EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer

There are 4 Different races to choose from when you enter the game.  Each of the choices has their strengths and weaknesses.  In the long run it ends up being inconsequential, but that is many years of training down the line, and you want to have fun now, right?  Listed below are the different races and their different play styles.

Caldari:

The main focal point of this race is Missiles, and lots of them.  As a new Caldari character, you will have the opportunity of being proficient with missiles right off the bat, if you so choose.

The disadvantage of this race is that if you follow the typical Caldari layout (which is just as effective as any other race), you will always be paying for ammunition.  If you are a big penny-pincher, this may not be for you, as missiles do not come cheap, especially when you are just starting off.  Generally speaking, it is more cost-effective for a new Caldari character to use a blend of Missiles and turrets, since turret ammunition is far less expensive than missile launcher ammunition, while the blend of the two will still put out a decent amount of damage.

There is an alternate side of the Caldari, one that specializes in turrets completely.  These ships that are part of the Caldari arsenal can deal out damage from incredible range, putting themselves out of harms reach from most foes.  However this road of training also requires considerable time before it is possible to act on your own in combat, as most ships that are proficient at this type of combat early on in a player’s lifetime cannot withstand enough damage to be able to run solo, and are meant more as support ships.

Gallente:

Gallente players have a bit more opportunity for diversity than Caldari pilots do, but they can also be harder to master.  The main arsenal of many a Gallente pilot is drones. Small, unmanned, remotely controlled fighters that are stored inside the ship until released during combat, and are capable of doing damage without the player firing a single gun.  All of the lower level drones are cheap enough for any novice player to afford, although early on it is nigh impossible to fit enough drones on a ship to do anything but support damage for the main weapons, such as turrets or in the rare case, missiles.

The downside to drones is that, while they are very small and hard to hit, they cannot withstand sustained fire for more than a few seconds without being destroyed.  Since ships cannot refit drones without being docked in a station or near a corporate hangar (which will be covered at another time), if a pilot runs out of drones during combat, most have to run to safety.  The exceptions to this rule are Carrier-class ships and Titan-class ships.  But since those two classes of ships take over 2 years of intensive training to be able to use, for all intensive purposes of this guide they do not exist.

Like the Caldari, the Gallente have an alternate route which many players take over drones, which is turrets, specifically blaster-class turrets.  These favor close-range, high damage output over range and safety, since the player has to be right up next to the target for these guns to be effective.

Amarr:

The Amarrian race is focused on two things: Strong defenses, and earth-shattering damage potential.  The Amarrians benefit from being able to, in many cases, out-tank most other combatants due to the sheer toughness of their armor plating that is present in much of their ship catalogue.  This fact, coupled with their natural affinity to laser weapons, makes them a force to be trifled with. 

Most Amarrian ships are capable of doing damage over a wide variety of ranges, most notably long range, due to their ability to hot-swap ‘frequency crystals’ to increase or decrease the range of the turrets as needed.  Their lack of variety in damage-dealing options may end up being a turn off to new players who want to experience a variety of different play styles.

Minmatar:

The Minmatar republic has a general philosophy.  Fit as many weapons as possible onto one ship and smash the opponent into oblivion.  This usually is quite effective for about the first minute.  After that, the problem for most new players with being in a minmatar ships is that they have zero to none in terms of armor and structural integrity.   This results in a lack of being able to take any amount of concentrated fire for an extended period of time.

Minmatar ships are notoriously fast (seeing as how most of them are put together with duct tape), which presents a problem for players in ships larger than the one that the minmatar pilot is using, because they are so hard to hit.  They deal damage either very quickly, in terms of auto-cannon turrets, or over extreme ranges, in the case of artillery turrets.  Most of the ships that are available to a novice player are also very easily customized, making it simple to try out a variety of different attack styles with little monetary investment.