Merin Ryskin
FinFleet
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Posted - 2007.05.17 05:50:00 -
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Edited by: Merin Ryskin on 17/05/2007 05:50:45
Smallest ship you can reliably solo in would be a T1 cruiser, with a T1 BC preferable. Why?
T1 frigates: only if you just want to kill afk mining barges or week-old newbies in ratting Caracals. Forget what people say about soloing in these, any competent pvp pilot will shred a T1 frigate in seconds.
T1 destroyers: marginally better damage output than T1 frigates, marginally better HP balanced out by much slower speed and higher sig radius. Against any competent pvp cruiser, you'll be in your pod before you realize you're taking fire.
Interceptors: forget it. Stay out of web/nos range or die, and none of the long-range interceptor setups have the damage output to break a pvp tank solo. Fit for damage (the overrated blaster-Taranis) and you get webbed, nos-ed dry, and sent back home in a pod.
Assault Frigates: frigates are supposed to speed-tank. Assault frigates are slow and have a huge vulnerability to nos/webs. Just to make it worse, their damage output is pretty undewhelming, giving a competent pvp opponent plenty of time to break your tank.
Stealth Bombers: slow, paper-thin ship in scramble range = expensive fireworks. Even with the coming boost, they're still going to be gang-only ships.
Interdictors: see interceptors. These are specialist ships, there's not much point in flying them solo without the bubbles.
T1 cruisers: finally we get somewhere. You still can't take on the biggest targets, but there are a lot of other T1 cruisers out there to kill (not to mention killing all those solo frigates). But mostly they win on cost-effectiveness, they're not the absolute best pvp ships, but they're dirt cheap.
T1 battlecruisers: Myrmidon and Hurricane are excellent ships. They're a bit slower than cruisers, but they'll eat cruiser-size ships easily, and if flown well can be a legitimate threat to battleships.
HACs: overrated. At least the prices are finally coming down, but T1 battlecruisers can fill most of their role for much cheaper, while recons actually have a unique role.
Recons: awesome solo ships. Caldari recons are gang-only, but the other six are amazing. The cloaking recons are all nasty, giving you a huge advantage in stacking the odds in your favor. Remember, 90% of solo pvp is actually getting a lock and scramble on the target before it escapes, and the covert ops cloak is priceless for that. Meanwhile the combat recons are even better at locking down the target, and laughing from complete invulnerability as the target slowly dies.
Command ships: very, very powerful ships, but insane skill demands. Battleship-level tank and damage (if not better), with cruiser-level tracking. Of course this is a long-term goal for you, by the time you have the skills and experience to fly one, you won't be asking questions like this.
Battleships: poor for solo pvp. Slow, slow-aligning, slow-locking, and generally difficult to catch anything with. Sure, they're great in combat, but again, 90% of solo pvp is actually catching the target.
So note the high points here: T1 cruisers and BCs for cheap/low-skill, recons/command ships for high-skill.
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