Eve online can consistently make you feel like a moron. This is because it does not openly tell you that fitting is more an art than it is a science. This doesn’t mean its not worth learning. I’m going to try and make this as newbie friendly as possible so below is a key for all acronyms and such. Ill openly say I’m not an expert but I have a few kills and no where near as many deaths. I enjoy small gang play with logistics in play so I prefer high resists buffer tanks over active tanks but but they both have a place. I wont list mods as options because of the variety of choices I’m bound to miss one. Please if you have questions ask in the comments below.
Key for acronyms
CCP = Game Devs that make the game
Tank = The difficult part of the ship to break through in order to kill it. (the line that generally takes the longest to disappear in a fight.)
MWD= Micro Warp drive
AB= After burner
EHP= Effective hit points. the actual amount of total damage you can take as an alpha strike total your ship.
ECCM= Electronic Counter Countermeasures Defensive raise your ability against ECM.
ECM= Electronic Countermeasures Offensive generally meant to break locks and jam a player form targeting for a short time.
Damps= Sensor Dampeners used to either reduce scan resolution or lock range.
Scan resolution= the higher the number means the faster you can lock smaller targets.
Cap= Capacitor
PVP= player VS player
PVE player VS environment (NPCs)
Logi= logistics ships designed to repair other ships in combat
DC= Damage Control (add a 2 for Damage control 2 if you realy want to.) Train hull upgrades 4 to unlock DC2 Best mod in the game seriously.
CCP’s Damage application formula For any serious math nerds that want to see how this all applies when whipping around orbiting something to shoot it.
ChanceToHit = 0.5 ^ ((((Transversal speed/(Range to target * Turret Tracking))*(Turret Signature Resolution / Target Signature Radius))^2) + ((max(0, Range To Target – Turret Optimal Range))/Turret Falloff)^2)
Tanks
So there are a few different schools of thought in ship fitting for tanks. These are based on the ship itself some are natural armor some are natural shield and some because CCP likes to make things challenging and unpredictable for pvp. Only because it needs to be said Do not dual tank a ship (For the record Damage control is the exception due to its added resists to hull armor and shield). So lets dive in to the basics.
Lets talk math for a minute. Specifically resistances and how they work. Having 99% resists in one damage type does you nothing if the other 3 are being shot at you. so its best to try and level the resists out at around 60 to 70 percent. For frigates its likely to have a resistance hole as you cant fill all the resistances with the amount of slots available. generally try and have this be EM as only one race uses EM damage constantly. So the math part. lets say I deal perfect damage every time I fire my guns and I am doing 100 DPS. my frigate has resists at 60% on all damage types the damage incoming is now only 40dps of which my local rep will have a much easier time repping. if we add this in to the formula for tracking and optimal range for guns by managing speed and transversal velocity we can eliminate more and more dps from the equation making it easier to tank the incoming dps.
Speed
Knowledge of the mechanics for tracking and dps application is vital for small gang or solo pvp. This being said Sig size and speed are huge factors. To throw everyone for a loop there are cases of ships that fit no tank. However Their tank comes from playing with the tracking and dps application formula. Speed is key here. Nanofiber in the lows dual prop setups (those with micro warps and afterburners) generally these fit with rigs to max out speed with out adding any dead weight. Great examples of these are interceptors and ships like the imperial navy slicer.
Active Tanks Basics
First rule of active tanks STOP CARING ABOUT CAP STABLE. pulsing equipment changes the cap use over time gaining time in a fight. In a frig 1 on one fight if it last for more than a minute one if not both of you are either awful at pvp or are still waiting for ancillary charge based tanks to empty. Ancillary based boosters or reps will fail over time only engage if you think you can win before your reps give out. Normal reps is where things get tricky. they run cap dry quick but can be used with good success. Especially if you have a NOS or cap booster to recharge cap. If you have more than a minute of cap you don’t have a problem. If you have 10 seconds of cap you do have a problem unless you have multiple prop mods. So What is better Ancillary or normal reps with cap boosters? Depends on the ship. Sadly I cant give you that answer. I can say if you can off size an ancillary rep For instance fit a medium over a small then you might be on to something for that specific ship.
Passive Tank BasicsPassive tanks are about EHP and dps. you want to tank the incoming dps with high enough resists that you can break their tank first. Alternatively you want to make it easier for friendly logistics to rep you. put the largest plate you can fit on the ship and get the best resists. Train Hull upgrades 5 to be good at this. 4 minimum so you can unlock DC2
Armor Passive
Alright lets put this out there as a baseline, Armor is Fat and heavy. Picture a knight in full plate armor slow moving but can hit like a truck at close range. Generally this means slower to align and slower speeds. This isn’t all the bad though. It just means your engagements will be different as far as what range you want to engage and what you want to take on. When armor passive works best with high resists and the more and more Actual Armor hit points. EHP wins fights. IF you have less and they hit harder than you then you loose. It works especially well with logistics but more on that later.
