Capital ships
| Ship Types |
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| Small |
| Medium |
| Large |
| Capital ships |
| Non-combat |
| Ships by faction |
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EVE University offers a class on: |
Capital ships (Dreadnoughts, Carriers, Force Auxiliaries, Supercarriers ("Motherships"), Titans and Rorquals) are the largest player-piloted ships in EVE. Capitals can only operate outside of high-sec space. While they can use stargates to travel (except to high-sec), they can also jump between star systems using built-in jump drives.
The largest capital ships (Supercarriers and Titans, collectively known as "supercapitals") are so large that they can only dock in Keepstars. Additionally, supercapitals can only be built in systems with a Supercapital Construction Facilities in the Infrastructure Hub, thus building them is restricted to sov space. This combined with their being no wormhole types that are large enough for supercarriers means that supercapital ships cannot be encountered in wormhole space. (While there is one Wormhole class, K329 Nullsec->C4, which is large enough for a supercarrier to travel, wormholes of that class never generate.)
| A long, long time ago... |
|---|
| It was once possible to build capital ships in highsec, so there are still a few that never jumped out of the system they were built in. If they ever do jump out, they will never be able to return, and while they're in highsec they are not allowed to be used for anything that gives the owner any kind of advantage compared to someone that does not own a high sec capital ship; during wars, they're not even allowed to undock. If the pilot breaks these rules, he or she will receive a temporary ban, and the capital ship will be moved to a station in a nearby low sec system.
Additionally, capital ships were considerably rebalanced in the Citadel expansion (Spring 2016), in particular introducing Force Auxiliary capital ships. |
Docking
| Type | Station | Citadel | Engineering Complex | Refinery | |||||
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| NPC Station | Astrahus (M) | Fortizar (L) | Keepstar (XL) | Raitaru (M) | Azbel (L) | Sotiyo (XL) | Athanor (M) | Tatara (L) | |
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| Super-Capitals |
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- Can be built here, but not dock again once undocked.
- Rorquals can dock.
Dreadnoughts
- Main article: Dreadnoughts
Dreadnoughts ("dreads") are DPS machines, only surpassed as damage-dealers by Supercarriers and Titans. This is achieved through the siege module which can only be fitted to dreadnoughts. A Sieged Dreadnought is immobilized, and cannot receive remote repairs or targeted assistance from allies, but in exchange is nearly immune to electronic warfare and gains significant bonuses to local repair modules. Dreadnoughts cannot deal meaningful damage without entering Siege.
Carriers
- Main article: Carriers
Carriers are capital ships with the ability to control Light and Support Fighters (frigate-sized drones). They also have the ability to store 1,000,000 m3 of assembled ships in their ship maintenance bay so pilots who lose their ships can quickly pick up a new one. Other ships from the carrier pilot's corporation (or fleet, depending on the carrier's settings) can also use it to refit in space.
Carriers (and their supercapital counterparts, supercarriers) generally serve as anti-subcapital ships. To facilitate this role, they have access to the powerful Networked Sensor Array, which increases their scan resolution but removes their ability to use electronic warfare modules and disables their warp drive while it is active.
Carriers are also able to equip Command Bursts.
Force Auxiliaries
- Main article: Force Auxiliaries
Force Auxiliaries (singular: "Force Auxiliary", sometimes abbreviated as "FAX") are capital-sized logistics and fleet boosting ships. Force Auxiliaries receive bonuses to logistics drones. Most of the Force Auxiliaries'remote repair power is caused by the triage module which can only be fitted to them. The triage module works similar to the dreadnought's siege module: when active, the FAX is immobilized, and cannot receive remote repairs, but is resistant to electronic warfare and gains massively improved local and outgoing remote repair power. However, the triage module does not reduce the capacitor cost of these repair modules, making FAXes extremely cap-hungry, a fact which many FAX fits reflect in their multiple capacitor injectors.
Supercarriers
- Main article: Supercarriers
Supercarriers are a more powerful version of carriers with the additional ability to control Heavy Fighters, allowing them to effectively engage other capital and supercapital ships.
Supercarriers are also able to equip Burst Projectors, fleet-scale area-of-effect electronic warfare systems.
Titans
- Main article: Titans
Titans are the largest and most powerful ships in EVE, able to fit several unique modules such as Doomsday devices, Jump Portal Generators, and Phenomena Generators.
Capital Industrial Ship: The Rorqual
- Main article: Rorqual
This ship is primarily intended for deep space mining support. It has a maintenance bay, corporate hangar, a huge ore hold, and the ability to fit bonused mining leadership links. The Rorqual can fit capital tractor beams and clone vat bays. In addition, the Rorqual has a jump drive and the ability to compress ore. The Rorqual does have a 50%/level range bonus to capital shield transfers, and a 20%/level drone damage bonus, so while it's not intended as a PVP ship, some people have been known to use it for that. The Rorqual has a non-capital little sister, the Orca, that can be seen supporting many highsec mining fleets.
Other Ships
In general, when capital ships are being discussed, it is the above ships that are referred to. However in certain contexts, other ships can also be considered capital ships.
- The market group "capital ships" also includes Freighters and Jump Freighters. Freighters are constructed using capital ship components, however they can operate in high-sec.
- The Orca sits on the border between capital and subcapital, as while it can only equip battleship-sized modules and does not require capital skills, it is much more durable than any battleship, it is constructed from capital ship components, and like other capital ships it is immune to the Micro Jump Field Generator of Command Destroyers.
