Proficient use of a battleship, an industrial command ship, or a carrier is one way to gauge progress in Eve. If a new player starts the game, with nothing but rookie chat and their own wits to guide them, how long will it take get into a ship and be comfortable flying it?
What were your benchmark ships? And how long did it take to get into them?
My benchmark changes with every ship nerfâŚ
In my opinion thereâs no answering this question, the reason being that ships are simply tools for what you want to accomplish. And those tools should be chosen on the basis of what a pilot is able to do. If youâre able to run a 3/10 in a Punisher successfully, then youâre probably doing it right⌠(and few will imitate you).
Itâs not the hull that makes the pilot, itâs the pilot who brings the hull to its potential. And the choice of hull should be based on the knowledge of EvE (environment, mechanisms, player behaviour, etc), the current state of the meta, your proficiency at designing fits, and how well you can combine the (limitations on) skill levels at your disposal.
Having been a fool in quite a few hulls I flew before I should have, my reply is simply: there are no benchmark ships, just expensive losses.
That doesnât mean you canât dream of one day flying a marauder or an orca or a FAX. But youâd better hope you know what youâre doing 
After I finished all of my Venture training, I realized that nothing else is truly needed.
I had no benchmark ships, because when I started I didnât have any idea what the ships did. Generally my ânext shipâ goal became whatever class was next up from the one I currently. Because, you know, thatâs what next on the ship list.
I recall I was pretty excited to get into my first BC and run some new mission with it. And pretty bummed when I realized the snazzy new guns on it couldnât hit the frigates that had me scrammed while the other ships blew me apart (PvE). IIRC I donât believe Iâd ever been scrammed before so that was a bit of a âdo your homework firstâ moment.
So I think Iâm on the same page as Wadiest⌠there werenât any benchmark ships for me. And the primary benchmarks that stand out in memory were âOh yeah that was the time I learned that if I do X, I die, but if I do Y, I live to fight another dayâ.
Gosh, Iâll never get to be a real carebear. 
Donât get the concept of âbenchmark shipsâ. EvE is a single shard sandbox with a persistent universe, i.e. no regular wipes. Hence everything in it needs to be balanced against everything else at any time. This naturally contradicts with any kind of âship progressionâ. Every ship in EvE has its place, purpose, pros and cons.
As a player you choose the ship which best fits to the task you need to accomplish. The only progression here is, with more SP you have more choices in the ship tree.
For me, I can fly every subcap combat ship perfectly, but you rarely find me flying anything bigger than a destroyer because Iâm lazy, donât want to care about losing, and donât like slowness in general. My fun is zipping around space after work solo or in fleets and look for opportunities of any kind.
Iâm in a similar situation. 150m sp and almost every subcap to V on my combat alt and 99% of the time Iâm in a tackle captor or some kind of frigate.
Iâm a fast tackle specialist, i enjoy that fleet role in small roaming gang pvp.
In corp fleet throwdowns, Iâm usually in logi.
My benchmark ship was the Catalyst Navy Issue. I also got a SKIN for it!
Didnât take much time at all to get into that one.
Bantam â Osprey â Retriever
Cormorant â Caracal â Raven
I donât remember how long it took me. There was a large amount of googling, getting scammed, getting blown up and talking to strangers on the internet involved. All of which contributed to my enjoyment.
Youâre not good at âa shipâ , youâre good at âan activityâ.
Being ship-centered can make you miss opportunities to improve. Like Orwell wrote, âall ships are equals, but some are more equals than othersâ.
Itâs the job of CCP to make sure the fewest possible are the equalest ones.
Itâs the job of you to adapt your fit to your gameplay.
Iâd say Exhumers and Marauders are pretty clear benchmarks for mining and ratting respectively.
When I first started playing, my âBenchmark Shipsâ was actually the progression for running missions:
Level 1 = Frigate/Destroyer
Level 2 = Cruiser
Level 3 = Battlecruiser
Level 4 = Battleship
Course that quickly changed after I lost a couple of different Frigates while running the Level 1 missions. I then changed my âBenchmarkâ status to being completely max trained with max fit on a hull class before switching ships. Took me about 9 months to do that on Tech 1 Frigate and in doing so I was able to complete Level 3 missions within the bonus time.
However I also wanted to loot and salvage the wrecks which were quickly de-spawning so I then jumped into Battlecruiser. Fortunately most of the skills I had max trained for Frigate also applied to Battlecruiser so it didnât take long at all to max train and max fit that hull class.
I then decided to do Exploration which brought Tech 2 ship class into my âBenchmarkâ goals. After I had max trained and max fit Tech 2 Scan Frigate, CCP implemented Tech 3 Cruisers into the game so I switched hull class and fortunately again, didnât take long to max train and max fit for that ship class as well.
While doing exploration, I then decided to also run Cosmos Agents which brought me back to my âBenchmarkâ goal again, this time to max train and max fit Tech 1 Cruiser. Again it didnât take long due to max training all skills related to all of the other ship classes I had previously trained.
During that progression, I also needed an Industrial / Hauler ship and since I was already max trained for cloaking, went for T2 class Blockade Runner which once again, didnât take long to max train due to all the other ship classes I had previously max trained.
Anyway, thatâs basically my interpretation of âBenchmark Shipsâ. Being max trained with max fit before moving on into another ship hull class allows each new hull class to be quickly trained and easily fit.
What stefnia said- you have to pick an activity and then thereâs commonly used ships for that activity.
For PVE in general you probably want to shoot for a well skilled Gila, and for L4 missions a pirate battleship. The tech 2 ships would be specializing in this, like marauders and heavy assault cruisers. Those are significant time investments but the skills are good to have if you want to switch up your activities later (ie actually fun PvP).
Resource harvesting you should look into expedition frigates. Theyâre pretty quick to train into and good for a variety of things. Barges suck in my opinion but theyâre probably the benchmark for regular mining in a group. Exhumers would be specializing in this, cost a lot, and donât do anything else.
For PVP there really is no benchmark. Interceptors and assault frigates are good for tackling if you like that, so the tech 1 equivalents at high skills could be considered a benchmark. If you like using an Incursus, look at the t2 variants. If you like using a Condor, same with that and so on.
Thereâs really no telling how long it takes to train into these. Usually level 3 or 4 isnât long, but unlocking tech 2 requires a lot of level 5 skills which up your training time significantly. My advice is to train racial combat ships and the weaponry + support skills to make those better, Iâm never bummed that Iâve done that later on.
Once I got into the Incursus I knew that was it, I was in love, and like any well-attentioned lover I bought my baby a fantastic skin and some accessories. We are at this moment living happily ever after 