So, I started playing EVE Online

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

MY reaction time was just fine, damn computer apparently thought I LIKED getting shot.

[Borgholio]

That's called Honor tanking. It works for some people...

[Mr. Coffee]

Real Men hull tank.

[Borgholio]

Real Men hull tank.

There have been some effective traps set up where you use an Orca or Rorqual with a shit-ton of hull reinforcement mods, reppers, and a damage control as bait. The hull HP is rather extreme when fitted like that, and serves as an unwelcome surprise when a dictor shows up out of nowhere and bubbles you while you're slowly chewing away at the hull.

[GuppyShark]

What is PvP like in EvE?

I've done both - EVE PVP is much more cerebral. Positioning is very important, you have to manage your momentum and movement relative to your target. IE if you're webbing/scramming a guy but you orbit into his neut range, you might lose that advantage. If you barrel straight for someone, you make it easier for their guns to hit you. And that's the tip of the iceberg.

[Prannon]

Just a suggestion, since it sounds like you're following an industry path for now. If you're going to do mining, you might consider putting some of those minerals to use to make things. Or, better, you might consider running missions for the purpose of gathering salvage and making rigs.

One of my friends in the game made his billions this way. He'd either:

a) Buy things cheap in Jita, ship them out to a smaller regional hub like Hentogaira, and then sell them at a mark-up

-OR-

b) Buy rig blueprints, research the fuck out of them, and then gather salvage from wherever he could find it cheap to make rigs at a nice margin

If you're simply mining the minerals, you're missing out on the true ISK. Sadly, I don't have the patience for industry, so I prefer to go out to null-sec and kill NPCs and gather bounties. Either that or buy my ISK using PLEX. Such is the life of the soldier character. :/

Also, for anyone who wants to see some PVP, this is a video of one of the best PVP'ers in the game fighting in a limited edition Alliance Tournament ship, the Mimir. For perspective, there are only 50 (probably less) of these ships in the game, and there will never be more than that. They're virtually priceless.

The fighting style used is kiting. Basically keep range on your enemies, draw your opponents in, and then kill them.

[TheFeniX]

In large fleet combat, it's basically you obeying the commands of the fleet commander. For instance, target *insert victim name here*. Switch target to *next victim*. Interdictors, bubble those captital ships. All Battleships - align to *target*. And so forth.

So, /assist combat is the name of the game.

Fleet fights are not huge brawls. They are epic, chaotic melees. I have personally flown my dreadnaught in battles where there are literally 500 people on EACH SIDE. And since they made changes to the server architecture to allow practically unlimited numbers of combatants, fleet fights have literally tripled in size. They recently had a few battles where the total number of ships in a single system was pushing 3000.

That's about the exact definition of a "brawl."

Obviously, the impact of 1 player on a team of 300 is limited at best, I just want more than pretty space explosions as I hit my /assist macro and run a rotation my corp has decided I should use. Getting around to watching some PvP videos, the combat seems pretty involved and there seems to be a lot of gaming as well. I'm not a huge fan of checking player bios before blasting them though.

I've done both - EVE PVP is much more cerebral. Positioning is very important, you have to manage your momentum and movement relative to your target. IE if you're webbing/scramming a guy but you orbit into his neut range, you might lose that advantage. If you barrel straight for someone, you make it easier for their guns to hit you. And that's the tip of the iceberg.

"Cerebral" is a subjective term. Even though WoW PvP is looked down upon by pretty much anyone, there's a fairly large part of it that takes place in the (as much as I hate the term) metagame, especially if you play melee. I admit, late-cata and MoP gutted some of that, but gaming my opponents is still a big thing.

So, is the combat RNG? Is there Rock, Paper, Scissors going on? Relative movement to your opponent grants a +% to hit? I've watched a video or two on EvE PvP, but your post is filled with game specific terminology. What exactly is with orbits (it's mentioned in the few PvP videos I've watched). Why are snares useful unless they are trying to run? Are there builds that are more effective at longer range, and those that perform better at knife fighting distances? How does positioning change at ranges?

There's a lot of videos, but are there any good write-ups I could look at from the perspective of a non-player where the emphasis is on builds and/or playstyles?

[White Haven]

There are enough variables to combat and fits and tactics that it very much is Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock...sometimes. Other times, it can end up with brutal slugging matches, polysided fuckfests, meeting engagements where fleets of ships are charging halfway across the galaxy to shit all over people they've barely heard of, so on and so forth.

And then you have Red Versus Blue, who cheerfully slaughter each other all day, every day, unless someone from the outside pokes them hard enough to make them sit up and take notice.

[Borgholio]

So, /assist combat is the name of the game.

