At a Crossroads (racial ship lines)

[WayAbvPar]

I am having some trouble deciding how to continue with my character. I am Gallente, and have Gallente Frigate skill III and Indy II. I have purchased all the other racial frig lines, but haven't trained them yet (same with the Destroyer skill). I have been flying Tristans, but got my 3rd or 4th one blown out of the sky last night screwing around somewhere I shouldn't have been  :-D

My problem is this- I can't bear the thought of outfitting another Tristan- I am just sick of it. Also, looking down the road a bit, I am not a huge fan of Gallente ships- something about the drones annoy me, even though I understand how useful and powerful they can be. I like the Tristan combo of missiles and guns- I don't want an all missile platform, plus everyone in the game seems to fly Caldari ships, and I want to be slightly different.

I would like a ship line that is effective from longer ranges (which is certainly not a Gallente strength), and that mixes guns (or beams) and missiles. Any thoughts? Can you guys give me some examples of ships you have flown and what you liked and didn't like?

I have just over a day left for my first learning skill to hit 5, so I am probably going to hold off on training anything new until tomorrow night (I may just do some mining/hauling tonight with my Indy). I want to start learning at least one other racial ship line after that. Help me decide!!

[Furiously]

I'm just one idiot. Thought I probably have enough for 2.

Go to the Market, select browse, select show even if not in region thingie, and compare all the cruisers. Because for the next 3-4 months that is likely what you will be driving around in.

Next thought. You will get blowed up again. If we ever do buy a BPO for a Caracal, you could save a ton of money replacing your ship if you had calamari cruisers... plus you get to go everywhere and yell, "Its a trap!"

[Raging Turtle]

The Rifter (Minmatar) is a hell of a ship, and cheap to replace.  You have a choice between missle turrents or projectiles, and either setup can work well.  Plenty of low and mid slots, and its a fast little bugger:  I get around 700 m/s with a cheap AB and nav 3 (almost 4!).  At that speed and with a webber, I can take NPC cruisers easily because once I'm in a tight 500m-1000m orbit I'm just too fast and close to hit.  NPC battlecruisers are doable as well.  Do stay away from large missle boats.

I'm post my setup in the pirate thread I'm going to make later today.

[Hoax]

I think you might want to go Minmatar working your way towards Battleships (instead of HAC/BC or Ceptor/AF) because most of their ships carry a mix of turret/missiles and the Typhoon (4 turrets 4 launchers) has a 10% range bonus per level of BShip which I believe is the only big ship that gets a sniper ship bonus.  With 1400mm large artillery turrets and Bship lvlIV that should be over 50km optimal range on your turrets.

On your way up the ship tree Minmatar will give you a pretty decent amount of flexability, but bear in mind I have never flown their ships or looked into them in too much detail.  So this is all theorycraft.

[Jamiko]

I started out with Caldari and I switched to the Minmitar ships because I like the way they looked and they are fast ships. The Rifter quickly became my favorite ship design (and it's fun to fly too). I currently fly a Rupture cruiser. Seems to have really nice range and I get a nice mix of missles and guns. The Rupture is great, level 2 combat missions are pretty easy with it.

Still, I do fly some Caldari ships on occasion because I had trained up to the Badger 2 indy. Since I can fly it, I just keep using it for hauling.

[Raging Turtle]

Although this is a few weeks away for my character, does anyone have opinions regarding whether I should move to a cruiser (Rupture, probably) or go to an AF (probably wolf)?  Keep in mind this is my pirate character 

[5150]

Sounds like youve backed yourself into the Minmatar corner, because Amar dont really do missiles IIRC and you dont want to fly Caldari........

[Merusk]

Way-

Are learning skills all you've been training thus far?  If so, that's why you've been experiencing such heavy ship losses.  I wouldn't hit those low-sec areas until you had all your support skills up to at least level 3 and you had access to T2 weaponry. Just MHO, though.

If you want guns & missiles, but dislike the Galliente, yah Matar is the way to go.  Amarr have missile slots, but since their weapons use capacitor to fire you'd want to fit some Nosferatu units in those extra high slots, not missiles.

