like the sort of thing a spy would say to deflect suspicion.
This sounds like something a spy would say to deflect suspicion.


Title: Re: Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me
Post by: Lantyssa on July 09, 2011, 02:12:33 PM
Now I feel like one of you.

I'm totally a spy.  I'm not telling y'all whether it's for or against BC though. ;D