Need an inty pilot.

[gimpyone]

Anyone intrested in flying an intercepter?  Coyote maybe?

[Viin]

I am, though I'm kinda going for Assault Ships right now. Two level 5 skills suck.

[Raging Turtle]

Yeah, that's what I'm working towards.  But Frigate V and Evasive Manuevering V are a long ways off.  Getting the learning skills to IV at the moment, almost done with that.   

[Alkiera]

I haven't actually checked, but it looks like the skill requiremenets for Interceptors are actually worse than that for Cruisers.  Egad, man.

So you can choose between a big bad ship, or a teeny bad ship... The Caldari interceptors are beefed up Condor's... and while I liked the Condor's speed...  I'm not sure it was all that advantageous in combat.  Then again, I have 4 days of experience, what do I know.

Alkiera

[Raging Turtle]

I haven't actually checked, but it looks like the skill requiremenets for Interceptors are actually worse than that for Cruisers.  Egad, man.

Inty's take a LOT more training - Cruisers just need Racial Frigate IV, which takes maybe 3-4 days to get from I, and its possible to start the game with Frigate IV if you customize right.  Frigate IV to V takes... 12-14 days, I think?  Depends on learning skills.  And Evasive Manuvering takes just as long to get to V, and most people start it from 0.

[Polysorbate80]

Frigate IV to V takes... 12-14 days, I think?  Depends on learning skills.

With no learning skills to speak of?  ~25 days.

[Hoax]

The way I see it there are 3 paths you can go down:

Frigate>Cruiser>Battlecruiser>HAC/Command Ship

Frigate>Cruiser>(Battlecruiser)>Battleship

Frigate>Destroyer>Assault Frig/Interceptor

These are combat routes of course, anyone doing non combat work needs to train so they can use a hauler, then decide which route to ub3r mining they want to take.

I'll be going route #1, while Battleships may be the logical choice, I really like the look of the Sacrilege and I like the look and the role of the Damnation even more.

Then again, this doesn't take Covert Ops into account, blahblah, anyways this is why EvE is a good game options are fun.

Bottom line though my plan is this.

Skill up everything I could possibly find useful in my Proph to three, four if very useful.   Once I've done that I'll start skilling up my warfare link modules (which will require taking my CHA learning skills up and I'll probably buy an expensive implant too considering the rank on them) then taking all the V's needed for Command Ships, which last I checked are about 5-6 skills, luckily I have 2 of them already but still Cruiser V is not far under 30 days to train with my current (quite good I think) learning skill levels.

[Merusk]

I haven't actually checked, but it looks like the skill requiremenets for Interceptors are actually worse than that for Cruisers.  Egad, man.

Yes and no.  While Intys require 2 level V skills (and 3 for Assault Frigs) , they still use small turrets and small launchers.  You don't have to train medium turrets, heavy missiles and the like to make them effective like you do with cruisers and can instead toss that time into getting to the small T2 guns and other utility skills.

Of course they're also a LOT more expensive (My AF cost me 18mil vs 7mil for a Rupture) and you have to finesse your way through things rather than brute-forcing them like you can with a cruiser.

In a Side-by Side Comparison for a Minmatar Interceptor(Claw) and the best basic Frigate (Rifter):  The Inty will have more power, only 25 less CPU, the same hardpoints, one fewer med one more low, 25 more cap be 155m/s faster (475 speed), have a smaller sig rad., more HPs, a little more resist, and more base armor.

The only comparison tool I found in a quick search was Here.  Since Eve-i died I have no idea where to find the wealth of information and comparison tools it had and kept updated.

[Viin]

I ran into this one earlier:

http://essdb.milair.net/essdb.php

Can show you a lot of ships and their stats at once for comparison.

[Alkiera]

I ran into this one earlier:

http://essdb.milair.net/essdb.php

Can show you a lot of ships and their stats at once for comparison.

That's pretty slick.

Alkiera

[Yegolev]

Frigate IV to V takes... 12-14 days, I think?  Depends on learning skills.

With no learning skills to speak of?  ~25 days.

Over 30 days for me.  Frigate V is never going to happen, just to get that out in the open now.

[WayAbvPar]

Sure it will...just do it in bite-sized chunks. 8 hours here, 8 there, etc.

[Driakos]

I can fly an Interceptor, but I fly it so badly, I stuck it in my garage.  You need a ton of the Engineering/Electronics skills to make it worthwhile.  Otherwise you're just flying a very expensive, very fast frigate.  Mine is going to stay on the shelf till I flesh out some of my Electronics/Eng, for webs, scrambling, whatever.  I flew it like a brick with a rocket pack strapped to it.

[Polysorbate80]

I can't sub for another week or two anyway, so I left it training when my trial account expired.  Assuming that works, then it will shave off most of the time before I'm back.

Of course, since I yearn for a battleship, it's mostly pointless.  But having variable options open is nice.

[Yegolev]

Sure it will...just do it in bite-sized chunks. 8 hours here, 8 there, etc.

I'll get it when I have run out of useful skills to train.  Mind you, I'd like to have it now since it would help my frigate mining, but no.

[Strazos]

I'll look into it.

