Welcome to Kelon’s guide! I am a long term PVP, been learning this art for the last decade and hope to spread knowledge of how to more effectively do this yourself!
This section is going to focus on the ins and outs of the finer aspects of looking to fit for pvp. The X section is going to over over modules and uses, then we will go in some example fit making. While this can all be done in game, I highly suggest the use of an out of game simulator as this will let you accurately show ehp, impact of certain effects, and use of hostile modules on your ship.
So there are a range of ships to use, we have the frigates, the destroyers, the cruisers, the battlecruisers, and the battleships for the base hulls. Each of those will break down into further subsets. We will ignore certain hulls that aren’t optimal for pvp and capital ships as that is outside of the scope of this guide.
In the frigates we got the t1 base hulls, the assault frigates, the Electronic attack frigates, the
These ships have three main defining roles for solo, there are the combat fit ones, the tackle oriented ones for fleets, and e-war support for small gangs.
So to make a ship effective we want to determine the goal of the ship, how the ship can either perform that role or force a situation where the goal of the ship can be achieved, and what needs to be fitted to support that role. Once we have an idea of what to do there, we will want to go ahead and look into fitting the ship. Lets say the goal is to fit a ship that is good in faction warfare complexes. We can assume will be the defender. Lets go Amarr for this, and then go afterburner as with the defensive advantage we can generally prevent mwd ships from burning off.
[Tormentor, Shrimpy]
Multispectrum Coating II
IFFA Compact Damage Control
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
Extruded Compact Heat Sink
Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scrambler
1MN Afterburner II
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Energy Burst Aerator I
Small Energy Collision Accelerator I
Hobgoblin II x2
Acolyte II x2
True Sanshas Microwave S x3
Nanite Repair Paste x24
Gleam S x3
Imperial Navy Multifrequency S x3
Agency 'Pyrolancea' DB3 Dose I x2
Module references
This section focuses on the modules/rigs for ships and how to use them
High Slots
There are a few types of high slots, they break down into weapons, energy warfare, drone link augmentors, probe launcher and smartbombs.
Weapons
They come in 3 sizes, large (battleship typically with exceptions for attack battlecruisers), medium ( battlecruisers and cruisers), and smalls (destroyer and frigates). There are 7 primary weapon systems we can use, hybrids, lasers, projectiles, missiles, ?Distingators?, Vorton, and drones. The last will be covered separately as it isn’t a high slot weapon. They then can break down into into additional weapon systems from there.
Hybrids are the gallente and caldari weapon turret weapon system. They are locked into kinetic and thermal damage, and have the two subtypes of Blasters and Railguns. The blasters are the short range and the railguns are the long range weapon system.
Blasters are some of the favorite weapon systems in the game due to its extremely high damage output. The primary ammo you will want is void, faction antimatter (for better close range tracking), and null (for long range). Generally when using these weapons, you want to overwhelm your target with the damage output. They come in the electron, ion, and neutron sizes. While the frigate guns are mainly for brawling, as you get into the larger guns you can actually start doing respectable kiting with loading null.
Railguns are a fairly respectable weapon system, with the longest range in the game for turrets. It is definitely a kiting weapon system, and the long base range means you can afford to use closer range ammo than some of the other weapons might not be able too.
Lasers are the primary weapon system of the Amarrian race. They come in two variants, beams and pulses. They are fairly interesting as pulses can start kiting at the frigate level, which doesn’t tend to be the case for most weapon systems. Generally you can get some of the best range with pulses, and the decent tracking means its a fairly popular weapon system up to the battleship level. The Beams can get even more range, a fairly decent kiting weapon system, though it does suffer from worse tracking.
Projectiles are the minmatar primary weapon system,which includes autocannons and artillery. Autocannons are the short range weapon system with short optimal ranges, long falloff, and very good tracking. They also have the distinct privilege of being fitted on many other races due to their extremely low fitting requirements.It is primarily a brawling weapon, though falloff range bonused cruiser hulls and the battleship guns can pull off kiting. Artillery has some of the lowest tracking and mediocre dps, in exchange for this, they get the highest volley damage in the game. This is not a brawling weapon, you have to maintain range so you can apply your damage.
Vorton is the newest weapon system, it does low single target damage with the ability to arc up to 5 targets. The main issue with these weapons is there is no controlling what the arcs hit, and it can do fairly poor damage overall unless you have them en mass, and this weapon system can be safely ignored for small gang and solo ships.