In large fights, yes. It's all about the N Squared Law. That is, the faster you can grow your numerical advantage, the better. You typically have a few sub-groups in a large fleet exercise so it's not all about shooting. You have capital ships, that are usually split up into different groups depending on their role (carriers, dreadnaughts, supercaps, etc...), you have sniper battleships that hit the enemy from extreme range, tacklers (small frigates and interdictors whose sole job is to get in close and prevent the enemy from getting away), logistic ships (repair cruisers or remote-repair carriers), etc...

In a big fight, all groups have sub-fleet commanders who work together for the big picture. As in real life, sometimes the coordination works flawlessly...sometimes it fails amusingly. Honestly, it's a great deal of fun to be part of something so huge.

Obviously, the impact of 1 player on a team of 300 is limited at best, I just want more than pretty space explosions as I hit my /assist macro and run a rotation my corp has decided I should use.

Part of the draw of alliances is to build something bigger than yourself. In that regard, being one member of a big team does actually matter. But yeah, large fleet fights aren't for everyone. Large fleet vs small fleet / solo PvP are very different experiences.

So, is the combat RNG? Is there Rock, Paper, Scissors going on? Relative movement to your opponent grants a +% to hit? I've watched a video or two on EvE PvP, but your post is filled with game specific terminology. What exactly is with orbits (it's mentioned in the few PvP videos I've watched). Why are snares useful unless they are trying to run? Are there builds that are more effective at longer range, and those that perform better at knife fighting distances? How does positioning change at ranges?

Not sure what RNG means, but it's not rock, paper, scissors. There are many builds of ship that work. As in real life, if something is moving fast relative to you, it's harder to track it. Same goes in EVE. A huge 16" battleship cannon can't track a speedboat 100 yards away very well, so that's what smaller guns are for. You want to orbit at a range where your guns can easily track...without being so far away they miss due to range. The enemy wants to do the same, of course...so you use webbers to slow their sublight speed (to stay within YOUR optimal range and keep them from doing the same), and use a warp scrambler to prevent them from fleeing if you get close to popping them.

Long range does work, but at that range, they can easily escape unless you manage to alpha-strike them on the first try. Also, weapons that have long range tend to track poorly at short range, and vice versa. Again, compare 16" battleship main cannon vs 5" secondary armament vs 40mm machine gun.

[bilateralrope]

So, is the combat RNG? Is there Rock, Paper, Scissors going on? Relative movement to your opponent grants a +% to hit? I've watched a video or two on EvE PvP, but your post is filled with game specific terminology. What exactly is with orbits (it's mentioned in the few PvP videos I've watched). Why are snares useful unless they are trying to run? Are there builds that are more effective at longer range, and those that perform better at knife fighting distances? How does positioning change at ranges?

Turrets (lasers, projectile and hybrid weapons) have a chance to hit based on various variables. Including stats on the weapons, size of the target, distance to target, angular velocity of the target. Here is a flash explaining it. One thing to note is that if a target has an angular velocity of 0 and is within optimal range you will hit it. No matter how small your ship is.

If a missile can reach a target, it hits. There is no randomness, but the damage can be reduced by various factors. Here is a flash explaining them. Missiles can be shot down in flight if hit by defender missiles (widely regarded as useless) or smartbombs.

Both flashes are old, so the numbers they have for the stats on the weapon systems are out of date. But the mechanics remain the same.

Drones are independent craft that get close to the target and begin orbiting it while shooting with turrets. At one point, if you increased the skill that boosts drone speed too far above the one that boosts drone optimal range, drones would be unable to hit the target because the angular velocity of the drones own orbit was higher than that of the drones gun. Keeping both those skills at the same level doesn't have this problem.

Smartbombs are a weapon which harms everything within a range of your ship other than your ship. Using them in high sec is suicide as if you hit any player ship you don't have permission to attack, including a cloaked ship, Concord will blow you up. Useful for taking out smaller ship nearby, and I've heard of firewall ships which use smarbombs to protect a friendly fleet from enemy missiles.

Then we get to electronic warfare:
- ECM: If successful it prevents the target from locking anything.
- Sensor dampeners: Reduces the locking range and/or locking speed of the target.
- Webbifiers: Slows the ship you use them on.
- Target painter: Increases the effective size of the target. Making it easier to hit.
- Tracing disruptor: Reduces the tracking speed and/or range of the targets turrets.
- Warp disruptor. Prevent the target from warping with a single point of scramble. Each warp core stabilizer on the target means you need another point of scramble to stop it warping.
- Warp scrambler. Shorter range than warp disruptor, but it provides 2 points of scrambling. It also prevents them using microwarp and microjump drives.
- NOS: Drains capacitor from the target and gives it to you. Unless your ship has a higher percentage of your full capacitor than the target does.
- Neut: Removes more capacitor from the target than NOS does, and works every time. But it doesn't give any to you, instead it costs your cap to use.

