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The carrier is one of the most versatile ships in Eve. It is one of the most powerful combat ships, as well as your own moving truck for deployments. They are expensive and difficult to use properly, so this guide will help avoid you losing your carrier in a ball of fire.
A carrier is a capital ship and works differently than most ships you've flown. You cannot use Jump Bridges like a sub-capital ship. To make up for this, carriers have a jump drive that allows them to jump to any system in range.
In order to jump to a system, you need:
Cynosural Fields consume Liquid Ozone and are active for 10 minutes. You can light one using any ship but it's best to use a cheap frigate, as you cannot move, warp or dock for 10 minutes and show up on everybody's overview. You must be in fleet in order to jump to somebody's cyno.
Cynosural Field Generators is a POS module that creates a permanent Cynosural Field usable by the alliance. All available cyno generators will show up in your “jump to” list, even if they are not in range. Jumping to an unscouted cyno generator is one of the easiest ways to lose your carrier.
Your maximum jump range is based on the Jump Drive Calibration skill. Post Phoebe carriers have the same base jump distance as all other capitals.
Capitals use isotopes to jump, the amount based on the Jump Fuel Conservation skill. Each race has their own type of fuel: Helium Isotopes for Amarr, Hydrogen Isotopes for Minmatar, Oxygen Isotopes for Gallente, Nitrogen Isotopes for Caldari.
The alliance provides the fuel for capital ops.
Jumping uses roughly 75% of your maximum capacitor. You cannot jump if you don't have enough capacitor.
You should have your own cyno alt(s) on a separate account from your capital ship pilot. This should be a character you don't mind being podded because you're going to need to do that a lot to move around. While your 50M SP tengu alt may be able to light cynos, it is not a cyno alt because it probably has implants too. The best cyno alts are have cyno 4 so they can light noobship cynos, and they are not Amarr because CCP hates the Imparior and refuses to expand its cargo bay by 5m3. Bonus points for cyno alts who can fly interceptors/stealth bombers to get survive any camps that may be along your route.
Carriers have some special abilities, making them highly versatile.
Carriers allows any ships in fleet to refit if they are in range (5km). This avoids having to dock up to change your fit, allowing ships to refit based on the situation. This might be the most powerful function a carrier has in a fleet.
Carriers can carry a number of assembled ships in its Ship Maintenance Bay. This means you don't have to repackage a ship (and lose the rigs) when moving. The bay can also be configured to be accessible by alliance or fleet members.
In addition to a normal cargo bay, carriers have a large Fleet Hanger for holding modules and items. Same as the ship maintenance bay, the fleet hanger can be opened to alliance or fleet members and opened in space.
Each race has their own carrier with different strengths and weaknesses. However, virtually all of the content covered in this guide applies to all of the carriers.
The Archon is the Amarr offering and the best armor carrier. Capital and supercapital fleets are usually armor tanked so the armor resists and armor transfer range bonuses are great. The energy transfer range bonus also allows the Archon to cap chain better than its non-bonused counterparts. A notable drawback to the Archon is that it has no bonus to shield transfer range, making it virtually useless on tower save ops.
Amarr Carrier Skill Bonuses:
The Chimera is the Caldari counter-part to the Archon, sporting shield resists and shield transfer range bonuses. The Chimera is the best shield carrier.
Caldari Carrier Skill Bonuses:
The Thanatos is the Gallente carrier, specializing in fighter damage. Unfortunately, sentries are used more often than fighters and the weak tank hurts the Thanatos. Because it doesn't get a capacitor transfer range bonus, Thanatos pilots should find a cap buddy rather than join a cap chain.
Gallente Carrier Skill Bonuses:
The Nidhoggur is the Minmatar carrier, specializing in logistics. Like the Thanatos it doesn't have a resist bonus giving it a weak tank, but it has bonuses to armor and shield transfer amount. This makes it the best carrier for repairing structures but that's it. Again like the Thanatos, Nidhoggur pilots should find a cap buddy rather than join a cap chain.
Minmatar Carrier Skill Bonuses:
Because of the refitting ability of carriers, you should have every possible useful fit in your cargohold. You're expected to know the fits by memory and be able to switch on the fly, sometimes without the FC saying.
Armor:
Shield:
Fighter Bombers can only be used by carriers and Supercarriers. They are expensive and take up a lot of space, but are better than regular combat drones. Fighters have a warp drive (they will automatically follow). The main downside with fighters is the price, as the fleet can lose billions from a single bombing run. All fighters do the same DPS but have different attributes like damage types, speed, tracking speed, and optimal range. Fighters are also not affected by drone skills or mods.
You have such a large drone bay that it's possible to take a set or two of every type of drone. Some useful ones to have:
Okay, so you've got your rusty new Nidhoggur and just gotten into the capitals group, WAT DO?
First thing is to check the stickied capitals forum post and make sure you are fit right for the current tactics. Make sure you have all the relevant modules and get yourself fueled up, that includes stront for a few cycles of triage. You should try to keep at least 40k isotopes on hand so that we don't have to wait around fueling people up when a happens.
When a broadcast does go out, join the fleet, stay docked, and read the MOTD. The MOTD contains important information like how many isotopes you will need, what kind of fits we are leaving with, etc., For scheduled ops, this information will often be in the op posting and broadcast, but the MOTD is always the most accurate and up to date version.
The most important thing to make sure of during an op is that you stay within refit range (5km) of another carrier. The ability to swap modules is truly the most powerful aspect of a carrier. Get used to the fact that EVE sometimes has a mind of its own with regards to navigation instructions and its your job to keep the game in check. So if the FC has everyone aligned you need to periodically verify that you are still aligned. If the FC has everyone in a tight cluster around something, periodically verify that you are not drifting away from the group.
You don't need the fits memorized, but you should have some idea of what “tank fit”, “cap fit”, and “slowcat fit” are for your carrier. They are all described above. Don't be afraid to have EFT/pyfa open with the fits for reference during an op. Don't worry about things too much for your first op, but one thing you will want to get used to over time is the idea of tweaking your fit without the FC telling you to.
Let's go through an imaginary op (that might really just be a vague AAR of last week's 1-S IHUB fight) as an example.
You're flying a very expensive ship, and everybody will want to kill you. Here are some simple steps to avoid losing your big boat.