Internet spaceships I have known and loved, lusted and hated

From CCP Rubicon toolkit

When you start playing Eve, you're initially asked a bunch of questions about what faction you want to play as. At first blush, this might look to be even less consequential that your actual avatar, and certainly that's what many new player advice-givers assert. I chose to play as Gallente, drawn toward the introductory text about democracy and freedom. The Caldari's corporate-centricity was too Ferengi, the Amarr's religious zealotry was off-putting, and the Minmatar ... well, I don't remember. Gallente it was!

This decision, though, actually does have one major impact: it dictates players' starter spaceship, and the type of freeby ships they get via the tutorial missions, and from there some of the particular skills (especially weapons related) you're encouraged to train. Certainly a player can pick up and train for other factions' ships and weapons, but there's a lot to be said about continuing down a particular road once you've started. In my case, I have focused a lot on hybrid gun sills -- but, I have virtually no skills trained up in laser weapons, missiles, or projectile guns. While I can still train up to fly other factions' ships, I do so at the risk of not taking advantage of those vessels' built-in weapon bonuses -- which, as we recall from Awful Loss of the Day bingo, is a bad thing. So, I have stuck mainly to Gallente hulls.

Still, I have no regrets. Here, then, is a gallery of what I've strapped into and sometimes had blown out from under me. All images save the last are from a database export published by CCP. I am, for now, omitting the various mining ships and cargo haulers I've flown; more on those later, perhaps.

Real basics

The old pod, the spaceship within a spaceship whence Eemiv and Dengar control their powerful vessels. I've lost plenty of ships, but I've only once had the pod itself (and the bod inside) destroyed.

The shuttle is a quick little dude. Had to use it for some airshow-esque mission in the styx. Held onto it, though. Not sure why. Perhaps because it's the only symmetrical Gallente ship I've found.

Frigates and destroyers

The Velator is the starter frigate. On those few occasions when I send a character in their pod alone to e.g. pick up a ship waiting elsewhere, I get a message from the in-game insurance company lamenting the "loss" of my ship, and telling me they've "conveniently" delivered a new Velator at my destination. I've owned and scrapped more Velators than any other hull.

The Atron is a sweet-looking ship, and my first heads-up that the Gallente really aren't quite into symmetry. Ordinarily, this would be kind of a problem for me. But, despite their lopsidedness, Gallente ships still look remarkably balanced and sometimes even organic. These ships should drive me nuts but they don't.

Eemiv has flown an Imicus for stealing salvage and loot. This ship also has some nice bonuses for other equipment that might make it a decent explorer, too.

The Incursus, which is apparently part narwhal, is Dengar's most frequent fighting platform.

The Tristan is an odd-looking ship with a cool warp animation. Not much else to say about it.

As you can tell from the distinct lines and color scheme, the Astero is not a Gallente ship. Instead, it was created by the Sisters of Eve faction. This ship is built for covert exploration. I took it out for a spin but was underwhelmed by some limitations on how it could be rigged up; after a few trips, I sold it back.

The Catalyst is a destroyer, meant specifically for blowing up frigates. This is a cool looking ship; it's breadth, outrigger pilot area, and generous engine mounts are reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon.

Cruisers and battlecruisers

I suspect for as long as I play Eve, the Thorax cruiser will have a special place in my heart. It was the first ship I had to wait to fly: not only did I need to train up to the larger hull, but I also needed to wait for some new gunnery skills. My Thorax is also the first ship I named after my wife. And, really, it is just pretty cool looking. I recently made an investment in five Thoraxes for Dengar to use in her Red vs. Blue PvP activities. I expect them to die quickly and gloriously; they shant receive any special names.

I just wrote quite a bit about the Stratios. As you can see, it comes from the same faction as the Astero frigate. Whereas the ships for the four main factions require training up only for those factions' ships, ships coming from the Sisters of Eve or various pirate factions require skills from two of the core factions. In the case of the Stratios, I needed to train up not only for Gallente cruisers but also Amarr cruisers.