[Kingmaker]

ECM is the (one of many) aids that is killing EVE. Don't be an ECM pilot. Damps, Neuts, and TDs are all far manlier forms of e-war than ECM.

Is there Rock, Paper, Scissors going on? ... Are there builds that are more effective at longer range, and those that perform better at knife fighting distances? How does positioning change at ranges?

EVE is a game with both hard counters (example: tracking disruptors are bad news for kiters, since they cut their range down too much for them to fight effectively) and soft counters (example: most of the time, a kiter with a microwarpdrive will beat a brawler with an afterburner, but a good pilot can "slingshot" the kiter into range if the kiter is careless). Different modules also have different applications depending on your overall strategy. A brawler might use a stasis webifier to grab hold of a target and keep it at point blank range while a kiter might use it "defensively" to push off anyone who gets too close.

So, /assist combat is the name of the game.

Not on a small scale. The importance of individual pilot skill vs FC skill is pretty much an inverse relationship. In a really small fight, as long as your FC isn't woefully incompetent, good piloting is going to do more for you than a genius FC. Also, a lot of support functions that demand more pilot skill scale poorly in effectiveness. Electronic warfare becomes increasingly impractical to utilize effectively as a fight increases in size, but a good e-war pilot can make or break a 10-man gang.

Knowledge of fitting plays a huge part in nearly every fight. A failfit ship may as well not be there. Conversely, even if you have mediocre manual piloting skills, if you have a solid knowledge of fitting principles and how a given ship is likely to be fit, you still have a huge leg up over many (if not most) PVPers.

----
Also, seriously. Stay away from E-Uni if you have aspirations to do anything pvp related. Most of what they teach regarding pvp is worse than useless. I'm also going to go against the grain here and suggest avoiding RvB for learning PvP. Joining an actual pvp corp will serve you in better stead.
Avoid any corp with a description/recruiting like below:

We do
-Highsec mission running/salvaging
-Exploration
-Mining
-Wormholes
-Incursions
-Lowsec roams

You'll see a lot of corps with descriptions like that. It's a) only slightly more specific than saying "we play eve" and b) indicates the people running it are unfocused and/or have no idea what they're doing.

[White Haven]

RvB vs an 'actual' PVP corp (whatever the fuck THAT means) is actually more of a question of how much time you have to dedicate to the game. My time in RvB was the only period during my varied and spotty EVE history where I could shoot people in the head on a busy RL schedule. Given that I had a busy RL schedule, that was rather essential for me at the time. It very much was a 'log in whenever I can, then murder people' environment, which is great if you don't have the time and focus to dedicate to a more serious corp or alliance. If you have that time and focus, then your choices open way up, of course, but RvB is great for adding that middle-ground between 'don't play EVE' and 'play EVE seriously.'

[Borgholio]

Yeah the biggest thing keeping me from the massive epic fleet ops was...you know...a job and a life and stuff. I could only afford to spend 4 or 5 hours shooting starbases or stations (or waiting to do so), when I was on vacation.

[Thanas]

Do races actually matter, e.g. does one enjoy a tech advantage in ships? How good is the story?

[White Haven]

Your choice of race doesn't matter at all. The various races in the game have entirely divergent elections of ships, but anyone can train to use any ship. The story...which one? The CCP-written story is pretty meh, and is almost universally ignored. EVE is very much a sandbox, though, so the real stories are what the players write with their actions. THOSE are sometimes quite awesome.

[Prannon]

Races don't really matter all that much, no. The only way in which they matter is in what you want your character to look like. Sure, you start off in the race's starting corp and in their space, and with some basic race skills. However, if you spend enough time in the game you will eventually train the skills to fly all of the other race's ships, and all of high sec is open to any capsuleer from any race. So, yeah, no, race doesn't really matter.

The story also doesn't really matter, though they do have a relatively well fleshed out universe for the game. But if you were to ask me, it's background noise to the real story that the players make. I fly around null-sec most of the time, and out there the players are pretty much responsible for creating their own game content. At this point, there's a fairly rich history of alliances and wars and conflict that stretches back to the beginnings of the game.

The In Universe Story

Alliance and Game Level News (via third party) <-- might give you an idea of the content that the players create as far as conflicts and sovereignty go.

[Borgholio]

Do races actually matter, e.g. does one enjoy a tech advantage in ships? How good is the story?

Races don't matter but starting professions do. When you begin the game, you are given some basic skillsets that can help get you started. Which profession you pick determines which skills you begin with, so it helps in the beginning. But in the long run it doesn't matter since anybody can fly anything with training.

