Minmatar Basic Ship and Skill Overview
This guide provides general information and recommendations for T1 ships of a single player faction.
For more advanced and in-depth information on specific ships refer to EVE ships. This guide simply gathers the characteristics and overview of racial lineups in an easy to browse format for the very new player.
Ships
Here are the Minmatar T1 ships. Please follow the links to the specific pages of the ship database for more details and particular fits.
Rookie Ship
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Role Bonus: The Reaper-class corvette is one of the smallest of the Minmatar vessels, just barely reaching rookie ship status instead of a manned fighter. The Reaper is very cheap and is used en masse in daring hit-and-run operations by Minmatars either side of the law. |
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.
Frigate
Frigates are the smallest of the ship classes in EVE. They are used mostly for level 1 missions or for tackling and electronic warfare roles in PvP.
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Minmatar Frigate bonuses (per skill level): The Breacher's structure is little more than a fragile scrapheap, but the ship's missile launcher hardpoints and superior sensors have placed it among the most valued Minmatar frigates when it comes to long range combat. |
This is a long-range missile boat. It is rarely used, because its effectiveness is overshadowed by the far superior Rifter.
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Minmatar Frigate bonuses (per skill level): In YC114 each major empire faction, having been embroiled in a harrowing, extensive, long-term war, recognized the growing need for support and logistics functionality in their vessels during the kind of protracted interstellar warfare that might otherwise prove exhausting for its participants. In the Minmatar Republic, this led to the redesign and redeployment of the Burst. |
The Burst is the Minmatar mining frigate and can be used as a starting point for budding miners.
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Minmatar Frigate bonuses (per skill level): The Probe is large compared to most Minmatar frigates and is considered a good scout and cargo-runner. Uncharacteristically for a Minmatar ship, its hard outer coating makes it difficult to destroy, while the limited weapon hardpoints force it to rely on drone assistance if engaged in combat. |
The Probe is the Minmatar exploration frigate. This ship is best used as a probing boat, but if you have the skills to deal with its small capacitor it can be a speedy and cheap delivery ship due to its comparatively large cargo bay.
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Minmatar Frigate bonuses (per skill level): The Rifter is a very powerful combat frigate and can easily tackle the best frigates out there. It has gone through many radical design phases since its inauguration during the Minmatar Rebellion. The Rifter has a wide variety of offensive capabilities, making it an unpredictable and deadly adversary. |
The Rifter is the top-of-the-line T1 combat frigate of the Minmatar Republic, some say that it is indeed the best PvP T1 frigate in the game. A balanced 4/3/3 layout gives the Rifter the ability to either shield or armor tank, making it an unpredictable opponent. It is the perfect starting point to learn solo frigate PvP.
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Traits: The Slasher is cheap, but versatile. It's been manufactured en masse, making it one of the most common vessels in Minmatar space. The Slasher is extremely fast, with decent armaments, and is popular amongst budding pirates and smugglers. |
The Slasher is a cheap combat oriented frigate. It has the fastest base speed of any standard T1 frigate (although the Vigil is actually faster because of its hull bonus to speed).
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Minmatar Frigate bonuses (per skill level): The Vigil is an unusual Minmatar ship, serving both as a long range scout as well as an electronic warfare platform. It is fast and agile, allowing it to keep the distance needed to avoid enemy fire while making use of jammers or other electronic gadgets. |
The Vigil is the Tech 1 Electronic Warfare ship of the Minmatar Republic. This ship is the fastest standard T1 frigate, and makes a decent first-strike tackler. The bonus to target painters isn't that useful, as target painters are stacking penalized in effectiveness, and work reasonably well on hulls without bonuses to them.
Destroyer
Destroyers are slightly larger and have more highslots than frigates but fit the same small-sized weapons. They're designed to slaughter frigates but be vulnerable to most other ships. They are often used in PvE for Level 1 missions, and as salvage ships.
Flying destroyers is not recommended for PvP Uni fleets. There are some exceptions, such as specialized hit & run fleets.
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Minmatar Destroyer bonuses (per skill level): The Talwar is redolent of the renowned Minmatar practicality in terms of battle. Irrespective of numbers, firepower and circumstances, their strategy when engaged in combat often revolves around the same central tenet: Stay untouchable as much as you can, either by sneaking around or rushing in, do as much damage as fast as you can, and get out before you get killed. |
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Minmatar Destroyer bonuses (per skill level): Engineered as a supplement to its big brother the Cyclone, the Thrasher's tremendous turret capabilities and advanced tracking computers allow it to protect its larger counterpart from smaller, faster menaces. |
The Thrasher can be an effective anti-frigate platform in PvE (L1 missions) or PvP. It is rarely seen in fleet combat, but its cheap cost makes it popular with suicide gankers.
