Fitting ships: Difference between revisions

These are basic guidelines for fitting ships. There are no strict rules that you ''must'' follow; these guidelines are designed to help you until you know when you can ignore them.

Generally, the more tasks you want a fit to do the worse it performs at each particular task. Some ships have very specific uses: a Venture mining frigate is not very helpful in either PvE or PvP combat.

Of course, there are dangers in over-specialisation too, especially when you're not working with other players. If you're going to exploit a low-class wormhole while solo you want your ship to deal and tank damage, launch probes, and maybe cloak so that you can hide if you see a gang of enemies on your [[Directional Scanner Guide|directional scanner]].

*Engagement Range: Brawling (<15km), Kitting (15-30km - within point range so depends on boosts), Skirmishing (30-100km) or Sniper (100km+)

*Role: Primary damage (DD), Tackler, Scout, Logistics, Electronic warfare or Screen

*Tank: Buffer armor tank, buffer shield tank, passive shield tank, active shield tank, active armor tank, speed tank, or range tank (there are very few situations where you want none of these)

Every ship comes with per-level bonuses, which often point towards the uses that the ship was designed for.

Sometimes it's okay not to take advantage of a ship's bonuses: although the [[Brutix]] is bonused to give a more efficient active armor tank, it is almost always seen with a buffer tank, and quite often a shield tank at that. This is because the ship has the ability to supply a huge amount of DPS with its six damage bonused blasters and a shield tank leaves the lowslots free for damage upgrades to squeeze out even more damage.

If you're going to tank (and not all fits include a tank) either [[Shield tanking|shield tank]] or [[Armour tanking|armor tank]]. Don't shield tank and armor tank in the same fit.

If you mount two tanks, even if they're both buffer tanks, your ship won't be very useful except as a target.

If you have a rack of exactly identical guns on your ship, they will all have precisely the same optimal and falloff ranges, and exactly the same tracking. This means you only have to worry about getting your ship to one ideal range and keeping the enemy's angular velocity below one value.

Missiles are a little different, because they aren't affected by tracking and have a simpler kind of range, but the same principle often applies to them. Note that 'don't mix guns' doesn't mean you shouldn't put missile launchers in extra highslots if all your turret hardpoints are full and you want more DPS (as in, for example, a [[Rifter]] with three autocannons and a missile launcher) -- though there are other options for spare highslots, such as energy neutralisers/vampires, salvagers, tractor beams, remote repair modules and drone link augmentors.

Bigger guns do more DPS, assuming they hit, but they [[Gunnery_Guide#Tracking|track]] targets more slowly and they use up more powergrid and CPU.

(This does not mean that you should fit frigate-sized guns on a cruiser. Downsizing within the available medium or large guns is sometimes wise, but downsizing from large to medium guns, or from mediums to smalls, usually isn't, unless you're fitting a bait ship or certain kinds of drone boat fits.)

There are a number of programs which let you try out out a fit hypothetically, outside the game.

This wiki has a detailed guide to using Pyfa [[Guide_to_using_PYFA|here]].

EVE University has two ship loadout forums, where pilots can get comments on their fitting ideas. They have some threads with suggested fits. It's also worth searching the forums for past threads if you're interested in a particular ship.  

There is also [http://evefitfinder.com/ evefitfinder.com], which collects fittings from [https://zkillboard.com/ zkillboard.com] and by this gives you examples of what people fit their ships with. Take this with a grain of salt however, not everybody fits their ship smartly.

There are some low-slot modules and rigs which increase your powergrid or CPU, and so are sometimes called 'fitting modules'. See below for how to decide on which fitting module to use.  

It is sometimes necessary to use a fitting module or a fitting rig, but if you have a fit that requires more than one it's often a bad sign, and it may mean that you need better fitting skills.

Fitting skills reduce the CPU or powergrid requirements of modules, or just give you more raw CPU or powergrid to play with. Having decent fitting skills is very useful, and having very good fitting skills really helps to fit T2 modules and weapons, which demand more CPU and powergrid than their T1 equivalents. Levels in these skills are often required to fit useful modules, too. The fitting skills are:

Tip: The benefits of CPU Management and Power Grid Management apply to the whole ship. Skill point for skill point, they provide significantly more fitting benefit than the module specific skills. You can't go wrong training these two skills to level 5 as soon as practical.

Once you have selected the the engagement range, role, and tank of your ship, comes the time to actually fit it. Here is a guide on how to actually do this. Note that this guide is PvP orientated. While it may have some applications for PvE fits be cautious following this guide for them.

