There are many different kinds of ships in EVE, which can be confusing at first. Here is an attempt to summarize them. The basic (T1/Tech 1) ships in EVE are:

Frigate → Destroyer → Cruiser → Battlecruiser → Battleship

Frigate: The basic first ship you will fly. They are small, fragile and deal low damage but are fast and difficult to hit with big guns. Don't be mistaken, they can be really fun to fly and remain important to the fleet.

Destroyer: The next ship you can get. Destroyers are big frigates with more guns. They do more damage than most similarly fit frigates, but basically have less utility (usefulness) and are much easier to shoot at. Destroyers also come in less variations than frigates or cruisers.

Basically destroyers are only useful right now for running Level 1 missions or Salvaging. Occasionally used for suicide ganking miners and haulers in highsec, due to decent damage:cost ratio.

Cruisers are medium size, moderate damage, moderate speed. Fit medium weapons. Useful in level 2 missions or in general pvp. Cruisers can typically be fit to kill small ships well (frigate/destroyer hulls) or to fight medium or larger sized ships. You typically want all your support skills to be at least level 3 before using these in order to fly them decently and make them worth your isk. Most skills that apply to cruisers also apply to battlecruisers.

Battlecruisers are incredibly awesome. They also give you something to do while you wait for all the skills needed for next ships to train up. Slightly slower than cruisers, but can fit more guns and can typically take more damage. In general it is a really good idea to be able to fly at least one fully T2 fit BC. Use these for Level 3 missions, too.

A Battlecruiser can be used to do almost anything there is to do combat-wise in EVE. They really are fantastic all-around ships, and it is highly suggested you be able to fly at least one well.

Battleships are the biggest and meanest subcapital ships, but are also the slowest. They can fit large guns which have a lot of trouble hitting frigates. If a lot of frigates start orbiting you very close and you don't have drones/drone skills to kill them, be very afraid. Battleships typically have a lot of fitting slots. Please get your support skills to at least level 4 before using these. Make sure you can fit a T2 tank. These would be suitable for Level 4 missions, if you swing that way. Some commonly used battleships in TEST are the Maelstrom and Nightmare.

Shuttles are simple transport craft, mainly designed to ferry capsuleers to other, more expensive and useful ships quickly. They are of limited utility beyond that.

Corvettes are the starting ships that every player starts with. If a capsuleer ends up docked in a station in a capsule, they will also receive one for free from their friendly insurance company.

Armed with basic weaponry and poor stats, they are useless beyond the start of the game except to act as expendable Cyno ships.

These ships are usually frigates, cruisers or battleships, have the same model with different texture as the base ship, and require high/specialized skills to fly.

• Assault Ships - Fast and pack a punch considering their size. Rely on high resists and sometimes high speed to survive. A bit more versatile then an interceptor in both PVE and PVP, but no where near as fast. Cheap ship hull. Editor's note, Assault Ships can be very fun in random PVP fleets.
• Interceptor: Extremely fast and agile, hard to hit. Their purpose is to tackle enemies to stop them from getting away. Very cheap. Be careful not to get webbed (slowed). Low damage, extremely useful in fleets. Interceptors are like baby's first tackle frigate on speed.
• Covert Op: Most basic of the stealth ships (also know as 'covops' ships, these ships fit Covert Ops Cloaking Devices and can move at full speed/warp while cloaked). There are two types of covops frigate, the Stealth Bomber and the Covert Ops ship. Stealth Bombers have two main functions, stealthily dropping on an opponent and shoving torpedoes in their butt, or quickly dropping a single area-of-effect bomb and getting the fuck out. Normally best killing various ships solo, or in groups. Also function as great scouts. Covops frigates are more suited to scanning and scouting for fleets.
• Electronic Attack: Ewar frigates which are heavily bonused in the systems they target. Very powerful but very squishy. Do not underestimate their ewar ability simply because they are a frigate. These ships are nearly as powerful as their cruiser counterparts.
• Logistics: A frigate size version of the Logistics cruiser. Repairs friendly shields or armor (depending on ship). Good for frigate and destroyer gangs.

• Interdictors: Can drop Interdiction Spheres where they will stay for a little while, also called bubbles. These will stop a ship from warping while inside it. It will also stop any ships warping along a line that passes through and terminates near enough to the bubble.
• Tactical Destroyers: Specialized frigate killing ships. Can switch to different modes depending on the situation to assist them: Defense Mode, Propulsion Mode, Sharpshooter Mode.
• Command Destroyers: Can use a Micro Jump Field Generator which takes all ships (friendly or enemy) within 6km and jump them 100km in the direction that the Command Destroyer is facing. Great for enemy disruption and re positioning a friendly fleet.

• Combat Recon: Cruiser hull ships designed for electronic warfare in combat. Different races give different bonus to ewar modules. Caldari versions are useful as they receive target jamming bonus. Good base resists and good for PvP. We typically use the Lachesis and Huginn in TEST fleets.
• Force Recon: Cruiser hull ships designed for cloaking and setting up cynos for capital ships. These ships can be incredibly powerful in small gangs, and are usually considered 'force multipliers.'
• Heavy assault ships(HAC's): Beefy cruiser hulls with high resists. Alot of fire power with decent speed/agility.
• Logistic ships: The healers of EVE. Cruiser ships designed to give racial specific healing, eg shield transfer, armor repairers etc.
• Heavy Interdictor: Can create a Warp disruption field(bubble), which will move with the ship. Similar to the interdictor bubbles described above, these fields stop ships from warping. Heavy Interdictors themselves generate bubbles (with a module of course) instead of launching an object that powers a bubble.

• Command ships: They are advanced battlecruisers and fit warfare links, giving great fleet bonuses. There are two command ships, each race has one designed for fleet boosting (i.e. Claymore, typically these boosting command ships have gigantic tanks) and one for small-gang/solo power (i.e. Sleipnir, these ships typically have slightly less tank and much more outgoing damage).

• Black Ops Can create a covert jump bridge, that other covops ships can use to jump to a destination without using stargates. Can not use a Covert Ops Cloaking Device.
• Marauder: People use it for fast missioning, since they have a 100% bonus on tractor beams for looting and salvaging. That's basically it, these are too damn expensive to use in normal PVP.

• Industrial ships designed, in essence, to move things around in space in bulk. It is suggested that every pilot at least be able to fly a low-skill T1 industrial. The Orca and Rorqual are also used for boosting in mining fleets, much like Command ships are used for boosting in normal fleets full of people who aren't nerds.

• This category also includes the Noctis, a ship designed to do nothing more than salvage very efficiently. If you want to be a master salvager, the Noctis is the ship for you.

• Mining Barges: These ships are designed to turn asteroids into minerals. Mining is boring and only space-nerd losers enjoy mining.
• Freighters Freighter blurb

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