Amarr
Smartbombs- These are area effect modules that deal 1 type of damage (but can be selected for) and that range is based starting from the edge of hull (so larger hull sizes effectively get a boost to range). The main use they have in pvp is clearing drones off yourself, in particular ec variant. Can be a fairly good use of a single utility high slot on a ship that plans to brawl. There are 3 main sizes, and I generally recommend medium or larges as the range and damage on smalls is limited and takes a long time to kill drones. They also can kill outgoing or incoming missiles, this is known as firewall, but this as a tactic is fairly rare to do and can be fairly difficult to pull off without significant mass of bombs.
En mass you can use them to create what is known as a pipe bomb, where you have multiple battleships worth of large smartbombs going off, and entire fleets have been wiped out with this tactic.
Combat and Core Probe Launcher - This module is a pretty solid utility option, it can be used to probe targets to kill, let you “punt” onto someone more than 150km from you, and let you probe down a wormhole if you want to get out of a hostile pocket. You do need the combat variant to scan down ships. It also has the benefit where you don’t always need it online, so you can keep it offline on a fit and online it as needed. A slight warning about dropping probes on grid with other people, is you can bookmark combat and core probes, so they can reserve punt onto you instead.
Energy warfare- Energy neutralizers also come in 3 sizes, large, medium, and smalls. Now this is an interesting module as it can completely shut down people ability to run, fight, or tank. There are two ways to use it. The first use is by using your utility high you create pressure on their cap, or you invest in a larger number of high slots with these to attempt shut them down completely.
Energy nos on the other hand helps you counter pressure from neuts or help you when your fit isn’t overly stable on cap. The problem with these is the larger ones require your opponent to start having more capacitor, so effectiveness can dwindle as smaller ships cap pools are too small to tap on much with the larger nos, barring the blood raider line of ships, which ignores these restrictions. This is mainly used to help with keeping enough cap for tackle under neut pressure.
Command Bursts
These are bursts mounted on command destroyers or battlecruiser hulls can provide a number of positive benefits for a solo or small gang. The most useful of these is the skirmish burst, providing either additional tackle range or additional speed, though the sig reduction is not shabby either as it generally acts as damage reduction unless you fly straight at things. Depending on the fleet needs, be flexible with which ones you use. If you plan on bringing shield or armor links, it's worth forcing your group into that one tank type, though its not totally required. Information links tend to be the lowest priority links, not because they aren’t very useful, but skirmish links give alot of control to fights that information links don’t. Generally you are limited for how many links you have in a gang, and you have to prioritize which links to bring. When you can bring them, they make your ships much harder to impact with hostile ewar, and increasing the effectiveness and range of your own e-war.
Also in small gang it can pay to not have the module on auto-cycle. This is due to the fact there is 30 seconds of overlap that can be used to check your positioning with the fleet to make sure everyone gets the command burst. The only downside to this module is it does give a 60 second weapon timer, so be aware that timing can be key especially if a fight is going to happen on a gate or near a station.
Medium Slots
Microwarpdrives
The most popular propulsion for module for pvp, this drastically increases the speed of your ship compared to an afterburner, but it comes with a number of drawbacks vs its competitor the afterburner. It uses more cap per cycle, reduces the overall capacitor (reducing cap regen) of the ship, and massively increases your signature radius (which means it easier to apply damage on you). The speed and sig tend to balance each other out some, but the lower the sig you can get the better able you are to use the speed to avoid damage.
So the MWDs in the non bling area has a bit of a interesting dynamic, due to the fact that t2 MWDs are arguably worse than the meta version. Alot of the time you want to fit t2 modules, and this tends to be a good idea. As far as the t2 MWD goes it has a number of drawbacks. The biggest one is the massively increased fittings requirements vs the meta variants. This would be workable with except you don’t get alot out of the t2. Using the t2 5mn MWD as an example, You gain 5% more speed over the other modules but it uses 5 to 15 more cap per cycle, requires 2 cpu to 6 cpu and 2 to 3 powergrid for that 5%. Compact will always be a good choice if you need the fitting savings, but if you don’t we have to look at if cold gas or quad lif is better. Cold gas tends to be the best choice on pure kiters that have poor cap, as it saves the most cap. Quad has lesser cap penalty, and lower sig, so is likely the best overall for brawling and fits that can afford the cap loss.
Afterburner (AB)
This series of modules increases the speed of your ship. The positive side benefit of this module is the lack of drawbacks its cousin the MWD below has. It is also common to see it oversized (fitting next ship size up module) on it, to get greater speed without the mwd penalties. This allows ships to signature (dodge) tank. This module can also be fitted for the next size up (10mn on frigates, 100mn on cruisers) It does have the drawback of using a load of fitting when you do this, so generally you are giving up tank or damage to achieve this. Due to the increased inertia it has issues turning and getting up to speed, but it does give you alot of raw speed that is immune to scrams.
