The Apoc has to waste one of its bonuses in using less cap for it's turrets, as usual in Amar ships while the Rokh gets very nice resists. So hardly "far better" than the Rokh.

Also, about 150-180 been plenty, well, that will depend on your corp/alliance probably, but in mine that's not plenty.

Question:

My friend chose a gallente/gallente/immigrant.  Should I choose a different set-up if we want to join a corp/alliance together?  Like maybe amar/khodan/cyber knight?

Thanks.

Well, the low mods you will need to use to compensate the armor resists can be used for damage mods in the Rokh, so I keep failing to see why it's "far supperior" (except in very laggy situations, where Amar are better than anything else in general).

Well, the low mods you will need to use to compensate the armor resists can be used for damage mods in the Rokh, so I keep failing to see why it's "far supperior" (except in very laggy situations, where Amar are better than anything else in general).

3 heatsinks is the upper limit of effectiveness for how many damage mods you stack. After those the Rokh needs fitting mods to fit the rest of its tank etc. Amarr battleships can also fit 3 heatsinks...while having 4 or 5 lowslots to fill with tank. Meanwhile the rokh needs midslots for tank, while the amarr ships can fit tracking computers there.

Given actual fleet fittings Amarr tend to have good range, far better damage, and better tracking than a Rokh with 425 mm II's

They will also have an easier time getting to that DD tank (1600mm plates give more HP than Large Shield Extenders).

As far as actual DPS goes, Amarr ships tend to do less damage against t1 omnitanks, but start really shining vs shield tanks and t2 ships, the reason being that a lot of the fits for t2 ships (minmatar excluded) tend to have EM as the lowest resist (from my personal experience). Also if you do some math on real damage dealt (including tracking, falloff, etc.) Amarr guns very often come out on top because you're always using them in optimal range with good tracking, unlike blasters and autocannons that often function in falloff.

Instead of arguing with you I'll just show you a 0.0 alliance's killboard. RAZOR, not the largest, but its up there in terms of power.

http://www.eve-razor.com/killboard/?a=home

See how many Rokhs you can find in the killmails (both kills and losses) compared to how many Apocalypses and Megathrons. (Megathrons were the standard before the Apoc's latest buff).

Any serious alliance's killboards will tell you exactly the same thing...Rokh isn't a good fleet sniper; it has subpar DPS and subpar tracking while being a shield tank where most of the game's battleships are armor tanked (remote reppers).

And what does RAZOR fit on their apocs?

8x  Mega Beam II's

1x best named MWD

2x best named sensor booster

1x tracking comp (optimal range)

1x DCS

2x Heat Sink II

2x EANM II

2x 1600mm RRT plates

If you look at BoB's kills/losses you'll see the same thing, lots of Megas and Apocs, no Rokhs. The reason for this is that once you've fitted 8x 425's, 3x damage mods, 2x fitting mods, you still need 2x sensor boosters, 2x tracking comps, and 1 Microwarpdrive in the mids, leaving no room at all for tank. The rokh is possibly the worst sniping battleship in the game (unless you have low skills, because it's the only battleship that will do 200km with t1 ammo)

1) Point your lasers at other players.

2) See #1

3) Graphics are ok, gameplay > graphics

4) The world is made by the players. Join and become active in a corp and/or alliance.

I play it to be a pirate YARR. Small scale PVP action ftw.

For 1 and 2: Eve is a really HARD game at the start (see this post, 1 image is much better than 1000 words: http://www.zenofdesign.com/2009/02/21/eve-learning-curve/). The best thing for your friend would be to join a newbie-friendly corp so he starts understading the game faster (even with that, the first 1-2 months of Eve are pretty meh).

3: you usually play Eve pretty zoomed out, so honestly, you don't really care much about the graphics...

4: that's a really strange comment: Eve has a nice NPC story but one of the best things about Eve is the story that has been created by the players. Incidents like the GHSC assassination, The Eve Intergalactic Bank scam, The Great War, The MAX Campaign,... all of those and more form part of the rich story of Eve and they all have happened because of players actions.

Hehe...interesting read....seems like they made some changes to put Amarr back on top since I last played (about 1.5 years ago).  Just about everybody BUT Amarr was considered good in PvP.   Though Gankageddons were always nasty if you landed next to one.

I agree with the general posts on the Tempest...I always preferred the flexibility of Typhoons, and I also had a couple Maelstroms that I loved for raw firepower and survivability... (not a bad sniper either).  I also had a tanked Abaddon that I occasionally tooled around in when I wanted more tanking ability, but I like my Maelstrom better overall.