Cruiser
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Minmatar Cruiser bonuses (per skill level): Being a highly versatile class of Minmatar ships, the Bellicose has been used as a combat juggernaut as well as a support ship for wings of frigates. While not quite in the league of newer navy cruisers, the Bellicose is still a very solid ship for most purposes, especially in terms of long range combat. |
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.
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Minmatar Cruiser bonuses (per skill level): The Rupture is slow for a Minmatar ship, but it more than makes up for it in power. The Rupture has superior firepower and is used by the Minmatar Republic both to defend space stations and other stationary objects and as part of massive attack formations. |
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 can mount a good active armour tank or regenerating passive shield tank (as below) and use artillery and drones to destroy mission rats from range.
The Rupture is also a strong PvP ship. A number of fittings work well; in E-UNI fleets the most common approach is to fit an armour buffer tank (as below) and provide extra DPS and some sticky secondary tackle.
Strong fitting skills and access to T2 autocannon (for kiting with Barrage ammo) open up some fast-moving shield-tanked PvP fits.
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Minmatar Cruiser bonuses (per skill level): In YC114 each major empire faction, having been embroiled in a harrowing, extensive, long-term war, recognized the growing need for support and logistics functionality in their vessels during the kind of protracted interstellar warfare that might otherwise prove exhausting for its participants. Both Frigate and Cruiser-class ships were put under the microscope, and in the Minmatar Republic the outcome of the re-evaluation process led, among other developments, to a redesign and redeployment of the Scythe. |
The Minmatar Scythe is a ship most often seen used as a mining cruiser, given that it receives a strong mining laser bonus per level of the Minmatar Cruiser skillbook. In addition to mining, it also gains a bonus to tracking links which assist friendly ships using turret-based weapons with boosts to their tracking speed.
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Minmatar Cruiser bonuses (per skill level): The Stabber is the mainstay of the Minmatar fleet. It is light and extremely fast, yet surprisingly powerful, with a wide variety of weapons. It is one of few Minmatar vessels that have reached popularity outside Minmatar space. |
The Stabber's key feature is its hull bonus to speed: It's the fastest T1 cruiser. Unfortunately it also has limited grid and CPU, limited slots and a tiny dronebay. It's best to think of it as a 'heavy frigate' or a 'light cruiser' rather than a cruiser proper.
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 tackle ship or an anti-frigate platform. Unfortunately it lacks the grid and CPU to fit the artillery or the combination of autocannon and tracking enhancers that would make it a viable kiting ship.
Battlecruisers
When you begin to fly Minmatar battlecruisers it is a good idea to be training towards a Shield or Armor Full T2 Tank. (You will need a full T2 tank to fly battlecruisers in wartime PvP, if you're a uni pilot; whether or not you're in the uni, a T2 tank is helpful in PvE.) It is also wise to have basic Gunnery Support skills sorted out, and to be training towards T2 light and medium drones.
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Minmatar Battlecruiser bonuses (per skill level): The Cyclone was created in order to meet the increasing demand for a vessel capable of providing muscle for frigate detachments while remaining more mobile than a battleship. To this end, the Cyclone's seven high-power slots and powerful thrusters have proved ideal. |
The Cyclone is inferior to the Hurricane in most situations, but it has a few niche uses. With a shield booster and capacitor booster support, and possibly bonuses from expensive implants and combat drugs, the Cyclone can mount a decent active tank. Such a fit can work well as a solo or small gang PvP ship.
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Minmatar Battlecruiser bonuses (per skill level): The force with which this ship hits is more than sufficient to leave a trail of shattered enemies, floating around like so much lifeless debris. An adaptable vessel, it has enough turret hardpoints for a full-scale assault while remaining versatile enough to allow for plenty of missile fire, and has both sufficient speed to outrun its enemies and sufficient capacitor charge to outlast them. |
The Hurricane has a long history of positive PvP and PvE performance and is one of the most versatile ships in EVE. It can deal impressive DPS, and can be shield or armor tanked. Most Minmatar pilots choose a Hurricane as their Level 3 mission ship, fitting either a passive shield tank or an active armour tank.
In PvP the 'cane can be fitted as a simple, armour-buffered short-range bruiser, or as a fast, kiting, shield-tanked 'nanocane', or as a shield-tanked, medium-range high-alpha artillery platform. Roaming gangs of shield Hurricanes with Scimitar logistic support are a fearsome sight and a highly effective combat fleet.
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Minmatar Battlecruiser bonuses (per skill level): In YC 113 Republic Security Services learned the Amarr Empire was building a new battlecruiser capable of supporting battleship-class weapons. Determined to not lose their technological edge to their adversaries, Republic Fleet commissioned Boundless Creation to construct a gunboat to match. |
The Tornado is the Minmatar Attack Battlecruiser.