The disruptors modules
So unless you fit one of these modules your opponents can simply run away to fight another day. We have the Disruptor and the scram, and they each have some advantages and disadvantages. The point lets you engage from further away, which lets you not hard commit to a fight. The scram on the other hand is much shorter range, but what it gets is that it disables Microwarpdrives and Microjump drives, which makes it the better brawling module.
Warp Disruptor (Point)- Finer points
The main thing to remember is the point itself consumes a large amount of cap per cycle, which especially on smaller ships such as frigates can drastically eat into your effective combat time. If the other side is willing to engage while you are in a small ship, you can consider not pointing the other side immediately to save on capacitor if that is a concern. On the other, you do want to keep them there, so this depends on the fight. On larger ships you can generally afford to keep this running more easily.
Warp Scrambler (scram)
This module has shorter range than the disruptor, but to offset that using this module has 2 disruption strength, and crucially also disables MWD and MJD. This lets you shut down mwd fits and prevent them from moving, even more effectively than a stasis webifier would. This module is key for any fit that plans on brawling.
Stasis Webifier (Web)
The Stasis Webifier slows the target down by 55%+ of their speed. While primarily a brawling module as it enables you to try to effect range control on the target, it does see use, especially with faction variants of webs (due to the additional range) and/or skirmish command bursts as a defensive module for kiting ships to keep people from scramming them. For defensive purposes, make sure the module is always preheated to get as much range as possible.
Stasis Grappler
The stasis grappler is an interesting module primarily used by battleships, though capital ships also can use them. Unlike a normal web, it has optimal and falloff. While it webs a huge amount while in optimal(almost as strong as a Serpentis bonused web), most of its range is falloff. When fighting against this module, this means it can be more effective to orbit further out so you have more speed, as the web amount lowers the further you get out. While the grappler can also be used on targets up to 20+km, but at that range the web effect is very small. Unless you are planning on using a faction web, grappler tends to be the best choice on battleships due to its strength, as it can still do normal web amount up to around 8km.
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Tackling
Capacitor Booster
This module allows use of capacitor charges to directly inject additional cap. It is important to note that the cycle time being 10+ seconds and the reload another 10, that it will be at least 20 seconds before another cap injection can take place for the small/medium/large cap boosters(assuming use of largest possible cap booster). A single cap booster will not keep a ship up under heavy neut pressure, but is more to keep tank/mwd and other modules running on a otherwise short cap life fit. There are niche uses for using smaller cap charges, but going with the largest available tends to be the strongest choice. That being said, sometimes you can overboost on smaller ships, so you should check your total cap pool to see if using 400s is warranted. You can fit up to two of these for but if you need more you should reconsider what you are aiming for.
Capacitor Batteries (Battery)
These are typically used to gain cap stability on deadspace repair fits. The module also has a side benefit of protecting against neuts and nos modules by providing resistance to those modules. For frigate and destroyer fits you tend to need the medium capacitor battery, for cruisers it requires the large one. Battleships while you could get one cap stable, it is usually a much more efficient use of slots to accept you will need at least one cap booster, though a large battery can be used to help with cap life and add protection against neuts. As a side note, to gain the benefits of the neut protection, all the sizes have the same bonuses, so you can use a smaller battery to save on fitting and still get the other bonuses.
MicroJump Drive (MJD)
Also known affectionately as no-scope module, this will after a set time (9 to 12 seconds) teleport the ship 100km in the direction you are facing. However during this time if you are scramble the MJD will fail. There is a visible indicator that an MJD is happening. (add picture), so people will be able to tell when you active it, allowing them a chance to do a drive by scram to turn it off. This module allows both excellent offensive and defensive actions. The main downside of this module is the cooldown of 3 minutes, so make sure when you hit that button you are MJDing where you want to go! The only ships that can mount this module are battlecruisers (medium variant) and battleships (large variant).
Micro Jump Field Generator (MJFG)
This module acts as an AOE mjd, bringing up to 25 random ships that are not scrambled (plus any drones and missiles) 100km as long as it is within 6km of the command destroyer, which is the only hull that can use the module). This can be extremely useful in small gangs, separating people so you can kill them, by either bringing someone out from their gang, doing a drive by to remove hostile ships off a tackled gang member, or removing support from the equation.