For instance I started as a Minmatar. I chose to began with industry but over time I trained to do just about everything. I can fly just about any race ship up to Dreadnaught, and I'm not too far away from Motherships. Depending on the situation I've flown Minmatar or Amarr battleships and battlecruisers, ORE industrial command ships and mining barges...all sorts of stuff. I kinda like to role-play my Minmatar background once in awhile but just for shits and giggles.

[Kingmaker]

RvB vs an 'actual' PVP corp (whatever the fuck THAT means) is actually more of a question of how much time you have to dedicate to the game.

RvB is a random collection of people that hang out in highsec and fight in a deliberately artificial environment. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not a great place to learn how to pvp. Joining a small to mid-sized corporation that is newbie-friendly and focuses on whatever kind of pvp you're interested in will probably do more to teach you how to fight.

The notion that be involved in regular pvp outside of RvB need to be a massive time sink is false. If you're doing massive fleet ops that might be true, but it need not be for smaller scale stuff. Granted there are plenty of megadouche small gang groups that will bitch you out for not being logged in 18 hours a day, every day, and require you to be on mumble all the time, but I would avoid them (most of them won't take newbies anyway). The corp I run with in lowsec has quite a few people who log in 1-2 times a week for <3 hours in total or less and still manage to get into fights. This is not a particularly unusual thing.

[bilateralrope]

I never had trouble finding small fights in faction warfare and there was almost always a militia fleet up.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

We do
-Highsec mission running/salvaging
-Exploration
-Mining
-Wormholes
-Incursions
-Lowsec roams

You'll see a lot of corps with descriptions like that. It's a) only slightly more specific than saying "we play eve" and b) indicates the people running it are unfocused and/or have no idea what they're doing.

That sounds pretty much like my friends and me at the moment. One thing that's very important to me in a clan/guild/corp, is remembering that its a game, I actually prefer "unfocused" and casual to hardcore and demanding. Make the game feel like working a job, and I'm gone, I do enough work at my actual job. I left a couple of guilds in WoW and had a long conversation with my clanleader in World of Tanks over this subject. The main thing I want out of a clan/guild/corp, is people to do things with, even if its just mining or otherwise fucking about in highsec or wherever.

[Kingmaker]

It's not that doing those things is bad*. It's that many corps that advertise themselves like that are poorly organized, badly led, and, quite often, do nothing but mine and run missions solo and have no added value for their members in terms of service or community. Depending on how much of a shitler the CEO is, it's quite possible that you've been conned into playing serf for some asshole with delusions of grandeur. Think about it this way: a corp is essentially selling something to its members. Typically some variety of fun or services to facilitate said fun. For pvp corps, this tends to be access to FCs, ships, roams, and fights. For industry corps, this is stuff like access to BPO libraries, hauling services, and research slots. For mining corps, it's hauling, boosts, buyback, refining, etc... For a corp that doesn't focus on anything, they're essentially selling "we're fun to hang with". And if such a corp can't think of anything more distinctive to say about themselves than "We, too, play eve", you should probably just keep rolling with your friends.

The other thing is that regardless of whether you're hardcore or casual, the game rewards specialization much more than generalization. This applies to corps as well as individuals.

*I mean it is, but that's because eve is a terrible game and anything and everyone in it is terrible by association.

[bilateralrope]

The main thing I want out of a clan/guild/corp, is people to do things with, even if its just mining or otherwise fucking about in highsec or wherever.

You'll only really get that out of corps that all do the same thing.

A corp that says it does everything generally does have members doing everything on their own, with not much working together. If you're lucky with one of those 'do everything' corps you'll have someone who talk to you. But if you ask for help, you'll find them over on the other side of the galaxy. Or deep in null/wormhole space.

Corps focused on a single type of activity can have the same problem if it's an easy solo activity (eg missions). Mining is a bit better at getting people in one place as one member can boost the mining capability of fleet members in system, but lots of people mine in high sec while AFK.

Casual friendly PvP corps do exist in FW. Ones that run scheduled ops but don't mind if some members don't take part. However, there are also PvP corps where each member is off doing their own thing all the time.

[White Haven]

Another group I've heard good things about is Brave Newbies. I can't speak from experience there like I can with RvB, but from what I've heard, they're exactly what they say on the tin; newbies with no fear whatsoever who will go punch someone in the balls in newbfleet strength just because it's funny.

[Borgholio]

Or if you hate yourself, you could join Goonswarm...

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

This is my Vexxor's fit, so far, I just use it for running missions, what changes would you guys make.

High Slots: 200mm Prototype Gauss gun x4

Mid Slots: Medium Shield Booster II, Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field, Medium Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I, Experimental 10mn Afterburner I

Low Slots: Gauss Field Balancer I, Drone Damage Amplifier I x2, Damage Control I, Quantum Co-processor I

Rig Slots: Medium Drone Range Augmenter I, Medium Processor Overclocking Unit I

Drone Bay: Hammerhead 1 x4