Natural Resists
Natural enemies
Before going into ship types you need to know the races, and more importantly who are enemies to each other in order to understand how the natural resists work.
Amarr VS Minmatar
Gallente VS Caldari
Each race has a dominant damage type
Amarr
Amarr deal both EM and explosive, but does more EM damage throughout all ammo types. This makes EM the dominant Amarr Damage type
Minmatar
Minmatar deal all damage types depending on ammo, but 6 out of the 8 ammo types you will find some explosive damage. Most people will argue that projectile ammo can be interchanged to deal any damage type, however for the sake of this topic; we will stick to Explosive as the Minmatar dominant damage type.
Gallente
Gallente deal high kinetic and thermal. It is clear that Gallente have thermal as highest damage type, however fot the sake of this topic lets assume that the dominant Gallente damage type is thermal.
Caldari
Caldari missiles have the versatility to deal all damage types equally well. However, three of their most popular ships also have bonuses to kinetic damage. So it is safe to say that Caldari have kinetic as the dominant damage type.
| Race |
Dominant Damage Type |
| Amarr |
EM |
| Minmatar |
Explosive |
| Gallente |
Thermal |
| Caldari |
Kinetic |
Tech 1 Ships
Generally all Tech 1 ships (and faction ship) follow a general pattern when it comes to resists. For a given race, all tech 1 ships and faction ships have the same resists, be it a tech 1 frigate or a titan. A Punisher has the same exact resistance attributes as an Avatar.
All tech 1 ships have an EM shield hole and an explosive armor hole.
All tech 1 ships and faction ships have the same shield resist. However, armor resists between different races vary slightly, mainly to compensate for the dominating enemy race damage type.
Lets take a look at the different tech 1 ship resists by comparing them to their natural enemies.
Amarr VS Minmatar
As you can see, the Minmatar tech 1 ships have a slightly higher EM armor resist to compensate for the dominant Amarr damage type. Likewise, the Amarr tech 1 ships have a slightly increased explosive resist to compensate for the dominant Minmatar damage type.
Gallente VS Caldari
The Caldari tech 1 ships have a slightly higher thermal armor resist, again to compensate for the dominant Gallente damage type. The Gallente however opted for a balanced kinetic/thermal resistance attribute.
Tech 2 Ships
Tech 2 ships have different resist types than their tech 1 variants.
Unlike Tech 1 ships, different ship types of the same race may have different resistance attributes. For example, a Hyena(Vigil hull) has different resistance attributes than a Jaguar(Rifter hull). However, tech 2 ships of the same hull have the same resists, like the Jaguar(Rifter hull) and the Wolf(Rifter hull).
For that reason, it is easier to bundle the tech 2 ships together and compare the ships types from all factions.
Tech 2 frigates
Tech 2 frigates all have different resists based on thier hull, but they follow the same principle. I will be using the assault frigate as an example.
Assault frigates are variations of a tier 1 frigate hull, namely the Incursus, Rifter, Punsiher and the Merlin. Since both Assault frigates from each race stem from the same hull, any one of the two will do for the comparison. When comparing the four assault frigates, we see a pattern that resembles the tier 1 resistance attributes. Some ships still have a shield EM hole and an armor explosive hole.
- Amarr vs Minmatar
It is clear that the Amarr Vengeance has an increased explosive resist to make up for the Minmatar explosive damage. On the other hand, we have the Minmatar Jaguar with a high EM resist to make up for the Amarr dominant EM damage type. We see a similar pattern with armor as well.
- Gallente vs Caldari
Again, here we see the Gallente ships have an ever so slightly higher kinetic shield resists, while the Caldari have a slightly higher thermal shield resists. Same goes for armor.
- Noticeable findings
Both the Gallente are Caldari are striving for high thermal and kinetic resists, while ignoring the EM and explosive resists. The Vengance covers most resistances in its armor, while the Jaguar covers its resistances in its shields.
Adding up all the shield resists and armor resists, will yield the following table.
| Class | Assault Frigate | Interceptor | Electronic Assault Frigate | Covert-ops | Stealth Bomber | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Defence Type |
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Amarr generally are better off armor tanked, while Minmatar are better off shield tanked. Gallente and Caldari have a good balance between shield and armor.
The rate at which each faction covers its defenses versus their enemies damage type changes with each class. It is highest with the Assault ships and lowest with the interceptor.
