Have you got a ship and don’t know how to fit it? Do you see a good fit but you can’t use it with your skills? Today, we’re bashing some serious questions about fittings!

If you ever hope to get good at shooting other ships in Eve, it’s an obvious fact that you need to have knowledge in all aspects of pvp. Fitting is probably one of the most important things. You must at least know the basics. It also lets you decide how you’re going to fly, who you are going to kill.

Personally, I’ve seen many newbies using (and dying in) bad ship fittings. Of course, they learn from their mistakes at the end, but newbies could always learn from others mistakes first. Now, you might wonder, how can I know if a fitting is bad? Usually, a fitting is considered as bad when it has: too small modules for the ship (Like a small Afterburner on a cruiser etc.), more than one tank type (Shield and armor modules on one ship), using a weapons system when the ship has no special traits for it, or, the worst, fitting very expensive modules.

Even though some fits are bad, take note that there are no “perfect” ones. Every fit has its own purpose, speciality and weak points. Most players are separating fits into kiters and brawlers, or in other words, long and short range. With kiters, speed is your power, meanwhile brawlers usually sit next to you and have a better tank. You wouldn’t want to mix your fitting with both long and short range modules unless you know what you’re doing.

Your tank is also very important. Tank modules are separated into active and buffer. With active, you use your capacitor to have a fast shield/armor regeneration (nobody uses active hull tank, they’re not good), these fits will have shield boosters or armor repairers. They need more micro-management in combat. Buffer tanks don’t use capacitor but they can’t repair themselves in space like active tanks can. These have high damage resists and big numbers of effective hp (ehp). Buffer fits will have Shield extenders, resistance amplifiers, Armor plates, resistance plating, Hull reinforced bulkheads. Both tank types are good, but active tanks are more popular in solo, small gang pvp, even though it can get very difficult if your capacitor is getting neutered. In fleets, if you have logistics ships that can rep you remotely, usually buffer fittings are required.

If you get in a fleet, you will probably be required to use a certain fitting. Some of them can be quite skill demanding and may appear to be harder to fit. Thankfully, you can always downgrade from T2. When doing that, you should use meta modules like compact, scoped or enduring versions instead of T1. If in doubt, try asking some people in fleet if they can help you.

The difficulty of finding a good fit really depends on your ship. More popular ships might even have whole articles containing fits. Try looking at Eve University wiki, in pages about ships. Those fits usually are suited for newbies but they still keep up with others! Another good place would be zkillboard.com. Find and see in what fits people usually die, see if that pilot managed to kill someone with it etc.

Another thing worth mentioning is the cost of your fitting. When starting out, always try to keep the cost low so you could easily replace the ship. Buying faction, deadspace or even officer modules is a bad idea unless, again, you are already sure what you’re doing (or you’re crazy just like me). After all, remember that you shouldn’t fly what you cannot afford to lose.

Lastly, your ship rigs are important as well. They are mostly used to improve your ship in one particular direction or fix some weak points. It depends on your fit and your skills. Usually, rigs can be used to increase your tank resistances, increase your speed, ehp, dps. Try fitting T2 rigs as well, you can do that even if you don’t have the skills to fit them!

Keep in mind, even with a good fit, you might die regardless of it. Make sure that each time you explode, you try to remember if it could’ve been different if you had another fit. A good start is half the job done!

Special thanks to ‘Sweets’ Zateki, Rhivre and my corp Virgincouncil.