The game can be utterly boring if you think you are supposed to sit around and mine rock until you can afford a battleship.  Or it can be extremely exciting if you get in a small fast ship, join a corporation, and handle the scouting / spotting / webber / jammer role in fleet actions.  The great thing about Eve is you can be just a crucial to the succeess of your corp even if you are a new pilot with a small ship.

However, the learning curve is absolutely brutal, and PvP consequences make PvP in games like WoW look like kindercare by comparison.  While most heavy ships are adequately insured, some of the exotic tech 2 stuff with rare named gear make you want to cry if you lose it.  I once got my Vagabond hung up in an asteroid about 2 km from a blaster armed Hyperion I had been orbitting.  I had about enough time to say "ACK" and my billion isk kitted out Vagabond was vaporized almost instantly.  I can't remember exactly what the insurance paid me back...something like 10 or 20 million.     That was a bad day.

That said, if you like scifi, have the time to spend, and live for a world with harsh penalties, Eve is a fabulous game.

Speaking of which, Annatar, how many games do you play????  You have a job, play strategy games, and have a Karma farm....

T3 cruisers will end up being primary  

I'm an old skool eve player from way way back in the day.  The orginal Curse Alliance from when MoO was in it...

Pre-castor (patch) Caldari blackbirds were king, then it was Minmatar rifters post castor.  Last time I got sucked in - Nov 2008, it appeared to be Ammar Zealots - the HAC with pulse and scortch that were the PvP tool of choice alongside Minmatar recon's and heavy interdictors. PvE it's still the Caldari Raven and the newcommer in my mind - the Drake. You can argue that - and I do (like every other eve player - ships and set up in eve is just another form of PvP). Personally rate the Minmatar 'phoon for PvE if you've the skills, and I've a very softspot for my Ammar 'poc as my Blood Raider money making machine.

Thing is you will have a style you like.  Do you want to snipe from hundreds of kilometres away, or are you a knife fighter?  Do you want to be fast nimble with no defense out running enemy fire?  Or do you want to be a lumbering brute that is wieghed down by defence and can take a pounding?  Eve gives you those choices, and whatever is flavour of the month can be taken out with the righting fitting and some skill.

Ship wise you've two extremes racially when it comes to heavy ships - the Ammar and Caldari. You could argue the Galente ships are Amarr 'lite' and the Minmatar are Caldari 'lite' when it comes to defence. (note Minmatar ships can ignore this as they'll ducktape anything on that works) Because the Galente and Minmatar ships are 'lite' on the defence side they make up for it elsewhere.  Minmatar have supposedly have speed (the frigs and some cruisers do - but its forgotten on the battleships) , and the Galente have drones.  What the Minmatar and the Galente ships also have is the knife fighter concept - radically (ie generically) they have the advantage when it come to use the close range varients.  My play style means I'll argue knife fighting is the answer.  Damage per second (dps) is greater on a blaster 'thron than a Rokh sniper significantly.  Sure you've got to get close, but that's just skill =P  Either way you see a lot more Minmatar and Galente ships in PvP, they are the heart breakers and life takers of the eve universe - for their targets and the pilots that fly them.  Again my style means I view what I consider tanking ships such as the Ammar and Caldari to be PvE ships.  That doesn't mean the Ammar and Caldari ships don't have some serious firepower - but racially the ships are designed around sniping. Sniping to me is PvE or gate camping which makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon.

Eve can be the best MMOG out there - it can also be the worst.  Solo it sucks.  Full Stop.  Mining, run missions just different things you fit in your ship.  Target it goes pop eventually - you get cash.  You do it to fund your PvP habit as it has the harshest death penalty in any MMOG.  Play in a corp in 0.0 and PvP.  It's epic.  Seriously utterly epic.  So unless long term you want a second job in a guild/corp which will be an amazing experience, long term eve kinda fails the casual player.  I just can't stress how good that 0.0 corp experience can be.  It will be one of the best gaming experiences you can ever have.  It's Sandbox - and epic... Have I said it's epic?

What is good about eve as well is the lack of expansions.  They are free.  Going back to the OP, he asked what version should he get?  Anyone that's cheap.  It'll patch all the way up and your'll get everything.  As Annatar11 has said a shuttle is nothing.  5k? A cheap frig you'll actually use is around 100k.

Sh0dan as I said earlier - ships and set up in eve is PvP, but hell I'm always game

Caldari and Ammar ships are the perfect tankers in their field.  ie shield/amour.  When you compare like for like, they'll out tank the Minmatar/Galnete ships.  They're also designed around missiles/rails and lasers.  Pulse are the short range ones, but you can't compare those to auto's/blasters.  Slot wise, if you start adding ew on either you loose tank. eg shield hardeners or cap rechargers.  If you've half decent EW skills - traditionally a Caldari bit of kit - you're reaching out to sniping ranges.

