Minmatar Basic Ship and Skill Overview

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The Minmatar Basic Ship and Skill Guide is intended to give fitting and skill recommendations for Tech 1 Minmatar ships for Player vs. Environment (PvE) and Player vs. Player (PvP) encounters.

This is a work in progress, and the guide's Discussion Thread is on the Eve University forum. Please direct comments, suggestions, and corrections to that thread.

Rookie Ship

The rookie ship is the first ship you start with. If you are Minmatar, it will be a Reaper. A new rookie ship is given whenever you dock at a station where you do not have any ships.

Reaper

The Reaper is the Minmatar Rookie ship. Good for transport if you're too cheap to buy a shuttle.

Frigate

A frigate is the smallest of the ship classes in EVE. They can fill many roles and are easy to fit and fly; learning how to effectively pilot the frigate designed for your play style will give you good piloting practice for when you move on to the specialized roles the Tech 2 frigates offer.

Burst

The Burst is the Tech 1 mining frigate of the Minmatar Republic.

Slasher

The Slasher is a very cheap combat oriented frigate. It has the fastest base speed of any T1 frigate but it's not nearly as useful a fighter as the Rifter.

Vigil

The Vigil is the Tech 1 EWAR ship of the Minmatar Republic. This ship is fast and makes a decent tackler but it's main use will probably be for pilots practicing to get into covops ships. The bonus to target painters is effectively useless.

Breacher

A "missile boat" Tech 1 frigate. This frigate is rarely seen, it's effectiveness is overshadowed by the much more fun and durable Rifter.

Rifter

The Rifter is the T1 "assault" frigate of the Minmatar Republic. Many say that this frigate is as good, or better than, some T2 frigates. With the right skills trained it can be a very effective and cheap pvp platform.

Cookie-cutter Fit you are likely to see in pvp: http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/3546-Solo-PvP-Rifter.html

Probe

The Probe is the Minmatar exploration frigate. This ship is best used as an exploration boat but if you have the skills to deal with it's small capacitor it can be a speedy and cheap delivery ship due to it's comparatively large cargo bay.

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.

Thrasher

The Thrasher is the Minmatar destroyer. As with all Minmatar ships its emphasis is on speed. Most pilots use destroyer boats for PvE salvaging ops due to the ability to fit a large number of tractor beams and salvagers. The Thrasher can also make an effective antifrigate platform if piloted by a player with decent skill points. It is rarely seen in fleet combat but the cheap cost makes destoryers a favorite for suicide gankers, be aware of it's capabilities and don't underestimate the 8 high slots.

Cruiser

Stabber

The Stabber is often affectionately referred to as the "mini vagabond." If you plan on moving into ships that utilize speed tanking or avoidance tactics this is a good ship to practice with. It can be fit as a heavy tackle, anti-frigate boat, or even a long range sniper/kiter. Part of the strength of the Stabber is that the enemy will not know exactly what you're fit for until you engage. All he'll know is that you will be fast.

Ammunition, Range, and Kiting

You can read a detailed description of projectile turret ammunition here. Minmatar ships have the ability to control the type of damage they deal and therefore target their enemy's weaknesses. In PvE you can look up the damage type your enemy is weak to here and select the appropriate ammunition.

By default, close range (EMP, Fusion or Phased Plasma) ammo should be used for the best DPS. There is no close-range projectile ammo which does primarily kinetic damage, but the higher DPS of the short-ranged projectile ammunition types may compensate for this if you target their second-weakest resist. If you are taking too much damage at close range, switch to medium range (Titanium Sabot or Depleted Uranium) or long (Proton, Nuclear or Carbonized Lead) range ammo and fire from further away.

Guns can suffer from tracking issues, so I would recommend 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.

Projectile turrets are unusual in having very long falloff. This means that keeping within optimal range is not as essential for you as it is for pilots using lasers and hybrids. Autocannon have such short optimal ranges that you are more or less condemned to fight in falloff with them; with artillery you should probably aim to be at the edge of your optimal range. There's no need to be closer than that, and the more range you can keep at the less trouble your guns will have tracking the enemy.

To find out your optimal and falloff ranges 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. And 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. Tech 2 is Meta 5, and harder to fit. Meta 3 and 4 are expensive, often more expensive than Tech 2. Meta 1 and 2 will often be less expensive than Meta 0, due to supply and demand on the market.

Drones

Small drones should be used against frigate and destroyer sized enemies, medium drones should be used against cruiser and battlecruiser sized enemies, and heavy drones should be used against battleship sized enemies. Sentries are mostly meant for battleship sized enemies, but if smaller enemies are far enough that tracking isnt an issue, they can deal relatively well with those.

Never use Amarr drones, due to their low damage multiplier, they are useless even against enemies who's lowest resistance is EM damage. 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, gallente drones are fine to use exclusively, although switching drones will make more efficient runs. At level 4 missions, it is strongly recommended to always fit the best drone types to match rat weaknesses.

Drone aggro should be watched. When arriving in a mission room, aggro should be aquired by approaching enemies and shooting them with guns. If a new wave of enemies arrives and the drones catch aggro, they should be recalled to the drone bay, and released only when the enemies have targeted your ship. 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.