When facing this module you can take advantage of this to separate someone out. By scramming someone as after command destroyer trigger the MJFG, that ship will be left behind after the MJFG takes effect. This can be very useful to separate a large threat from its friends. This is also true for the CD pilot. If you need to leave something behind, scram it so it doesn’t come with you.
Tracking/Guidance Disruptor (TD/GD)
These modules (when scripted, as they should always be) either reduce range of guns/missiles or reduces their ability to apply their damage. If using a fit that has this, carry the both types and a depot so it's possible to swap out for the target. The depot may not be necessary depending on how available stations/citadels are in your region. For missiles, reducing the application is usually the safe option. For guns, if fighting a larger hull or a similar sized hull with long range weapons on it, use the tracking script if you are planning on getting in scram range. If fighting a brawl hull or a kiter fit optimal range script instead.
Sensor Dampener
This module either increases the time for another ship to lock or reduces it range when scripted. Typically for these fleets, the scripts will be for range. The scan res damps come in much more use when combined with ecm, break the lock of a target, then put scan res damps to make it take forever to relock stuff. Otherwise, swapping the damp target around can help by forcing previous target to re-lock targets while the current target is unable to do anything. This module on a bonused ship tends to be stronger than ecm due to multiple damps being able to massively shut down any target without having to roll for it.
ECM
There are 5 different jamming modules. Multispectral is equal strength to all races, and the others are race specific, though they have a much lower chance to jam other races. Gravimetric ecm jams caldari, ladar jams minmatar, magnetometric jams Gallente, and radar jams amarr. In any case you are using ecm on a ship, the ideal situation is to carry spare jammers in your cargo along with a depot so you can swap out for the ecm best suited for the task. Also a thing to keep in mind is you can be targeted while using this module, which means long range ships can still try to murder you.
Burst Jammer- A related module to ecm, this works quite a bit differently. This is an AOE effect, hits everyone equally, within about 18km range depending on the variant, and it doesn’t keep you from locking immediately, it just breaks all current target locks. While fairly a niche module due to the friendly fire, it can be fairly effective due to the fairly high jam strength it has, 9 vs all racials, in peeling off frigates. To counter balance the strengths, it does use alot of capacitor to fire a cycle off, and it has a 30 second cooldown before you can do it again.
Target painters
This module use increases the signature radius of the target, which improves effective tracking of the target and missile application. While for solo it usually has little use, due to mid slots being extremely valuable for control, it can be used as a fleet wide tracking computer for small gang use. The additional sig, which can equates to greater applied damage to the target, is useful to help cruisers/battlecruisers to apply full damage from their weapons against smaller target. This additional tracking is also separate from a tracking computer or tracking rig without any stacking penalties. The main case where these are mounted on a solo ship is missile hulls to improve application on smaller targets and if you only a small amount of cpu left over and need to fit a mid slot.
Ancillary Shield Booster vs Normal Shield Booster
The ancillary shield booster, when compared to a normal shield booster, has several key differences. The main difference is it repairs a larger portion than the t2 variant. The second is while it has capacitor charges loaded, it does not use capacitor. Because there is no difference caused by the size of the capacitor charge, always load the smallest navy variant allowed. When the charges run out, each cycle afterwards uses a large amount of capacitor. This means it repairs more at the start of the fight, where you tend need those repairs. Ex. A medium ancillary shield booster will use 178 cap per cycle, while most frigates have 300 to 500 capacitor depending on fit. This being the case, it is generally fine to leave auto-reload on for this module. Be careful that squeezing an extra cycle out with capacitor doesn’t reduce your capacitor to near 0 and cripple you.
Small Shield Extenders
These extenders are very rarely used on frigates. The main issue is the only provide half the hp of an medium extender, and you tend to want more buffer than they provide. On the plus side, they do use an extremely low amount of fitting, so can be good on some kiting fits. Two of them do equal 1 medium shield extender for buffer amount
Medium Shield Extenders
This is the primary shield buffer modules for frigates, it provides a good amount of hp for its fitting, and the only downside is it increase signature radius.
Large shield extenders
This shield buffer module covers cruisers to battleships. As you get into large fits they tend to start fitting more, but generally no more than 2, as at that point you want to start looking into increasing the resists of the ship instead, and you still want room for control modules like tackle and propulsion.
Sensor Booster
This module is the all round counter e-war module, as it counters both sensor damps and ecm. If carrying this module, make sure to carry all scripts for it. The main issue with this module is it takes up valuable control module or tank slot depending on the fit. If no ecm or damps are present it is a useless module for that role.
