Yes, I am one of the four people on Eve Online that does not have the skills to fly the famous (or infamous – think of “Three Amigos”) Drake. The final skill that I needed my current attribute set at will be complete in a week, and for the first time in a long while I feel the ability to go after what I want.. not so much what I need.
Now, I brought this thought up with my corpmates, and a good portion of them basically said, “Why?”, a few said, “WTF, WHY?!”, and one pretty much did his best to virtually brain me in noggin… over and over again. Granted, Caldari isn’t well known for their PVP skills. They tend to have ships that manage to not only have a complete lack of that fear-inspiring look, but to also actually inspire pure aestetic fear. You really don’t want to look at a Caldari ship, lest you get an uncontrollable urge to finish a jigsaw puzzle.
Admittedly, there are a few strong arguments against training Caldari. A common one is that the weapon system is slow to hit. That’s not a big deal at close ranges, but I have definately seen the issue for combat outside of 30km. Another accurate argument is that Caldari ships have to trade tank for tackle, this limits the effectiveness of their frigate and cruiser class ships. Still a third is how slow Caldari ships are. This is true as many ships in their class tend to be the slowest around, with some smaller Caldari ships, like the Drake being almost as slow as a Typhoon or Tempest battleship.
However, despite those issues, it does make sense that I train Caldari ships next, and here is why:
- Recon V – Yep, Recon V makes Recon ships a serious threat on the battlefield and none more potent than Falcons and Rooks. Gallente Recons, which can only dampen a target instead of locking it out completely, and its secondary EW, warp scramblers and warp disruptors, which can be taken care of by Hictors and Dictors, easily makes training Caldari a logical choice.
- Battlecruisers V – The Drake is legendary in Eve and as such is commonly used in Drake-Only fleets. BC V would make my Drake a powerful ship on the field.. plus, I wouldn’t mind stepping away from flying the Scimitar all the time.
- Command Ships V – The Nighthawk is a feared beast of resistances and the Vulture is a nice support ship to have in the aforementioned Drake fleets, with Shield Harmonizing being a devastating addition to any shield fleet.
- Missile Skills – Currently I have average, even below average, missile skills. However, unlike Hybrids or Lasers, missile skills directly help my Minmatar ship lineup.. including my Vagabond, Huginn, Hurricane, Cyclone, Typhoon, Tempest, Naglfar ships.. ones I commonly use.
- E-war – Without a doubt ECM is still the most powerful E-war in the game.. and since I can fly Stealth Bombers and Covert Ops ships, those skills are already trained fairly well.
Now, I’m already well training in Amarr ships, particularly cruiser and battlecruiser classes.. but I do wonder if perhaps I am missing something in the Gallente lineup. The Caldari HAC line up is certainly not the most thrilling line up there is, with the Eagle’s lack of good alpha damage and comparitively slow scan resolution and the Cerebrus hampered by the slow damage effect of missiles. Neither Gallente or Caldari have the favored Logistics, though I think Caldari edge out Gallente in this regard. But, if you all know of something that I have missed, feel free to comment.
Until next time, keep your guns loaded and your enemies running.
2nd Anomaly From the Left 
Whether or not you should train for Gallente Cruiser V largely depends on much you want to fly the Arazu, Lachesis, Ishtar, or Proteus. The other Gallente T2 Cruisers aren’t that good compared to their Caldair, Minmatar, or Amarr counterparts.
What I tell every new Gallente pilot now is this: Train up to Gallente Interceptors and stop. Train for either Minmatar or Amarr. The rest of the Gallente combat ship lineup isn’t that great. And this is coming from a Gallente pilot with Gallente Cruiser V trained.
As for Caldari Cruiser V, the Basilisk is one of the better logis out there. Far better than the Onerios logi. Not sure how it compares to the Minimatar Scimiatr logi though. The Tengu is useful in both PVP and PVE situations. Then again Tengus tends to be automatic primary in some of the fleets I’ve been in. As for other Caldair ships, as you know, the Drake is still one of the premier PVP missiles ships out there. So if anything, training the missiles skills would be the first on my list of things to do.
Yeah, I figured the T2 Cruiser line up for the Gallente seemed to have gotten the short end of the stick. And good point about the Tengu also. Oddly enough though, I think one of the big selling points is not so much the Gallente.. but the Angel ship lineup, which requires Gallente ship skills.
As far as the Basilisk goes.. I’m not sure if I agree with you on that, though I can’t disagree all that much on it either. Its got the strong grouping bonus that the Guardian also has, but it lacks the mobility of the Scimitar. All in all, I think the Basilisk is better than what some people give it credit for, but if Armor battleships continue to be a mainstay of 0.0 fleets, you’re not going to see Basilisks rise in popularity.