The frigate class ships in Eve Online range from lowly Rookie ships you get when you first start to high powered, high velocity ships like Interceptors and Assault Ships. In general, their duties range from having specialized roles in typical fleets to straight up damage dealing combat ships depending on fittings. However, en-masse they can be quite destructive in their own right. Tier 1 frigates introduce you to most of the aspects in Eve Online, with frigates designed to mine, to haul, to explore, and for both Player vs Environment (PVE) and Player vs Player (PVP) combat. So, before you grab a new ship, take a look at how you can fit one here at Eve Stratics!
Players that frequently have their ships violated by Frigates really include all ship classes in EVE, which provides new Capsuleers with ample opportunities to make either ISK, fame or both in a short amount of time. Here’s a recent one …
Outside of requiring the shortest training time, theyre simply a lot of fun to fly and will provide you with many hours of fun.
Classes and Role bonuses
The frigate family draws the thin red lines to the larger versions of similar ships, so they are an excellent place to start to get a sense of the role itself, before moving up to their larger cousins. The Tech 2 versions include 2 varieties of Assault Ships, Covert Ops and Interceptors and the single Tech 2 EWAR Frigate. The most expensive tier 1 frigate is in the 250,000 ISK neighbourhood, so a perfectly decent place to start. Outside of that, they do come as pre-requisites to the “larger” siblings.
Industry
Each faction has had a single industry frigate, with a bonus to mining and cargo. This is in an effort to bridge the gap to industry gameplay. The two aspects are inevitably connected in the beginning but opens up more options later on. Hauling lets you focus on a variety of ships catering to this aspect of gameplay and while Mining ships also has capital sized mining ships – the haulers will at least give you a more appreciative role in a group setting as it provides a valuable logistical supply chain for your corporation. While ferrying goods around can be boring, its a vital part of EVE as it provides the corporations with the backbone that makes things go round. Stuff that gets blown up needs to be replaced. Eventually you’ll realize that hauling stuff around is as big a part of making profit as mission running is, so either way – you’ll propably need this later on.
Since 2012 though, the mining frigate roles has been given to Ore (the in-game producer), which has agreed to produce mining frigates for the budding capsuleers of New Eden. Look at the Venture that was released with Retribution expansion, during the winter of 2012.
Electronic Attack Frigates
This undoubtedly is a great place to start to get a sense of the level of danger and risk you’ll be facing during PVP skirmishes, even with the larger siblings (Recon cruisers). EWAR Cruisers are not only fragile but also suffer from immediate attention defeciency disorder (IADD) from Fleet commanders (A.K.A. – standing orders: See EWAR – Shoot EWAR). EWAR ships can be force multipliers and their effect can range from disabling a ships weapon systems, to completely bring it down to a state where a ship is completely unable to defend themselves or even move. For that reason they’ll usually arrive after the main fleet at a time when targets allready are engaged and has their attention elsewhere as this increses not only survivability but also the opponents will to commit to a fight. By the time EWAR arrives to turn the tide, the enemy is usually tackled and unable to escape. You’ll just be there to make their day extra miserable. Sounds good?
More on EWAR in another section.
Interceptors
These frigates come in two roles and while their role is somewhat identical – the hull bonuses differ. Thus we are presented with distinguishing roles; The Fleet Interceptor and the Combat Interceptor.
The Fleet Interceptor is intended for tackling and holding a target, not intentionally damaging it but simply pinning it down till the fleet arrives. This requires great defensive capabilities, extended point ranges and survivability. High slots are for defending itself against drones rather than killing targets and as a result they aren’t too good as solo PVP ships.
The Combat Interceptor is the weaponized sibling with a little less point range and more bang. As a result they are excellent frigate killers, but can be rather crunchy. If you like fast ships, this is an excellent starting point.
Interceptors are usually depending on signature tanking for survival, so fit for speed and slap on your goggles because Kansas is going bye-bye. A sometime dangerous and curious role is to provide warp-ins for the fleet. Which means that your fleet can warp to you. Due to the speeds of an interceptor often exceeding 4,000 km/second they are often in a unique position to provide this exceptionelly fast. That is the background story for the video below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c]
Covert Ops
Comes in two roles; The Covert Ops frigate is bonused for scanning, while the Stealth Bomber frigate is bonused for Bomb Launchers. Both share a common bonus of being able to fit covert ops cloaking devices as well as being able to fit Covert Cynosural Field Generators, which allow Black Ops ships to lock on to. This in turn allows for unseen travel outside of regular traffic chokepoints that could be camped by hostiles.
Stealth Bombers also has the capacity to fit Torpedo launchers, which is a battleship class module.
In combination, when people appear in local chat that you can’t see (cloakies), people tend to dock up, run away, cry in local or a combination of all of the above. For clandestine violations, its absolutely one of the best places to start.
Assault Ships
As entry level solo PVP ships, these come with excellent Tanking abilities and Damage potential.
Due to their weapon bonuses, tech 2 tanking bonuses and decreased signature radius with Micro Warp Drives, they has the potential to outshine cruisers in siterunning, low-sec or wormhole exploration or in fleets as resilient heavy tackle with the ability to dictate range vs larger opponents.
Compared to Interceptors, they have twice the tanking capability and double the firepower.
While its customary to have a tanking version and a damage version, currently only Amarr and Caldari have those:
- Amarr Retribution: Laser sniper platform.
- Amarr Vengeance: Missile brawler with Armor Resistance bonus.
- Caldari Harpy: Hybrid Turret Brawler with Shield Resistance bonus.
- Caldari Hawk: Long Range Missile Platform with a Shield Boost bonus.
- Gallente Enyo: Long Range Damage platform.
- Gallente Ishkur: Long Range Hybrid Turret platform with a Drone bonus.
- Minmatar Jaguar: Fast Shield Tanking Brawler with a Projectile Weapon Platform.
- Minmatar Wolf: Long Range Armor Tanked Projectile Weapons Platform with weapons only bonuses.
As most tech 2 frigates come with a pricetag of 10-20 million, its not uncommon to see un-insured ships. The insurance payout is based on mineral consumption which means that they get an insurance payout that mimics their tech 1 versions.
Navy Frigates
Halfway there, and then not really. The Navy frigates attempt to bridge the gap between the Interceptor and the Assault ship class without requiring the training time. As a result of the faction tag, they’re prized accordingly at 10-30 mill ISK according to supply and demand. Some has proven to be excellent frigate killers. Some boast of having multiple cruiser kills under the helm and for good reason.
Pirate Frigates
These type of ships comes with dual bonuses and require twice the training time (requiring two racial frigate skills to train up) compared to standard frigates. Price tag is accordingly placed in the range of +75 mill ISK – on the upside, you get a more foregiving slot layout in most cases and much more utility as a result.
The Amarr Frigate Family
| Skill Level | Industry | Interceptor | Covert Ops | Assault | Electronic Warfare |
| Amarr Frigate I |  |
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| Amarr Frigate II |  |
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| Amarr Frigate III |  |
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| Amarr Frigate IV | Prerequisite for Amarr Cruiser I | ||||
| Amarr Frigate V |   |
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The Minmatar Frigate Family
| Skill Level | Industry | Interceptor | Covert Ops | Assault | Electronic Warfare |
| Minmatar Frigate I |  |
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| Minmatar Frigate II |  |
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| Minmatar Frigate III |  |
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| Minmatar Frigate IV | Prerequisite for Minmatar Cruiser I | ||||
| Minmatar Frigate V |   |
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