It is possible to make instantlocking fits with sensor boosters scripted with scan res scripts and/or rigs, but keep in mind of stacking penalties- it is not necessary to add more than 3 of the modules or rigs to a fit.
LOW SLOTS
Frigate Plates
I generally find the 100mm plate isn’t enough impact to use a fitting slot on as a small ancillary armor repper equals the plate hp in 2 cycles for the same or less fitting.
The 200mm plate is generally used to provide buffer so you have more time to get off Small Ancillary armor reps, but can be used as the primary source of armor hp depending on the fit and ship.
400mm Plate is the largest plate the frigates fit, and tends to be the primary source of raw hp, this can be buffed with trimarks.
Cruiser Plates
800mm tends to not be the primary tank source when used, though it is an option. When not the primary tank, it is usually used with a MAAR.
1600mm is the largest sub capital plate available, and can be the primary tank on a ship. Typically it is not paired with an MAAR due to fitting requirements.
Damage control
This is a fairly straight forward module that gives a large amount of hull resist, and a minor amount of armor and shield resists. Generally its wise to always fit one, but if you desire more speed or damage it can be smarter to not fit one. This is generally the exception and not the rule though.
Assault Damage Control
This is a module that can only be used by Assault Frigates and Heavy Assault Cruisers. It gives up some base resists compared to a normal damage control for 10 to 15 second super resists with a long cooldown. For use in pvp, for armor fits with an armor repair wait until your tank is low, then rebuild that buffer. For shields it matters less, but you should still try to use it later and not immediately as the long cooldown means you only get one shot in most fights.
Hull Expanders
Increases hull amount at the cost of interia and cargo space. A key module for any fit looking to rely on hull tank. Pairs well with the hull rigs.
Energized Adaptive Plating vs Adaptive Nano Plating
We have the ENAM and ANP. The main difference here is the ENAM gives more resists but requires a decent amount of CPU, while the other just requires the 1 powergrid and zero cpu for less resists.
Heat sinks (lasers), Gyrostabilizers(projectiles), and Magnetic Stabilizers
While these module is straight forward, keep in mind it is still affected by stacking (and damage rigs are included in this) and no more than 3 is required on a ship. They are also a very good choice to compact due to the very minor damage loss for 5 extra cpu.
Drone Damage/ballistic control units/radiation sinks
Nanofibers vs Overdrives
While both provide increased speed, the main reason nanofibers are used instead of overdrives is the increased agility. This means, in the short run, the ship will hit max speed sooner than the overdrive fit. Due to this, the ship will actually cover more distance in the sprint which is what typically matters, not the long race. It also comes in handy when traveling around as you will spend less time aligning to the next target. The main case overdrives are prefered is when using hull tank ships due to the module not eating into the hull (unlike nanofibers which do).
Type-D Restrained Nanofiber Structure
This module can be worth considering over the t2. While 1% less speed and agility, it only reduces your hull by 10% instead of the 20% that the t2 does. This can make a superior option depending on your tastes, and in larger hulls where the 10% hp is alot and the 1% speed is a few m/s. This entirely depends on taste.
Ancillary Armor Repper vs T2 Armor Repper
While similar to the ancillary shield booster, in being the repper is front loaded, there are several key differences. The repairs come at the end of the cycle instead of the start. This means, especially for smaller ships, a good sense of incoming dps is required to time the first repair cycle well. It still uses capacitor unlike the ASB, however when the nanite runs out it does not use more cap a cycle, just reps ⅔ less.The aar is better than a normal repair after X cycles, where the normal one over takes it. This is fine as you except to take the majority of any damage at the start of the fight, while you hopefully kill incoming sources of damage. It does also take 60 seconds to reload. Due to this fact, make sure the AAR is not on auto reload! Less repairs is better than no repairs, just make the decision yourself if there is time to reload. TLDR: AAR is good for up front damage, but t2 AR shines in longer fights. You are also limited to 1 per ship, so if you aim to fit more reppers you will have to invest in a normal armor repper or mix tank.
Niche Modules- This section is for modules that have some use but are only for very particular fits.
Energized Layering Plating and Layered Plating
These modules are in a fairly niche position, namely due to the maximum 15%/8% hp it gives tends to be overshadowed by either a plate (increasing maximum raw hp) or increasing resists which also increases effective hp.
Hull Repairers
While these are entirely too slow to use in pvp, they do have some use in null roaming, as you can refit off a mobile depot and repair hull between fights.
