Noob fitting guide...

Read the following if you really don't have any idea what to put your ship's slots.

Basic facts:
Amarr: energy weapons(lasers) + armor tank
Caldari: rockets and hybrid guns + shield tank
Minmatar: projectile weapons + shield tank
Gallente: hybrid weapons + armor tank

There are exceptions, some gallente ships use rockets but the lines above are rule of thumb.
If you want to be sure (and you want to be sure for sure since nobody wants to play a game wrong) you have to check the ship's details. Since it is written for noobs: open fitting menu and in the upper right corner you will see the ship's name. Next to the name there is a blue i. Click and read!

Let's see an example. Incursus... Description says:
"Gallente Frigate Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret falloff and 5% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage per skill level. "
Of course you can equip this ship with projectile weapons but in that case you will loose the bonuses. If your Gallente frigate skill is level 3 it means -30% damage. So a smart player puts hybrid turrets on. And you are a smart player, so you will put hybrids on.

Second round: what hybrid turrets?
The same turret for every place. It maybe sounds a smart move to put two blaster on and one railgun. In this case if you have to fight close, the two blasters kick ass and if you have to fight far, the railgun kicks ass. In fact there will be only one ass kicked and this one will be your. With this setup in close fight you will be able to deal only around 2/3 of your dps and roughly 1/3 from far.
The good way to choose your weapon: decide whether you want to be a close quarter combat guy or sniper. First case: put the same 3 blasters on the Incursus. Second case: put the same 3 railguns on.

Then comes the question: What happens if you decide sniper and your opponent comes close?
The answer: don't let it happen. Use the medium slots. Medium slots are for afterburners (AB), microwarpdrives (MWD), stasis webifiers and warp scramblers. The use of these equipment is obvious: makes you faster and your opponent slower. You will dictate range.

OK, now we dictate the range. It makes possible to maximize our damage. But what if he or she is a sniper as us? Then he will hit us hard.
Here comes the mitigation and repair part. The mystic tank word. Take a look at the list above. Or bellow:
Amarr: armor tank
Caldari: shield tank
Minmatar: shield tank
Gallente: armor tank
It means: gallente ships have armor tank bonuses only (or nothing but never shield), caldari are shield (or nothing but never armblablabla... So if you are a gallente and you plan to use gallente ships it is likely your ship will have armor bonuses. Therefore you will put armor modules(hardeners, plates and repairers) on your ships. And you will learn armor-tanking skills so you will put this kind of equipment on ships which don't have bonuses because you will be more effective with this tools.
Never, I repeat: never mix tanks on a ship. It does not make sense (not effective) to have shield and armor repairer/hardener/whatever on a same ship. It is not effective. Decide and stick to the plan. And always read ship info.

These are the basics. You can make a different choice if it makes sense. For example Dominix has the following ability:
"5 % bonus to Large Hybrid Turret damage per level."
but there are PvP fits without any turret, but neutralizers and vampires. The drones do the nasty part of the work.
Also a Dominix can be fitted to be a hull tank. Expensive, mad but working fit. And not basic.

Read this post and read your ships abilities. Try to fit your ship. Search loadouts for good fits. And keep in mind: if you cannot fit it maybe you need to learn support skills.

Support skills...

Today`s topics are support skills.
I will explain the importance of them using an example. Take a look at this tackler.
Maybe you can fly a gallente interceptor and maybe you can fit all the stuff packaged to this ceptor. But you easily can face the problem: you are not able to put online all the equipment.
Why?
The reason is simple. This fit is a cutting edge one, if you take a look on the med slots you will see a medium shield booster. This equipment eats 28MW of the powergrid. The powergrid output of the Ares is 30MW. Can you see the problematic part?

Question: how someone is able to fit the Ares in this way?
Answer: Support skills. (And the Auxilary Power Core, but it`s offtopic)

There are three major parameters of a ship defining what you can fit on it and use effectively:
- powergrid
- CPU
- capacitor

The first two limits the fitable equipment.
The third shows the use limitations after fitting. Without enough capacitor or fast recharge you will be able to use your full weaponry only for seconds...
If you don`t have enough from pwg, CPU or capacitor you should start to find ways to increase.

How to increase powergrid?
Skills:
- Engineering, every level increases powergrid output by 5%
- Advanced weapon upgrades: every level decreases all weapon`s pwg need by 2% (has prereq.: Weapon Upgrades, see CPU part)
- Shield upgrades: every level decreases shiled-related modules pwg need by 5% (this one is the key for the linked fit)
Modules(offtopic):
- Aux. Power Controls
- Power Diagnostic Units
- Reactor Control Units.

How to increase CPU?
Skills:
- Electronics: every level increases CPU output by 5%
- Weapon Upgrades: every level decreases all weapon`s CPU need by 5%
- Electronics Upgrades: every level decreases Signal Amplifier and Backup Sensor Array CPU need by 5% (since in the beginning you won`t use this kind of stuff, this skill is not so important atm)
- Energy Grid Upgrades: see description of the skill, it`s long. You won`t need this skill atm.
Modules(offtopic):
- Coprocessors.

