Eve Rookies Incursions

This page details the various upgrade paths available for our HQ pilots. You will have a certain amount of time (measured by in-fleet hours flying HQs) to reach the various milestones. The upgrade hour requirements are listed here: Upgrade Hours.

Skill plans can be found here: Skill Plans.

To fly HQs with Eve Rookies:

1. You must have some prior Incursion experience. That might be flying Vanguards with Eve Rookies, or flying HQs with other groups.
2. You must have a ship fitted according to our doctrine (allowed ship fits), with no downgrade of the tank allowed. Non-tank modules may be downgraded with FC approval.
3. All necessary skills to sit in the hull and online all of the modules on your ship.
4. All Armor Compensation skills¹⁾ at level 2 (for starter fits) or level 4 (for all other fits).

Choose one of the main progression paths:

• Sniper: Apocalypse Navy Issue or Nightmare → Paladin → Elite Paladin → Bastion Badge Paladin
• DPS: Megathron → Vindicator → Kronos → Elite Kronos → Bastion Badge Kronos
• Web Specialist: Megathron → Vindicator → Web Aspirant Vindicator → Web Badge Vindicator

The path you choose will determine your playstyle in HQ fleets. If you want to shoot stuff at shorter range with the highest DPS ship in the fleet, take the DPS path to work toward flying a Kronos. If you enjoy the sniper lifestyle, slightly easier to multibox, you should consider the Sniper path that leads to the Paladin. If you are a dedicated single-boxer and prefer a more active playstyle, you might enjoy webbing and blapping frigates in a Web Specialist Vindicator.

Logistics (healer) ships are a separate path. We always have room for the 3 flavors of “shooty” ships listed above, but logi tends to have very limited slots. Even if you ultimately want to fly logi, we strongly recommend you start with a shooty ship. Logi pilots are expected to behave more like mini-FCs, keeping a close eye on the fleet and being ready to help if there's an emergency. Flying shooties first gives you valuable site knowledge that makes flying logi easier. For more about flying logistics, read the Logi Guide.

Changes made to the Apocalypse Navy Issue have made it at least as good as the Nightmare, so the two are now considered equivalent as starter sniper ships in HQs. You may fly either until you upgrade to the Paladin, as shown in our Upgrade Hours Guide.

Choosing your starter ship: Apocalypse Navy Issue vs Nightmare. The Apoc Navy Issue is less expensive, easier to get into, better on capacitor, has slightly better tank, and does higher damage. However, it lacks any utility high slots, making it harder to perform the MTAC duties that all sniper pilots should be ready to perform. You will need to remove one gun to fit the necessary tractor beam in order to MTAC. The Nightmare on the other hand has several utility high slots, allowing it to easily fit a tractor beam as well as remote repair and remote capacitor modules. The skills needed to sit in the hulls are different. The choice is up to you.

Your next upgrade is to get into the Paladin and get the T2 guns. “Marauder first” is our usual recommendation, but T2 guns before getting into the marauder is also acceptable. Make sure to upgrade your skills to match your ship, prioritizing tank and dps skills, then support skills. Save drone skills for last, we don't use drones extensively.

After you're in the Paladin with T2 guns, the final hard requirement is the Elite badge. This involves skilling into the elite skills, upgrading your pod with all the required implants (slots 1-10), and fitting your ship to the Elite Paladin fit. The waitlist should automatically display the badge when you meet the criteria.

The Bastion Badge is achieved by reaching a DPS threshold through the use of Abyssal Heat Sinks and allows for a higher amount of SRP coverage. We strongly encourage anyone serious about flying HQs to get the Bastion Badge. You apply by providing screenshots of the abyssal modules and a verifying screenshot of your ship's dps (in bastion, not in redbar, with no drugs and no drones). Upload the images to the form at Abyssal form

The Elite Gold badge is a vanity badge attained by training all the Elite skills to V for your ship. It is automatically assigned by the waitlist.

Your starter ship, the Megathron, will get you into fleets; however, it isn't a very good ship so you will need to quickly upgrade to a Vindicator. The hours of HQ fleet time you have before you need to get out of the Megathron is shown in our Upgrade Hours Guide.