I love my rifter,  LOVE IT.  So much in fact that I'd still pull it out to do missions when I got the battlecruiser.  It's also why I trained for a Wolf instead of starting to move on up to Battleships or refining my BC skills a little more.  Rupture is a lovely cruiser, too, once you get the hang of it.

If you're going to move on to battleships I wouldn't go Matar, though, and just struggle on through with Caldari.  The Raven is just UBER, IMO, far above and beyond anything else in it's class.  (And if you look at the # of battleships being flown, Raven is #2, only behind the Apoc which is used by lowsec solo miners and high sec jetcanners.)  The lack of falloff or range penalties to its main weapons is a HUGE bonus to the platform with only one weak hole, missiles don't hit small ships for full damage.  Target painters take care of the "damn small frigates" damage problem, though. 


-Turtle - I like my Wolf a lot, but if you're planning on solo ganking I think the Rupture will serve you better.  You can jam and web your prey, but in a wolf you're only going to do one or the other because it's only got 2 mid slots.   f you're going to find someone and squad up with them, I can see the Wolf being very very deadly.

-Hoax: Your theorycrafing holds out in terms of Matar flexibility. However, the price of that flexibility is no ship does anything REALLY well, and you have to train a lot of skills to make them effective.  There's a reason I didn't bother with L3 stuff until I had about 3miliion skill points.   (Well or it could be that I suck. I'm still not sure.)

[Megrim]

Yea, i'm pretty much in Jamiko's shoes. I started off as Caldari because of the nice Perception bonus and switched to Matar because of how the ships looked, and the fact that they were the only ones that seemed to mix weaponry well. Basically do what Fuiously said, compare everything up and see what you like in terms of visual aesthetic (Minni ships remind me of Reaver ships from Serenity so it's all ) and loadout options.

Atm, i'm flying a Bellicose with either 3x 650 artillery + 2x missile launchers/smartbombs, or 2x 650 artillery and 2x heavy launchers with heavy FoF missiles. The arty hits at between 17k-35k, which combined with the Minmatar ship speeds & afterburners means that i can orbit and/or run away at 550m/s while peppering the target from afar. Oh and it has 40m3 of drone space as well.

Alternatively, you can also outfit Matar ships for cqb (the Rupture is better at this) as they have lots of speed, and projectile turret bonuses can make you do nasty things with vulcan cannons.

[WayAbvPar]

My skills as they stand now-

Info                       Attributes
Antolin Vakalas                     Intelligence 11
Corporation- F13              Perception 14
Total Cash-4,989,904 ISK      Charisma   11
Total skill points- 435,969     Willpower 11
                                     Memory 10

Drones

Drones / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000- II
Scout Drone Operation / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000

·2 Drones skills trained, for a total of 2,830 skillPoints.


Electronics

Electronics / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

Electronics Upgrades / Rank 2 / SP: 2829 of 16000- II

Long Range Targeting / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Propulsion Jamming / Rank 3 / SP: 750 of 4243- I

Signature Analysis / Rank 1 / SP: 250 of 1415- I

Targeting / Rank 1 / SP: 250 of 1415- I

·6 Electronics skills trained, for a total of 12,579 skillPoints.


Engineering

Energy Emission Systems / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Energy Grid Upgrades / Rank 2 / SP: 2829 of 16000- II

Energy Management / Rank 3 / SP: 4243 of 24000- II

Energy Pulse Weapons / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Engineering / Rank 1 / SP: 8016 of 45255- III

Shield Management / Rank 3 / SP: 433 of 750- not fully trained to I yet

Shield Operation / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000- I

·7 Engineering skills trained, for a total of 17,936 skillPoints.


Gunnery

Controlled Bursts / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Gunnery / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

Motion Prediction / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Rapid Firing / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Sharpshooter / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Small Energy Turret / Rank 1 / SP: 256 of 1415- I

Small Hybrid Turret / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000- II

Weapon Upgrades / Rank 2 / SP: 2829 of 16000- II

·8 Gunnery skills trained, for a total of 14,500 skillPoints.


Industry

Industry / Rank 1 / SP: 250 of 1415- I

Mining / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000- II

Refining / Rank 1 / SP: 814 of 1415- I

·3 Industry skills trained, for a total of 2,479 skillPoints.


Leadership

Information Warfare / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Leadership / Rank 1 / SP: 250 of 1415- I

·2 Leadership skills trained, for a total of 750 skillPoints.


