Preparing for Incursions

Ship progression

Unless you are already heavily invested into a certain race or weapon system, it might be a good idea to think of which logistics ship, strategic cruiser or pirate faction battleship you'll want in the end, rather than what your first incursion ship should be.

You should also consider secondary value of whatever you train, perhaps you can find an end-of-the-line ship that not only furthers your goals for incursions but other goals as well given the skills you'll end up training for it. If you already know that you like smaller ships, or have plans for diving into a wormhole in the future, it would make much more sense training into a strategic cruiser than a pirate faction battleship. Depending on the race, training for strategic cruisers will make quite some progress towards being able to fly logistics as well, or the other way around if your goal is to fly logistcs. That said, most strategic cruisers pale in comparison to the pirate faction battleships who remain the epitome of incursion boats.

Recommended battleships:

Races	Ship	Description
		The Maelstrom can easily lead into the Machariel, retaining the projectile skills and Minmatar skills, but requires Gallente battleship. Minmatar in general also offers the Loki and Sleipnir as well as the Scimitar for logistics.
		The Rokh can train into a Vindicator, retaining the hybrid skills, but forced to train both Gallente and Minmatar battleships. It can also train into the Nightmare, retaining the Caldari battleship skills, but forced to crosstrain into lasers. Caldari also offers the Basilisk for logistics.
		The Hyperion can easily lead into the Vindicator, retaining the hybrid skills and Gallente skills, but requires Minmatar battleship.

End-game ships:

Races	Ship	Description
		The Machariel combines a flexible engagement range for autocannons with a high rate of fire. Fit for long range the impressive alpha is unmatched. It also has enough midslots to fit for any occasion.
		The Nightmare has very good damage at any range due to fast-swapping crystals and compensates for the innate low tracking of lasers with the ship's tracking bonus. It also has plenty of utility midslots available. Has some cap issues.
		The Vindicator is a brawler without match, both in terms of damage and incredibly strong webs. Despite appearances, it is also a very potent sniper when fitted with railguns, and tech two ammo makes it possible to use blasters at medium range.
		The Legion combines powerful short range capabilities with instant-swapping long range capabilities due to how crystals work. Ideal ship if you prefer smaller, more agile ships to the bulkier battleships.
		The Loki's combination of multiple webs and extreme tracking makes it very useful. It also has the option to fit for longer webs, which isn't always needed but makes a world of difference when it is.
		Very few Command Ships have the range and utility needed to make them good for incursions, suffering the same problems as most ships with medium weaponry. The Sleipnir stands out with exceptional tracking, range and damage capabilities.
		The Scimitar is a logistics ship, the core of fleet defense. It does not rely on energy transfers to be cap stable and can therefor be fully operational on its own. The bonus to tracking links makes it an enormous asset on the field, on top of the repairs it supplies.
		The Basilisk is another logistics ship, but unlike the Scimitar, it needs someone to exchange energy transfers with to be effective. With good skills it can provide energy transfers to the fleet or field one more shield transporter for extra repping power.

Recommended skills

The following skills are recommended, if not downright required to fit the modules you have to in order to do incursions. For more information on what the different skills do, see the Support Skills page. It's worth noting that the skills we recommend are basic skills, useful for pretty much all combat ships in EVE.

The training times listed for these will assume that you trained Cybernetics I and got a cheap set of +3 attribute implants, which is not only reasonable but highly recommended regardless what you plan on doing in EVE. There's even The +3 Implants Program for unistas to get started.

Damage dealers

Getting the recommended skills for a damage dealer requires less than 60 days of training, if you train into a turret-based battleship on a brand new character.

Considering that is far more likely that you come looking for incursions after you have played the game for at least a couple of weeks, having trained some of the support skills already (the tutorial mentions many of them), you can often get ready much faster. Add to that the potential of neural remapping and what might seem like a daunting train can be covered in no-time.

These recommended skills will allow you to fly any of the recommended battleships for vanguards and assaults.

