Caldari Basic Ship and Skill Overview

This guide provides general information and recommendations for T1 ships of a single player faction.

For more advanced and in-depth information on specific ships refer to EVE ships. This guide simply gathers the characteristics and overview of racial lineups in an easy to browse format for the very new player.

Basic Ship and Skill Overviews -- Amarr | Caldari | Gallente | Minmatar | ORE | Pirate

Rookie Ship

The rookie ship is the first ship you start with. If you are Caldari, it will be an Ibis. A new rookie ship is given whenever you dock in your pod at a station where you do not have any ships.

Frigate

Frigates are small fast ships, used mostly for level 1 missions or for tackling and electronic warfare roles in PvP.

Destroyer

Destroyers are ships slightly larger than frigates. They use the same sized modules as frigates, have more high slots. They are often used in PvE for level 1 missions. They are rarely used in PvP, as their DPS is not impressive without high skills, although they sometimes fill the role of anti-interceptor.

Flying destroyers is not recommended for PvP Uni fleets. There are some exceptions, like Thrashers for a specialized Hit & Run fleet.

Cruiser

Cruisers are Eve's medium-sized ships. Cruisers are also the only class that has a Tech 3 version, in Caldari, that would be a Tengu. Caldari also have the Blackbird, an Electronic Warfare cruiser known for it's ECM capabilities. The Tech 2 version of Cruiser class ships are divided into four more specialized classes which is much more expensive than their Tech 1 equivalents: Recons (advanced force-multiplying electronic warfare platforms), Heavy Assault Ships (powerful damage-dealers), Heavy Interdictors (nullsec super-tacklers) and Logistics cruisers (remote repair platforms).

Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers are sometimes considered as a more powerful version of Destroyer class ships, they fit the same sized weapons as Cruisers and more widely used as a damage dealing ship than Destroyers. One of the most notable Battlecruiser class ship is probably the Caldari Drake, which is well known for it's tanking capabilities.

 

Battleship

Battleships are the biggest combat ships in the game before Capital-class ships. Battleships usually mount large sized weaponry and mostly used as a damage dealing combat ship in Eve, although there are several Battleships that have different role, such as the Scorpion.

Strategic Cruiser

Strategic Cruiser or Tier 3 Cruiser class are the only customizable ship class in Eve. Every race in Eve has only one Strategic Cruiser ship. The difference between Strategic Cruisers and other type of ships is the use of submodules in which can be reconfigured to suit the need of the pilot. Submodules affects almost every aspect of the ship, not to mention the ship's appearance. More detailed information about Strategic Cruisers can be found on this page.

Industrial

More information about Industrial class ship can be found here.

Ammunition, Range, and Kiting

Missiles

In PvE you are likely to be using missiles, since missiles have some advantages over turrets in PvE, especially for new pilots. One of missiles' advantages is that each kind of missile comes in four versions, each of which does one of the game's four damage types.

This means you can always target the weaknesses of NPC enemies by selecting the missiles which will damage them most. You should select the missile that will hit their weakest resistance (so, for example, explosive missiles against the Angel Cartel) unless you're in a ship (like the Drake) which has per-level bonuses to kinetic damage. If you're in a ship with kinetic missile damage bonuses and you have the relevant ship skill (Battlecruiser, for the Drake) trained high enough then kinetic may do more damage.

Missile range is roughly (not exactly) flight time multiplied by speed. Missiles have no optimal or falloff, they are either in or out of range. The long range missiles popular in PvE often let you outrange the enemy, and a propulsion module (an afterburner or microwarpdrive) will hopefully let you kite the enemy and keep them at range.

Hybrid Turrets

If you've chosen to fight with hybrid turrets you should carry 3 types of ammo during missions, and switch when required. Use close range (antimatter or plutonium) ammo by default. If you are taking too much damage at close range, switch to medium range (lead or thorium) or long (iron or tungsten) range ammo and fire from further away.

Guns can suffer from tracking issues, so try using the 'keep at range' option instead of the 'orbit' option. With the amount of enemies in missions, orbiting is less likely to mitigate the total incoming damage from rats. Even close to optimal, when orbiting and using close range ammo, guns can sometimes have difficulty tracking enemies. Enemies should be kept close to optimal, this should keep angular velocity low to avoid suffering from tracking issues, and as long as enemies are within optimal there will be no reduction in damage.

To find out your optimal with ammo, load ammo in your guns, then right click and show info. The optimal displayed in the attributes will be adjusted for ammo and skills.

Tech and Meta Levels

These fittings were made mostly using Tech 1 Meta 0 modules, or Tech 2 for larger ships. This is partly to avoid confusion with higher meta names. Also, this insures that ship fittings are relatively cheap to get into without spending too much for new players with cash flow difficulties. During war, PvP fittings using Tech 1 Meta 0 modules are provided by the university.

Higher Meta items up to meta 4 will often be easier to fit than Tech 2, and are also heavily used for PvE where the extra effects from the item can be leveraged, but the loss from the cost kept to a minimum. Tech 2 is Meta 5, and harder to fit, since it has much higher skill requirements. Note that Meta 3 and 4 modules are expensive, often more expensive than Tech 2. Meta 1 and 2 modules will often be less expensive than Meta 0, simply due to supply and demand on the market.

