Ships on Eve Online are organized into classes, from small frigates that are only a few tens of meters long to giant capital ships up to 17 kilometers long (as big as the whole city). Ships fill different roles and vary in size, speed, hull strength and firepower; Smaller ships are generally faster and able to incapacitate their targets but do not have the damage output needed to destroy larger ships, while capital ships do a very high amount of damage but have difficulty in attacking smaller mobile targets. Each of the four races has their own unique ship design preferences and a variety of strengths and weaknesses, although all races have ships that are intended for the same basic and balanced role to play against each other. This means that there is no "best ship" on Eve Online. According to the style of play they like, players might want their characters to fly ships with large cargo, which are suitable for mining, which have a strong arrangement of weapons, or ships that move quickly in space; but the changing and ever-changing nature of Eve Online means that there is no perfect ship in all of these tasks, nor is there a guarantee that today's "best ship for work" will continue to be the best ship tomorrow.
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Eve Online Ships
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In addition, unlike many online games, Eve does not display racial bonuses; that is, characters from different races do not get intrinsic advantages for airplanes designed by their own race. While characters will start with more advanced skills on their own race ship, other race characters can achieve the same skills through training. Thus, players can use starships that meet their chosen style of play, and the game does not place an incentive to play as one race above another. However, ships from various races receive unique bonuses for certain things.
Ships on Eve Online are available in four size classes. Small spaceships include frigates (small ships, good for disturbance and harassment) and destroyers (slightly larger and more offensive than frigates). Medium spaceships include cruisers (multipurpose ships with many possible roles) and cruisers (heavier, more battle-oriented cruisers). Battleships (special warships that are armed and armed) form a large size class. Extra-large spaceships (or capital classes) include aircraft carriers (offensive-oriented ships that can launch warrior wings to attack targets at extreme distances), dark combat ships (special siege ships for attack structures and other capitals), additional force ships ( special support ships) are exceptional at repairing other ships), supercarriers (larger versions of the operator focus more on damage to capital-class ships and strong fleet disruption capabilities) and titans (supermassive cellular battle stations, which are able to equip doomsday devices that do massive damage to other capital ships, or having abilities that affect other strong battles).
Each spacecraft in the Eve Online universe has different characteristics and can be equipped with a combination of different modules according to the installation requirements. The ship has various characteristics, including power grid, CPU, capacitor size and refill rate, energy shield, shielding, maximum speed, agility, locking range, and the maximum number of targets that can be locked. The ship system also receives bonuses depending on the various skill levels of the pilot of the ship. This bonus usually corresponds to the role the ship has been designed for, and hence varies greatly. For example, the Caldari cruiser "Caracal" has a bonus for the firing rate of certain types of missile launchers, while the Gallente cruiser "Vexor" has a bonus for damage and hitpoint of certain types of combat drones.
One important characteristic of a ship is the slot available for the module. Slots and modules are available in three variants: high, medium and low power. Examples of high slot modules include weapons such as towers and missile launchers, cloaking devices, tractor beams, and other tools for mining and rescuing. Middle slot items include modules to increase shielding or propulsion, repair hull damage, engage in electronic warfare, and "handle" other ships to slow down or stop movement and prevent escape. Low slot items include armor upgrades and repairs, increased cargo space, and increased speed, agility, computers, or power supplies. Different ship sizes have different module slot numbers and ratios.
A ship may also have 2-3 slots for rigs, modules that do not require electricity or CPU, but instead require a ship's power source called calibration. Installing a rig is a semi-permanent action, because the rig cannot be removed from the ship without being destroyed. The rig comes in four sizes: small, medium, large, and capital that roughly matches the size of the ship, and is used to influence other aspects of the ship such as maximum speed or cargo capacity, or to increase the ability of other modules installed on the ship. Most rigs also include penalties for certain aspects of the ship; for example, a protective rig reduces the ship's maximum speed.
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Eve Online Ships
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All ships in the game are also classified according to Tech level, from Tech I to Tech III. The Tech I Ship (or T1) is a general purpose, easily produced model that performs simple and direct functions in a clear manner; faction ships, which are usually very expensive and are very good in the intended task, are also T1. Ship Tech II (T2) is based on a T1 design that has been modified to perform a specific role using special technology. T2 ships are more difficult to produce and only produced by certain companies, and the price is far above the T1 variant. They also need flying skills that are far greater than their T1 variants.
The Apocrypha patch was introduced to Eve Online's new type of ship: Tech III (T3) strategic cruiser. This highly sophisticated spaceship gets its unique quality by being made from materials taken from outside wormholes, another new feature introduced by Apocrypha. Strategic cruisers are rare and expensive, and require a unique deep fryer from the manufacturer that allows reverse engineering and integration of highly developed technologies to recover from dead or inactive civilizations. They are different from other ships in that they are modular. Players start with the ship's hull and then add four subsystems to it, options that can dramatically change the character of the ship, provide different module slot layouts, different choice weapon systems, and abilities such as being able to adjust the secret cloak or ignore some warp interference effects. Patches Rhea, Aegis, Tiamat and Carnyx introduce four new Tech III tactical destroyers. While these do not have the modular nature of their strategic explorer brothers, they can dynamically exchange between three "modes", adding to their offensive, defensive, or propulsion abilities, respectively, as required by pilots, even in the middle battle. This gives tactical destroyers the ability to be far higher than offensive, defensive, or evasive abilities compared to other low-tech destroyers, even though they can only focus on one of three abilities at once.