Firstly, decide how you are going to complete your objective. Are you going to be killing a lot of NPC's? Are you going to be speed tanking? or are you going to flat out tank all the damage? Do you want to kill everything as fast as possible and get out quickly?
What weapon should I use?
This is the easy bit. You will have already decided what is the most appropriate weapon type by looking at what bonuses your ship gives (If you haven't done this, show info on your ship and read the description!) for example, If you are flying a Minmatar ship, you will be using either autocannons or artillery.
Next decide what range you are going to need, long range? medium range? short range? This should narrow down your weapon choice (see the 'Range' post for more info.)
What ammo should I use?
Use the ammo that fits in your gun or launcher, some types of ammo uses different damage types, use the appropriate damage type depending on what you are shooting at. Hybrid weapons can only deal kinetic and thermal damage, lasers can only deal EM and thermal damage. For projectile weapons and missiles use the following damage types:
Faction - Primary / Secondary
Angel - Explosive
Blood - EM / Thermal
Drones - Thermal / Explosive / EM / Kinetic
Guristas - Kinetic / Thermal
Mercenary - Thermal
Mordus - Thermal & Kinetic
Sansha - EM / Thermal
Serpentis - Thermal
Armor or Shield tank?
Chose either shield or armor, this decision can be easily made by checking if your ship gives any bonuses to either shield or armor, and how many mid and low slots you have.
As a general rule, if you have more low slots then armor tank, if you have more mid slots then shield tank.
Generally speaking....
Caldari = Shield tank.
Gallente = Armor tank.
Amarr = Armor tank.
Minmatar = Either. (Minmatar ships are rather versatile)
Active, Passive or Buffer?
Most players opt for either active tanking or passive tanking for PvE, it requires less manual piloting and is generally more reliable than speed tanking. Buffer tanking is definately not recommended for PvE.
So, what now?
Resistances. EM / Thermal / Kinetic / Explosive
What about them?
You need high resistances when tanking. I'm not going to start talking about the maths but higher resistances makes repairing damage easier.
Shield Hardeners, Shield Resistance Amplifiers, Armor Hardeners, Resistance Plating and Energized Plating all add extra resistances to your ship, either to all resistance types such as an Invulnability Field and Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane, or to specific resistance types such as am Armor EM hardener ot Photon Scattering Field for example.
Chose what resistances you are going to need. Here is a list of what damage types certain NPC's will be shooting at you:
Faction - Primary / Secondary
Angel - Explosive / Thermal
Blood - EM / Thermal
Drones - Omni
Guristas - Kinetic / Thermal
Mercenary - Omni
Mordus - Kinetic / Thermal
Sansha - EM / Thermal
Serpentis - Kinetic / Thermal
EoM - Kinetic / Thermal
So how many resistance modules should I fit?
It really depends on what ship you are using.
As a general rule for battleships and maybe battlecruisers:
3 or 4 for armor tanking
2 or 3 for shield tanking
When shield tanking you can also fit Shield Boost Amplifiers, which as you might be able to guess, increases the effect of shield boosters. So once you have enough resistance of the damage type you are tanking, fit shield boost amplifiers.
And yes, do use multiple resistance mods of the same damage type, for example when tanking Blood Raiders, use 2 Armor EM Hardeners and 2 Armor Thermic Hardeners.
Do I need a Damage Control?
Damage Control is the king of all modules, it applies a baseline level of resistance to all damage types across shield armor and structure.
Technically for Active and Passive tanking PvE you do not need a damage control since you should not be tanking on structure and there are more effective modules available to apply resistances to shield or armor across all damage types.
However, if is highly advisable to use one if you are inexperienced with the ship you are using do fit a damage control, just incase your tank breaks.
So now I need a shield booster or armor repairer right?
Yes.
But what size?
That depends on a few things.
For armor tanking it is simple:
Frigate / Destroyer: Small Armor Repairer
Cruiser / Battlecruiser: Medium Armor Repairer
Battleship: Large Armor Repairer
However, for shield tanking is a bit more flexible, for frigates you are rarely going to be able to fit anything bigger than a Small Shield Booster, and for cruisers perhaps a Large Shield Booster is best.
When you start flying Battlecruisers and Battleships you can fit any sized booster, it all depends on whether you want your tank to be cap-stable, or if you are just going to pulse your shield booster. You have to make the decision here I am afraid!
Help! I keep running out of capacitor!
Ok so you want a cap-stable fit, this is where you need to 'fine-tune' your fitting so that your capacitor regenerates faster than your modules can use it, here are some things to keep in mind.
Firstly, do you even need a cap-stable fit? It is not always neccessary and you should only really activate your shield booster or armor repairer when you need to repair damage.
It is far easier to have a cap-stable armor tank than a cap-stable shield tank, the best module to regenerate capacitor is the 'Cap Recharger' which uses a mid slot, which you need for shield tanking modules.
Typically active tanking PvE ships have their mid slots filled with Cap Rechargers.
Hybrid weapons and Lasers both use capacitor aswell, you may wish to downgrade your guns if you are using these, but is not often needed.
You could fit Nosferatu's in your high slots, but be warned this will only work if you have an NPC in range to suck cap from.
Use Capacitor Control Circuit rigs. They regenerate your capacitor, simple.
Hey! I want to passive shield tank!
Fill every low slot with Shield Power Relays, fit a minimum or 3 Shield Resistance Amplifiers of which damage types you are tanking then fill the rest of your mid slots with the biggest Shield Extenders you can fit, afterburner is optional, put 3 Core Defence Field Purger rigs on there, was it really that hard?
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