The notion of bigger ships being slower and less agile really hit me with the Brutix battlecruiser. Like the Thorax, the Brutix receives bonuses to its guns; the Thorax and Brutix both have companion ships that instead offer bonuses for drone combat. At this point, I was neglecting drones and drone skills: that would surely change.

Not long after first sitting in a Brutix, I bought a more robust version of the same hull, the Brutix Navy Edition. Several ships have "Navy Edition" variants that offer better weapon and protection statistics, not to mention a camouflage-looking paintjob. Alas, these aren't enough to save you from not reading. The picture at right is of the Brutix Navy Edition.

Battleships and marauders

Most new player guides suggest stopping for a breather at battlecruisers if you're the type to race up to train bigger and badder ships. That surely describes and, despite all Eve advice to the contrary, I still itched for a battleship even after rocking around a Brutix. Indeed, pausing with the Brutix in a way was forced on me: in addition to the time required to train even to fly a basic battleship, it required a new family of gunnery skills. Additionally, fitting all the ancillary support gear (armor repairers, armor hardeners, etc.) required their own expanded skillset.

But, once squared away with the basics, I promptly stepped into a Megathron Navy Edition, and that's the ship I've spent the most time flying. It's a great mission-runner, though a bit slow both to track fast-moving targets and to maneuver itself around. I addressed the former by training up drone skills pretty handily. And for both issues, I used a micro jump drive to instantly move myself 100km from the riffraff to essentially become a stationary gun platform: all of a sudden, fast-moving ships lose much of their speed advantage when all they're doing is racing right at you for an extended range.

As much as it was a big step up to the Megathron, it's been a bigger step into the Kronos marauder (at right): a Megathron hull with a different color scheme and some special animation, among other things. While jumping away and becoming a gun platform was one of several possible tactics with the Megathron, it's very much the purpose behind the Kronos and other marauders. These ships carry bastion modules that render them stationary but provide big bonuses to weapon range, shields and armor, and electronic counter measures. This is a type of ship I eyeballed flying very early in Eve, and for a few weeks I've been happily flying one. I'll close this out with a great illustration (larger versions available) featuring a couple of Kronoses readying for an engagement.

From CCP Fansite Kit

Size matters: Go small!

A couple of weeks ago, I set about to reap reward from other players' pew-pew and hard work. During another salvaging jaunt yesterday, I ran into a bottleneck: the Imicus frigate can't target more than four wrecks at a time and it can deploy only four salvage drones at once. Eemiv is trained up to deploy five drones and handle six target: my small ship is quick as a bunny but, in a different regard, was slowing me down by 20 percent.

This morning, therefore, I tried a salvage & looting fit on larger cruiser hull, which supports more targets and drones. It was an interesting experiment, and if I use a cruiser for this role again, I'll need to make major changes to my approach. Here's why.

Definitely hit (the first) I5
From The Mittani

Not wanting to spend much on a new hull or gear, I decided to start with a cruiser I already own. My first thought was my Thorax, which after all was the type of ship used to ninja loot me. However, I went with my Stratios instead. For one thing, it already had an cryptically named gravity capacitor rig installed to boost sensor probe strength, and rigs cannot be transferred between ships. (Sensor probes are required for scanning down ships at long range, i.e. finding likely ships from which to steal.) Furthermore, the Stratios itself gives a boost to probe strength. This ship also sports a generous cargo bay (600m³ compared to 465m³ for the Thorax and 400m³ for the Imicus). It also has a huge drone bay. This last I thought could be particularly useful: the idea would be I would set five salvage drones off to work, and then I could use ship-mounted salvagers, too. If I stumbled into an active combat area, rather than rely on ship-mounted guns, I could save waves of various combat drones to deal with enemies. It would also save me from having to carry ammo in the cargo bay. For those paying close attention, though, that last is a flag: the Stratios has bonuses for laser weapons, which don't require ammo; if I'd equipped guns, then they would have been the unbonused hybrid turrets Eemiv is better trained for, i.e. the first "I5" in Awful Loss of the Day "bingo." This was not a costly choice per se -- I didn't get blown up -- but it was one of several fitting and mindset errors I made.

