Thursday, October 28, 2010

Reasons To Be Caldari, Amarr, Minmatar, Gallente

So yesterday's post generated some agreement and vehement disagreement. I want to clarify that I'm not suggesting you avoid making a Caldari character; I just found the article in question to have very questionable and subjective reasons.

In the interest of being fair, I'm going to compile a real list of reasons to be Caldari, as well as Amarr, Minmatar, and Gallente. I expect all readers to take me to task and give me a good fisking as needed.

- Their missile based ships are excellent for PvE. Drake, Raven, Navy Raven, Golem, Tengu... these are the best end game PvE ships due to being able to select the missile type for the target, excellent range, massive shield tanks, and room for DPS mods in the lows.

- In certain setups, they can project turret firepower farther than anyone else with the Rokh, Harpy, and Eagle.
- Right now lasers have the best combination of damage, range, and tracking.

- Amarr ships can field massive buffer armour tanks. In fact, their Supercarrier can tank like a Titan.

- Their command ships and Strategic Cruiser with warfare link abilities are very useful in certain types of fleets as they increase armour defenses.

- Their command ships and Strategic Cruiser with warfare link abilities are very useful in certain types of fleets as they add agility and reduce signatures.

- Projectile weapons allow the pilot to choose damage type as well as range/damage trade off.

- Their ships are typically the fastest and most agile per class.

- Certain drone based ships allow selection of damage type and target type if their drone bays are big enough (Dominix, Ishtar, etc)

- Certain blaster based ships have the highest potential damage in their class when taking drone bays into account (Megathron, Proteus, Astarte, Ishkur, etc)

* * * * *
Alright readers, give it to me. What are your reasons for flying the various factions?


  1. Don't forget the historical reason why caldari have the most pull. At one point there was a build that got MANY more SP at start than any other build. The min/maxers had a field day clogging Jita with this.

  2. I've tried all the races and Minmatar is my favourite. I love the backstory, the open ships that can be configured to almost anything and most of all, I think they look cool :)

  3. I decided long ago to just ignore all that and train for all 4 races, that way I always have the right ship for the job. Almost there.

    And Kirith, add a name/url option to your comments m8.

  4. @Bryan - re name/url option: Sorry, no. I had a stalking/griefer issue a few years back who posted anon here with my personal info and I decided that forcing them to comment with an account gave me recourse to abusive behaviour.

  5. I chose Caldari as I prefered the look of their character portraits. I don't think that racial selection would make a big difference to my chosen profession. I have noticed that their ships range from either cool looking to downright ugly.

  6. I chose a Gallente character because I'm the kind of person who enjoys watching a swarm of drones tear things apart. plus the Dominix is an amazing afk mission boat.

    However, I fly Minmatar more often now because sometimes, you just need up close and personal with dakka dakka. Plus fast ships are fast, and some of them look downright awesome.

  7. Back when I was just starting out in Eve, I chose Gallente mainly because I wanted to fly the Incursus and the Thorax. Saw a few pictures of them on an Eve wiki and knew right there and then that I wanted to fly those ships first. They are still the coolest looking ships in the game for me. Then again I haven't flown those ships in actual combat for long time now.

    When I use to be part of LFA and actually playing the game, I flew the Taranis, Ares, and Brutix sniper shield BC setup. Those were the few Gallente ships I saw regularly in combat. Very rarely did I see an Eris, Deimos, Phobos, Oneiros, Helios, or Nemesis. So thats kind of made me a little regretful about choosing Gallente, at least for PVP.

    Still love the Domi and Myrm for PVE though.

  8. Anonymous3:54 am

    When I came over to Eve from "x" all the forum members said "dont go for a specific (Amarr) character". Well, I couldnt find the post but I knew it wasnt that so I stuck with them. I, like one of your other posters am slowly training for the other race's ships since I can tank virtually anything. I went for Amarr with my Alt as I liked the ships and the fact you dont need a cargo bay full of ammo with lasers.