Battleships
When you step into a battleship it's important to have solid support skills. A T2 tank is extremely helpful (and required to fly BSs in wartime Uni PvP fleets), while access to T2 light and medium drones will be useful, as they will be your main defence against targets too small for your large weapons.
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Minmatar Battleship bonuses (per skill level): With the Maelstrom, versatility is the name of the game. Its defensive capabilities make it ideally suited for small raid groups or solo work, while its 8 turret hardpoints present opportunities for untold carnage on the fleet battlefield. |
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). PvE Maelstroms usually fit an X-large shield booster for a powerful pulsed shield tank, and artillery for long-range DPS -- though against the Angel Cartel, whose battleships like to engage at close range, some pilots like to fit large autocannon instead.
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Minmatar Battleship bonuses (per skill level): The Tempest is one of the Republic Fleet's key vessels; a versatile gunship proficient at long-range bombardment and capable of dishing out specialized types of damage with great effectiveness. A well-rounded squadron of Tempests has been proven time and time again to be an invaluable wild card in a fleet battle, one which opponents should ignore at their own peril. |
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 a nano autocannon and heavy neut kiting fit.
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Minmatar Battleship bonuses (per skill level): Much praised by its proponents and much maligned by its detractors, the Typhoon-class battleship has always been one of the most hotly debated spacefaring vessels around. Its distinguishing aspect - and the source of most of the controversy - is its sheer versatility, variously seen as either a lack of design focus or a deliberate freedom for pilot modification. |
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.
Industrial
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Minmatar Hauler bonuses (per skill level): Aside from being endowed with the usual carrying capabilities of haulers, the Hoarder possesses an extra cargo bay. That bay is a static-free, blast-proof chamber, and as such is meant to be dedicated solely to ferrying consumable charges of all kinds, including ammunition, missiles, capacitor charges, nanite paste and bombs. |
The Hoarder is the mid-level ship for the Minmatar industials, although it does have a greater amount of cargo space than what you'd expect from the mid-level ship. Some starter industrialists find the Hoarder more valuable than the Wreathe as their first Minmatar industrial.
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Minmatar Hauler bonuses (per skill level): The Mammoth is the largest hauler of the Minmatar Republic. It was designed with aid from the Gallente Federation, making the Mammoth both large and powerful yet also nimble and technologically advanced. A very good buy. |
After the Iteron Mark V, the Mammoth is often considered the next best industrial in existence. It has more cargo capacity than the other two races' industrials, and the highest number of low slots for cargohold expanders.
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Minmatar Haulers bonuses (per skill level): The Wreathe is an old hauler of the Minmatar Republic and one of the oldest ship designs still in use. The design of the Wreathe is very plain, which is the main reason for its longevity, but it also makes the ship incapable of handling anything but the most mundane tasks. |
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.
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. See the dedicated Projectile Ammunition page for more advice.
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 for frigates and cruisers, and meta 4 and Tech 2 for larger ships. In PvP, frigates and cruisers are often not worth fitting expensive modules on for low skill point or inexperienced pilots. Tech 1 Meta 0 modules are provided freely by the university. Once pilots have the skill points, a certain amount of combat experience, and enough ISK to replace bigger ships, they should consider moving to a battlecruiser with T2 fittings.
Pilots without T2 guns fitting a BC for PvP should probably avoid the overpriced meta 3 and 4 guns. Some of the meta 3 and 4 medium guns are reasonably priced, but many are not, and will only make your ship into a loot Piñata for the enemy when it is destroyed, for very little increase in effective dps. It is strongly recommended to get T2 guns before getting into BC, BS, or any T2 damage dealing ships.
Higher Meta items up to meta 4 will often be easier to fit. Tech 2 is Meta 5, and usually harder to fit. Meta 3 and 4 are expensive, often more expensive than Tech 2. Meta 1 and 2 modules will often be less expensive than Meta 0, due to low demand and high supply 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.
Avoid 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. In level 4 missions, it is strongly recommended to always fit the best drone types to match rat weaknesses.
See Drones and Using Drones for more advice on drone selection and deployment.
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 Missions
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 Notics because they have bonuses to tractor beams range and salvager cycle time. The Hurricane is still a popular salvaging ship for wormholes because it is fast and agile (for a BC), and can fit a resonable tank, has eight high slots for salvagers and tractor beams and six low slots for expanded cargohold modules (which aren't subject to stacking penalties).
Related Links
- Basic skills and Support skills - Training support skills is a key step towards flying a ship well. Read up on support skills here.
- Fitting Guidelines - Some general guidelines for fitting ships.
- Fitting Modules and Rigs Guide - A list of rigs and module types with short descriptions.
- NPC damage types and NPC Ship Attributes - To see which resists to use and damage types to deal against NPC rats.
- Creating an Alt Hauler - Having an alt hauler can be useful for shopping trips during wartime, if you are living in highsec.
