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.

The fits listed here are suggestions. You can modify them as you see fit. These fits -- especially the ones for ships smaller than battlecruisers -- tend to use T1 meta 0 modules for ease of reference, but upgrading them to named or T2 modules is in many cases a good idea if you can afford it.

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. It has a 5m3 drone capacity to fit one drone.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus

5% bonus to velocity per skill level

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.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus

5% bonus to cargo capacity and 20% bonus to mining laser yield per skill level.

Role Bonus

-60% mining laser capacitor use

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.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus

5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret damage and 7.5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret tracking speed per skill level.

Vigil

The Vigil is the Tech 1 Electronic Warfare 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 Covert Ops ships. The bonus to target painters is effectively useless.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus

5% ship velocity and Target Painter effectiveness per skill level.

Breacher

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

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus

10% bonus to Explosive missile damage and 5% bonus to EM, Kinetic and Thermal missile damage per level.

Rifter

The Rifter is the T1 assault frigate of the Minmatar Republic. It receives bonuses to projectile turret damage and projectile tracking, providing consistent hitting and damage while speeding around your target. A balanced 4/3/3 layout provides the Rifter the ability to either shield or armor tank, giving this and other Minmatar ships versatility and making it unpredictable prey in PvP.

The University recommends Minmatar pilots to use the Rifter for tackling in fleets.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus

5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret damage and 7.5% bonus to tracking per level.

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.

Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus

5% bonus cargo capacity per skill level

5% bonus to scan strength of probes per skill level

5% bonus to survey probe flight time per level

Destroyer

Destroyers are slightly larger than frigates, intended to be a anti-frigate ship. They use the same sized modules as frigates, but have more high slots. They are often used in PvE for level 1 missions and are rarely used in PvP as their DPS is not impressive without high skills.

Thrasher

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

Destroyer Skill Bonus

10% bonus to Small Projectile Turret tracking speed

5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret damage per level

Role Bonuses

Penalty: -25% Rate Of Fire for all turrets

Bonus: 50% bonus to optimal range for small projectile turrets

Cruiser

Scythe

The Scythe is the Logistics and Mining cruiser of the Minmatar Republic.

Bellicose

The Bellicose is the Minmatar EWAR cruiser, with bonuses to target painting and projectile turret rate of fire. It is a rare and unloved ship. Target painting is only vital in a few very specific situations (like a missile-ship-only fleet), and it can be done from unbonused midslots on normal combat ships. The Bellicose doesn't tank very well, has tight CPU and powergrid and a comparatively small capacitor. And, to top it all off, it only has three turret hardpoints, which limits the benefit of the rate of fire bonus.

However, its reputation means that the Bellicose is rarely primary target and it can be a useful fleet support ship. It's not much use in PvE, though.

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.

Rupture

The heavy duty combat cruiser of the Minmatar Republic, this ship looks like a chunk of brick. The Rupture is the favored mission cruiser for the Minmatar, it has a good tank and good damage potential for level 2's and easy level 3's. In Uni fleet ops this cruiser is almost always set up as a cheap and effective direct damage ship. Occasionally this ship will fill a heavy tackle role but this is very rare in Uni ops.

Battlecruiser

Prior to flying Battlecruisers or Battleships, it is highly recommended you have the ability to equip a Shield or Armor Full T2 Tank. It is also recommended to have basic Gunnery Support skills trained to at least III.

Cyclone

While it is certainly true that the Hurricane is better than this ship in almost all situations, the cyclone can have a remarkably strong local active tank-even comparable to that of a Myrmidon. However to achieve this, one must fit an X-Large shield booster supplemented by a medium capacitor booster. This will gimp the dps quite alot due to fitting issues, so it is not recommended to fly this ship without T2 gun skills. If you're looking for a challenge or perhaps a bait ship, this could be your ship.

Hurricane

One of the more popular battlecruisers, the Hurricane has a long history of positive pvp performance. Most Minmatar pilots also choose a Hurricane as their level 3 mission ship, it tends to perform better than the cyclone in many situations. In PvP you will often find this ship fit with autocannons but kiting setups with artillery are also popular. The main theme in fits is that the hurricane will be equipped to be fast and to have a lot of damage output. The tank is a little thin but the pilot is expected to counter this by utilizing his speed to his best advantage. Compared to the cyclone this ship is less "tank" and more "gank."

Battleship

Typhoon

The Typhoon's position as the cheapest of the Minmatar battleships is a little misleading, as it's not a very good ship for new pilots. With seven low slots, a useful rate of fire bonus and the bandwidth to field a full flight of heavy or sentry drones, it has a lot of potential. But it takes considerable skillpoint investment to bring that potential out, and the rate of fire bonus is split between two different weapon systems.

The Typhoon is consequently not a common sight, but when it is used it's usually fitted with missiles, often with torpedoes and either neuts or armor RR for close combat. There are also viable L4 mission-running fits which use cruise missile launchers and sentry drones.

However, new Minmatar battleship pilots will probably be more effective in one of the other two options.

Tempest

The Tempest is quite similar in role to the Hurricane battlecruiser. Both have similar slot layouts (the Tempest has one extra mid slot). The Tempest, in theory, could use an extra missile launcher, but it would not be applying its bonuses to projectiles.

Tempests tend to be armor tanked, utilizing the high number of low slots, though they are sometimes shield tanked as well. For PVP, the Tempest can fit a armor buffer tank, or go for an all-out gankfit, which is commonly used for suicide ganking (1400mm guns in the highs and gyrostabs in the lows).

Like the Typhoon, it is quite versatile, though nothing close to as versatile as its cousin.

Maelstrom

On the same skill path as the Cyclone, the Maelstrom has a powerful active shield tank. Unlike the Cyclone it can also deal lots of damage. The Maelstrom is the usual choice for running Level 4 missions, which it does quite well (ships like the Vargur and Machariel outperform it, but cost much more, both in ISK and in skill training time).

Industrial

Wreathe

The introductory Minmatar industrial ship, the wreathe is similar in nature to all the entry industrials. It is a little faster than some of the other races' industrials but has a little less cargo space.

Mammoth

After the Iteron Mark V, the Mammoth is often considered the next best industrial in existence. It has the most cargo capacity of the other two races' industrials, and the highest number of low slots for cargohold expanders.

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 from EFT calculations, not in-game EHP.

Salvaging After the Mission

Salvaging boats, most commonly destroyers, 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 a destroyer to a battlecruiser because they have lots of high slots, like destroyers, but bigger cargo holds. The Hurricane is a popular L4 salvaging ship because it is fast and agile (for a BC), has eight high slots for salvagers and tractor beams and six low slots for expanded cargohold modules (which aren't subject to stacking penalties).

Further Reading

For information on Tech 2 ships, for all races, follow the Ships link in the Categories list below