Beginner's Guide to Gallente Combat Ships

Face-melting turrets and drone swarms - that's Gallente!

This guide is centered on Gallente ships (hybrid turrets, drones & armor).

If you're new to Eve you likely went through the tutorial, so we'll pick up from there, give you some more information, and help you align with getting into our corporation. First up, let's set some goals:

• Hybrid Turrets: They're your only choice for guns.  Blasters are *very* close-range and high damage.  Rail are better for range.  These turrets do use energy, but use less than laser turrets.  If you use blasters, you will want to give extra attention to afterburners and micro warpdrives so you can close in on targets quickly.  Be sure to train your capacitor skills early and often; it makes your life much easier and your ships last much longer, especially once you consider armor doesn't regenerate and armor repairers and speed modules require energy as well.

       Blaster ammo: antimatter (close range/high dps), iron (mid-range) Later use: void (close range/high dps), null (mid-range)
       Railgun ammo: antimatter (close range/high dps), iron (mid-range) Later use: javelin (close range/high dps), spike (mid-range)

• Drones: Depending of the ship progression you go with, most of your damage will come from either turrets or drones... but with Gallente your damage will always be a mix of the two.  Drones will also open up electronic warfare and repair drone options later (not covered in this guide).  If you don't want to train drones and want to use just turrets, look at Amarr, Caldari or Minmatar ships (you don't need to restart your character, just train that race's frigate skill).  Eventually, everyone trains drones though.
  

• Cruiser: You need to be able to at least fly a cruiser to get into Rubber Bullet Inc.  This ensures you have some basic understanding of the game, have worked on some skills, earned some isk, and are willing to stick with the game if we provide you with more in-depth game content.  You'll want to work toward a cruiser skill of 4 as soon as possible.  Your ideal ships will be either the Thorax (turret dps) or the vexor (drone dps).

       Your ship progression will look like this, depending on your weapon system balance choice.

       Incursus > Catalyst > Thorax

       Tristan > Algos > Vexor

       Note:  both of these progressions are very good.  The Thorax leads to the Brutix and then to the Megathron.  The Vexor leads to the Myrmidon and then to the Dominix.  Both are good for PVP/PVE, though the drone ships tend to be more

       tanky in PVP and rely on drone DPS for kills. The turret ships tend to be more in-your-face/

       You'll find frigates improve noticeably with each skill you train.  Destroyers excel at killing frigates but move very slow.  Cruiser are a big step up in survivability and damage.

• Core Skills:  Starting out, every player sprints to get the biggest ship possible.  This often results in crazy setups, lost ships and grinding level one missions/mining to buy a new ship.  Our advice to you is that you take some time to improve your fitting skills as you improve your damage, armor and piloting skills. When you get to flying a cruiser, the difference in being able to fit one module can be a drained capacitor vs an unbreakable defense.  These single modules can make a big difference in how fast you make money and can make missions much easier.  Consider level 2 in a skill as "prerequisite" and level 3 in a skill as "ok" and level 4 in a skill as "good for now" until you get further into the game.

      The follow lists will help guide you.  The skill descriptions have been greatly simplified.

Core Skills: (*) denotes a capacitor skill or a skill that affects energy consumption

Turret Skills:

This completes this beginner's guide to Gallente combat ships.  You should have joined the RUBUL public channel for our corporation by now (or should do so now).  Within that channel, you will have access to veteran advice and our recruitment officers and be able to ask questions.  Having experienced pilots to ask for advice is pivotal to your success in Eve - make good use of this resource! 

Some after-thoughts...

The above goals and skill lists will help you choose the right direction for you.  No one in our corp is going to tell you what you need to do with your character (we only offer advice, based on what you tell us you want to do) -- this is very different from other corps.  We do not force "doctrines" (required ships and fittings) on pilots.  We're happy to provide ship setups as advice and only require doctrines for organized fleet actions.

Once you are in a cruiser you will have access to a good foundation for making entry-level isk to open up other aspects of the game and meet that prerequisite for joining Rubber Bullet Inc.  After you have joined our corporation, you will have access to fleet PVP, intel, organized events, wormholes, integrated industrial support, corporate discounts, and so on.  View missions as a catapult into other endeavors and understand that the rewards for combat scale exponentially with risk.

Next steps for you?

• Read about NPC damage types and how to set resist modules: link
• Read about transversal velocity and signature radius to maximize your turrets' ability to apply damage: link
• Ask about how to get a level 2 combat agent (sooner the better - save yourself some grinding/time)
• Talk to a recruitment officer about submitting an API key to finalize your recruitment.
• Plan out your next steps for character growth.
• Learn a little about how the market works (even if you aren't going to be a trade tycoon).
• Ask about how to avoid common scams and being "ganked" in hi-sec.
• PVE Combat:
  

  Level 1 mission Level 2 mission Level 3 mission Level 4 mission Incursions Level 5 mission      Null belts

  t1 frigate, t1 destroyer t1 destroyer, t1 cruiser t1-2 cruiser, t1-2 battlecruiser t2-3 cruiser, t1-2 battlecruiser, or battleship t3 cruisers, logistics with multiple battleships (fleet) carrier with multiple battleships (fleet) t2-3 cruiser, battlecruiser, battleship, or carrier

  *don't rush into bigger ships without solid core/capacitor skills.
  

25.4.15 Edit: added transversal velocity link

26.4.15 Edit: updated transversal velocity/signature radius link