Ships 101

Eve has a lot of ships. Once again, there's no real linear progression. Much depends on skill + play-style.

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As a new Gallente player, you are not limited to specific skills or technology. Unlike most MMOs, you are free to train any and all the skills. You simply start off in Gallente space with a slight emphasis on initial paths.

Guidance for New Gallente Players

I'd suggest you stick to basic Gallente ships and techology for now. Some zealous veteran players may stear you into training other race's ships, but at the start you should pick one race and settle in that area (both in terms of skills and location).

There are general "base" categories of ships that reflect 4 standards sizes but not necessarily strength (more on that later):

1. frigates & destroyers
   
2. cruisers
3. battlecruisers
4. battleships

These categories roughly represent the tiers of mission levels (level 1-4). There are also special icons in the game Overview which indicate the corresponding ship size. There are more categories beyond this, as well as more advanced variations on these ship sizes, but for now just understand these categories.

You'll soon see that the combat skills often correspond to ship categories. You may notice skills devoted specifically to "small hybrid" weapons or "gallente frigates." Some players specialize in smaller ships. Others may specialize in the larger fleet "capital" ships which are even bigger than battleships. There are lots of choices.

You start with simple frigates.

Gallente 101

You'll see there are a number of Gallente frigates to pick from.

Gallente technology is known to give great bonuses for the use of drones. Drones are a very powerful. Many pilots rely on them for damage or support abilities. Depending on your play-style, they can be trained up to be your primary damage dealing. New players would be wise to build up basic drone skills.

Gallente technology emphasizes "hybrid" weapons. Railguns and Blasters are the 2 types of hybrid weapons, with blasters being better at very close range and rails being better at longer ranges. Hybrid weaps inflict a combination of Kinetic and Thermal damage (but not EM or Explosive damage). You'll notice there are about 8 different ypes of standard Hybrid Ammo, each with different strengths and weaknesses. Some ammo is good for long range and use less energy. Some are great for close range & max damage. There is no "best" ammo, although you may want to start with something somewhat nuetral in stats like Lead Charges. I'd suggest doing that and using small rail guns, to start.

Gallente technology emphasizes "armor tanking." Notice how ships have shields, armor and structure hitpoints. Gallente ship pilots rely on their armor defenses, often disregarding shields entirely. They fill the "low" slots with modules that focus on armor repair, armor resists and armor strength. When you are starting out, it's a good idea to use a "Damage Control" module, because they give some general resists with particularly strong "last chance" structure support. As you get better at setting up armor tanks, you should drop the damage control for running missions.

As you look ahead at making your ship stronger, think about these aspects of your ship:

• DPS: your damage-per-second output with guns and drones
• your capacitor recharge rate
• your armor repair rate
  
• your armor resistances (EM, Kinetic, Thermal and Explosive damage types)
  

For cap recharge, you can use "cap rechargers" in the mid slot along with "cap power relays" in the low slot. There are "armor repairer" modules for the low slot. For armor resists, you can use "armor hardener" modules you activate to increase specific resistances (i.e. thermal, kinetic, em and explosive damage). Players focused on doing missions will often match specific assets with the mission at hand, using the right drones and hardeners. As you do more challenging levels of missions, it becomes vital to stack several hardeners along with good armor repair and cap recharge rates. Players focused on PvP often take an alternate route by using more "passive" setups that increase your total armor hitpoints mixed with more omnidamage, passive resist modules.

The Imicus frigate is great for drones, which can be very powerful tools in combat. It can hold up to 3 light drones. Use of "hobgoblins" is recommended as your default drone for basic Level 1 mission running. You can switch drones depending on the type of enemy, as different drone types have different strengths and weaknesses (i.e. different types of damage inflicted, max velocities, damage modifiers, tracking capabilities, etc). It also has the largest cargo hold of all the Gallente ships, making it one of the stronger options for Level 1 missions.

The Navitas frigate is a decent all-around frigate with bonuses for mining.

The Incursus frigate is a great gun boat because it has 1 extra turret slot compared to most of the other frigates. It can only fit 1 drone, however. It has a good sized cargohold as well.

The Tristan frigate is a cool ship, but it mixes hybrid weapons with missiles. This can be very confusing for new players, as the use of those missile slots implies cross-training with Caldari skills. It also implies using multiple types of guns & ammo. While it's a fun ship and playstyle, I'd suggest to avoid this initially.

The Atron frigate is a fast frigate, with decent all-around capabilities. It's limited to 1 drone.

The Maulus frigate is a powerful frigate with 3 turret slots and room for 2 light drones.

As you move ahead, you may want to train the extremely fun destroyer class ships. The Gallente destroyer is called the Catalyst. They are gun boats that are particularly strong at popping frigates, making them a lot of fun for Level 1 missions. They also become great dedicated salvaging ships once you move onto other ships.

It's a good idea to move onto cruisers fairly quickly. It doesn't require a lot of special skills to fly a cruiser as a new player and they are much more powerful than frigates. The typical choice for new Gallente players are the Thorax and Vexor.

The Vexor is a strong cruiser that can hold a lot of drones, making it very adaptable. It has drone bonuses and is a very strong all-around ship.

The Thorax is a fun gun boat, but with limited drone capacity. It's a hell of a lot sexier than the Vex.

Cruisers are well suited for Level 2 missions. They will allow you to start fitting real "tank" setups, as they allow 4-5 low slot modules. You can start stacking 3-4 hardeners along with your armor repair module.

Check out this simple Vexor fitting (you can find many more example fittings within Evemon). This uses a couple "tech2" items which require special training, but understand the basic principles behind the setup: several "named" railguns; a drone link augmenter to extend drone range; several cap rechargers; a nice armor repair module; and hardeners. The PDS is a good module but you might use a cap power relay instead. This player also has a mix of light and medium drones which might do most of his damage and easily take care of enemies that get too close.