Gallente
FrigateAssault ShipEnyoIt may not be terribly fast, but it's tough as nails, fast enough to frustrate the big ships, and throws punches way above its weight class. And it's Roden Pink.
Your drone is there to harass frigates. Or to be completely ignored. Really, it's not that big of a factor, until they release a small webber drone. Now for the downside: You're going to have a hell of a time fitting everything because of the Enyo's computer; sorry, it's a Mac. You'll need Weapons Upgrades V to be able to run 4 Neuts and 2 MagStabs. Once you're there, however, slapping on a 'Langour' webber (which you can typically get on the cheap, since it's not the "top" webber) and a Microcell energized plating (which you can also get on the cheap) will get you to the promised fitting. Keen-eyed observers will note that, in some cases, a full rack of Light Ion Blaster IIs and dual MagStabs will actually out-DPS 4 Neuts with one, but it's typically not worth the hassle and the loss of the spike damage that 4 Neuts can cause. Seriously, Neuts aren't that much more expensive, and when they get wrecking hits, they're unbelievable. For rigs, if you can afford it, drop an Aerator and a Collision Accelerator on the ship to boost the DPS to maximum levels. You'll probably have to train Hybrid Weapon Rigging to Level 4 to tame the drawbacks and not overextend the Power Grid, but if you're planning on rigging bigger ships, you'll be glad you did. Also keep in mind that, if you're working in a segment of 0.0 that's not secured by someone friendly, you're pretty much dead if you get jumped. You're akin to the ol' Diablo II Glass Cannon: awesome damage output, no tank. The energized plating and the Armor Repairer are there to fix the scratches you're bound to take while popping the frigates and cruisers of the spawn, and any lucky shots from battleships. It'll fold like a poker player holding 3-8 off-suit when exposed to any respectable PvP set-up.
If you don't have at least Advanced Weapon Upgrades I, this won't fit: you'll be short by about a half-point of grid. Replacing the Damage Control with a Capacitor Power Relay remedies that problem, though you really should have AWU; it's handy, trust me. And the bazillion-day training on Weapon Upgrades V gives you a chance to get outside for a while. Flying the Mission Enyo is simple: control your aggro, kill any webbers (they are death), and pound away with your railguns. I typically carry Antimatter and Tungsten for short- and long-range, respectively. The webber and afterburner are there to alleviate the Enyo's lack of speed. The Damage Control plus two rat-specific membranes will keep you relatively safe, while the repper and NOS work to fix any gashes you do get. If you're fighting those missions that do omni damage, fit an Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane (for omni resist) and an Energized Reactive Nano Membrane (to plug the explosive hole). Rigs are a choice based on the roles of the ship. If this is going to be a dedicated PvE ship, you really can't go wrong with fitting a Capacitor Control Circuit or two. More capacitor means better staying power, and brings a lot of L3 missions into the realm of possibility. If you're also going to use this as a ratter or PvP ship, you might want to consider other rigs. My thought is that it's better to be stuck with a PvP rig in a PvE ship than the reverse.
It does, however, have an optimal range bonus to its guns, and can fit a full rack of 150mm Railguns which, when loaded with Spike, can be the Gallente answer to the Harpy: a long-range, small sniping platform. It's not a very versatile set-up: it'll die horribly once something gets close to it and bothers to target it, but it'll deal some damage from a decent range, especially considering the small size of the hull. It can out-tank, but not out-damage, a Harpy at high skill levels. The value of tanking in large fleet fights is left as an exercise to the reader. Think of it as a warm-up for your Sniping Megathron.
IshkurA vicious tiny combatant, capable of popping out a cloud of death in the form of drones. You'll pay for the privilege, but this Assault Frigate can bite back.
