Newbie - Please Don't Pod Me

[Kageru]

shush, they'll never need to know.

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

[Lantyssa]

Oh, the advanced combat tutorial is about to give me a Thrasher now.  Waiting to get my cert before taking the mission though.

[Kageru]

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.

[Nevermore]

Save that Thrasher even after you move up to cruisers.  Thrasher's make awesome salvage ships.

[Lantyssa]

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.

[Numtini]

Thrasher is also a favorite of hulkageddon.

[palmer_eldritch]

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.

[Stabs]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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".

[Numtini]

You'd be better off going into battlecruisers because the Caldari Drake is a great ship. It's just an incredible tank.

[Lantyssa]

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.)

[ajax34i]

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.

[Nevermore]

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.

[Sir T]

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

[Lantyssa]

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.

[Sir T]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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. )

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.

[Nevermore]

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.

[Thrawn]

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.

[Brolan]

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.

[eldaec]

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.

[Numtini]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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!

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

[Engels]

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 :)

[Morat20]

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. :)

[ajax34i]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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.

[Nevermore]

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'.

[Lantyssa]

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.

[palmer_eldritch]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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. )

[Thrawn]

Though if anyone really has ISK burning a hole in their pocket, I won't refuse it.

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

[ajax34i]

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.

[Lantyssa]

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

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

[Morat20]

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.