Learning

Analytical Mind / Rank 1 / SP: 45255 of 256000- IV

Empathy / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

Instant Recall / Rank 1 / SP: 187327 of 256000- IV ·Currently training to: level 5
·Time left: 1 days, 6 hours, 37 minutes, 24 seconds
·SP done: 37915 of 68673

Iron Will / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

Learning / Rank 1 / SP: 45255 of 256000- IV

Spatial Awareness / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

·6 Learning skills trained, for a total of 301,837 skillPoints.

Mechanic

Hull Upgrades / Rank 2 / SP: 2829 of 16000- II

Mechanic / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

Remote Armor Repair Systems / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Repair Systems / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000- II

·4 Mechanic skills trained, for a total of 12,744 skillPoints.


Missile Launcher Operation

Missile Bombardment / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Missile Launcher Operation / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000- II

Rockets / Rank 1 / SP: 1415 of 8000- II

Standard Missiles / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

·4 Missile Launcher Operation skills trained, for a total of 3,830 skillPoints.


Navigation

Afterburner / Rank 1 / SP: 701 of 1415- I

Navigation / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

Warp Drive Operation / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

·3 Navigation skills trained, for a total of 16,701 skillPoints.


Science

Cybernetics / Rank 3 / SP: 750 of 4243- I

Laboratory Operation / Rank 1 / SP: 1 of 250- untrained

Research / Rank 1 / SP: 7 of 250- untrained

Science / Rank 1 / SP: 8092 of 45255- III

·4 Science skills trained, for a total of 8,850 skillPoints.


Social

Connections / Rank 3 / SP: 750 of 4243- I

Negotiation / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Social / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

·3 Social skills trained, for a total of 9,250 skillPoints.


Spaceship Command

Amarr Frigate / Rank 2 / SP: 2 of 500- untrained

Caldari Frigate / Rank 2 / SP: 60 of 500- untrained

Destroyers / Rank 2 / SP: 35 of 500- untrained

Gallente Frigate / Rank 2 / SP: 16000 of 90510- III

Gallente Industrial / Rank 4 / SP: 5657 of 32000- II

Minmatar Frigate / Rank 2 / SP: 11 of 500- untrained

Spaceship Command / Rank 1 / SP: 8000 of 45255- III

·7 Spaceship Command skills trained, for a total of 29,765 skillPoints.


Trade

Broker Relations / Rank 2 / SP: 500 of 2829- I

Trade / Rank 1 / SP: 1418 of 8000- II

·2 Trade skills trained, for a total of 1,918 skillPoints.

I have reasonably broad but shallow skills for the most part.

[Yoru]

Caldari ships are certainly focused on missiles, but there are generally long-range gunship-missileboat hybrids available, and they tend to be more durable than their missile-boat cousins. Consider training both Minmatar Frigate and Caldari Frigate to 3 and trying out a Merlin and Rifter. It takes maybe a day to get frigate to 3 from nothing, and it'll give you a decent feel for what those two races emphasize. I haven't used guns since my noobler frigate-2 ship days, but railguns seemed pretty decent long-range weapons, although not comparable to the extreme ranges my missiles could travel.

Caldari ships seem to scale up directly: the Caracal is a Kestrel on crack and the Moa is a Merlin on meth. The Raven combines the best of both worlds, and it looks cool from a distance.

From what I've seen, the Caldari ships seem to hit from slightly farther away while Matari ships soak damage a bit better due to being armor tanks. Factor your preference for either not getting hit or being able to take lumps into your decision.

Really, we have enough pilots of both Caldari and Matari vessels that equipment, ammo and replacement ships should be much more readily available.

[Furiously]

I thought that Matari usually ending up shield/armor tanking.

[Polysorbate80]

I'll admit I have only a whopping two weeks of experience (all Caldari at that) but the main lesson I learned during that time was to get the heck out of the frigates into a ship that could mount a weapon with actual range to it :P

Maybe if your ship was sturdier than the average Caldari missile boat, you'd wanna charge on in...but I also like not having to chase down the little bastards.  Just stand 40k away, lock missiles, and re-start the launchers every time something dies.

