It has come to be day Three of my hiatus from Eve.. and my own personal computer.
Spent a good amount of time the last couple days catching up on things, like house cleaning (ooo.. the floor CAN shine!), laundry (so THAT’s what fresh mountain air smells like..), movie watching (new Starbuck is HAWT!!.. and lesbian.. awww.. ), and the gym (some participants there clearly work their chests alot.. and smell alot like flowers. I believe I may have found the near mythical “female” of my species).
I haven’t had much time to devote to Russian yet, but that will come as I will have plenty of time this weekend (Labor Day weekend in the United States) to get myself back on a working (and habitual) schedule, and I probably be able to get into a study group on Mondays, so that will be sweet.
Still catching up on the local Eve politics.. and as usual, whenever I take a break, cool and exciting things happen. Atlas breaking up, Pandemic Legion showing off its usual strategic skill, the Northern Coalition fighting the Russians.. the Russian fighting back, etc. The new http://www.evenews24.com/ channel is definately impressive so far. Haven’t heard many complaints about the quality of the news. Kinda makes me wonder if we’re seeing the start of Eve Tribune being relegated to “Newsweek” or “Time” status.
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for the great blog. A friend finally talked me into trying eve last weekend and I ended up as a new mimaatar pilot trying to work out how to get into PVP, your blog has been a lot of help.
One thing I still cant work out though, I want to PVP and do the PVE missions to fund it at least to start with. I’m trying to work out a sequence of ships I can use that are all either armor or shield tanks, so I can concentrate on one set of skills and learning one style to get me a decent enough setup to venture into lowsec/0.0.
Any suggestions? Flying a shield tanked arty-thrasher at the mo.
Okay, third time at this (podlogs kept timing out), and we will go through the PVE setup first..
The ship sequence should be as follows for PVE:
– Level One Missions: Rifter
– Level Two Missions: Rupture
– Level Three Missions: Hurricane (though a Cyclone is good as well)
– Level Four Missions: Maelstrom
Now it sounds like you are just at the cusp of running Level Two missions so I would definately go with an Actively shield tanked Rupture.. unless you have very strong Drone and Missile skills, then I would choose the Bellicose.
As far as running missions, usually the ideal setup at your level is to have tank and range. If your friend hasn’t explained the finer points of dealing with NPC rats, I will do a quick rundown.
– All NPC rats have two damage types, and generally one is much more common than the other (i.e. Angels do Explosive/Kinetic damage, Guristas do Kinetic/Thermal damage ecetra. – with the first damage listed being the most prominent).
– All NPC rats have two damage weaknesses, which directly correspond to their damage type. For example, Angels do heavy Explosive/Kinetic damage, but are weak to Explosive and Kinetic Ammo.
So, here’s how I would setup my Rupture if I were you:
Highslots: 4x ‘Named’ 650mm Arties, 2x missile launchers (whatever size you can fit). The important thing here a balanced combo of range, tracking, and DPS. While the 720mms have higher Alpha and better overall range, it has terrible tracking and slow rate of fire, not to mention higher CPU and Powergrid requirements.
Midslots: The midslots are definately not shield tanking friendly, but it is doable and even recommended if going up against Angels. Try a this:
1x ‘Named’ medium Shield Booster
1x ‘Named’ Explosive Shield Hardener
1x Misc.
In the “misc” area, you can choose between an additional shield amplifier for more tank, an Afterburner if you need speed, or a Cap booster if you need more capacitor for your shield module.
Lowslots: 1x Damage Control, 2x Gyrostabilizers, 2x Misc. Damage Control should be on all your ships.. forever. There are very,very few times when you could choose something better to use instead. The Gyrostabilizers improve rate of fire and damage so those are a nice addition. In the two “misc” slots, you can either put in Powergrid or CPU modules to help fit the above items, or add Tracking Enhancers to improve range and tracking, or Signal Amplifiers to improve targetting range and speed.
That being said, usually for PVP, armor tanking is necessary for T1 ships in the Minmatar lineup. This brings us to a cold reality that anyone wanting to be a Minmatar pilot will face. There simply is no way around the fact that some Minmatar ships tank better with shields, others with armor.. so, ideally, you gotta train both. You might be able to skimp and just stick with shields if you don’t plan on doing a portion of Minmatar ships (Typhoon and Tempest, some Hurricane and Rupture builds), because many of the T2 Minmatar cruisers are shield tanked.
Now you requested this information with an eye to get into “lowsec/0.0” PVP. First off, those are two different animals. What will work for 0.0, won’t necessarily work for lowsec. Here’s how I would train yourself up though for getting into a 0.0 corporation/alliance. Remember that this is just a general plan, and you should spend time putting in shield and other support skills in the mix.
– Train up to Battlecruisers IV with solid T1 weapon skills. I consider this a priority because a.) Level three missions are the start of decent isk, and b.) in 0.0, you are expected to support yourself and a battlecruiser is the bare minimum you need to do so. Even then, I would join up with others and help them complete anomolies while you train for better ships.
– Train T2 frigates/T2 small projectiles along with support skills to get T2 Interceptors (level IV at least) and Covert Ops (level IV at least). These should be easy enough for you to get, and some alliances are even willing to cover the cost of these items. Expect your typical Interceptor to cost you around 30mil isk with rigs.
– Train for T2 Interdictor. There never seem to be enough of these useful and deadly ships in a fleet. These are going to be more expensive than T2 frigates obviously, but I know alot of alliances will cover these costs as well. Expect a well fit Interdictor to run you 50 to 60 million isk.
– Train up for T2 Medium guns, then train up for one T2 Cruiser type. T2 modules are vital to a successful T2 cruiser hull and can be a very effective replacement for a battleship when doing anomolies and plexes.
– Train up for T2 Large Guns, then battleships. While their need is very common, their use is very job specific. For Minmatar battleships, you will not be an effective Minmatar battleship pilot with any less than 12 million skillpoints. If you only do shields, you might get away with 9 million. Either way, T2 Large Guns and Battleships IV will take a long time.
It has been a while since I have done anything in Lowsec, so I will open the discussion up to any readers who regularly do lowsec PVP.