Support skills	Gunnery skills	Ship skills	Drone skills
~ 19 days and 22 hours	~ 22 days and 2 hours	~ 4 days and 11 hours	~ 13 days and 2 hours
Cybernetics I Electronics IV Engineering IV Mechanics IV Weapon Upgrades IV Energy Management IV Energy Systems Operation IV Shield Upgrades IV Tactical Shield Manipulation IV Signature Analysis IV Targeting IV Long Range Targeting IV Propulsion Jamming III Target Painting III  Jury Rigging III Shield Rigging III Shield Operation IV EM Shield Compensation III Warp Drive Operation III	Gunnery V Motion Prediction IV Rapid Firing IV Sharpshooter IV Surgical Strike IV Trajectory Analysis IV Controlled Bursts IV  Small <racial> Turret III Medium <racial> Turret III Large <racial> Turret III	<racial> Frigate III <racial> Destroyer III <racial> Cruiser III <racial> Battlecruiser III Spaceship Command IV <racial> Battleship III	Drones V Drone Interfacing III Scout Drone Operation V  Combat Drone Operation III Minmatar Drone Specialization III  Drone Durability I  Repair Drone Operation II  Shield Emission Systems III
~ 59 days and 13 hours worth of training in total

Logistics

Training for logistics is considerably more time-consuming than that of a regular damage dealer. Please remember that when you think the above mentioned skills for a damage dealer is a long train.

It takes up to 75 days to get good enough skills to fly a logistics starter fit.

Support skills	Repair skills	Ship skills	Drone skills
~ 17 days and 23 hours	~ 4 days and 3 hours	~ 47 days and 16 hours	~ 5 days and 6 hours
Cybernetics I Electronics IV Engineering IV Mechanics IV Energy Management IV Energy Systems Operation IV Shield Upgrades IV Tactical Shield Manipulation IV Targeting V  Multitasking III  Jury Rigging III Shield Rigging III	Shield Emission Systems IV Energy Emission Systems IV Sensor Linking III	<racial> Frigate III <racial> Destroyer III <racial> Cruiser V Signature Analysis V  Long Range Targeting V  Logistics IV Afterburner III Warp Drive Operation III	Drones V Drone Durability I  Repair Drone Operation II  Shield Emission Systems III
~ 75 days worth of training in total

Further training

Once you have the recommended skills, it's time to consider what else to train.

Advanced hulls

The step from a battleship to a strategic cruiser or a pirate faction battleship is surprisingly short and you should take this step as soon as possible to get into a really good ship. You might need to top off some of the support skills, pending on what ship you decide to move into, if you run into powergrid, CPU or cap issues.

For strategic cruisers you'll most likely require you to train some support skills to V and of course your racial cruiser of choice to V. Then you just move towards tech two medium weapons for further efficiency. When it comes to pirate faction battleship hulls like the Machariel, Nightmare and Vindicator, which are better in all regards compared to the regular battleships regardless of your skill, you'll need to train anything from a secondary racial shipline to two new racial shiplines and new racial turret skills. Flying ships that cost over a billion in just the hull shouldn't be taken lightly however, but from an efficiency point of view there is no reason not to get one.

Also remember that once you've trained the generic support skills for ships and weapons, crosstraining into a different racial ship or a secondary racial turret doesn't take that long. Same for logistics, once you have the skills to fly one of them, the other is a matter of training up a new racial cruiser skill to V. Being able to fly several ships and roles, like both that of a damage dealer and a logistics, gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility. It also makes you quite desirable among the incursion communities, both within EVE University and beyond, as having pilots capable of switching roles or ships based on what the fleet needs is incredibly useful.