This is, of course, vs. NPCs.  For PvP I mostly just ran away like a scared little girl, since I didn't run into a single player pirate who didn't outclass my cruiser by a large margin.

[Reg]

For crying out loud Way, take a break from the learning skills. Saving a few hours of training time isn't worth it if your skills aren't good enough to have fun.

At least train up other skills enough to competently fly the cruiser of your choice before going back to them.

[Der Helm]

The Rifter (Minmatar) is a hell of a ship, and cheap to replace.
*snip*.  At that speed and with a webber, I can take NPC cruisers easily because once I'm in a tight 500m-1000m orbit I'm just too fast and close to hit.  NPC battlecruisers are doable as well.  Do stay away from large missle boats.

I'm post my setup in the pirate thread I'm going to make later today.

Sounds like I found a way to pay for my assault frigate when I come back in a few  weeks.

[Wolf]

I'm originally Caldari, but I fly Gallente stuff and simply love it. I have zero experience for the other races, but I can give you several reasons to go Gallente.

Reason 1: If you like Drones. There's simply no other race if you want to play with drones extensivly. Both the Dominix and Ishtar are _the best drone carriers in the game_. Plus both of them are damn fine armor tanking machines. With that many low slots and the ability to use Nosferatus (beacause Drones are doing all the killing for you) you can literary tank for 10-20 minutes without running out of cap. Atm I'm flying a Vexor and running level 2 missions. My setup is (high-to-low) 2 Med Nosferatus, 2 Small Electron Blasters with AM ammo, drone link augmentor / tech II AB, 2 Cap Rechargers / Medium Armor Rep, 800mm Plate, 2 Hardners (depending on mission). I can launch 5 Drones (2 EM and 3 Explosive dmg types), and i simply RIP through missions. The only time I ran into trouble was when I had ~10 Frigates and an NPC moa (caldari Cruiser) shooting at me. And most of the problem was that I had the types of hardners wrong.

Reason 2: If you like hybrids. Galente get all the Hybrid Weapon bonuses. That was initally why I went for their ships anyway. I love Blasters, and MWDs, and Gallente have the only cruiser that has a reduction to the MWD anti bonus (the Thorax, awesome ship).

Reason 3: If you like to Armor Tank. Gallente ships have a SHITLOAD of low slots. They can amor tank as well as any race in the game.

Reason 4: If you haul around. I'm not sure but I believe Gallente Haulers (even up to Transporters and Freighter) have the biggest capacity. If not per-se, like I said they have way too many low slots, so they can fit a lot of extanders.

Go Gallente, it's fun :P

[Simond]

No  for Amarr ships makes me a 

[Yegolev]

Since I wanted to play a test-tube baby, raised by cold, unloving computers, I had to go Gallente.

[MahrinSkel]

Minnmatar has the best T1 ratting ships and the worst T2's, in general (Rifters and Ruptures being best of their class, and Tempests being about even with Megathrons).  PvP, it wanders all over the map, depending on exactly what you're trying to do (which is "best" for a particular purpose usually turns on ship specific bonuses and the exact number of mid and low slots).  People who consistently stick to Empire space missions and complex running usually wind up in some kind of faction modified HAC or AF that needs more than one race's skills, like the Comet or Daredevil, along with a lot of faction modules.  Nobody risks those in 0.0, losing a 100M isk battleship is a pain, but easily replaced if you have the cash, having 2B worth of faction HAC and modules blown out from under you would *really* suck (could take weeks to find all the pieces again, even if you had the cash).

--Dave

[WayAbvPar]

I trained up to Min Frig 2 last night and ran a few missions in a Slasher- damn that thing is fast! Frig 3 finished this morning, so I should be cruising around in a Rifter late tonight. Still not sure where I will go from there..there is a Gallente Destroyer for sale at our base for 1.2 M...I was tempted to pick it up.

[Trippy]

Go Gallente, it's fun :P

Gallante ships are ugly! UGLY! Except for the Tristan -- that's the coolest looking ship in the game (well, of the very limited number that I've seen).

[Wolf]

Go Gallente, it's fun :P

Gallante ships are ugly! UGLY! Except for the Tristan -- that's the coolest looking ship in the game (well, of the very limited number that I've seen).

