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 I intend to write a more detailed version of this later (I'm working on it right now actually), but for now, here are some golden rules for ship fitting.

 Fundamental rule 1 - Fly what you can fly well (for frigates this is basic skills, for cruisers all relevant skills to at least 3, BCs or BSs all relevant skills to 4. Battleships and above should also be fully tech 2 tanked (all defence modules as tech 2 variants) before you take it into combat).

Fundamental rule 2 - Fly what you can afford to lose (if you cannot afford to replace your ship should you lose it (including fittings), so not fly it into danger. Simple as that).

Ok, onto the fittings themselves.

1) Know your bonuses: All ships get bonuses per level in that ship's skill (e.g. caldari cruiser skill). These can be found on the description tab if you show info on the ship. These serve two purposes: Firstly, they tell you what the ship is for. If it has bonuses to mining yeild and repair, its for mining, or repairing. While it can still be used to shoot, it will simply be outclassed by any ship designed for that purpose. Secondly, they tell you how to fit the ship. For example, the 'maelstrom' minmatar battleship gets bonuses to shield boosting and large projectile guns. This means a) you should shield tank it, and b) you should fit as many large projectile guns as possible, as opposed to other weapon types. Know what your ships bonuses are, and choose ships whose bonuses suit your purpose.

Along with this point, always fit your ship for one purpose and one purpose only (perhaps the only exceptions to this are e.g. a miner who has combat drones to defend himself, or a mission runner who fits a salvager). If you want to do something different, dock up and change ship/refit. You will do any activity far more effectively if you build your ship around that purpose. 

2) Tanking: I see a lot of ships with say, a shield booster, and an armour plate. This is almost always bad. Allow me to explain why! Tanking (i.e. fitting the defences of) a ship is all about damage over time. Ideally, you should be repairing as much as, or nearly as much as you're getting hurt, so you will always be either in shield/armour/hull. This means that any modules which repair the thing you are not in at the moment are simply a wasted slot. Instead of this, it is far better to focus your ship on tanking one aspect (but not hull, because if a hull tank fails you die!) as well as possible. here are some examples:

'Active' armour tank: 1 armour repairer, 1 damage control, and the rest of your low slots filled with resistance-increasing modules like adaptive nano plating, or if you have the skills, energised adaptive nano membrane or even active hardeners. Use your lows for capacitor batteries/capacitor rechargers/capacitor boosters so you can run your repairer for longer, or whatever you want to put there.

'Active' shield tank: 1 shield booster, optional shield boost amplifier (if you have the skills), shield hardeners/shield resistance amplifiers. Use your lows for capacitor flux coils (not capacitor power relays since these damage your shield boosting) to run the booster for longer, or whatever else you want.

'Passive' shield tank: Mids filled with as many of the biggest shield extenders you can fit, then hardeners and/or shield rechargers. Lows filled with shield power relays and shield flux coils to increase recharge rate. This takes a lot of balancing out, but can be great.

Now which should you use? Generally, more low slots/more armour hp favours an armour tank, while more mid slots/shield hp favours a shield tank. The passive shield tank is an odd one out, and can work on any ship as long as it uses no capacitor since shield power relays kill cap regen (so only really missile or projectile ships). Amarr and Gallente ships almost always favour armour tanks, and your skills will reflect this. Caldari are far better at shield tanking. Minmatar have ships which are good for one, or the other, or even some which favour neither in particular.

3) Weapons: As I already mentioned, fit the weapons/fittings your ship gets bonuses to, and as many as possible. So for example a catalyst would want all of its 8 high slots to be hybrid turrets, while a rupture (favours projectiles, but has 6 high slots and only 4 turret hardpoints) would want the 4 projectile turrets, plus whatever will fit for the other two slots (usually missiles).

Second point regarding weapons, is fit for a single range, i.e. all your weapons should have the same or similar ideal range (for turrets this is around optimal range + half of the accuracy falloff, for missiles its anything less than velocity x flight time). This means you can orbit your target at your preferred range, and every weapon will have its maximum effect (rather than some being out of range, or unable to track the close targets). While it may be tempting to fit a range of weapons, and target some on one enemy and other on another, it is far more efficient to simply shoot one enemy at your ideal range until it is dead, then move on (especially true once you start fighting enemies which you cant kill instantly, such as cruisers and above).

