I am debating rolling an alt (or repurposing one) to fly a carrier, a dreadnought, and eventually a super cap.
So at what point (with what skills) can I start using one effectively? What's the usual training order for skills and modules? I suspect one would train up the ships skills first, then the jump skills to 4, then the remote rep modules to 4, then seige mode, then drones?
Just curious - I'd appreciate it if someone could explain the path to capital ships from their experience.
Matt
[ Editor ]
Well it depends.....
I personally did it backwards to what you purposed.
I trained all my jump skills to V and then went on to my carrier skills.
Reasons being for this, the Jump skills are support skills and are needed for all the capitals, as my first capital was a Rhea, it was also nescessary to get the range and the fuel saving...
If you are actively pursuing Capital ships, then Carrier's are the smart play, and your order seems sensible.
However I am a firm believer of if you are going to do something do it well, and therefore would train the ship last.... well not quite last as things like triage modules etc need to come after the carrier. Plus your support skills are useful on all your other ships in the mean time also.
Basically a Carrier is just a big Logistics cruiser/Dominix... Treat it as such, I would go as far as saying, I would be able to fly a Logistics cruiser at V before starting on a carrier.
Also make sure your active tank and Energy management skills are good enough as if you were flying a battleship.
I would also have T2 heavy drones before beggining also. These four items in place would see you in good stead for Carrier ops...
Thats a long train though and I know a number of people, that are impatient and go carrier first then realise the support skills are nescessary and train afterwards... They take a few losses on the chin, but if you have the ISK it seems to work just as well and ultimately is a lot more fun!
:)
Another thing, as practice, run lvl 5's or sanctums in the carrier with friends...... Becareful to stay alined and not get ganked and all that Jazz, but it will start to get you into what its like to maneuvor such a big ship.
The Bottom line, there are many ways to do it, doesn't really matter which order, however as with training any other ship, unless you have the support skills first you will take a lot more losses and be restricted on fittings. The support skills will also improve your other ships abilities also so unless you are in a hurry.... support first, ship last.
sacrophyte
As implied by Ecaf Ersa, EveMon or EveHQ is the best place to start (I prefer the latter). Find a fitted ship you like on BattleClinic, import it, dump the skills into your queue, have the tool optimize your nuerons for you. Most likely, if you optimize Perception and Willpower with some Intelligence thrown in, you will have a near-optimal learning curve. Things like Battleship V (rank 8, 68 days) and Advanced Spaceship Command (Rank 5, 35 days) are a killer. But the subskills/supporting skills add up. A lot.
Acquiring the Learning skills shaved 175 days from 513 or so, and a nueral remap took off another 17 days, bringing the total down to close to 251 days using a fairly new character.
Sorry, I should have mentioned this was for a super-cap. Titan training will be a bit longer, carrier a bit shorter, dread the shortest.
That only sits you in the ship with the mods, doesn’t take into account that, for example, you need fighters 4 or 5.
Also, I am very familiar with evemon – just not with the ideal order in which to train up for ships bigger than BSes so I can start flying them sooner, and then spend 6-12 months “perfecting” and “enhancing” them. Not sure evemon will help me figure out the process of becoming the perfect cap/dread/supercap pilot.
Tony Moore
[ Editor ]
I think it won't be a simple as that. You'd need to also do many of the engineering, electronics and mechanic skills.
You'll also want drones, missile or turret skills as well as some leadership and science too.
And if you're training that long for something then you'll want learning skills as well as cybernetics.
On the plus side you can save lots of time ignoring Frigate and Cruiser V and T2 turrets or missiles.
The one thing you should consider here is that once you have a super-cap you have to basically leave it in space if you want to fly another ship as you can't dock them in stations or outposts although you can protect it pretty well in a POS shield. Bearing this in mind do you want to train for carriers and dreads too?
I did recently put together a skill plan to make an uber Titan pilot making use of the neural remaps to maximise SP/hr but basically rendering it a useless character for some time. This plan will take over 2 years to max out all the relevant skills although that does cover 93 skills to level 5 including the Titan skill and 17 more to level 4.
In answer to your actual question I think you could have a competent carrier or dread pilot in around a year. I may put together a plan and see....which is actually what you should do. Get EVEMon if you haven't already. Dn't forget all those skills for shield, armour, pg, cap, cpu etc.
zalarok
Before even worrying about Cap skills, you should be training all relevant support skills to 5. Anything dealing with your tank, weapons, capacitor, fitting, etc. should be at 4 or 5 depending on the skill. Just dont gimp yourself by neglecting some basic, shoulda trained it years ago, skill.
This way, you will actually benefit from your training as you go. Training carrier 4 before say, drone skills, doesnt help you in the mean time. By training all the functional skills first, you can benefit from them while the skills that are capital specific are training for weeks on end.
The basic skills that are a must for all caps are:
-Jump skills: bring them all up to 4, but 5 is better. Coordinate with your FC's to determine what will be expected during ops
-Boosters/Drugs/Implants: long story short, they save ships. The slight boost in abilities they provide often is the difference between a successful cap, and a flaming wreck.
The amount of time needed to fly a cap successfully varies with the ship. I wouldnt recommend flying any of them until you have brought the specific ship skill, jump skills, and most of the weapon/tank/module skills up to at least 4. These ships are massive liabilities, and losing one because you didnt put the 3 days into a skill is plain stupid.
Dreads will be the least skill intensive overall. They dont require many skills by comparison, but those few they require should be brought up to 4/5 asap. These include the skills needed for siege and their weapons.
Carriers are the next step up in terms of skills. To fly one well you will need good drone skills as well as all the remote repair skills (depending on the bonuses of each ship), consider triage as well. Some pilots swear by it, others swear at it. It is largely situational.
As for super caps, plan on spending a long, long time training for them. Given the amount of money put into them, flying them with anything less than maxed skills is looked down upon. You would want just about every skill at 5 or close to it (super carrier 5/titan 5 and other very long skills can probably be trained while you are flying the ship, but that is up to the pilot)
As others stated, EVEmon will be a big help in planning all of the skills out, just make sure the projected training time doesnt get you down. In the end it isnt that long, but man is it worth it.
John Høeg
[ Editor ]
i would recomend get jump skills to either 4 or max as fast as possible and if you are in a carrier go get max skiils on ye drones.