Races

There are four races in Eve online, all of which have their own benefits.Here is a basic description of every race in game. This should help you pick your race, learn how to fly your race, and fight your enemies.  Remember no race is actually bad, and every race has ships that break these rules.  Some are just better than others.

Amarr

Offense

The Amarr are my favorite race. I love them so much I am one. Offensively Amarr specialize with using lasers.  The biggest downside to lasers is they can only do EM and thermal damage, so you can't adapt your damage to what you are fighting. Some actually see it as a benefit to never have to worry about it at all, and can focus more on other aspects of the game. In exchange for not being able to pick their damage, Amarrian crystals never expire. (As long as we are talking T1. T2 runs out eventually, but tends to last a very decent amount of time.) This is great for 0.0 ratting and other activities that may divide you from your ammo supply because you never have to return to a station for ammo. Lasers take more capacitor than any other type of gun, so you can quickly begin running on fumes if you aren't prepared.  To compensate the Amarr are given the largest cap of all the races. The capacitator is the Amarrian lifeline. Once an Amarrian ship is out of cap, they can't repair, shoot, or use virtually any part on their ship. They become a flying brick. Once your cap is empty you need to either warp out, or die.

Defense

Amarr are armor tanks.  They have the strongest armor of all the races. Shields really mean nothing to them.  Bring your armor reps, plates, and hardeners to combat! Unfortunately this can be quite dangerous because once your armor is gone the only thing dividing your ship and your pod is your hull, which is easily disposed of. They also use radar as their targeting system, but more on that later.

Caldari

Offense

Caldari are mostly missile boats, but can use guns as well. They use rockets, missiles, and torpedoes of all types. The range and potential of their weapons is the same as any other ship. The only difference is missiles don't have a minimum or maximum range. Instead, their missiles can only travel a certain distance before they just stop moving. This allows them to hit fast moving and small targets such as frigates much more easily than any sort of gun can. Unfortunately missiles can become expensive. Their missile specialty makes them VERY good at flying covert ops ships, and killing frigates without having to use drones or switch ammo.

Defense

Caldari are shield tanks. Their armor is for the most part cut through like butter, which gives them the unique advantage of having the armor as a buffer before they explode, instead of just their hull. They use Gravimetric Sensors for targeting.

Gallente

Offense

Gallente have guns just like everyone else, and they are nothing special. What they really specialize in is having very large drone bays. Drones are neat tools. They are little ships that can do virtually anything a ship's components can. Shoot, warp jam, target paint, repair, you name it.  Certain Gallente ships give huge bonuses to their drones, and can drop guns all together and just use their drones for all of their damage.  If drones are your base damage output you can allow the entire spec of your ship to revolve around tanking. The Dominix is very good at this. This allows Gallente to pretty easily access mother ships, the ultimate drone ship.

Defense

Gallente are primarily armor tanks. They have minor shields, but they are nowhere near as strong as they need to be to tank effectively. The trade off of having minor shields means their armor is weaker than Amaar. They have Magnetometric Sensors.

Minmitar

Offense

Minmitar revolve around their guns, which have a very unique twist. They use no capacitor. In exchange their cap is the smallest of all the races. If you are being cap drained and are running on empty the ability to still fire back is invaluable. This also allows them to use all of their cap on defense and other neat mods such as MicroWarpdrives and electronic warfare.

Defense

Defensively Minmitar generally use their armor to tank, but their shields are almost equally as strong. I don't know much about why they prefer armor tanking, but it can be left up to the pilots personal opinion.  They use Ladar Sensors.