FoH guide to EVE Online

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Vorph

With all this talk about Gallente ships, would I be better off going that route since I haven't got anything invested in Minmatar (other than Frig III) yet? I've just been doing learning stuff and am now working towards electronics/engr/mech/WU/AWU skills to V while I change my mind 3948503 times about what I actually want to pilot. I'm just not sure about the whole drone thing... I don't mind pet classes but I've never played one where you had to worry about a shitload of them and if there's one thing in games I absolutely cannot stand it's micromanagement.

Well, most cruiser+ sized ships have a drone bay, even if it's not the ship's main focus, so you'll never really regret putting skills into drones (definitely at least Drones V and Drone Interfacing) if you like flying big ships. It doesn't take long to train Frigate IV --> Cruiser III --> racial BC, so a Myrmidon is a great ship that you can get in pretty fast after a week or so of training drones and see how you like it.

Drones don't take that much micromanagement. You set them into groups that you can control simultaneously; for example, in a Dominix, I might have a group of 5 repair drones and 5 heavy combat drones, and I can recall the heavy drones with one click, launch my 5 repair drones with one click, and then assign them to a target with one click. It's not a whole lot of overhead, although the UI could be better.

Overall, though, both Gallente and Minmatar have some awesome ships, so it'll just come down to personal preference. If you could only train one or the other, I think most folks would agree that Gallente have a better set of BCs/BSes and Minmatar have a better set of frigates/cruisers. (Cruiser part maybe a tossup.)

[Vorph]

That's pretty much the source of my dilemma right there. I like small, fast ships; even doing missions with my Thrasher while I don't have Science IV for tractors is mind-numbingly boring to me compared to my Rifter, but it's much more efficient because of being able to a) kill everything in my sleep and b) mount salvagers because a) was so easy I only need 4-5 arties at most.

Basically I feel like I'm stuck training into ships I couldn't give a shit about simply because it's necessary to make ISK. I know I can go to the end of L2 missions in my Rifter, but beyond that it seems like I need to be in at least a battlecruiser. I would rather be going straight to interceptors or whatever, but I don't see anyway to make money down that path.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Vorph

That's pretty much the source of my dilemma right there. I like small, fast ships; even doing missions with my Thrasher while I don't have Science IV for tractors is mind-numbingly boring to me compared to my Rifter, but it's much more efficient because of being able to a) kill everything in my sleep and b) mount salvagers because a) was so easy I only need 4-5 arties at most.

Basically I feel like I'm stuck training into ships I couldn't give a shit about simply because it's necessary to make ISK. I know I can go to the end of L2 missions in my Rifter, but beyond that it seems like I need to be in at least a battlecruiser. I would rather be going straight to interceptors or whatever, but I don't see anyway to make money down that path.

Honestly I think your appraisal is pretty accurate, unless you want to make isk unconventionally through scamming or production or trading or something. It's not a disaster, though, because like I said, a Myrmidon is really easy to train for (or a Drake, but I take it you're not a Caldari fan) and you will clean up level 3 missions with it. That should be plenty of income to fund a frigate-sized PvP machine until you get hungry for faction fittings - level 4s aren't that much more profitable and require a lot more dedicated training.

I recommend training up to, like, Battlecruiser III for a Myrmidon, training a few drone skills for it, and then train general cap/nav/fittings skills like you are doing now while you make yourself a little pool of isk to work with. T2 frigates aren't really very expensive, especially if you go with, say, a Stiletto, which is cheap and probably the best tackler in the game.

(A tip - if you're doing missions in empire space, and you have a few agents available in the vicinity, try to hold out at around 15k LP for the connections skillbook offers, while you grind a different agent. That is definitely the most efficient way to turn your LP into quick isk.)

[Kazgrim]

I'm gallente, I love small ships, especially T2 frigates, and so i'm cross training Minmatar.

If that helps you any.

If you can fly minmatar well its nothing to cross train something else, but it's a load of sp to fly minmatar well to begin with so I couldn't tell you what's the easiest path to take.

[Vorph]

Alright, sounds like a Myrmidon is the way to go then.

Originally Posted by Fog

(A tip - if you're doing missions in empire space, and you have a few agents available in the vicinity, try to hold out at around 15k LP for the connections skillbook offers, while you grind a different agent. That is definitely the most efficient way to turn your LP into quick isk.)

That's more efficient than holding out for the +3 implants at 20k LP? Just from trying (and failing) to find a +3 int at a price I can afford, those seem like the most profitable thing.

[Fog]

(I'm Caldari, I love small ships and fly a Crow, and I have cross-trained Gallente for the Ishkur and Taranis and intend to cross-train Minmatar soon for the Stiletto and a future Cheetah.)

Originally Posted by Vorph

Alright, sounds like a Myrmidon is the way to go then.

That's more efficient than holding out for the +3 implants at 20k LP? Just from trying (and failing) to find a +3 int at a price I can afford, those seem like the most profitable thing.

A non-cha +3 implant will be worth around 15-20m in high sec, if prices are the same as they were a few months ago, and I think you get one of those for 15k LP? A connections skillbook will probably be 25-50m for the same LP, depending on which book it is. I'm not 100% sure of this but when I was running high sec missions they were definitely more lucrative than implants (which, in turn, were more lucrative than most other offers.)

