Been playing seriously for about 4 months now, and admittedly most of my time has been spent on EFT and the University learning how to properly fit ships to squeeze out the most efficacy while staying balanced. I think I am pretty good at it now and it’s really fun, but admittedly I’ve spent very little time undocked from the safety of Jita.
Anyway, with my current offensive skills, which are mostly level 4 gunnery in all categories except the specializations since they require V’s to start training for, I am pushing 643 DPS on my Laser Praxis, 495 DPS on my Hybrid Gnosis, 398 DPS on my Drone/Laser Vexor NI, and 407 DPS on my hybrid Vigilant. Speed wise, Praxis = 204m/s, Gnosis = 349m/s, Vexor NI = 522m/s & Vigilant = 630m/s.
So, my question: For both PVP and PVE, does speed really matter? Should I be be flying a faster ship that does less DPS, or prioritize max DPS at all costs? The ships I’ve built have an optimal fighting range between 15km-25km if that makes a difference in the answer.
Speed is really important even at cruiser / BC sort of size. Everything needs a prop mod really unless you know specifically why you aren’t fitting one.
I’m also confused about the laser VNI but I’ve seen some wacky fits work on a vexor so I won’t jump the gun.
Speed and range control are more important than raw dps.
Most PvP engagements tend to be decided in the first 10 seconds - and its usually the ship that can control range that wins. So yes - speed, and the ability to keep an engagement at the best range for your ship, is better than just raw dps.
The range you suggest (15-25km) is kiting range: where fast ships with MWD’s, warp distruptors and fast tracking weapons dominate.
The ships you list have great dps but tend to be slow. That’s great if you can land on the target and brawl, but not so good if your target is faster than you: they will either get up close and hurt you, or just run away.
If you are going to use afterburners (based on the speeds you list) then you need to fight close in, where scrams and webs can keep your target pinned down.
Generally, its better to have a little speed. This is because you need to be able to catch your opponent, and if necessary, disengage.
But it also depends on the type of fight youre looking to get into.
If youre going to be a brawler, speed is only important insofar as to getting within range. After that, your warp scram plus webs should tie them down enough that you dont need speed anymore.
If you want to kite, then speed is important because you need to dictate the range and to not get caught.
You want to get a good balance depending on your playstyle. I would not go so far as to say speed is always more important than dps, but its still a vital aspect you want to consider when fitting your ship.
BTW - if you are very inexperienced I suggest you get a few cheap frigates and head over to factional warfare space with the aim of loosing them and learning, rather than undocking theory-crafted battlecruisers.
Even a few weeks running relatively safe high-sec NPC missions with various styles of frigate (brawler, kiter, scram-kiter) would help you answer this question.
The fastest ship will be able to control range, so if you’re faster you’ll be able to fight in your optimal range, and hopefully not in your targets optimal range. This greatly influences how much dps is applied.
Furthermore, the faster ship may be able to disengage (burn out of scram/point range) if the fight goes bad.
I beleieve i mentioned everything you wrote here already, with the added caveate that scrams and webs will prevent even the fastest ship from being unasble to disengage and therefore be catchable by even a praxis battleship.
Speed is important, but again, the playstyle and the ship come in to play when considering sacrificing dps for speed. If the player is using a gnosis or praxis, i wouldnt prioritize speed at all. I would go dps, and maybe a jump drive to escape sticky situatuions. And kiting ships can be cut off and scrammed and webbed if you are skilled enough.
Hi Keno,
Thanks for your answer. Below is my VNI fit. I find when I don’t fit any offensive turrets and just go pure Drone, my DPS figure goes way down. If you have a way to mitigate that I’d be glad to listen.
Hi’s:
Heavy Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Gamma M x1, 20,212m Optimal
Heavy Modulated Energy Beam I, Imperial Navy Gamma M x1, 20,212m Optimal
Mid’s:
10MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner
Tracking Computer II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Low’s:
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II
Medium Armor Repairer II
800mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
Rig’s:
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Energy Locus Coordinator I
Thanks so much for your info. So it sounds like I need MWD’s over afterburners if I want to fight at distance. I just hate fitting those because they obliterate my capacitor, but I have better skills now so I’ll tinker around.
As for the theroy-crafting; Yeah I have a Tristan and a Tormentor already fitted out for learning purposes. I probably won’t undock the crusiers+ until I know what I’m doing a bit better.
Hi Solonius,
Yeah I’ve always preferred to fight at distance in most games, so it is naturally what I gravitate towards. I wouldn’t so much say that I want to kite, but I definitely want to keep them at optimal range.
You will almost never outrun a frig in a cruiser without being specialized in speed. That being said, around 1200 to 1600 should be fine for most situations.
If youre in a drone boat, pretty much 0 to 50 is your optimal. In pvp, a lot of people go neuts in the high slots for vexors. Just something to think about.
Otherwise, if you can stomach the loss, vigilants are great at PVP.
This is extremely low for a VNI. Looks like this is roughly equivalent to Gallente Cruiser |||, Heavy Drones II and Drone Interfacing at 0. With these skills at just level 3, you should get over 450 drone DPS, and over 550 DPS with level 4 skills.
DPS is quite theoretical, optimal and falloff range are very important. So you need speed.
I have fun with speed tanked frigates. If they are caught, they are doomed anyway, but if they can leave bubbles in less than 4 seconds, they are safer than with bigger tank or slightly more dps. But now and then an attack BC with blasters is fun, too. but this high dps monsters need speed to reach their opponents, their weapons are fairly useless from farther distance.
So standard answer in EVE: It depends. I have seen very slow orcas winning fights against a bunch of cruisers…
It’s common to use other races weapons in some situations, however lasers are generally not the one due to big capacitor cost. Maybe try some artillery or even autocannons for max dps with no effect on your cap. Or even some gallente guns though they will use a little bit of cap.
Very Close. Gallente Cruiser IV. Heavy Drones is training as we speak, and Drone Interfacing will kick off tomorrow. In approximately 41 hours I will have Heavy Drones III and Drone Interfacing III done.
To get an idea how top players fit these ships may I suggest you go to https://zkillboard.com/, enter a search for your ship of interest, then click the solo tab and then selected the links of the ‘top characters’ listed on the left: look at their losses for ideas on builds.