How to increase capacitor?
Skills:
- Energy Management: each level increases capacitor capacity by 5%
- Energy System Operation: every level decreases capacitor recharge time by 5%

The skills above are basic support skills. They will help you fit your ship no matter what type of ship you use.
You should (or must, because it does not make sense to not to) learn the following at least lvl3:
- Engineering
- Electronics
- Energy Management
- Energy System Operation
- Weapon Upgrades

Additional must have skills:
- Repair Systems: for armor repairer modules. Each level reduces repairer duration by 5%. Also mandatory for Damage Control unit usage
(lvl4 is needed for Damage Control II)
- Hull Upgrades: increases armor strength by 5% for each level (if you shiled tank, you should chose Shield Upgrades and Shield Management instead.)

Good to have skills:
- Advanced Weapon Upgrades: see above. Drawback: needs Weapon Upgrades lvl5, which takes time. And... High learning time multiplier.

And a little more offtopic...
The followings are not "support skills" but are important.
If you plan to do a lot of PvP you should be able to use microwarpdrives (to reach the opponent fast or to escape the same insane speed). So:
- Afterburners and High Speed Maneuvering are mandatory.
Another PvP related skill is
- Propulsion Jamming: allows to use webs and warp scramblers. These modules prevents the escape of the opponent.

To summarize: support skills does not look as shiny as Sharpshooter for example but without them you won`t be able to fit your ship properly. This is the reason you need them.

Exploration

Newest part of the "How can I get some ISK?" series: exploration.

Advantages:
- it's random. I mean it is not boring. No AFK mining, no repeating the same ten missions again and again.
- it can generate a lot of ISK. Since the randomness you won't be able to plan the income as you can by missionrunning or mining.

Disadvantage:
- it's random. It is highly possible that after reading this guide you will fit an explorer ship, do some scanning and the income will be only 100.000 ISKs. And you will think: "It sucks!" Yes. Some may think, fishing sucks. But if you catch the fish...

Needed hardware
- T1 scanning frigate.
- Expanded Probe Launcher I
- Salvager I. For Magneto sites.
- Codebreaker I. For Radar sites.
- Analyzer I. For Magneto sites.
- Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I. Must have and cheap rigs. Helps faster scanning.
- Drones. To kill NPCs.

What to do?
- warp to sun. You can start right at the station but its better to drop the first probe right on the center of a system. And the sun is the center.
- drop one probe, open scanning menu, set scanning distance to 32 AUs. Click on scan.
- open map. There is an Open Map button on scanning interface.
- you will get a result like this:


Cosmic anomalies
With Cosmic anomalies you don't need to scan more, bookmark them and come back with your combat ship to kick ass then loot (found a 142,000,000 ISK implant in one of those wrecks) and salvage. After each bookmarked put them on the ignore list so they will be removed from the seen list.

Cosmic signatures
You have to drop more probes to make the signal strength 100%. 5 probes. 4 is not enough. So Astrometrics lvl2 is a must.
You can move the probes using the arrows. You can move all drones at the same time holding down the Shift key.
Position the drones this way:


The central probe should be right on the point you need to locate. If it is not a point but a sphere or circle make sure the whole speher or circle is in the central probe radius.
As you can see on the image the scanning radius of the additional probes is the double of the central radius.
After scanning the signature will change position. Reposition the probes then reduce the scanning radii to the half.
Repeat until you get a 100% signal strength.
Bookmark the signature then put it into ignore list.

If it is a Magnetometric or Radar site you should warp to there immediately. You could handle them easily with the above fitted scanner frigate. And since there can be other explorers in the system, you should hurry.
Your only weapons are the drones (since the high slots for probe launcher and salvager) so the slave-holders... amarrians have disadvantage. T2 drones easily rip apart the NPCs.

Magneto sites usual drop: blueprint copies, salvage goods, including Intact Armor Plates 40.000.000 ISK... It is said that in the wrecks you can find guardian drones or traps.
Radar sites usual drop: manufacturing related stuff. A few million ISKs each... Don't forget to loot and salvage the defender NPCs.

Four other Signatures can be scanned:
- Gravimetric: hidden asteroid belt. I don't like mining so I just ignore those.
- Ladar: gas cloud, never seen one so I am not an authentic source about this kind. It's an another kind of mining.
- Unknown-Combat site: complex. Bounty, loot and salvage. In high sec it is possible the acceleration gates have ship restriction so you have to have a smaller ship capable to fight. In my opinion those are not worth the time to get in. But maybe I did not have luck yet.
- Unknown-Wormhole: obvious. Wormhole to an another system. Maybe with deadly Sleeper sites. When I am working on ISK-making (always) I just ignore wormholes.

One important part: choosing the system.
The less people are on local the best. Nobody likes concurrency. If you are the one and only explorer in the system, then all site is yours.
There is an another important parameter of the system: the pirate NPCs you find in. Every system has specific pirate presence. Use this site.
I prefer systems where Sanshas are the local pirate faction since salvagng them gives Armor plates (200,000+ ISK each).
It happens that during a combat encounter you catch a signal which "leads to another complex in another system". You will be able to find this new site in your Journal, under the Expeditions tab. Doing this "missions" is highly recommended since they often drop faction items. I found one of this kind and it dropped me a useless (and unsellable) piece of shit faction item.

Collection of EvE tutorials written for noobs by a noob.