Strategic Cruisers	Pirate Faction Battleships	New racial turret	New racial shipline
~ 43 days and 20 hours	~ 24 days and 15 hours	~ 5 days and 5 hours	~ 9 days and 17 hours
Mechanics V Shield Operation III Electronics V Engineering V Gunnery V Missile Launcher Operation III Navigation V <racial> Cruiser V <racial> Strategic Cruiser III <racial> Defensive Systems IV <racial> Electronic Systems V  <racial> Engineering Systems IV <racial> Offensive Systems V  <racial> Propulsion Systems IV	<primary> Frigate III <primary> Destroyer III <primary> Cruiser III <primary> Battlecruiser III <primary> Battleship IV <secondary> Frigate III <secondary> Destroyer III <secondary> Cruiser III <secondary> Battlecruiser III <secondary> Battleship IV Small <racial> Turret III Medium <racial> Turret III Large <racial> Turret IV	Small <racial> Turret III Medium <racial> Turret III Large <racial> Turret IV	<racial> Frigate III <racial> Destroyer III <racial> Cruiser III <racial> Battlecruiser III <racial> Battleship IV

Honing your skills

Remember that the recommended skills are just the beginning and there is much room for improvement. Increase these skills, train up for tech two weaponry and max out the gunnery and support skills, and your ship will be much more efficient. You'll also have many more options to improve your fit with better fitting and support skills, like upgrading a module, drop an excessive tank module for more utility modules and so forth.

What you're going to train next differs a little bit based on what ship and what weapons you're going to use. For some fitting skills will be prioritized due to the lack of CPU or powergrid of their hull, for others capacitor skills are more important while others can simply go straight for better ship skills and tech two weaponry.

Support skills	Gunnery skills	Ship skills	Drone skills
Prioritize which skills to train first, some are more important than others, so do your research.
Cybernetics V  Electronics V Engineering V Mechanics V Energy Management V Energy Systems Operation V Shield Upgrades V Targeting V Multitasking III Long Range Targeting V Jury Rigging IV  Shield Rigging IV Shield Emission Systems V Energy Emission Systems V  Sensor Linking V  EM Shield Compensation IV	Weapon Upgrades V Advanced Weapon Upgrades V Gunnery V Motion Prediction V Rapid Firing V Sharpshooter V Surgical Strike V Trajectory Analysis V Controlled Bursts V Small <racial> Turret V Small <racial> Specialization IV Medium <racial> Turret V Medium <racial> Specialization IV Large <racial> Turret V Large <racial> Specialization IV <weapon> Rigging IV	<racial> Battleship V Logistics V	Electronic Warfare IV Electronic Warfare Drone Interfacing IV Drone Interfacing V Combat Drone Operation V Minmatar Drone Specialization IV Repair Drone operation V

Miscellaneous skills

While not critical, being able to overheat your modules for a short while is often more than enough to save your ship when things turn from bad to worse. Basic navigation skills are good too, especially a decent level in warp drive skills so you don't cap out in long warps. Having the skills to use the microwarpdrive and cloak trick for safer travel is also handy.

As such, it's also recommended that people train the following skills:

Thermodynamics	Navigation	32px MWD + Cloak trick
~ 5 days and 12 hours	~ 9 days and 17 hours	~ 1 day and 19 hours
Engineering V  Science IV  Thermodynamics III	Acceleration Control IV  Afterburner IV  Evasive Maneuvering IV Fuel Conservation IV  Navigation IV Warp Drive Operation IV	High Speed Maneuvering III Cloaking III

Crosstraining into armour

While we primarily run shield fleets, most of the skills you use will be reusable for armour fleets as well. It wouldn't take too long to touch up on your armour skills to be able to run armour fleets. For unistas it also gives them great skills to use within the Wormhole Campus, as they run primarily armour fleets.

Damage dealers	Logistics
~ 18 days and 10 hours	~ 46 days and 7 hours
Hull Upgrades V Armor Rigging III EM Armor Compensation IV Explosive Armor Compensation IV Kinetic Armor Compensation IV Thermic Armor Compensation IV Repair Systems II  Remote Armor Repair Systems III	Hull Upgrades V Armor Rigging III EM Armor Compensation IV Explosive Armor Compensation IV Kinetic Armor Compensation IV Thermic Armor Compensation IV Repair Systems II  Remote Repair Systems IV  <new racial> Frigate III <new racial> Destroyer III <new racial Cruiser V