Wtf?
Gallente ships are the only ones around that doesn't look like a fucking flying box with guns. The french got stlye.
Amarr - "We got the yellowish protossy feeling. Who's with me, eh?"
Caldari - "Symme-what? Let's just put lots of lights on big sticks. Who cares about aerodynamics in space anyways"
Minmatar - "I was a slave 10 years ago. Ofcourse my fucking ship loocks like a pile of flying scrap. That's all I can afford"

[Trippy]

Go Gallente, it's fun :P

Gallante ships are ugly! UGLY! Except for the Tristan -- that's the coolest looking ship in the game (well, of the very limited number that I've seen).

Wtf?
Gallente ships are the only ones around that doesn't look like a fucking flying box with guns. The french got stlye.
Amarr - "We got the yellowish protossy feeling. Who's with me, eh?"
Caldari - "Symme-what? Let's just put lots of lights on big sticks. Who cares about aerodynamics in space anyways"
Minmatar - "I was a slave 10 years ago. Ofcourse my fucking ship loocks like a pile of flying scrap. That's all I can afford"

Huh? Are we even looking at the same ships? The Gallante frigates (except for the Tristan) look some somebody tossed some Play-Doh against a fuselage -- they are all wildly asymmetric.

Imicus
Atron

[5150]

I trained up to Min Frig 2 last night and ran a few missions in a Slasher- damn that thing is fast! Frig 3 finished this morning, so I should be cruising around in a Rifter late tonight. Still not sure where I will go from there..there is a Gallente Destroyer for sale at our base for 1.2 M...I was tempted to pick it up.

To me that seems a bit expensive for the Gal Destroyer - I think I picked mine up for under a mil (Lonetrek region). One thing I should point out is I think the Gal destroyer is HIDEOUSLY UGLY! Think of the B-Wing from Star Wars, in green, much longer, with a dirty great big hole in the middle and without the cool S-foils!!!

Having said that I also agree that most Caldari ships look like 5 years olds lego projects with lights (even most of the [semi] symetrical ones like the Caracal look naff)

[Trippy]

I trained up to Min Frig 2 last night and ran a few missions in a Slasher- damn that thing is fast! Frig 3 finished this morning, so I should be cruising around in a Rifter late tonight. Still not sure where I will go from there..there is a Gallente Destroyer for sale at our base for 1.2 M...I was tempted to pick it up.

To me that seems a bit expensive for the Gal Destroyer - I think I picked mine up for under a mil (Lonetrek region). One thing I should point out is I think the Gal destroyer is HIDEOUSLY UGLY! Think of the B-Wing from Star Wars, in green, much longer, with a dirty great big hole in the middle and without the cool S-foils!!!

Yeah 1.2 M is a bit high, though of course it depends on where you are. In the Sinq Laison region there was somebody making and selling them for 699K each. And yes the Catalyst is another fugly Gallante ship.

[Reg]

Strange. I like the way the Gallente destroyer looks myself. The Iteron on the other hand looks like a giant shower massage.

[WayAbvPar]

Now flying my first Rifter. So far so good. I like the look of the Min ships- they all look like X-Wing knock offs  :-D

[Hoax]

You can't really diss the French ships, the Mega is damn sexy and the Thorax is no slouch in the looks department either.

[Strazos]

The big French ships are hot....the small ones are not.

And I personally like Some of the Caldari ships...Caracal, Ferox, Cormorant, Raven....

[Wolf]

You forgot the Dominix. It looks like a flying head :P
Like Hoax said, No dissing of the french ships... OR CELERITA SMASH!

[Reg]

I would really, really love to be able to paint my ships. But that inevitably leads to the neon coloured fiasco that is UO so I guess I should be quiet. :)

[Wolf]

I would really, really love to be able to paint my ships. But that inevitably leads to the neon coloured fiasco that is UO so I guess I should be quiet. :)

Linkage

[Trippy]

I would really, really love to be able to paint my ships. But that inevitably leads to the neon coloured fiasco that is UO so I guess I should be quiet. :)

E&B allowed you to paint your ships. It was pretty limited what you could do, which keep the ships from looking totally ridiculous, but at least they had that feature.

[Strazos]

Linkage

lol


Where can I get tape logos for my Caracal? 

[Simond]

Speaking of ship looks, here's a gallery (including the various faction ships).