Ships: Difference between revisions

[[File:Sin.jpg|200px|thumb|right|The [[Sin]], a [[Battleships#Black_Ops_Battleships|Black Ops Battleship]] which requires months of training to fly.]] To fly ships in EVE, a character must train the relevant skills in the [[Skills:Spaceship_Command|Spaceship Command skill category]]. This category is not to be confused with the general skill {{sk|Spaceship Command}}.

The skills for larger hull types and higher [[Tech_and_meta_levels|tech levels]] usually require some skill training in smaller hull types or lower tech levels first. To fly a Tech 1 cruiser, for instance, you must first have some training in a Tech 1 destroyer command skill. Likewise, the skills for Tech 2 frigates require perfecting the Tech 1 frigate command skills.

In most cases, the prerequisites for flying bigger ships (by hull type) are faster to train than the prerequisites for higher tech levels. As a result, newer pilots may find themselves in large T1 ships (battlecruisers or battleships) long before they can fly a T2 ship of any size. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, though: it's reasonable to train straight from Tech 1 frigates into Tech 2 frigates, for instance, without ever training the skills required to fly larger Tech 1 ships, if that is your goal as a pilot.

Being able to fly a ship ''at all'' and being able to fly a ship ''well'' can be two very different things. While the relevant spaceship command skill may let you enter a ship and undock it from a station, this is only the first step to using the ship properly. In addition to the skills you will need to fit all of the guns and modules you want to use ([[fitting skills]]), there is an entire suite of [[support skills]] that can cumulatively boost a hull's performance. Some of these benefit most or all ships that you can fly, making them valuable training choices.

Ships are merely empty hulls waiting to be equipped with the guns and modules that let them do their job. The process of equipping a ship is known as "fitting" the ship and is an expansive topic.

However, one basic concept is worth mentioning here as it ties into the ship sizes listed earlier. The ship sizes are grouped into small, medium, large, or X-large. When browsing the market, you will notice that modules and weapons are also grouped into these same sizes. When fitting a ship, you normally want to use modules and weapons that are in the same size grouping as the ship size. This can sometimes be confusing, especially with weapon systems, as many items may will say "medium" in the name, but belong to the "small" size group in the market categories. What matters for ship fitting is that the market category size group matches the ship size, not any terms found in the item name itself.

! scope="col" width="100px" style="background-color:#222222;" | Capacitor (GJ)

'''Tech 2 ships''' are built by retrofitting Tech 1 ships, and while they take some features from their Tech 1 forms, the ways they fly and take advantage of fitting may be very different. They have higher resistance to damage and are typically much more specialized in their roles. Many special modules can only be fit on Tech 2 ships. The [[Heavy Interdictor]] is a prime example of a Tech 2 ship filling a specialized role: it can use a special module to stop ships within a wide area from warping away—a unique ability—but it has more limited abilities in other areas. Tech 2 ships are powerful within their niches but are not automatically better than Tech 1 ships, or immune to attack from Tech 1 ships. Tech 2 ships require extensive skill training to fly but can be less expensive than Pirate Faction ships due to their simpler production.

[[CONCORD]], [[EDENCOM]], the [[Society of Conscious Thought]], and the [[Triglavian Collective]] all also have ships of their own. These ships follow completely different mechanics and skill sets than other ships and do not fit into the traditional tech and faction levels.

* {{icon|triglavian|22}}The Triglavian Collective offers a wide selection of ships that utilize unique ramping-over-time weapons that can burn down targets well above their weight class.

These ships have large cargo capacities and are used to haul goods from place to place. Some are even more specialized, having an extra capacity for items such as ore, minerals or weapons. The smallest class of cargo ships, Tech 1 industrials, are lightly defended and fly mostly among high security systems.

Tech 2 freighters are called [[Jump Freighters]]. They have smaller cargo bays than Tech 1 freighters but can use both jump gates and [[cynosural field|cynosural fields]]. The latter makes them especially useful in null sec.