Of particular note to Caldari pilots are the keywords for meta levels associated with highly needed Caldari modules. These include those for missiles, hybrid turrets, passive shield modules and active shield modules. Knowing the keywords for these might help spot them from standard mission drops or within contracts on the market. This is not an extensive or all inclusive list, only those of particular need within Caldari specialties. When in doubt, check the item information for its meta level or consult the market price for its value.

Missile Module Meta Levels

1. Meta 1 - 'Malkuth'
2. Meta 2 - 'Limos'
3. Meta 3 - LL-NNNN (Where LL is a two character letter designator, and NNNN is a 4 character number designator.)
4. Meta 4 - 'Arbalest'

Hybrid Turret Module Meta Levels

Blaster based:

1. Meta 1 - Regulated
2. Meta 2 - Limited
3. Meta 3 - Anode
4. Meta 4 - Modal

Railgun based:

1. Meta 1 - Carbide
2. Meta 2 - 'Scout'
3. Meta 3 - Compressed Coil
4. Meta 4 - Prototype I Gauss

Passive Shield Module Meta Levels

Shield Extenders:

1. Meta 1 - Supplemental Barrier
2. Meta 2 - Subordinate Screen
3. Meta 3 - Azeotropic Ward
4. Meta 4 - F-S9 Regolith

Active Shield Module Meta Levels

Shield Amps:

1. Meta 1 - Ionic Field Accelerator
2. Meta 2 - 5a Prototype
3. Meta 3 - 'Stalwart'
4. Meta 4 - 'Copasetic'

Shield Boosters: #Meta 1 - Converse I Deflection #Meta 2 - Neutron Saturation #Meta 3 - Clarity Ward #Meta 4 - C5-L Emergency

Drones

Caldari ships never have large dronebays for their size, and never rely on drones as a primary weapon system. However, Caldari pilots should still train some drone skills for PvE and PvP combat since they provide useful supplementary DPS and are an essential defence for large ships; in L4 missions the most dangerous enemies can be frigates since, unlike all the other rats, they can warp scramble you, stopping you from escaping if your tank breaks. And light drones are the Raven's only effective defence against frigates. Consider Tech 2 light and medium drones a good medium-term goal.

Small drones kill frigates and destroyers, mediums drones hunt cruisers and battlecruisers, and heavy drones do well against battleships and reasonably well against battlecruisers.

As with missiles, you can pick the drone type that hits your enemy's weakest resist. (With the exception of Amarr drones, which do such low damage that it's not worth it.) Gallente drones have the highest damage multiplier, and thermal damage is the best or second best damage to deal against most rat types. For Level 1 to 3 missions, it's fine to exclusively use Gallente drones, although switching drones may make you more efficient. In Level 4 missions, consider varying between Gallente, Caldari and Minmatar drones to match rat weaknesses.

Watch for drone aggro. When arriving in a mission room, don't launch your drones until you've gotten the attention of a group of rats by shooting them. If a new wave of enemies arrives and attacks the drones or a new group of enemies aggro the drones, they should be recalled to the drone bay, and released only when you have full aggro. Under normal circumstances, you should never lose drones when using proper aggro management with rats.

Hot keys are recommended for drone management. They need to be initially launched manually from the drone window, though hot keys can be set for attack and return to drone bay.

In PvP Gallente and Minmatar drones are used almost exclusively. Gallente drones for their damage potential, Minmatar drones for their speed and explosive damage which armor tankers will not always patch.

Tank & Gank

Different rat (NPC pirates) factions have different damage type resistances, and deal different damage types.

Drones and hardeners should be switched around based on rat types.

Damage type resistance and dealt by rats can be found in the NPC Damage Types article.

Mission-specific damage profiles can be found on Eve Survival.

All EHP in this guide is given with EFT calculations, not in-game EHP.

Salvaging After the Mission

Salvaging boats are usually used to clean up rooms after missions are complete. To do so, make sure you bookmark one wreck for each room in the mission, since the acceleration gates will disappear after the mission has be turned in at the agent. Once the mission is turned in, the MWD can be used to propel the salvaging boat within tractor range faster.

For level 4 missions, many players switch from the destroyer to a battlecruiser. Unfortunately, the Gallente battlecruisers have 6 or 7 high slots, instead of 8 like for some other races. The hurricane is well liked as a salvaging boat for its speed (for a BC sized ship) and 8 high slots.

Related Links

• Basic skills and Support skills - Training support skills is a key step towards flying a ship well. Read up on support skills here.
• Fitting Guidelines - Some general guidelines for fitting ships.
• Fitting Modules and Rigs Guide - A list of rigs and module types with short descriptions.
• NPC damage types and NPC Ship Attributes - To see which resists to use and damage types to deal against NPC rats.
• Creating an Alt Hauler - Having an alt hauler can be useful for shopping trips during wartime, if you are living in highsec.

Ship Skill and Fitting Overviews -- Amarr | Caldari | Gallente | Minmatar | ORE | Pirate Factions