The beautiful Stratios cruiser

From CCP Hyperion Toolkit

Here's another one: I equipped a cloaking device. My thought was that I could sit invisible in an active combat area, waiting out the combatants and perhaps even staying in the shadows until a mission-runner jetted off to go get his own Noctis or other salvage ship. The Stratios, too, is one of few ships that can equip a covert ops cloak: this special cloak allows a ship to travel at top speed and jump to warp while cloaked. Alas, because of the ship's limited CPU output, I couldn't equip the covert ops cloak, an appropriate probe launcher, and various other basic gear. So, I went with a lame, lesser cloak that cut my top speed by 75% when activated and doesn't allow for warping while cloaked. Ugh.

Anyhow, I strapped on my weak cloak and salvagers, shoved  bunch of drones in the corners, and set out. I scanned down a battleship easily enough and warped to it. The first area had just four wrecks, and I targeted the first one.

Or, rather, I tried to. Here's where things get even more embarrassing in hindsight. You see, the Stratios is an expensive hull; buying it was an early splurge. If I actually planned to fill its big cargo bay, that meant having to loot. (Looted gear takes up much more space than salvage.) And that meant a higher risk of being attacked and, in the process, tackled. Tackling refers to retarding a ship's speed or preventing it from warping away. Being protective of this expensive hull ("Don't fly what you can't afford to lose," I remind myself), I equipped it with a warp core stabilizer to ward off another player's warp core scrambler. In the unlikely event a solo mission-runner devotes a precious mid-level equipment slot to a warp scrambler, they're probably carrying just one and my one warp core stabilizer will be sufficient to counter it. And, after all, most high-security mission-runners go solo; I probably wouldn't have to contend with a scrambler at all; two or more is super unlikely. For an academic treatise on this back-and-forth theory, see this seminal scene (warning: profane) in The Big Hit.

Ah, but ya know what? Warp core stabilizers also cut a ship's scanning range in half. So there I was in that first area, sluggishly ambling silly close to these wrecks. It took way too long, but I went through the acceleration gate hoping things would be better on the other side.

My cloak and these leaves offer about the same concealment.
Photo by Douglas Muth

Remember my earlier assertion about mission-runners being solo-types? Well, it was a pair of folks running this mission. And I discerned that because they were right there on the other side of the gate, less than five kilometers away. I activated my dinky cloak and started slinking away. You remember that cloak, right? The one I couldn't have activated before I arrived, and that cut my speed by 75%? Yes, that one. I don't know whether the other players did this deliberately, but one of their ships wandered close enough to fizzle out that cloak. They didn't try to target me, but I still put tale between my legs and warped out. So embarrassing.

It gets better, though: I hopped one system over just to try again. Despite superior probing stats, it took much longer to track down big ships. But, after a few stabs, I suddenly pinged on two battleships and a marauder: things were looking up! I picked one arbitrarily and warped to it.

Upon docking up
From Futurama, "A Big Piece of Garbage"

Alas, I hadn't noticed that this cluster of ships had at its heart ahem a big green space station. A remarkably familiar space station. Eerily similar -- nay, identical -- to the one where Eemiv resides. Sure enough, I'd scanned down just the usual coming-and-going traffic in front of my driveway.

I definitely made some fitting errors today, making compromises that let me do some things mediocrely and nothing well. I also missed the frigate's greater agility, a better defensive asset than a poor cloak. And I imagine I could address some of my initial bottleneck concerns with other techniques: for example, after setting a salvage drone to work at a wreck, untargeting it and using ship-mounted salvagers to work on something else. It's a few more keystrokes, but at least it keeps me busy.

