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dorobu
Member Posts: 80
So I've started up playing EVE this week. I was wondering about the following before I dish out the cash to subscribe and I was hoping some of the more experienced players on this site might be able to offer answers.
It's seeming to me as I progress through the missions and gang with others that bigger ships and missiles is the way to go in PvE. Is there no way to effectively use the smaller, and more importantly, faster ships to fight? My goal was to get to and pilot interceptors, but there doesn't seem to be anything to do in the what looks like about 40 days of skills without going on to large, slow, missile carrying vessels or mining. Right now I'm having to use my Coercer to be able to complete missions (and even then, I don't get to even make it to ships before people with missiles kill them) when I'd rather be using my Executioner.
Once I get to interceptors are they even viable in the scope of things later on?
-doro
Comments
Interceptors, even more so as of the Trinity patch, are geared towards pvp - a warp scramble bonus is pretty useless against an npc. They are great in pvp though, as roaming interceptor gangs.
People gravitate towards large ships with missiles for missions because it is the easiest form of combat to use, and the quickest and easiest to train skills for because it takes far fewer skills to effectively fit a Torpedo/Cruise Raven or Heavy Drake compared to a Megapulse Armageddon or a Drone+Blaster Thorax.
So, you can either follow the masses and train missiles... or you could assign yourself a role in your little groups, and take on more challenging opponents. If everything is dieing before your Coercer can get in firing range, I think your gangs need to step the difficulty up a little.
I'm not expert just yet but... Interceptor is more of a PvP ship (and I'm tranning for it! Couple of more days and I'm ready to go). Heavy assault ship comes to my mind as kick ass fighter - if it can handle 0.0 rates, it should hold it's own in missions. Not sure about lvl 4 misions, not sure if you could solo em (without warping out 100 times to repair), since usually you need well fitted Battleship for those.
But I'm sure someone else will be able to tell you for sure soon.
Interceptors are not for PvE period.
Missile boats are best for PvE but in PvP they are far inferior to pulse, cannon or hybrid damage dealing ships.
You are not supposed to go in PvP with interceptors and it is a long skill to train for a new character.
what you can do is if you really want to gang up and blow ships is use railguns, these have longer range and will do less damage in compared to a similar skilled pilot in missile boat in PvE.
Also you should choose what you want to do with interceptor, if you want to go doing missions with interceptors then it's wrong choice.
The thing you mentioned that missiles hit your target before it blows up actually it's kinda opposite in actual PvP scenario, since missiles take time to reach it's target and other weapons like hybrid, cannons or lasers hit instantly so most of the times by the time missile reaches its target the enemy is blown up.
So the bottom line is with interceptors you can't do much in missions or against npcs but in PvP it's a great ship. Also missile boats are best suited for PvE scenario.
Missiles are certainly not "required for pve", any weapon type is viable. Exclusively flying frigate sized ships is probably not the best option for pve in the long term. You don't have to go for the biggest ships though: one of my characters never flies anything larger than cruiser-sized ships and is perfectly suited to do all sorts of pve stuff (level four missions etc) using heavy assault cruisers. These are also often used as "speed ships" in pvp and are really good "fast ships with evil damage".
I wouldn't train for a Tech 2 ship when you first start playing anyways, you'll be waiting around for too long on the level 5's.
Some good answers already but what i thught id say is that PvE stuff is really there not as a main occupation [tho some do disagree] but as soething to support the main Pvp section of EvE.
PvE is fine for ewhile you are learning but those ships such as interceptors are really designed for team based PvP. The role of the interceptor is mainly the fast interceptor f the groupe. You see what most do when they see enermies that outnumber or outgunthem is to run away. To do that they allign to warp then build up speed to about 75% of top speed before warping away.
Now most ships would probably get away as most attacking ships usually take too long to get into warp jamming range. So what they need is a small FAST ship to do the jamming for them hence the interceptor.
So when you do get an interceptor join a PvP corp and fit your interceptor for speed with a warp jammer module or 2 and you will fit right in [and if your good at it you will become quite popular as a team member].
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Retired from: Neocron, Everquest, Everquest 2, Guild Wars, RF Online and Final Fantasy VII
Currently Playing : EvE Online.