For ships where damage is the primary purpose, start with weapons that are consistent with your engagement range and ship class: laser beams for snipers, artillery for skirmishers,  blasters or rockets for brawlers etc. Try to use the most damaging weapons of the class that you've selected. You may have to downgrade them later (or may choose to downgrade them later so that everything will fit, or to improve tracking), but for now, if you're fitting blasters, try to fit neutron blasters, and so on.

In a similar fashion, if the ship is designed to act as logi, the first thing to do is to fit the remote repair modules. If you are fitting an EWAR ship, start by fitting the EWAR modules that match your ship bonuses.

Now look at your ship's role. If your role is damage, you're probably already in good shape but start to consider tracking. If you are going to be shield tanking, by default you should be using two damage-increasing modules consistent with your weapons in the lows. You might end up with one, you might end up with three. But start with two. If you have more than four low slots and will be using guns, you'll probably want to fit at least one Tracking Enhancer module as well. If you are going to be armor tanking, by default you should have one damage-increasing module consistent with your weapons in the lows.

ECM is a large danger to logistics so you should consider fitting [[ECCM]] to counter it. A sensor booster (either to counter sensor dampening or to allow your to apply reps faster) should also be considered.

Next, consider your tank. First, fit a Damage Control unit of some kind. T2 should always be favoured however meta 3 or 4 can be used due to dramatically less CPU usage (bear in mind that meta 4 damage controls are quite costly).

Passive shield tanking is not normally used for PvP.

At this point, you are possibly running out of power grid, CPU, or both. It is at this point that you begin to have to consider using "fitting mods." Fitting mods operate by closing the gaps in your fit to allow everything you want to use to fit on the ship. In general, you should try not to use fitting mods unless the fit absolutely demands it. The six most common fitting mods are:

As you adjust the fit of your ship, do not be afraid to change some of the modules from T2 to meta modules, usually meta 4 modules. This most often applies to Shield Extenders, your Damage Control, your point or scram, and your afterburner if not already meta (microwarpdives should never be T2). These changes will give you back a couple of percent of power grid or CPU here and there and are often all that's needed to bring a fit into line if the fit is close. It is usually not a good idea to change your resistance modules for meta modules; they are far less effective than T2 modules.

Speed-tanking operates in a similar fashion, but reduces the maximum number of tanking modules available to one or two, usually focusing on shield. Most often, a Medium Shield Extender (often of the meta variety) and a Damage Control module are the two modules chosen. Alternately, other ships work well with two Large Shield Extenders and a Damage Control. In the general case, if you have only a few tanking modules on a ship, it is better to increase buffer with those that you do use unless you are also flying with a logistics ship, in which case you can replace one with a single module to increase your resists.  

At this point, you may have a low slot or two free. You may have a mid slot or two free. And you may have a high slot or two free. High slots are the easiest, and the only ones you should consider leaving empty (due to high fitting requirements of the options). For ships in a tackle role, a NOS is usually the best choice. For ships in all other roles, a neut is usually the best choice. A free low slot should be given to an additional damage module, an additional Tracking Enhancer, or (if you're running short of CPU), a Nanofiber Internal Structure. An additional mid slot should be given to an additional tackle mod (usually a Stasis Webifier), a Capacitor Booster, or some form of utility electronic warfare, usually a Sensor Dampener.

Finally, modules that passively regenerate some aspect of your ship's operation should almost never be used in PvP. These include Cap Rechargers, Cap Power Relays, Shield Rechargers, and Shield Power Relays. While these modules are fine for PvE, the incoming damage or impacts to capacitor in PvP will generally be too strong for these modules to have much if any effect.

Finally and last, rig your ship using any remaining rig slots. In general at the basic level, passive shield tanking ships should use a full set of Core Defense Field Extender rigs. Passive armor ships should use a full set of Trimark Armor Pumps. This will increase the size of your ship's buffer and extend your life on the battle field. Active tanking ships use more specialized rigs. Active armor-tanking ships will use two Auxiliary Nano Pump rigs and one Nanobot Accelerator rig. Active shield-tanking ships will give one or two rig slots over to increasing shield resistances but may also use a Core Defense Operational Solidifier or (much more rarely) a Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard. Of course, if you have given over some rig slots to fitting rigs, you will have fewer rigs to devote to defense.

As with passive regeneration modules, do not use the Core Defense Field Purger rig in PvP at the basic level. While there are advanced level ships that can (and do) use this rig successfully in PvP, at the basic level you should stick with increasing buffer.

*A summary reference of the various types of modules and rigs that you can fit on your ship: the [[Fitting Modules and Rigs Guide]].  

*Jester wrote in June 2013 an excellent guide to fitting a ship for PvP. Even if PvP is not your main activity, the [http://jestertrek.blogspot.ca/2013/06/pvp-201-basic-ship-fitting-theory.html guide] is a must read.