Progression

Shocku writes a message to a friend who is a younger pilot:

It's a good idea to pick a ship and specialize in it. If a person jumps from ship to ship all the time, they will never get good at it. Every ship has it's strengths and weaknesses. Learn both and become a top notch pilot at that ship. Of course, you will go through several ships on the way as you learn it's weaknesses. :). It's also a good idea to specialize in an affordable ship.  

When I started as a capsuleer I wanted to specialize in fast ships. However, I kept getting killed. Now I can fly a vagabond reasonably well, but it's still a distictive style I am not an expert at yet. What is interesting is that there are generally lines of ship styles, starting with frigates, progressing through cruisers, and up to hacs and bs. 

The style line I have done best at is snipers, or range ships. I don't know if there is a sniper frigate, but the cruiser is the rupture, the battlecruiser is the hurricane, the hac is the muninn, and the bs is the tempest. When I was a newer pilot I flew the rupture because it has a long range and a good tank. You get to your range (usually 0 at a gate) and shoot. Now I fly the muninn. I carry both short and long range t2 ammo, and sensor booster scripts depending on the situation. With the muninn I try to get OFF the gate 70 to 100 km. Few hostiles can shoot that far, and so I rarely get targetted. So I slowly orbit at range raining death from afar. If I see an intercepter approaching or get targetted, I generally warp off and then come right back. 

Anyway, my point is:

1) Specialize and stick with a chosen 

Ship style

2) Figure out the progression and start with the inexpensive t1 cruiser so you can learn and afford the losses as you do. Examples: Short range speed tanks Stabber/Vagabond, long range snipes Rupture/muninn

3) Buy more than one, buy 3 to 6.  

Most pilots are idiots and the enemy knows it. They will buy the coolest most expenive ship they can buy and bring it to the front. They go out gung ho on the first fleet and lose it. Then they spend the next 3 days to a week trying to replace it. That's why the enemy pays for wardecs. They go to jita and get killed on the way back. By now they are so frustrated they JC back home to rat or don't log in for a couple weeks. 

The smart pilot resists peer pressure and brings half a dozen cheap T1 cruisers or bc and goes out on roam after roam not caring about his losses and learning from them. Once comfortable, he graduates to the same style of HACs ONLY when he can afford several of them. If he can't afford 3 or more, he doesn't fly them at all. There are industrials in our alliance who can bring fully fit ships to the front, just put in your order.