Get into the Vindicator hull by training Minmatar Battleship, as shown on the skills page. You may remain in the Vindi until you hit the guns/marauder upgrade time limit. While flying the Vindi, consider if you want to focus more on high-DPS shooting, as you'll do in the Kronos, or if you enjoy chasing down and webbing frigates and cruisers, in which case you may want to remain in the Vindi. (See next section on the Web Specialist Vindi.)

If you're staying on the DPS path, your next upgrade is to get into the Kronos and get the T2 guns. “Marauder first” is our usual recommendation, but the order of these two steps isn't critical. You need both! Make sure to upgrade your skills to match your ship, prioritizing tank and dps skills, then support skills. Save drone skills for last, we don't use drones extensively.

After you're in the Kronos with T2 guns, the final hard requirement is the Elite badge. This involves skilling into the elite skills, upgrading your pod with the correct implants and fitting your ship to the Elite Kronos fit. At this point, you'll be doing the kind of DPS needed to fill the Lightning Rod role in TCRCs. All sufficiently skilled Kronos pilots should be ready to fill this important and prestigious role.

Additional badges are optional. The Bastion Badge is achieved by reaching a DPS threshold through the use of Abyssal Magnetic Stabilizers and allows for a higher amount of SRP coverage (as well as better Lightning Rod performance). We strongly encourage anyone serious about flying HQs to get the Bastion Badge. There is also the Elite Gold badge, a vanity badge attained by training all the relevant skills to V.

For those who would prefer to remain in the Vindicator and specialize in it, we offer a Web Badge option. Fleets need far more marauders than Vindicators, but every fleet needs at least one good Vindi, preferably with the Web badge. The HQ fleet hour requirements to meet the Web Specialist milestones are listed in the Upgrade Hours Guide and parallel the “equivalent” marauder milestones.

The first milestone for a dedicated Vindi pilot is the Web Aspirant Badge, which requires having Abyssal Stasis Webifier modules that meet the badge minimum requirements, along with at least Basic level Vindi skills and an Advanced fit.

The final requirement is the Web Specialist Badge, which requires having Abyssal Magnetic Field Stabilizers to meet the dps requirement, along with Elite Vindi skills, an Elite Vindi fit, and of course the Abyssal webs from before. This badge is considered equivalent to the Bastion Badge for marauders and gives access to the same higher SRP coverage.

Unless you already have a well-established character, we recommend you create a dedicated incursion alt. This will allow you to get the most out of skill injectors, and avoid pitfalls like wardecs and kill rights that can prevent you from flying Incursions. You may even want to consider creating a new account so you can get 1m free SP with Recruit a Friend.

Alpha clones cannot use Micro Jump Drives and they train skills at half the rate of Omega pilots. We encourage our Alpha pilots to use the proceeds of their Incursion fleets to purchase Plex and go Omega as soon as possible.

For purchasing your ship and fit, we recommend buying from Jita. Make sure you use an insta-undock bookmark whenever moving expensive modules out of Jita. You can also use courier services if you are nervous about moving expensive stuff yourself (keep hulls unassembled if you're having them couriered).

When you're ready to move to an upgraded ship, you'll probably want to sell your starter ship to recoup some of your investment. You can try to sell your fitted ship in our Discord buy/sell channel. It will sell easier if it's fitted exactly to our doctrine. If that doesn't work, you may need to strip the fit and repackage the hull to sell it on the Jita market.

If you don't want to buy a starter ship, you can consider renting from Rent N Relax Incursions. You will have to pay the full purchase price up front, but you get most of it back (less the rental fee) when you return the ship at the end of the focus, and you don't have to move between focuses if you don't want to.

Start by training the skills that will complete early. Once you've trained these skills, train your gun skills to elite followed by tank, support skills and finally drone skills.

We have two types of fits: Ascendancy fits which require Ascendancy implants (slot 1-5 + WS-618), and Amulet (“Hybrid”) fits which require Amulet implants (slot 1-5 + WS-618). Ascendancy is currently preferred. Amulet fits are allowed for older players who already have the Amulet pod and don't want to redo their implants. Amulet fits warp slightly slower but have slightly better tank.

The fit must match the implants. If you have Ascendancy implants, use the regular fits listed. For Amulet/Hybrid pods use the fits labeled “Amulet.”

Finally, remember when upgrading your tank that you should always switch all tank modules at once. Otherwise, you may accidentally lower your ship's tank and be unable to join fleets. Non-tank modules may be upgraded one at a time.