Another option you can look at is Assault Frigates. They share some of the same skill requirements with Interceptors (so you can train both) and are sturdy enough to see you through Level 3 missions. You'll eventually need to step up to a HAC, BC, or BS to run Level 4 missions effectively, but going the AF route lets you specialize in small ships and weaponry a bit longer.
Thanks for all of the great answers. I was planning on going intercepter for PVP, not for PVE (should have been more clear), but I was just hoping to stay in smaller ships for PVE. I'll check out some of your suggestions after work today. Thanks again!
-doro
Read a little bit more on ships and I think I may have been better off as a Minmatar as far as the ships I would like to fly go. So now I just have to figure out whether to start training or rerolling.
-doro
I prefer fast small ships like you, but I have a very different approach from the above replies.
I specialise in piloting covert ops ships, and with this I PvP and PvE.
PvP covert ops
I scout gates for large fleets of hundreds of pilots - 10 to 15 jumps ahead of the 'navy'. Using teamspeak I relay my findings to the Fleet Commander and the entire fleet. My Cheetah also uses probes to scan out the hiding places of enemy fleets and individual ships - including players who have 'safe spotted' and logged off. Then our ships can warp to my position and distroy the enemy.
With the same setup I can generate cynos. This enables the fleet to jump to my position from many solar systems away. This is a very risky role so I am currently skilling up to generate covert ops cynos. This will enable Black Ops battleships to jump to my position form far away while we are all cloaked.
PvE covert ops
With a small adjustment to my setup I can probe for exploration sites (hacking, archeology, salvage, complexes, rare gas clouds, rare asteroid belts etc). This makes me a lot of ISK.
Important notes
1) I stay cloaked and I don't shoot the enemy, this is why few fly covert ops. The up-side to this is that you will be very in demand!
2) Another reason few want to do covert ops is because it takes a while to develop elite skills (which are always nice to have!)
3) My job requires a lot of responsibility. However, all it takes is experience, and it will develop your real life skills (teamwork, communication etc).
4) You will very rarely die!!
Well, if you can spring the ISK or $$ for an alt account, you should maybe think about getting one. It helps playing in EVE in many, many ways.
However, there's no inherent reason for rerolling your character unless he has atrocious stats (high cha/int low per/will or somesuch clear mistake). Just having a, say, Caldari doesn't mean he can't fly Minmatar, and many of his skills will be directly usable in flying minmatar ships.
For instance, all missile skills can be used with minnie ships, as they do sport launcher spots. Likewise for shield tanking skills, for many minnie ships can shield tank.
Besides, there's no really huge advantage of one races ships over anothers (despite moanings of many a forum warrior, especially Amarrians). In the end, Caldari ships are capable PVP platforms (especially for EW purposes) just as Gallente ships are capable PVE platforms (they just take a little longer to train the skills for). Minmatar ships are about average in all sides, but they generally don't shine on any particular aspect except speed.
If you really want, you can train Minmatar ship skills and the equipment skills you need (mostly projectile guns and some armor tanking skills), but at the point where you're still considering going for cruisers, I don't see the point of rerolling your character.
If you want to PvE with smaller ships get into HACs (Heavy Assault Cruiser)...also they are super awesome for PvP. They have the DPS or more of a BS, Faster, Smaller and have great resistances.
They are very skill intensive but well worth it. Also with this upcoming patch they will get cheaper (faster research times and easier to aquire the BPO)
I Also pilots Intys, they are great for PvP but dont even think about using them for PvE seriously...if you want to PvE in a frigate class ship, get into Assault Ships (Frigs) they can do up to LvL 3 missions and *Some* lvl 4s if you have mad skills and you know how to fly.
Also keep in mind the goal of PvP is to make the other team lose more ISK than yours....its very expensive so you will also need a PvE ship...The new T2 BS's will be monsters in mission farming so you might want to look into them.
Hope That helps.
Well, right now my character is Amarr with amarr frig and laser skills (which are seeming more and more useless). No launcher or anything like that. I didn't really know too much what i was doing. I'm only a few days in and it would take me over a week to catch up in frig skill for say minmatar, which is why I was thinking of just rerolling.
-doro
Just gonna throw this in..what each race uses in a general overall sense...might help you make a more informed choice. These are just basic Generalizations!