  9. Hey Kirith!
    Long time reader, first time poster.

    Tbh i think caldari was specifically made to be gimped. As each ship and each race has specific designs that make that ship better at what it does than any other. It really all boils down to what you like to do with it. Caldari are great for PvE and because of this, it will have some limited application in PvP. As a Caldari/Amarr pilot myself, i cant help but want to train all the other ships out there.

    On a completely different subject, i was hoping i could get some feedback from you regarding the Chimera. I just recently purchased one from some guy in our alliance, R.A.G.E. makes them really cheap apparently, and i need some real guidance on fitting. Atm i cant use Cap Shield Boosters for another 22 days, as well as both of the remote reps. I finally have my jump skills to decent levels, cal is at 3 and the other is also at 3. My problem is that i want to move it out of low sec and back home, *being selfish*, but idk if its safe to do it with a buffer tanked fit or if a buffer chimera is even reasonable.

    Ty in advance!

  10. Hi Kiernan,
    Traveling alone with a capital is always with en element of risk, but as long as you create your cynos right (i.e. near stations but not so you bump the station and fly off), don't jump to cyno beacons without scouting for reds, you should be fine.

    If you do get attacked by reds, the capital shield booster will help for a bit but ulitmately you will be doomed unless you can dock or reinforcements are nearby. Scout to avoid trouble instead (i.e. an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure).

  11. haha yea makes sense. Ive got my alt ready to make cynos but i am still hesitant on pulling the trigger and getting it out of low sec because i dont have the capital shield booster. idk, ill talk to my corpies about giving some support.

  12. Anonymous9:14 am

    Dear Kiernan:

    Don't even consider undocking in a capital ship if you can't use its proper modules. We have killed more X-Large shield boosted Chimeras than I even know about because they thought it was good enough. It's not.

    Capital ships can't move. It's a fact of life. If they can keep you pointed, they can keep you there. And if you need your friends repping you to come close to tanking the damage that people will rapidly bring to bear on your nearly helpless carrier (think 'lots') you're practically guaranteed to lose it. Take what Kirith said in his second paragraph, and divide your projected survival time by 3. You won't even know that X-Large is on.

    Just wait. Get Capital Shield Operation III before undocking, IV before entering combat.

    Or, speaking from the other end of the gun as I am, I could just tell you that I know a lot of people who don't even FIT reppers to their capital ships, just drone mods, and cyno into small gangs on gates and get away just fine. I'd love it if you did that, too.

    To Kirith about the article:

    Minmatar ships are the most favored race for most PVP; to reflect this, you could mention A couple key facts. Their turrets merit particular mention: autocannons have always been good, even when mediums couldn't hit jack past 16km. They deal excellent damage, track amazingly up close, and any (rare) apparent deficiency in DPS is often more than compensated for by their ability to choose damage type at will, shooting directly into the weakest resists of the enemy. This, combined with the recent changes to tracking enhancers and turret falloff, enable many minmatar ships to strike squarely with high-tracking, short range guns at ranges that only ships such as the Vagabond could before (a positional advantage some have called cheap).

    It also bears mention that many of their popular ships are incredibly versatile, can fit some excellent tanks in both shield and armor, and usually dictating range on the field due to their superior speed. This, combined with the godlike space-fists that are Autocannons, make them kings of the field in most small gang warfare.

  13. hehe well the XL Shield Booster HAD crossed my mind but not long enough to make me want to commit to it :)
    tbh i will prolly end up letting it gather dust for a little while. im just anxious to get it back home. seems ive got more of this waiting thing to do?

  14. Anonymous10:36 pm

    I made a Gallente character because I intended to fly Gallente ships, and back then the stats gave me a starting skills to have five drones out from the get go.

    I switched to Amarr when I got to the "cruiser" level and found the Arbitrator to be superior to the Vexor. From there, I found joy in not having to pack ammo, and in the classic lines and variable set ups of the Amarr ships.

    The funny thing is, for each class of ship, I favor a different faction. I guess that's how my altaholic nature surfaces in EVE.


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