I was looking more towards moving into capital ships...but assault and interceptors are badass.

[5150]

I usually do all my 'long haul' training over night, then cancel it in the morning and start something thats only going to take a couple of hours.

[Simond]

I can fly an Interceptor, but I fly it so badly, I stuck it in my garage.  You need a ton of the Engineering/Electronics skills to make it worthwhile.  Otherwise you're just flying a very expensive, very fast frigate.  Mine is going to stay on the shelf till I flesh out some of my Electronics/Eng, for webs, scrambling, whatever.  I flew it like a brick with a rocket pack strapped to it.

I actually put together a ghetto-interceptor for a corp war (which imploded as soon as the attackers realised that the other corp was fighting back) - fast T1 frigate (Crusader, in this case), as much nanofibre structure as you can fit in lows, MWD + webber in mediums and nosferatu + gatling laser (for killing drones) in high. It topped out at just over 3.5Km/sec with the MWD firing...and cost a couple of hundred thousand isk, tops.

[WayAbvPar]

I am really enjoying the small quick frigate action (especially vs non-missile cruisers...they have a hell of a time hitting me), so I am definitely considering Interceptors and/or Tech 2 Frigates as medium range goal.

[Furiously]

Either the game needs loot drones or I'll be going into Assault Frigs when I start my combat char.

[Raging Turtle]

I hear tractor beams are good for that.  haven't tried them myself though

[Strazos]

I really hate picking up far-flung loot cans...but I'm not about to sacrifice survivability or firepower for a small convience.

Though that might be something for a support pilot to consider.

Also, I'm going to take a look at the assault cruisers when I get back....Bigger, Beefier cruisers = Happy Panda

[Viin]

You mean Battlecruisers?

[Strazos]

No, what I really meant was heavy assault ships. They're the tech2 cruisers.

[Viin]

You can fly those already? Hell, I just got reqs for Assault Frigates! 

[Reg]

Heavy assault cruisers require months of training - even more if you want to equip them with decent components and they cost more than a top of the line battleship in most cases. And the insurance that you get for them will only pay out like they were a normal cruiser so if it blows up you are seriously screwed.  HACs are NOT the next ship upgrade after normal cruisers. :)

[Strazos]

I said I was going to take a look, not try and fly one. 

[Viin]

What do we need an interceptor pilot for anyways?

[gimpyone]

Helping with guard duty :(

[Yoru]

PVP. We mostly float cruisers and damage-based frigates at the moment; having a tackler or two to scram/web would let all those guns actually get into range.

What spawned this was a covert ops cruiser harassing us in lowsec a few days ago; he'd warp in and cloak, taxi out of our range, drop cloak and start firing extreme-range missiles (100km or so) - not enough damage to do anything, but still annoying. When we tried to chase him, we mostly couldn't catch up (until I came up with a warp-slingshot tactic that I think is pretty cool) - and once we could catch up, he just warped as soon as we warped into range.

[Hoax]

Tacklers are a huge part of any non-solo pvp.  Interceptors make the best tacklers I would imagine.

[Viin]

Ah ok. I could always take a frigate fitted with webber/scrambler and a MWD. Since I can reach 2000m/s it works pretty well. Not as great as an interceptor, but a lot cheaper if it were blown up!

[Raging Turtle]

Ah ok. I could always take a frigate fitted with webber/scrambler and a MWD. Since I can reach 2000m/s it works pretty well. Not as great as an interceptor, but a lot cheaper if it were blown up!

On a rifter I can get over 3500 m/s, might be ever faster (and cheaper) on an executioner.  I'm already trained for pirating, so scrambling and whatever else is no problem.   

[5150]

PVP. We mostly float cruisers and damage-based frigates at the moment; having a tackler or two to scram/web would let all those guns actually get into range.

What spawned this was a covert ops cruiser harassing us in lowsec a few days ago; he'd warp in and cloak, taxi out of our range, drop cloak and start firing extreme-range missiles (100km or so) - not enough damage to do anything, but still annoying. When we tried to chase him, we mostly couldn't catch up (until I came up with a warp-slingshot tactic that I think is pretty cool) - and once we could catch up, he just warped as soon as we warped into range.

Sounds like it was just a vanila cruiser with a cloaking device - I dont believe the 'proper' cloak for the stealth cruisers is in yet and if it were you wouldnt have seen him warp in because the stealth ships with the 'proper' cloak can warp while cloaked

Heres some tips for dealing with non-covert ops cloaker though (covert ops cloaks follow most of whats below with a few exceptions)

While cloaked his speed is reduced to something like 10% of normal and you cant run modules while cloaked (so no afterburner etc.), if you see the point where he warped in make a bee line for it as quickly as possible because if you can get within 2km of a cloaked ship it automatically decloaks

Also you cant cloak while someone has a lock on you so again if you catch him as he warps in quickly enough you can stop him cloaking if you get a lock

Just to round off the list of limitations you cant recloak within 30 sec of decloaking, nor can you cloak if you have targetted something (even if it doesnt target you back) or if you have modules running

[Yoru]

It was the tech2 variant of the Blackbird, which can use the covert ops cloak according to its description. I forget the exact name.