There's a lot of room for modification / cheapification on this set-up. Lower-grade gear tends to nicely replace the T2 gear, depending on your school of thought. One school of thought is that since the Ishkur hull is already expensive for an Assault Frigate, you might as well pack it with as much value as possible. The other says cheap out on the equipment so that you can go through more hulls. The drones are obviously key, and if you're not a good drone wrangler, you have no business flying an Ishkur. Good skills will turn your drones from mere annoyances into killing machines. If you stay near them as well, you can scoop them when they take damage, recharging their shields and getting them right back into the fight. Kind of an exploit, but hey, everyone does it, right? If there is one massive, gaping hole in this set-up, it's the fact that the Ishkur ends up one mid-slot short of fitting the holy grail of drone set-ups: a ship scanner. Just like pirates and ninjas are natural enemies, smart bombs and drones are natural enemies. A ship scanner would allow you to note a ship carrying a smart bomb, at which point you'd have to log to take care of some "real life" stuff that "just happened" to come up. But if you take care of your drones, they'll take care of you. It might be weird getting a massage from something that has nothing but plasma cannons and robotic pinchers for arms, but once you get used to it... nah, you never get used to it.
InterceptorAresIt's fast, it's a hell of a tackler, and it's painted a lovely shade of Roden Pink. The Ares may not have the raw fright factor of the other Interceptors, but won't blow a hole in your budget, either.
The speed of the Ares makes this an interesting prospect, and not one totally without merit. Burn in, slide into an orbit, and start shooting. If you're webbed, you have a shot at getting clear by burning out, though that'll also take you out of scram range. It's not the most effective set-up, since it's doing something that Taranis can do better, but has the advantage of being fairly inexpensive. In many cases, this could be viewed as a set of training wheels for a Taranis. Where the ship really tears, however, is ganks. Hostile haulers and shuttles and pods and frigates will bow down before this set-up. It's fast enough to get into range and get the scram on-line within seconds, and the weapons make quick work of your target. For a set-up that's cheap and easy, you couldn't ask for a better outcome.
The weapons are there to plink away (and sneak onto killmails), not to really do substantial DPS. Hang out at 15km with a point on the target, doing a little damage, and waiting for the real DPS to show up. Because of the speed, the Ares also functions really well as a fleet scout. It's fast enough and small enough to get out of any scrapes, and the fast warp speed allows it to stay ahead of most other ships, friendly or otherwise.
Taranis
The Nosferatu is there for if you do get trapped in web range. If you have the time (or are the one deciding to go to close range), swap in the Antimatter charges, and go to town. It won't deal the massive damage that a blaster rig would, but the damage is certainly not inconsequential.
Covert OpsHeliosThe Helios is a covert ops ship, designed for forward reconnaissance and scouting duties. As you can see, this ship has no weapons. This set-up also assumes that you know what you're doing with scan probes. Pure scouting will not require probing. More advanced recon duty will require probing. For that you'll want Astrometrics, Astrometric Pinpointing, Astrometric Triangulation, and Signal Aquisition, preferably all to rank 5, although 4 will certainly suffice. A few probe types will require Astrometrics 5 and Survey 5. This set-up fits with Electronics 5, Engineering 5, Covert Ops 5, according to QuickFit. This is a pretty solid set-up, but (obviously) has a lot of time requirements. The scan probe launcher is the biggest part of the set-up.
I'm sure there are thousands of others available. The whole point is to NEVER decloak: decloaking = bad things.
DestroyerCatalystThe flying wing of doom, the Catalyst could be the greatest offensive and defensive platform ever introduced to EVE. When fitted with a combination of railguns, autocannons, lasers, smartbombs, and drones, it's capable of dishing out sever pain, while tanking pretty much anything short of a Freighter. I'm not going to post that uber setup, but a few things mere mortals like yourself could possibly fly without looking completely foolish.
The low-slots are your capacitor control: fit as many Expanded Cargoholds as you can without capping yourself out during Salvage operations. The three salvage rigs in the ship will make first-pass salvaging incredibly easy, but it will still take some experimentation in order to find the balance between Cargoholds and CPRs. Once you find the balance, though, you'll be able to salvage like a pro.
You have no tank, and destroyers have a signature radius the size of Albany, so when you get targeted, you're probably going to die pretty quickly. But popping a few enemy frigates and possibly interceptors (before they get to range on you and tear you up) will be your final contribution to this world. Heck, you might even get some podkills. The upside? This fitting is, even with the T2 gear, fairly inexpensive, and quick to get into. If you've graduated from tackling stuff, but not quite ready for bigger ships, this little sniper can add damage from afar. Just don't expect to come home in it.