4) Filling the extra slots: Try not to just fit whatever you have at the time to fill extra slots. Remember what we said about fitting for a single purpose. Some modules are always useful, such as sensor boosters (decrease locking time), capacitor rechargers, any speed fittings etc. If you're PvPing, consider a warp disruptor and a webber. If you're mining, maybe try to fit a few expanded cargoholds.

Finally, download 'Eve Fitting Tool' (google it). It's a really awesome program for calculating what will fit on your ship/how effective it will be, without having to go out and buy the stuff beforehand.

I intend to do some more detailed guides/classes, in particular one about tanking since its such a vast topic, so watch this space. Also, any questions, send me an Evemail in game.

 

Azual 

Thanks so much for that guide, Azual. You should post more of these on here. It's so hard to keep up with stuff on the EVE Online mail system. It especially gets confusing when people try to reply to things. I think the forums will work so much better for that.

I have been trying to fit my ships and couldn't figure out why my guns weren't working. After reading this I realized I have turrets of all kinds of different ranges so at any given time, only one or two are doing decent damage. I'm also going to refit my ships a bit based on your advice. Please keep the guides coming. There is SO much to learn about this game and it can be quite overwhelming to try to learn as you go when you're a noob like me. Perhaps after a few of your guides I'll be able to move on from noob status.

I found Eve Fitting Tool and installed it.  I'm finding that I can't import my character's skills.  I've read the enclosed FAQ text file.  I created a new character, inputted my ID# and Limited Access API key and  when I click on the "Connect" button, it depresses for a second, then comes back up, but it doesn't actually do anything.

Nice guide Az, thanks.

 Keep the useful info coming.
 

If you had just created the API key, it sometimes takes a little while for it to update in the cache. It could also have been a problem connecting to the server or something.

I was wondering if there were any addons "applications to help the users ingame on EVE". I had a lot of them on World of Warcraft but didn't know about anything on EVE. Thanks for sharing. I'll have to install that when I get a chance.  

 The two great ones for Eve are EFT (as mentioned), and EveMon, which lets you create skill plans and check your skills when offline. It's also very useful since it tells you when a skill will be done without having to log on and check.

I was an absolute mod-fiend on WoW but it seems that in-game mods aren't really an eve thing. 

I've just just a few critical points to point out here, in addition to some changes from what Azaual has written.  While this is a GREAT guide, there are some things that should be changed around.

 First off, the most important points:

1) NEVER FLY SOMETHING YOU CANT AFFORD TO LOSE!

2) NEVER MIX TANKS.... EVER!!!!!

3) NEVER MIX GUNS... EVER!!! (exception: launchers can go with turrets... but not 2 different turret types)

4) YOU CAN NEVER HAVE ENOUGH CAP!!!

 

 I'll explain further the different points...

 
1) If you have a faction ship setup with faction modules (or even just T2 ship with T2 fittings), and you lose it, thats a major hit to your wallet.  If you aren't able to replace the ship easily, its too risky to fly.  This rule will keep your wallet happy, as well as you happy when you do go boom!

2) NEVER mix tanks... if you are Caldari you tank shields.  If you are Gallente, you tank armor, and so on with the other races.  Look at your ship's bonuses to see what tank they use.  If your ship gets a bonus to armor repairers, then tank ARMOR.  If you get a bonus to shields, tank shields.  If you dont get any bonus, but your ship generally has more medium slots, then tank shields (unless you are in a specific race where that entire race only tanks armor/shields).  If your ship has more lows, tank shields, but that depends on the race as well.

Here, Azual has some misleading information.

Active Armor Tank - An active armor tank consists of 1 (or 2) armor repairers, as well as Armor Hardeners.  The damage control is not considered an active tank, nor a passive tank, meaning that it'll work in either case.  Hardeners use cap to run, but give a much higher resist bonus than other modules such as plating, etc...  The definition of an active tank is that it uses CAP.  You'll want a lot of Cap Rechargers in the medium slots, and possibly even a Cap Injector to give even more cap. DO NOT PUT CAP CHARGING MODULES IN THE LOWS!!! USE THE MEDIUM SLOTS FOR CAP RECHARGERS!!!

Active Shield Tank - An active shield tank consists of the same thing as an active armor tank, except you'll be using a Shield Booster and Shield Hardeners.  The only problem with active shield tanks is that they use a lot of cap as well.  But, since shield tanks use medium slots, you cant fit Cap Rechargers.  And the low slot alternative for cap regeneration has a side effect of making your shield boosting worse.  In this event, you'll NEED to have a Cap Injector in one of the medium slots, in order to provide as much cap as possible, so that your tank will last a while.