Amarr:
+side of Amarr is that you dont have to carry much ammo and you can swap for long range and short range fights very fast
+Beam: High Damage Long range to mid range, slow tracking
+Pulse: Mid to short range, Fast and good tracking
Galante:
Hybrid Guns: (can vary dmg types with Ammo)
+Blasters- Super close range high dmg guns,very good tracking
+ Rails- Super Long range to mediumrange, slow tracking
Minmatar:
+Autocannons: Super close range High dmg guns, fire fast and have extremely good tracking
+Artilery: Long range to mid range, Very High Damage on the larges, Poor tracking you need a lot of range for these
Caldari:
+relatively low skill train times to be good with.
+good for all dmg types and can fit for short and long range.
+Blasters and Rails * see above.
~HappyGaming
PS: DO YOUR LEARNING SKILLS!! when you finally decide on a Race...get the basics to 5 and the advanced to 4, it will save you a lot of time in the long run. Get in a decent ship before you go for them hardcore though. but at least to lvl 4 basic and lvl 2 or 3 advanced to start.
Minmatar ships seem to interest me the most. I'll probably just skill up my Amarr character to them.
-doro
Well, it's not a bad choice. Other thing you can do is train up Gallente when/if you have the time. I have a couple of ranks in all racial frigates, and will eventually train up so I can use all interceptors and assault frigs.
Minmatar ships means you don't lose much except the basic 'racial' gunnery and piloting skills, since most of your other skills translate directly.
And a week of training is very little indeed when you look at the long run. It's quite possible that you'll come up to like some Amarr ships later in the game, or at least use the lasers (even without dmg/cap bonuses) on minmatar ships just for the ammo efficiency. For PVE, it does offer certain advantage.
I wouldn't train for an interceptor yet, They are PvP ships, train for a battleship, it will take 8 days to train for one and you can fit T2 weapons within a month depending on what race you pick or what ship you want to fly.
Just my 2 cents, Ravan's and missiles are fotm and best for pve.
Playing: Everthing
Played: DAoC,AC2,EvE,SWG,WAR,MXO,CoX,EQ2,L2,LOTRO,SB,UO,WoW.
I have played every MMO that has ever come out.
I use a Rifter and use ECW and massive speed to go through my missions. Sometimes I have to think outside the box but not much. Did a fleet mission with my corp not to long ago there were capital ships there, some of them targeted me but I think landed about 50 points of damage total.
"And thus I clothe my naked villany/ with old odd ends stolen forth from holy writ/ and seem a saint when most I play the devil." Shakespeare's Richard III Act I Scene 3.
Yeah, go for minmatar if you're interested in pvp. As far as interceptors go, I love zipping about in them for pvp. I love going fast. You can get a crow going 8.5 km/s with no implants and someone in your gang having good gang skills and they're not the fastest inty. Fun fun fun. I'm about to cross train into minmatar. I fancy a vagabond.
Actually I believe the crow is the fastest inty. I could be wrong though....
"A ship-of-war is the best ambassador." - Oliver Cromwell
I am currently training battleships, heavy projectiles and torpedos.
playing eq2 and two worlds
I like the Coercer as a reserve PvP ship. The mid get's a web and I tend to slap 400mm plates in the lows with no armor rep. They shouldn't cost more then 3mil to slap together and are very effective when dealing with enemy support ships.
The interceptor is foci of a tackler. they are fun as hell to use in fleet warfare and never cease being a valuble nescesity to any fleet.
I've got a Rifter set up pretty nicely now that I'm doing very well in. Lost my first Rifter to PVE while I adjusted, but they are so cheap. Using autocannons, a rocket laucher, a webifier, etc. I can't wait to get into some PVP, just don't know how!
-doro
Okay here's what you do.
First you train Caldari.
Why Caldari? Easy ratting.
Train Kestrel, Caracal, Drake, Raven
Easy right?
If you end up liking Caldari, max it out and you can PvP with it.
If not, choose a second race for PvP.
While you CAN rat with Amarr, Gallente, and Minmatar, it just takes longer and less efficient.
Lots of ppl max out Caldari and PvP with it.
Ratting/Missions as a Minmatar is hard, you need ridiculous gunnery skills to equal a 2 day noob in a Drake.