Interia stabilizers
FIT STYLES
Its quite possible for ships to have more than one of these, but I will be aiming to try to point out the advantages and weaknesses of each.
Dual Propulsion
These fits aim to fit both an afterburner and a microwarpdrive. While this does have some downsides, such as suffering from the MWD capacitor penalty even when not needing it and needing enough fitting for both modules, it does offer the advantage of letting you catch things using the MWD and having better range control/damage mitigation once you commit to the brawl. This tends to be a viable option for cruisers and frigates, battleships tend to be too slow to take advantage of it. It does suffer vs pure AB ships as they tend to have better range control or tank with the additional fitting they have.
Mixed Tank
You have probably heard many times that mixing tank is bad, and this isn’t generally a bad rule of thumb, but for pvp this rule can be broken. For pvp, especially in small gangs without logis, hp is hp, no matter the source. That being said, consider if this will actually benefit you or not. This tends to be best on smaller ships, as larger ships get more and more slots allowing you to focus the tank more efficiently.
Single Rep- This tends to be a single repair module there to help sustain you vs incoming dps. Its not expected to keep you up forever so keep this in mind when looking at the repair numbers. By keeping the tank to a single module, this frees up other slots more more control/damage/speed so you can control the range better.
Dual Armor Rep -As stated, you fit double armor repair on the ship. Unlike a single armor repair fit, you are attempting to tank all incoming damage enough so you can kill someone. These tend to be brawl oriented fits. Unless you are aiming to use deadspace modules, it tends to be a t2 MAR comboed with MAAR. You use the MAR first and if you need additional tank you pulse the MAAR while charges last, or run it full time if required. The only time I would lead with MAAR over MAR is if you are under heavy neut pressure, as it is better tank for your cap use.
Pure Damage- These tend to be sniper fits meant to pick things off at range, while the targets are tackled by other means. They can also be small frigates/destroyers in low security space, as you aim to overwhelm your target with dps before they realize you don’t have any tackle fitted.
Buffer Fits - These are a fairly solid choice, the main fits tend to be shield and hull tanks followed by armor tank at last. Armor and hull tanks buffer are difficult to roam into hostile territory with unless you have logi. If you are planning on roaming into hostile space without access to repairs, you should look into active tanking or shield buffer (which does regen over time). The plus side of this fit is your repairs can’t be overwhelmed by damage and there are less modules to manage.
Tackle Fits- These are fits for frigates designed to just tackle for other gang members. That are two variants, one has a long point with scram to do drive by scrams with, typically interceptors and the tackle frigate lines. The other focuses more on being a brick, the primary examples being things like punisher and jaguars.
Defensive modules- Occasionally on kiting ships you will have additional mid slots available. In these cases you can fit what is called a defensive web/scram, typically this is a web, even though ideally the aim is to be outside of web/scram range. The idea is you keep these modules overheated, and try to use them to help screen off anything trying to tackle you at close range. This gives you a chance to try kill them or escape untackled. This is a place where having links and/or investing in faction webs greatly increases effectiveness as the additional range prevents interia from letting people punch through the defense. You can also fit a scram for this purpose but this tends to be for hulls with a scram range bonus like an Orthrus.
XXXXX
Right, now that I have gone over all the modules, lets get into the nitty gritty bits of fitting for pvp. So generally the basic goal of all ships is to be able to kill someone else. There are a number of ways to accomplish this. You can go in for a brawl style, kite style, alpha style, etc. Brawlers tend to want to get in close and do a bunch of damage. Due to this, they also tend to have a fairly hefty tank.
Rule of thumb- Typically you never want more than 3 of a module that impacts ships stats as a %, due to Stacking penalties. Generally you want to start investing in other modules for more tank, control, or speed. There are times to break this rule
Now it may be tempting to always patch the lowest holes, and this does make sense on larger ships but on smaller ships it can be more useful to ignore it. This is mainly due to how useful the use of a rig/slot is compared to the benefit you get. Frigates and destroyers have a very low number of slots, and unless you are being shot with that damage type its a wasted slot. General tank rigs may help vs that damage type less, but they are also more useful vs all other types of damage.
While on the topic of tanks, I always feel that sometimes you see an over emphasis on tank occur, especially on ships with a strong local tank. For example, sometimes you see an incursus that gets a 7.5% rep/level bonus go fit dual reppers as it does get an impressive amount of tank from that. I have several issues with this fit. *link fit* One, you have given up all hopes of range control with likely targets in the faction warfare area. Two, you also are giving up quite a bit of dps. I prefer to lean heavily on the fact the repper is pretty amazing to start with, and fit for maximum damage. This lets you get up to the eye raising amount of 290 DPS with void loaded and overheating. So just try to avoid going max tank fits as they are not always the best choice for a ship.
