Eve Kick-Start: Fitting Your Ship

I'm not an expert on fitting internet spaceships and there's plenty of suggestions around forums and net how to fit basically any ship at any point of EVE Online.

However, I'll write up some basic info about fitting your ship, as I was pretty overwhelmed when I first opened up the in-game market to take a look what is available.

You're fitting you ship for a purpose: to maximize cargospace, make the ship faster, be able to mine ore, be able to do damage to opposing ship, etc. And most of the time it comes down to...

STAYING ALIVE

1. Be able to sustain more damage than the other fellow can.
2. Be able to do more damage than the other fellow can.
3. Be able to evade hostile contact or break that contact.

A Comprehensive New Player Guide to Tanking

SHIP FITTING RESOURCES

To start this, to try different fittings for your ship, you don't want to spend ISK to see it won't fit or just isn't what you wanted. Luckily there's an excellent tool for this, called Eve Fit Tool (EFT). Download the tool and try it out.

Second, there's a post with all ships setup threads in the forums for your pleasure or even more in the Battleclinic.com's Ship loadouts tool, so you don't need to figure out it yourself. I know I was flying my first frigates without knowing why I fitted it like I did, I just followed guidance :)

SHIP FITTING BASICS

You should also pay attention to the bonuses your ship has, and fit it accordingly (most of the time) - ship type's bonuses are listed in the description part of the ship info. For example, if the ship has bonuses for cargo space or mining yield, it's not probably the best mission runner for you, but it will be great miner instead. Or if the ship has bonuses for small hybrid turret damage, you are very likely to have the best results using those small hybrid turrets. There are exceptions of cource, especially later in the game and PvP, but I don't know anything about that yet, so just believe me: take the benefit of the ship bonuses.

When fitting the ship, you'll bump into cpu and power capacity, which different item modules eat away (some more, some less, some nothing). The cpu and power capacity of the ship increases with your electronics and engineering skills - which is why they were mentioned as one of the "core skills" in the Skill Training installment of Eve Kick-Start. So keep in mind that it's not just the getting the skill to get into a ship. It's also about flying it well and there's quite many skills which help you fly any ship better.

Other than that, it's all about figuring out what you want and then getting the best tools (you can afford) for the job. When looking and comparing the different kind of modules of the same type, keep an eye on the Meta Level of the item. Meta Level is a quick indicator of how good the item is, higher being better. For more detailed comparison, take a look at item info (that blue 'i') - go to the variations tab - and at the bottom of the window you'll see button to 'compare' - Click, and you can easily see the attributes of the different variations.

EARLY FRIGATES

When you're starting out, you're initial ships will be frigates. Your edge flying a frigate is speed. So take an advantage of that and improve it even further. By doing this, level 1 missions will be a breeze.

Look for ship fittings which includes Afterburner I & Nanofiber Internal Structure - These increase you speed - most level 1 mission foes will never catch you or even hit you. Fit your ship with long-ranged weaponry and look for more range from ammunition. For example, In my Tristan (Gallente Frigate II), I used this setup:

[Tristan, Newbie Edition]
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Shield Power Relay I

Small Shield Booster I
1MN Afterburner I
Cap Recharger I

150mm Railgun I, Tungsten Charge S
150mm Railgun I, Tungsten Charge S
Standard Missile Launcher I, Flameburst Light Missile
[empty high slot]

Hobgoblin I x1

It was easy to fit with new character (Electronics 2 and Engineering 2 I think). The setup takes benefit of the speed. And Tungsten charges in the Small Railgun Is increase the optimal range to over 16 kilometers, where most level 1 mission enemies can't even shoot! And when they do, Small Shield Booster I was a plenty to deal with it. And with one missile slot empty it handled level 1 missions very nicely.

OK, there's a small introduction to ship fittings and early frigates. But you'll be quickly going for destroyers or cruisers, especially if you chose military career - and to get ready for that and everything else you want to know, read up from forums Ships and Modules Resource Thread in the forums. And keep in mind the forums Ultimate New Player Guide Collection.

Fly Safe! Always have a skill in training, Keep your clone up to date and Insure your ship.