Passive Armor Tank - AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  There isnt one... well... persay... the ONLY passive armor tank that can work would be to use modules such as a damage control, as well as adaptive nano membranes, etc... AND using plates.  This is the ONLY time you'll want to use plates.  The plates slow you down and are generally bad, since it would be better to have more resists, than more health.  However, for this to work, you'll have to use a technique known as "Spider Tanking".  This means that (assuming you have 5 people in your gang, all passive armor tanking with a remote armor rep in their high slots) when you start taking damage, your allies all target you and start using their remote reps on your armor. As different people are shot, the group targets the people taking damage and all use their remote reps on that person.  This means that you are never healing yourself, but relying on your team to keep you alive... and your team is relying on you to keep them alive.  This is an advanced PvP tactic that needs to be worked on extensively if you are planning on using it.  This only has an advantage over active tanks in that if you have neuts or vamps/nos on you (the ones that either drain the enemies cap, or gives your the enemies cap), and you lose your cap, you can still fight and get healed by your team members.  THIS FIT IS UNEFFECTIVE WITH LESS THAN 3 PEOPLE IN THE GROUP, AND MOST CERTAINLY THE WRONG TANK TO USE IF YOU ARE BY YOURSELF!

 Passive Shield Tank - The whole point of a PASSIVE tank is to use NO CAP AT ALL!  By fitting a hardener at all would be mixing tanks, WHICH IS A BIG NO NO!  Azual is wrong in that point, but the rest of what he says is correct, with exception to the Shield Extenders.  For a passive shield tank, you want your shield recharge rate to be as fast as possible.  In theory, the shield recharge rate is so fast that its almost like having a permanent shield booster on your ship.  Here, your goal is to reduce the recharge time as much as possible, as well as trying to keep as much resists as you can get.

 

Again, the point to a passive tank is to use no cap, so that if you are drained, you wont have to worry about your tank.  Also, if you setup your ship right, you can use a passive tank allong with neuts and vamps/nos in your high slots, instead of a full gun rack.  This will allow you to drain all of the enemies cap, and crush their tank, while you will still be happily tanked passively.

3) NEVER mix guns... Azual says this by saying "all your weapons should have the same or similar ideal range", but doesnt explicitly say it.  When i say dont mix guns, im not saying that you can only have this particular named railgun, but ANY railgun within the same class (i.e.  75mm OR 150mm)  Do not put a 150mm with a 75mm.  If you cant fit another gun of the similar type, fit a remote armor rep, remote shield booster, neut, vamp/nos, salvager (not in PvP), missile, etc... if you cant fit ANYTHING else, then you can put on a smaller gun... but that should be your LAST resort.

4)  It is what it says: you can not ever have enough cap.  If you have any vacant slots, with an active tank, try to fit something that'll give you extra cap, such as a Cap Recharger in the middle slots for an active armor tank.  For active shield tanks, you gotta be careful what you put in your low slots, since some of the cap recharge rate modules have a side effect of hurting your shield boost rate, WHICH IS BAD!  So, check to see what you have setup, and make sure it doesnt hurt your tank.

4a) If you are going for PvP, consider modules such as sensor boosters, webs, warp disruptors, etc... Since those will be more helpful than cap chargers, most of the time.  NOTE that most EW is pratically ineffective against NPC rats!  Webs work, but warp scramblers are pointless, since NPC rats dont ever warp away.

 

If you have a question about a particular fit, post it and ask to see if anything can be improved.  After time, you'll get much better at putting together good fits for different ships.  I've developed a feel for how to fit different ships, but its taken me some time.  Point is, it'll come to anyone, as long as you have someone to show you several good examples of fits that will work.

 

NOTE: THE SHIP FITTING WEBSITES SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS BEING GODLY FITS!!! THERE ARE STUPID PEOPLE THAT PUT UP THEIR JUNKY, MESSED UP FITS ON THESE SITES!! USE YOUR JUDGEMENT, AS WELL AS SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHEN TRYING DIFFERENT FITS!!!

Thanks for the pointers, Eli. I'm still learning a lot of this stuff and I'm so glad to have it on our forums. 

I found out the hard way about fitting the same kinds of guns. I had a destroyer and fit it with every weapon I could get my hands on. Almost none of them had the same optimal range. While I could technically hit just about anything from just about any range, I only had one turret actively doing decent damage at any given time. So instead of 8 guns pummeling my enemies, I had 1. It also wasted a LOT of ammo. So yes, pick a range and stick to it.