If a new player showed up and asked this question, which frigate would you recommend?
We can exclude Expedition Frigs. After ranking, extrapolate one ship that holds highest placements in all categories. It is the winner.
OK, I’ll bite…
DPS: Dual web rocket Hookbill.
EHP: Merlin (shield resist bonus/lvl), Hookbill (five mids) or Heron (seriously, a dual MASB Heron has a beast of a tank)
Adaptability: Heron, Heron Navy, Hookbill, Kestrel
Price: Kestrel?
Winner: Hookbill.
You can fit it close range with rockets or as a surprisingly good kiting platform with light missiles.
With five mids, you can mount a true beast of a tank, either active or buffer.
It has excellent Kinetic damage and solid damage with other kinds of missiles along with the adaptability to choose your specific damage type.
It has OK fitting room and, for a Caldari ship, is surprisingly nimble.
It seems the implied context here is 1v1 fights?
No idea about that, I rarely do 1v1 fights in frigates.
Outside 1v1 fights there are two Caldari frigates I would really recommend to newbies:
The Griffin can easily disable multiple T2 logistics cruisers in a fight if you bring the right jams, which is a lot of value (or power) from a cheap T1 frigate.
The Heron isn’t only a great way to make ISK in exploration but also makes for great bait that apparently does well in 1v1 fights, probably because most people assume you’re a non-combat explorer.
Well, if you can have the right fit then the Condor can beat almost anything, but it needs a different fit for every situation
If we were just looking at T1 frigates only I’d have said Kestrel for all spots.
If we are looking at navy faction frigates, Hookbill.
Every single one of my characters, Omega and Alpha, has a Heron and a Magnate. The Heron is the best T1 exploration frigate, given its extra middle slot, and the Magnate is the best T1 light freighter given its extra low slots; it is dead easy to get a Magnate up to over 1000 m3 cargo, whilst the Heron can have a scan upgrade and both types of analyser, and still have room for afterburner and shield modules.
This analysis will be for common variants of PvP fits designed to be used solo in frigate 1v1s or situational 1v2s, 2v2s, or 1vMany. These fits are focused around Lowsec in Faction Warfare sites. The strength of a fit will depend heavily on the interactions within the Afterburner brawl and scram kite meta of FW space.
DPS: (Hookbill), Merlin, (Griffin Navy), Kestrel, (Heron Navy), Condor, Heron, Griffin, Bantam
Except the Heron Navy, I’ve flown every one of these ships in solo pvp. The Griffin and Bantam are fantastic meme ships. Blasters do the most damage, but the Hookbill has an enormous damage bonus enabling it to push 203 dps hot with no damage mods. Merlin gets 212 and also has more low slots available to push that damage higher, but I put the Hookbill higher here simply because it is more likely to apply its damage to targets and with a (very expensive) polarized launcher fit can reach 450 dps (with my skills). Depending on how you want to set up the Heron, it is actually capable of dishing out a ton of damage, but most won’t. Blaster Bantam is a quality ship, but suffers from poor projection.
EHP: Merlin, (Hook), (GNI), (HNI), Bantam, Kestrel, Condor, Heron, Griffin
Basically, the beefier the shield the better. Hook and GNI have good slot layout and fitting room, Bantam has a tiny signature, and Merlin gets the shield resistance bonus. Condor and Heron can fit a good active tank but suffer from low base EHP. Griffin is paper.
Adaptable: (Hook), (HNI), (GNI), Condor, Kestrel, Heron, Merlin, Griffin, Bantam
I take adaptability to mean range control and a variability in fighting ranges. Of course, the rocket ships are at the top. Hookbill has a range bonus and a ton of range control possibility, meaning it gets to choose wherever it wants to fight within 11km. Heron Navy is a little slower with much less range, but has 2 utility highs. Griffin Navy has those sweet sweet ECM drones which give a lot of options, but when going 1v2 the GNI can only really brawl at close range and it’s slow and terrible. Condor is fast, Kestrel has range, Heron has slots. Merlin is decent at control but really only fights at point blank range, Griffin does low damage and is painfully slow, Bantam can only brawl (the way I fly it) and has worse range control.
Price to Delivery ratio: Condor, Merlin, Kestrel, (Hook), Heron, (HNI), (GNI), Bantam, Griffin
I take this to mean what the ship can accomplish with varying levels of expensive fitting. Every ship can vary from cheap meta modules (1-4m fitting) to T2 ewar and guns (6-15m fitting) to faction fitting important shield modules (15-20m fitting) to turbobling (50m to 1b+).
Condor is cheap and fast and versatile, earning it the top spot. Merlin can be fit very cheaply to do a huge amount of damage. My personal signature Merlin fit does 300 dps for only 6 mil fitting. Kestrel is also very strong but really synergizes with T2 webs and scram which easily push armor fits over 10 mil apiece. Heron is a cheap and effective bait ship with 2x medium ancillary shield boosters. GNI, Bantam, Griffin, don’t bling them. Your engagement profile is narrow and when you die it won’t be close. Expensive modules can’t save you and you will rapidly lose ISK efficiency. The HNI and Hookbill are both more expensive hulls, so they will innately be costlier to run. I think the Hookbill responds fantastically to expensive modules, so it’s the best when really expensively fitted, followed by the HNI.
Extrapolation: What ships are good for the FW lowsec environment?
Strongest Overall vs. Ships of Same Class: (Hook), Merlin, Kestrel, (HNI), (GNI), Condor, Heron, Bantam, Griffin
Best Bait for Unexpected Kills: Bantam, Heron, Condor, (HNI), Merlin, Kestrel, Griffin, (Hook), (GNI)
Widest Engagement Profile: (Hook), Kestrel, (HNI), Condor, (GNI), Merlin, Heron, Bantam, Griffin
Best STARTER Ship: Kestrel, Merlin, Condor, (GNI), Bantam, (Hook), (HNI), Heron, Griffin
Best looking (in my opinion ofc): (Hook), Kestrel, Merlin, Condor, Griffin/NI, Heron/NI, Bantam
Have fun!