CruiserCelestisIt'll put a damper on your party. And your battleships. And maybe a few cruisers. And then you'll be dead. Which means more party for us. Please note that, throughout this article, and EVE Online, as a matter of fact, the words damper and dampener are used interchangeably. Somewhere, an English teacher is having a screaming fit because of it.
Your guns aren't going to be doing much aside from scratching someone's paint and killing anyone who is stupid in a Tech 1 frigate. You can plink away all you like, just don't expect massive damage. The general idea is to use long-range ammo to stay away from the heavy hitters, not plugging in Antimatter and go into a slug-fest. The "utility slot" has a few uses: fit an Assault Missile launcher with light missiles to raise your anti-frigate DPS from "worthless" to "pitiful"; plug into a Cyno to raise your fleet DPS from "good" to "better"; slap in a Salvager to clean up the place; a drone aug to give your drones more range; or a cheap cloaking device if you're compelled to throw ISK away. Drones are totally optional, and tie into the utility of the build. Light drones can raise your anti-frigate DPS to something that might resemble useful, especially if you shell out for T2 lights. Armor rep drones might be a better choice to make friends. And while they may not be all that useful, Damper drones would add to the comedy, if nothing else. There's also a bit of GTFO built into the ship: The MWD gives it mobility to keep things bigger than a frigate and not named "Vagabond" at the desired engagement range; the plate, MAR2, and DC2 give it the ability to not be insta-popped. But the important thing to remember is that if you have to pulse the MAR, you should also be warping out. You can NOT sustain it for longer than a few cycles... the MAR is there to get you out alive, not to tank. As for rigs? Resistance rigs are popular, since you have no resistance lows. 3C rigs might help you get out. But let's face it: If you've got the materials and bank to put together a top-end version of this jalopy, you might as well slap in your personal combination of Inverted Signal Field Projectors (increases Damper effectiveness) and Ionic Field Projectors (improves targeting speed... though you should be pretty fast already... but it *could* free up the booster mid for another damper...). I'd stick with Inverteds.
EW ships are universally loved. They're never called primary by enemy Fleet Commanders. They're never at risk. And so using a bazillion ISK-worth of equipment on a 3M ISK hull is fine. And all of that is a lie: you're going to die, and die horribly. In a fleet battle, your ship will melt as if under the fire of a thousand suns. By "thousand suns," I mean "20 battleships." Thus, the alternative to the (horrifically) expensive set-up above is here. All the discussion still holds constant... it's just incrementally less effective and astronomically less expensive.
ThoraxSleek, sexy (pun intended), and tough. The Thorax can be an effective killing machine, and will look great doing it.
A Thorax in cruiser-PvP is the epitome of ganking. It's not usual to fit a very good tank on it, and try outlasting the opponent. Nope, mostly it's a passive armor tank, with as much damage as possible, to make the other guy die before you do. To do that, you want to get as much damage. This means using the ship damage bonus for medium hybrid turrets. Now, let's look at the hybrid turrets: two types, blasters and railguns. It's pretty obvious blasters do more DPS than rails. You'll also see blasters don't have a very long range. That's where the second ship bonus comes in, the boost to microwarpdrives. It gets you in range fast, so you can shoot at people faster. Then, you want to prevent him from getting away. That's two-fold. You don't want him to outrun you, so he escapes your blaster range, nor do you want him to warp off. That means a stasis webifier and a warp scrambler are in order. That rounds off the mid-slots; now, on to the low-slots. Here, we need to strike a careful balance between survival and damage, between getting killed and killing. That means maximizing your effective hit points, while trying to squeeze in a few damage mods as well. That concludes to this proposed set-up:
Getting into range is accomplished with the MWD, which should push the ship well north of 1 km/s. Your alignment and travel speed will play into your choice of disruptor. You want to make sure they're not getting away. Once you're burning toward them, slap out the web, and go to work. The blasters and drones will pour out the damage while you laugh. Just make sure you turn the MWD off; there are a lot of cap-hungry modules running, and you're definitely on a clock. Counter-webbing can cause problems to any blaster boat, but if you're aligned and burning, you should eat up some distance before grinding to a halt. Slightly longer range ammos (when compared to Antimatter/Void/Faction Ammo) such as Null or Iridium can also help your Medium Blasters reach out and touch whoever dared web you. Jamming and tracking disruption can also cause the normal issues for any direct-fire vessel. The Medium Armor Repairer isn't really there for tanking, but to patch up scratches. This isn't a ship in the Dominix mold, where it can hang out, persist in combat, kill scores of ships, and casually leave whenever it wants. Rather, it's a ship designed to target one thing, and make it vanish from local.