Sometimes you have the situation where you can’t fight someone in you current ship, but you can attempt to counter fit them. This is where having a well stocked hanger and reships can come in handy. Knowing how the target is fit can be extremely helpful here, and sites like zkill can help by permitting check previous losses. One way to counter fit is to simply fit for the target damage. Certain weapons are damage locked and this allows extremely hefty tank vs that damage profile. I have done it with the breacher vs hookbills, as most of them stick with kinetic, and with this fit *insert fit* you can get up to 90% kinetic resists. Another is to tailor the e-war selection to completely shut down their ability to do damage. You can also just select a fit you knows counter their ship but if they also know this they may be hesitant to engage, so trying to be engageable can help you get fights.
So part of fitting is laying out modules for optimal heat use. To do this, try to surround modules that are heated often with preferably passive modules, or if none are available active modules that you heat the least. In addition to that, heat damage does not wrap around the ends, so keep that in mind. As an example, we can use a Gnosis:
Currently its not set up very optimally, lets try doing some restructuring here. We likely want to heat the mwd and point the most, as we want to kite here. The webs should only be heated defensively to try to screen off ships trying to close into scram range. In addition, the command burst can’t heat, so lets move it as well so it can separate the guns a bit.
With hows its set up now, the Large shields extenders eat some of the heat damage that can occur from heating the mwd and point, and while its not ideal the webs are next to each other, they do have a lower heat priority than our mwd and point.
At some point you will ask when should I buy faction and deadspace modules to make my ship better. So this is going to be an option that depends a lot on your own personal tastes. I have fairly modest tastes, so I tend to avoid bling. But there are a number of things where bling can make sense. For starters, some faction and deadspace modules are actually very affordable. This tends to be due to being the less favoured modules, so you may not get a chance to use them that often as they tend to be less favoured for fairly good reasons, but they can a significant upgrade on the module they are replacing. Sometimes bling make alot of sense. On ships with bonus to web range, like Lokis, get a huge amount of increased safety with increasing the web range, so you are investing in a module that will help keep you alive as you can web anything scary starting further away. The other type of bling is ships that require bling to work. Things like crours and Damvik are not that scary unless you bling out the neuts and nos for the additional range, as it lets you utterly dominate most other frigates within scram range.
On ammo selection- While blasters and lasers mainly swap ammo based on range, missiles and projectiles allow you to select the damage type. This is where knowing the likely resist holes of targets allows you to apply more dps. For example, a kestrel using rockets vs a punisher that has a damage control fitted. If the kestrel uses EM, he is hitting a resist profile of 66% EM. Now if he swaps to thermal instead he is only hitting a resist profile of 56%. That is an increase of 30% applied damage if you take the time to consider best ammo! While exp is the lowest hole at 45%, it can be covered sometimes, and occasionally you have to hedge bets due to the ship being flexible for either type of tank.
Always use at least navy ammo, due to the value of the 15% damage gained vs the cost of the ammo. It is worth checking the longer range variants of the best pirate ammo (ex. True sansha, not Sansha) as it is possible to pick it up for the decent price.
Navy cap charges should always be used due to wanting either maximum charges in an asb (7 vs 9 charges) or the largest possible charge in a cap booster. The latter is due to it being the most efficient cap/s. Using smaller charges does increase the number of charges in the booster, but even using smaller charges doesn’t necessarily help vs massed energy neutralizers due to the cycle time. There are niche uses for small boosters but generally its not the primary concern. Navy boosters also let you fit more charges into your cargo.
While the T2 ammo provide either significant range or damage increase, keep in mind it does come with some serious side effects. Close range ammo comes with a serious tracking or application penalty, which can be a problem at close range as you want more tracking generally. Don’t just use it because it has higher paper damage, consider if you can actually make that extra dps apply or if it could be lost to worse application of your damage. While the longer range ammo also has a tracking penalty, it should be used on targets further away and helps mitigate the tracking problem. Despite this, especially on larger hulls, it is wise to pack a better tracking ammo for range in case tracking becomes an issue.