Note There is an urge to faction fit to get better resists. If you enjoy frig fights you will run out of money very rapidly if you use faction or dead-space equipment. For the flamboyantly rich please leave names and where I can find you in comments.
Armor ActiveArmor fitting for active tanks on frigs is hard. most times you get 3 slots and 1 of them is a damage control allows for your local rep to keep you low armor without instantly popping when you dip into structure. A damage control has saved my ship and my LC’s life many times. There are times you can fit an off sized Ancillary rep to gain a wicked good tank but your fitting skills need to be perfect and often need a few implants to get the necessary power grid and CPU.
Shield PassiveLike that of armor the name of the game is EHP. High resists and a shield extender. The benefit of shields is open low power slots for DPS mods.
Shield Active
Active shields is a bit more tricky. Active tanking with limited slots can be difficult for new players as they might feel they are over exposed with lower resists but also forced to put on points and webs that drain cap as bad as the shield booster itself. This makes ancillary a good choice in some cases. others it is not needed.
Signature tank
alright because this wasn’t hard enough to pick from our last tank revolves on a modification of the speed tank. Although there are many ways to do this the primary concern is moving quickly without the use of a micro warp drive. This can be seen especially with ships like the kitsune and logistics frigates. 1mn afterburner is not enough to do this with at least not well. What you are going to try and do with this in order to do it best is fit an off sized afterburner on the frig. Meaning Fit a 10mn AB on a frigate instead of a 1mn. This will give you micro warp drive speeds but no signature penalty for an active micro warp drive.
Ship Piloting Requirements: Picking Weapons.Almost every ship has bonuses to a specific weapons group. In each group there are long and short range variants of frig sized weapon systems. The short range weapons require a brawler type setup likely with a warp scram to keep them from getting away. Short range generally has higher DPS but puts you at risk as far as engagement range to compensate for that. Long range weapons systems are designed to keep you out away from brawlers and kite damage. Using long range guns or missiles means speed is your friend. Speed tanks or kiting fits use long range.
Hybrids
Short range: Blasters
Long range: Rails
Projectiles
Short range: Auto cannons
Long range: Artillery
Lasers
Short range: Pulse
long range: beams
Missiles (No I didn’t forget)
Short range: Rockets
Long range: Light missiles
Ranging Your Engagement
You have your weapons you have your tank now its time for the other stuff. Ill do this part in a few common questions.
MWD or afterburner?
MWD if your planning on being outside of 15km the entire fight. Afterburners for brawling gives you the speed edge in brawler vs brawler.
long point or scram?
Match your point to your weapons systems range. Long range guns means long point. Short range means short point. Speed tank can fit both if they really want to.
Tracking computer or Tracking disruption?
if you have long range guns vs another long range gun ship then disruption, to force them to stay near you. if against brawlers then tracking computers as they will move quickly.
To ECCM or not to ECCM?
Its a frigate. outside of EAS (Electronic attack ships) fits ECCM hold almost no purpose. Even with those fits if they are getting jammed out then clearly there is a problem.
Damps or ECM?
Damps are 100% effective all the time. If you think you are going to be entering and exiting their lock range with a damp running then use damps. if ecm is your only hope of beating them, your probably dead already.
Drones, ECM or DPS?
For frigs this is easy DPS 100% of the time. fighting other frigs warrior 2s will hands down get you a win over ecm drones. Cruisers and higher this changes significantly.
Implants
OK this can be tricky. Are they worth it for frigs? depends on if your in high/low sec or null… instant point on pods is rare but possible. so be prepped to loose them. if in low or high sec you should be able to warp away provided you are jamming warp to as you ship dies. I generally fly with CA-1, CA-2 and EG-603 giving me a boost to the CPU and powergrid of every ship I fly. This means I can get bigger better gear on my ship than someone without these implants.
Logistics Frigates
Logi frigs are fun to fly. If you fly logi you are a friend of mine. Logistics job is to keep the fleet alive with remote repairs to shields or armor. Hull tanking not supported by boosts yet. There are 4 frigs with bonuses to logistics and they are all pretty epic. Any Fleet commander in eve that denies logistics to enter a fleet probably doesn’t plan on flying his ship home. the team with logi generally wins over those without. WE are all patently awaiting t2 logistics frigs….Till then these do great.
TLDR
Remember this. match your weapons range to your point range and microwarp for kiting not for brawling and always make sure to fit with resists.
Your turn
Please reply with some of your fits so people can critique and see if they can get them to work.
Commander Aze ‘Frost’