Probably doing my next salvage & loot run back in an Imicus
From CCP Hyperion Toolkit

What next, then? I'm inclined to return to the frigate approach. It might be nice to take a spin out in a destroyer, what with its higher target capacity (even with smaller cargo hold), but I'll need to cobble a fit to get a bump in CPU output: out of the box, it's a tight fit for destroyers to handle the necessary probe launcher and ancillary gear. Maybe I'll set out again with a cruiser, but I seriously need to take a look at fittings and goals. And if I'm feeling sensitive about losing the ship in the first place, then I just need not to fly it in this capacity.

Day 9: Avatar and story

I don't remember where I read this, but it stood out: in Eve, your ship is your avatar. Totally makes sense: although you design a character and even pose him/her for a portrait picture, the first and sometimes only look other players get of "you"is your ship.

From Azyl Alfa

Here's me. Or, one of my twins. A Gallente Catalyst. I suppose my destroyer has different guns and other accoutrements. Bought it for 5 million ISK (the in-game currency). I have no idea how fast it can do the Kessel Run.

This is all a bit different than other Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (I think -- I've never played another MMORPG, other than a few days of The Old Republic), where the individual avatar is something human-ish, anthropomorphized, with a face, and it's you. Or game-you. Starfleet Online gives you a starship to flit about in, but you have a person-ish character steering it, you recruit individuals to crew your ship, and you even leave it from time to time to putter about worlds. Vehicles are a critical component of Battlefield and Halo, but you play as a discernible human(oid) who enters, emerges from, and/or splatters against those war machines.

So, it's different. Neat. I, for one, am glad I don't have anything distinctly me-looking as my online presence. Going all the way back to Knights of the Old Republic, I've always used character creators to try to make something vaguely me-ish, and the outcome is always way too flattering.

Does the de-emphasis on an arms-and-legs persona contribute to Eve being a distinctly "out of character" RPG? (I don't have a point of comparison for how much other MMORPG denizens chat in- or out-of-character.) Everything I read about character creation said the race, ethnic, and gender choices are purely cosmetic. And, from what I can tell, there are no barriers to changing your character's appearance -- unlike, say, recent The Elder Scrolls or Fallout games, which present a big warning about not being able to change your character's appearance after the tutorial.

I suppose it makes sense, too, that you wouldn't populate a big galaxy with up to 1.5 million (500,000 players times three characters per player) characters without providing any kind of ongoing narrative. There is lore, and it looks like expansions sometimes add depth, but there is no change. Hilmar Petursson, CEO of Eve developer CCP, told Polygon that CCP is not "telling the story of the game." Seemingly in the same breath, he said, "The game is the players" (Polygon's/Petursson's emphsis). Players. Not characters. Where there is conflict, it's based on players' decisions, not in response to a third-party story arc. Eve has some built-in missions, with names and places and a conflict, but they are bite-size, with no mass and evaporate upon completion. In fact, I've been offered a couple of identical tutorial-esque missions more than once, with only the locations changing.

And having written all that, I'm scratching my head a bit: I've always enjoyed games for their stories as much as or more so than their gameplay. I love Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for its innovative story-telling twists; Call of Duty: Ghosts, meanwhile, plays pretty much the same way, but it has a lame story and I commensurately dislike the product. Mass Effect 3's gameplay is more refined, but I prefer the first and second games' narratives (Like Garrus, at right, I miss the elevator-as-load-screen chitchat from the first Mass Effect). The best part of Mass Effect 3? The final DLC, which has no gunplay, no leveling up, and is all about a final farewell to some great characters. Knights of the Old Republic II has some wonderful tweaks to gameplay over the first game, but the first one ... well, the first one doesn't have entire storylines eviscerated and left bleeding. You can guess which one I prefer.

So, at first glance, one of the biggest draws for me in a video game isn't part of Eve. I have an inkling what's compensating for that, so far at least: a sense of growing my (non-)character. My capsuleer serves one important purpose I've figured out so far: serving as a bucket for skill points. Filling this bucket is what allows me to access new avatars, i.e. ships, and allows me to do better things with them. I'll write more about this sense of making progress later.