Now view that against the Minmatar Galnete ships.  They've got a slots that are in the wrong place for tanking.  They're all about gank - rather than tank.  Ignoring min arty, they also radically use and have ships designed around close range knife fighting.  It's all about auto's and blasters.  T2 stabber might do well with arty - but I'll always fit auto's.  I'll be up your exahust pipe with a TV so high you won't touch me even with a web while I'm giving you the bad news at the point of several hundred emp rounds per second.  Same with the t2 pink thorax - I'm just gonna have a few more drones and it's servral 100 antimatter rounds. 

Thing is tank in a proper fleet battle means jack.  You get called primary and 200 battleships lock on, I don't care what tank you got.  If you can't warp, your in a pod.  In small fleet skirmishes, you dps ship is going to have a "spotter" it can warp in on.  If you aren't using short range high dps weapons and your sniping, I'd argue your missing the point.  Gate camping if that sort of thing is your bag sniping is king.  But lets face it - gate camping is more PvE than PvP. It's ganking and Darwinian selection - any one with a 1/2 decent IQ will avoid or out run any gatecamp.

BUT as I said before, I'm a knife fighter - that's my "art" in eve.  EFT wasn't around when I first played and neither were the auto orbits.  We learnt a skill we were naturally inclined towards.  Me, mines a 6km -7km manual elliptical orbit.  I can't stand sniping, instintively don't get it for PvP - never will.  Sure I can be told the perfect sniping set up, but I get bored and don't "feel" it in a fight.  Eve ain't like WoW with the right 'spec', a good fleet commander can roll with ships specc'ed how ever the players want them as long as he can keep the ranges right in his head and manuever so targets are delievered in everyones optimals.  I was beating T2 ships in T1 as they were fotm set ups against my style.  eft doesn't give the feel of a ship, niether does PvE, you gotta be facing down an human to get that.  In fleet battles I am that psycho in a blasterthron trying to hump enemy battleships.  Live or die - I'll take a few down with me.

You also say that the lighter ships of the caldari and ammar can do the support role.  Lighter ships... one or two specialised one yes.  But the rest are a crock.  As a smallship one thing keeps you alive - speed.  That menas low mass and high speed.  Hence Minmatar ships become king.  That's why you see so many Minmatar cruisers in PvP now (err a few months ago).  The Ammar and Caldari comparible ships are house bricks in comparision.  Look at the blackbird.  It's flies even worse than a bath tub.  Yes it's specialised in EW - and that's the only reason anyone uses it.  Only time that is fubar - is with the t2 interceptors, they for some reason don't follow those rules anymore.  The claw and the stiletto should be king - but obviously ducktape has a greater mass than steel.

But... this is eve, and it is an art that eft misses.  Play style is greater than substance, as if I as a knife fighter can't close with a sniper I'm dead.  We'll probably not agree on ship types as I have a different playstyle and approach.  Only time you really find out what works for you - is when someone is locking on to you.

Beep beep beep....

I don't fly in 100 man fleets, I fly in 5-30 man fleets at the most. A good illustration of my point is the Megathron vs the Armageddon. 1v1 the Megathron will always win given equal skills and player skill. 5v5 the Armageddons will annihilate the megathrons while the Megas are trucking from Armageddon to armageddon to get into blaster range.

There is more to EVE than solo nanoships and 100 man fleets.

BTW, when I talk about actual tanking, more often than not I'm using a buffer tank for my gang setups, because reppers fail for gangs larger than 5.

I'm not even debating that one specific ship is better than another or anything, I'm just saying that all race's are useful for PVP in a gang, however only Minmatar and Gallente excel at solo PVP, while Caldari and Amarr are more suited when you have 3 or more people in a gang to support you because they are more specialized.

EDIT: Oh and as a side note, could you inflate your supposed PVP record any more? link to killboard stats or it didn't happen.

Big fleets it matters as Vic pointed out - a fleet commander needs some standardisation to help reduce his work load.  When you're commanding it's a little more than picking primary and secondary targets.  Personally I get bored in those situations - the FC is playing an rts and I'm a peon waiting for orders.

Small fleets utterly different.  10 guys/gals or less hunting fleet I think is the most fun you can have legally without a member of the opposite gender avalible. t1, t2, or t3, really depends what people wanna roll with.  To train some carebear new members me and the FC forced the 3 of them to come out hunting in minmatar t1 frigs with t1 fittings.  We were in the same thing.  We took out in less than an hour 5 bc's and 3 bs.  Sure they were NPC set ups farming that didn't run fast enough, but it sure made those new members sit up and take note what you could do.  Only ship we lost?  Mine... I mean who in their right mind fits a smart bomb to a drake? =P