Because of the massive amount of powergrid not used by this set-up, it behoves you to mount three Hybrid Weapon Rigs to help your guns out. The Hybrid Burst Aerator has to go in to boost damage, and then you're free to pick your other two favorite rigs (except the Collision Accelerator, which takes 200 calibration). I'm a big fan of the optimal and falloff rigs, since they make the railguns hit at silly-long-for-small-gun ranges. Also, be aware that the MWD isn't going to work in Deadspace PvE missions, but an afterburner fits nicely in that slot as needed.
BattleshipDominixThe "old warhorse" of the Gallente fleet has a few redeeming qualities: it's the best non-carrier drone ship in the game. It can fit a stupid-strong armor tank. It looks like a shoe. You're never going to look sexy in a Dominix, but sexy doesn't matter when you're the last one standing.
Your drone training and selection will make the biggest impact on how you fly. Even with lousy skills, a full Warden salvo can start insta-popping frigates at 65 km. With decent skills, they'll track fairly well up until about 20km. At that point, you can reel them in and let the Heavies out to play. They'll finish off anything that got through your halo of doom. The stable of Lights are there to shred frigates, especially webbers and scrammers, which sometime give Heavies trouble. The one thing you should NEVER do with drones, however, is web your targets. Bug or not, it screws with their tracking. Armor hardeners should be chosen according to the mission, which should be a no-brainer. Beware of the Level 4 "omni" damage missions that aren't really omni damage. Case in point: Covering Your Tracks is, nominally, omni damage, but there is so much thermal damage that if you tank omni, you're going to die a horrible, horrible death. Other than that, you're also still stuck with the fact that some missions bug out and go total aggro when drones are used, so instead of actually completing them, you get to lose a ship to massive incoming DPS, and be annoyed that you're not flying a Raven. You can also make some modifications to the set-up. Dropping a Nosferatu and replacing it with a gun or second Drone Aug allows you to fit an Afterburner... and NOS2's if that's your bag, baby. An Omnidirectional Tracking Link I perfectly replaces one of the Cap Recharger IIs. Heck, you might even put a salvager and tractor beam in a few of the high slots to get an early start on garbage collection. Just be cognizant of your capacitor recharge rate and how long you can sustain a dual-LAR tank. Without that, you're in a pod. If you're under-skilled or cheap like me, the set-up also works just fine (though I'd advise against high-grade L4 missions) with T1 gear. The best part about the set-up? It's not totally DOA for PvP, though I certainly wouldn't recommend it for everyday use. But if some jerk jumps you at a gate, you have the ability to tank up for a while (the DC2 alone gives you an impressive quantity of effective structure hit points), launch a few drones, and wait for the cavalry to come. If there's no cavalry, you're probably dead because you don't have an injector fitted. At this point, I'll note that a Medium Capacitor Booster II also fits as a replacement for a Cap Recharger in the mid-slots, and leave conclusions up to the reader.
It should be noted that the most expensive risk with this loss is your drone bay. It's your primary damage source.
MegathronThe mainstay of the Gallente fleet, the Megathron is a surprisingly-versatile PvP ship. It's one of the premier sniping platforms in the game. It can be fit with a vicious short-range gank setup. And it looks really sexy.
Also note that, if you don't have Advanced Weapon Upgrades V, you'll need to fit an Ancillary Current Router to make everything fit. |