Now there is a number of drugs you can use to help increase ship performance in various areas. The larger the ship, the more justified cost wise it is to use drugs. You have 4 boosters slots you can use drugs in. In booster slot 1 you have Blue Pill (shield rep amount), exile (armor rep amount), Mindflood (cap recharge), and x-instinct (sig radius). In Booster slot 2 you have drop (increased tracking), frentix (increased optimal), and sooth sayer (increased fallof). In slot 3 you have crash (explosion raidus for missiles). In slot 4 you have the 3 agency drugs, hardshell (tank), Pyrolancea (damage), and overclocker (speed). Now the slot 1-3s you have several different variants, synth which grants 3% with no side effects, standard (20% increase, with 4 rolls for side effects at 20% each), improved (25% with 4 rolls at 25% each), and strong (30% with 4 rolls at 30% each). While that does sound bad on paper, the reality is you generally only care about 1 to 3 of the side effects, skills reduce both the chance of effect and overall amount you are penalized by. You can also use citidals to roll for prefect if you want to invest like that. For most ships I tend to invest in standard drugs and either pyro or hardshell. Overclocker for the level 1 tends to be a super cheap drug to use on any ship and more speed is solid for any ship.
So selecting drones is somewhat important, as it can be easy to fall into the trap that the highest dps drone is best to use. If the drone cannot catch up to the target or track it, it does 0 dps, and is therefore useless. In terms of speed and from lowest to highest damage- Minmatar (exp), Amarr (em), Caldari(kin), and Gallente (therm). My preference is to use the faster drones, as they also have better tracking. I also try to select drones that have a different damage type from my main dps, as this helps offset any reactive armor hardeners the target uses, but it can be wise to pick for the region if you plan on shooting ratters. Also some ships have odd drone bandwidths, depending on the ship role and the drone reserves you can try to maximize the damage you get out of the bandwidth, or opt to have spare drones in case you loose the primary set to AOE style effects, targeting, or if you have to leave them behind. Always remember, drones aren’t worth your life, much preferable to loose a flight of drones and keep the ship then risking death trying to scoop them.
You can also choose to pick up an e-war drone. Most e-war drones are fairly niche due to low hp and the fact they stack with similar effects, there is the exception of ec- 300s. As ecm does not stack with other ecm, and you get 5 separate attempts, it gives you a decent chance of jamming smaller ships for 5 seconds. (odds of 10, 15, 20 sensor strength for 5 drones) 5 seconds can be a long time in a fight, letting a kiter escape tackle or letting you get in some additional damage while they can’t respond. The neut drones have some possible interesting utility mainly based on the fact they have extremely fast cycle times, which could help you keep small stuff neuted out. The damp and TD drones are fairly weak, at 25% for the strongest drone, so generally you have better use for 25mb of bandwidth. Web drones are fairly interesting but suffer from the normal drone issues of catching up and staying on fast targets within their optimals.
Ship selection- Now at the end of the day, you still want to select a hull, and most ships in eve can be fit for combat. Now there are hulls that definitely stronger than their fellows in their niches, such as the comet is definitely of the strongest faction frigates in the game. There are reasons not to always fly these ships, as it can be hard to find fights and get people to engage, which I define as engageability. The stronger the ship, the more people will consider upshipping required or calling in more friends.
Offlining modules during combat- There will be some niche situations where offlining a module can help out. Offlining a shield extender can be useful when you run out of buffer, have no exceptions of getting reps, as the shield extender still gives the sig bloom even when the buffer gives out. This lets you lower your sig and help reduce incoming damage. Another is you can offline a MWD when heavily tackled, as this frees up capacitor regen.You can also offline plates decrease mass, which can help you warp off faster and move faster. The main drawback of course is if you do survive, you have to hit 95% capacitor to reonline it or a depot, and you won’t have access to it until it is onlined again.
Power of look at- This is a skill that can really help you figure out what you are going to fight. You can see the type of weapons, whether they are neut fit ( lack of guns), there are a number of active effects you can ID by looking at. Also, when you see they have undersized weapons such as electrons vs neutrons blasters, you can determine they are needing additional fitting for more tank, so its likely heavily tanked compared to a neutron fit.
Here is a chart that shows you the guns and their looks barring trigalivain and vortons, which should always be fitting their primary sized gun. Look at also can tell you if the gun is offline or not, you can experiment in a station, but you can clearly see that offlined guns are always in the depressed position and not run out like an active gun.
You can also ID various modules by visual effects.
On control- So this referencing the ability to force your opponent where you want them to be. This can be as simple as pointing them, to using energy neutralizers to cap them out, to dropping bubbles to prevent them from fleeing. The better you can control what your opponent does, the more likely you will win.
Bookmarking- So you can create bookmarks in space. This is where prior efforts will pay off latter, as you can use these to safely check out gates in null, have places to hide while being chased,