[Kazgrim]

Why the cheetah? Caldari are the cov ops specialists. For cov ops i'm almost tempted to go caldari for the manticore, no idea what the fix to make stealth bombers not suck is going to be but whatever it is the manticore is going to be the bomber to fly regardless. Right now the Manticore is 150% of any other stealth bomber and I don't see that changing.

I must admit my 230 DPS taranis is damn sexy but it's so rare to find a target silly enough not to equip smartbombs so I can actually use it. Inty vs inty though yeah, die crow.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

The "pvp skills or pve skills" debate is one everyone has early on. If it's really a tear for you I can't not recommend Gallente, but here's how it goes:

Minmatar: More shields on small ships, more armor on large ships. Mostly guns but moderate use for missiles. Great PVP race but requires alot of navigation and gunnery skills to make hot, as well as good piloting.

Caldari: Overwhelmingly shield tanked, overwhelmingly favoring missiles but some hybrid ships, all of whom are known for their range not damage. Worst PVP race unless you want to fly 'ceptors in which case the Crow is an excellent ship, or you can fly ECM cruiser or BS, also valuable, other than that largely not desired in PVP. Best PVE race.

Gallente: Overwhelmingly armor tanked, overwelmingly favoring hybrid turrets, small missile crossover. Best all-around PVP race with several best-of-class ships. Second best PVE race.

Amarr: Overwhelmingly armor tanked, overwhelmingly favoring Amarrian heat-beam weapons (which I like to call "lasers"), tiny missile crossover. Good-to-excellent PVP ships for their niches, be it POS assault, solo-pwnmobiles (Curse), and some other roles, but suffering from issues...soon to be buffed. Pure shit PVE race before you hit the 10m SP mark.

So you can see:

IF you were to train Caldari for your farming, you would want to be Minmatar main as the shield and missile skills will not all go to waste, however missile skills are definitely limited to use on a few ships, and the smaller ships aren't among them for the most part...but they do like shield tanking.

IF you were to train Gallente for your farming, you will be developing skills (gunnery, drones, armor tanking) that will help you with both Amarr and Minmatar significantly.

There are ways to make money that don't involve missions, but GL ratting profitably as a new player. Ratting definitely doesn't have the endurance issues that make Amarr shit for missions, but even in ratting having flexible damage types helps. I don't have any particularly good advice for "how to make money outside of missions," I wish I did, because this particular conundrum sucks ass. All I can reccomend is: go gallente for farming if you farm to PVP. Either that or start a Caldari alt.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Kazgrim

Why the cheetah? Caldari are the cov ops specialists. For cov ops i'm almost tempted to go caldari for the manticore, no idea what the fix to make stealth bombers not suck is going to be but whatever it is the manticore is going to be the bomber to fly regardless. Right now the Manticore is 150% of any other stealth bomber and I don't see that changing.

How are Caldari the covops specialists? It's an honest question, I don't use covops but I can't see any advantage to going Caldari unless you want a (shit) stealth bomber. The Cheetah is fast as fuck meaning you can close in on your target for gang warp-in point significantly faster.

[Saban]

The thing about rolling Caldari Achura is you have extremely optimal stats, which makes it even easier to train ships from other races.

So dont assume just because you rolled caldari that you're stuck with their ships.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Kazgrim

Why the cheetah? Caldari are the cov ops specialists. For cov ops i'm almost tempted to go caldari for the manticore, no idea what the fix to make stealth bombers not suck is going to be but whatever it is the manticore is going to be the bomber to fly regardless. Right now the Manticore is 150% of any other stealth bomber and I don't see that changing.

The Manticore is obviously the stealth bomber of choice right now as long as they rely on cruise missles, but who knows what will happen during the changes. I'm leaning toward the Cheetah as my favored covops because it's quite a bit faster and lighter than the Buzzard (with an extra lowslot for more speed) and I don't expect to need the Buzzard's extra CPU with my fitting of choice.

I like Foghorn's racial summaries and I agree with them very much.

[Madrugan]

If you ARE caldari as a main, and missile biased, what training line would you suggest would be easiest to feed training into? Amarri and Lasers? or what? At this point I can have an uber decked out Caldari Drake if I had the money.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Madrugan

If you ARE caldari as a main, and missile biased, what training line would you suggest would be easiest to feed training into?

I would start by training drone skills. That will help your Drake out a whole whole lot (as well as a future raven) and suddenly once you're done you will be ready to fly Gallente drone ships. Once you're flying those, you'll probably eventually want to try out rails and blasters on your Gallente ships, and then all of a sudden all you need to train is projectiles/energy turrets and you can fly Amarr or Minmatar if you want.

[Saban]

Gallente uses alot of hybrid turrets, and caldari use it as a secondary weapon system, so if you want to use gallente ships for pvp, hybrids seem the way to go since caldari and gallente ships both use it.

[Dildo Faggins]

Originally Posted by Madrugan

If you ARE caldari as a main, and missile biased, what training line would you suggest would be easiest to feed training into? Amarri and Lasers? or what? At this point I can have an uber decked out Caldari Drake if I had the money.

Caldari -> minmatar. Minmatar use missiles the most behind caldari. Amarr usually fit nos in their non turret slots, and gallente ships that have missiles are useless.