Support skills: Difference between revisions

Tech 1 frigates and cruisers are more forgiving of poor skills, and often have a bigger impact than more expensive ships if you lack skillpoints (as anyone who's been jammed by a two-week old character in a [[Griffin]] can testify) provided those skillpoints are distributed into '''good' support skills'' and not concentrated in a misguided attempt to sit in a Tech 2 ship.

Because of this, it is well worth it to train skills that affect many of the ships you pilot to level IV in the short to medium term. Training some skills to level V can take a long time and is often best left as a longer term goal or only worth training when they are required as prerequisites (for T2 ships, for example). However, some key skills with low training time multipliers (1x) give you such significant benefits that they're well worth training all the way to V -- {{Sk|Drones}}, {{Sk|Capacitor Systems Operation}} and {{Sk|Navigation}} are three good examples, but are by no means the only ones.  

**{ {sk|Jump Drive Operation}}: 5% reduction per level of the capacitor need of initiating a jump (not useful for sub-capital ships without jump drives)  

** {{sk|Capacitor Emission Systems}}: 5% reduced capacitor need per level for energy emission modules (important if you ever find yourself in a [[Basilisk]] or [[Guardian]] logistics ship)

* {{sk|Evasive Maneuvering}}: 5% bonus to agility per level -- a very significant bonus  

* {{sk|Spaceship Command}}: 2% bonus to agility per level -- not as impressive as Evasive, but more quickly trained, and a prerequisite for various ships too  

* {{sk|Navigation}}: 5% faster sub-warp speed per level -- a very nice bonus and a skill that's quickly trained

*** Tactical Shield Manipulation's usefulness is disputed, but level IV is required to use the very useful T2 active shield hardeners, so most people train it to IV and then forget about it. Level V is required to use the Pulse Activated Nexus Invulnerability Core (PANIC) module for the [[Rorqual]], but this is a very specific requirement and the skill level is not required for anything else.

Drone skills are most crucial for new pilots flying ships which specialize in drones, that is, many Gallente ships and some Amarr ships. However, the larger ships of all four factions have significant dronebays and drone bandwidth, which means that all pilots involved in PvP or PvE combat of any kind are likely to want to polish their drone skills eventually.

** Heavy Drone Operation V is a long train, equivalent to level V in the large weapon skills. It is worthwhile for pilots aspiring to ships such as the [[Dominix]] or [[Rattlesnake]].

Most (but not all) rigs come with a drawback (a 10% penalty to something) as well as a benefit. Each subset of rigs has an associated skill which reduces the drawback effect of those rigs by 10% per level out of the original penalty, so you lower the penalty by 1%/level to 5% with max skills.

To continue the example, an armor-tanked Hurricane using a 10MN Microwarpdrive II, fitting one 1600mm plate and flown by a pilot with all relevant navigation skills at Level V, has a max speed of 1161 m/s. Add three Trimark Armor Pump I rigs with {{sk|Armor Rigging|only trained to Level 1}}, and his max speed is reduced to 924 m/s, a more than 20% reduction in velocity. Increasing training to {{sk|Armor Rigging|V}} increases max speed back up to 1025 m/s, which is 11% faster than having the skill trained to Level 1. Is it worth training a skill like {{sk|Armor Rigging}} from Level IV to Level V?  With {{sk|Armor Rigging|IV}}, this hurricane will have a max speed of 999 m/s; it some PvP situations, that 2.5% extra speed will make a big difference.  

* Full flight of drones ({{sk|Drones|V}}) -- battlecruisers have drone bays, and these are your anti-frigate defense.  

T2 guns on battleships are great, but the training time for T2 turrets is on the order of 70 days, from basic T1 large gun skills -- making them a long-term goal. T2 missiles take less time to train but still aren't exactly one weekend's training. Most pilots initially invest in high meta-level Tech 1 weapons, though the cost of Meta 4 large lasers and the attraction of Scorch crystals may encourage Amarr BS pilots to head for T2 guns earlier than others.  

However, all T2 frigates benefit greatly from most of the skills in the Navigation category, because as frigates they usually rely on speed and agility for a significant part of their tank against larger enemies. You should also definitely aim to fit T2 modules for at least the key functions of your ship -- [[Frigate#Interceptors|interceptors]] deserve T2 MWD skills and T2 tackling modules, [[Frigate#Assault_Frigates|assault frigates]] deserve T2 weapons and tanks, and so on. A full T2 fit is a good goal for T2 frigates but not strictly necessary.  

As with T2 frigates, you will want other supports which will vary depending on your ship's specialization -- a [[Falcon]] deserves EWAR support that doesn't help a [[Vagabond]] at all. Just as with frigates, a T2 cruiser deserves T2 modules wherever possible.

* For basic skills with low requirements, see [[Basic skills]].  

* For '''damage-dealing''' you should train [[Gunnery Guide#Gunnery_Support_Skills|gunnery supports]] and/or [[Skills:Missiles#Support Skills|missile supports]] and/or [[Skills:Drones#Drone Support Skills|drone supports]], depending on your weapon of choice.  

* '''Electronic warfare''' benefits from [[Electronic warfare#Electronic_warfare_skills|these skills]].  

* '''Capacitor warfare''' benefits from [[Capacitor Warfare Guide#Skills|these skills]].

* A list of useful '''stealthy ships''' skills is [[Covert Ships Skillset|here]].