There have been many words written on how to fit ships in EVE Online, but not so many written by me. So here are mine.

I’m not going to tell you ‘This is how you fit a ship.’ No-one can tell you that. There are no rules to follow which will give you a good ship. EVE is like that, which is one of the major selling points for me; no ‘right way’. But there are guidelines which can lead you to fit your ships in a ‘not bad’ way. There are many more bad ways to fit a ship, than there are good ways. And so, here are my guidelines; you’ll find some of them in the Rules of EVE page.

Tanking

Tanking refers to how you deal with damage coming at your ship. Almost all ships need a form of tank. The only one I can bring to mind that doesn’t, is a ship fitted for a suicide gank in highsec. Don’t think about combining them. There are very few places where this makes sense. Mixing your tank cripples your ship.

Here’s where it gets complex. You have a number of choices to make. First, pick one of the following.

• Shield Tank: For ships with: A bonus to shield tanking, like shield resists or boosting. And for ships with more mid slots than low slots. Generally the fastest of the lot
• Armour Tank: For ships with: A bonus to armour tanking, like armour resists or boosting. And for ships with more low slots than mid slots. More hit points, but slower than shield tanked ships
• Hull Tank: Real men Hull tank. Or people who don’t have a choice. This probably isn’t you. Combat ships do not hull tank unless piloted by morons.

Next, pick from one of the following:

• Active tanking : For people in PvE, and possibly frigate PvP. Other classes generally won’t last long enough for the repairs to make a difference.
• Buffer Tanking : This can be used with all tank types. The idea is to increase the raw hit points you have using  shield extenders and armour plating, and to increase your resists to make those hit points worth more, using modules such as Adaptive Invulnerability Fields, and Energized Adaptive Nano Membranes. This is standard for PvP. In PvE, you’ll end up paying a lot for repairs, or refitting after missions with a repper.
• Passive Tanking : This only applies to Shield Tanks. It is similar to a Buffer tank, but also covers increasing your shield regeneration rate. Great in PvE. Not so worth it in PvP

There are also other minor forms of tanking, which take more skill to use. I’m not covering them here.

• Speed tanking: Travelling fast enough, close enough, at the right angles to make you hard to hit.
• Signature tanking: Being so small that you’re hard to hit.

Now, most ships are easy to pick which to use. Take the Punisher, for example. It has more low slots than mid slots. And it has a bonus to armour resists. Other ships are a trifle harder. Some can be tanked either way. Spend time with a Fitting tool, such as EFT, Eve HQ or pyfa They will save you time and isk. Battleclinic isn’t a bad idea. Just bear in mind that bad fits end up there.