EVE New Citizens Q&A

The Vexor is a droneboat. Of course the drones are going to be the primary component of your damage.



Regardless, the Catalyst has 8 turret hardpoints, and the Vexor has 4. You should not be flying the catalyst with only 6 guns, or the Vexor with only 3. You don't need to use the absolute highest-caliber turret you can. Dual 150s or 200mm rails will be fine for your Vexor, and may even help because of tracking.

In PvE, if you equip guns at all, typically you're going to want to equip railguns, probably some of the longer-range variant with antimatter.

Initially you're going to have fairly limited tracking, so you'll have to do things like fly directly toward or away from your target to reliably land hits on them, at least with medium guns.

Another option is to decide not to worry too much about damage output and use small rails instead, so you can hit frigate-sized enemies.

Fits on the Vexor are pretty much to taste, it's one of the most flexible boats in the game. Generally speaking you're going to need to shield tank it to get the guns on par with your drones, though, which I maybe wouldn't advise if you're going Gallente in general since active armor tank is more the overall racial specialty. But, for the sake of argument, off the top of my head:

Highs:
4x small railguns, antimatter ammo

Mids:
Propulsion
Capacitor rechargers

Lows:
Medium Armor Repper
Armor resistance modules (plus possibly a damage control, DCs are good for newer players)

Rigs:
3x Capacitor control circuit

That'll give you the usual drone-dependent build, probably capacitor stable with the repairer going, and small guns for picking off annoying little buggers in level 2 missions. It's sort of the standard workhorse vexor meta-build, not particularly flashy or obviously powerful but stable, enduring, and tends not to explode too much in missions.

I put 4 small lasers on my main vexor and am doing just fine with drones.

Get your drone skills, like interfacing, up to par. They are your bread and butter. As for your fit, put on an AB, a DCU, a medium repper, and anything else you need to keep from popping (maybe a DDA when you get good). In PvE the Vex is pretty easy to fly and is very flexible. IMO its the best PvE standard cruiser in the game.

Your fitting is fine, remember that almost everything as you start out is going to scale with your skills rather dramatically, especially drone damage (ship skill +5% per, specific drone skill +5% per, drone interfacing +20% per). I assume you're cap stable, if you aren't add some capacitor control circuit rigs until you are and that tank should do you great. Tech 2 is not necessary for L2 missions. Not even T2 drones, though I _would_ get T2 drones on general principles at some point.

Two things you may be missing:

1: You need to make sure you're tanking the right kind of damage, thermal resist does nothing if the 'rats are shooting explosive torpedoes.

2: Generally speaking you'll want to watch what order you kill/shoot things in, some npcs trigger extra spawns. Additionally, some groups in the mission won't come after you until you fire a shot at their little sub-pack.

Both of these things can be looked up on Eve Survival or, frequently, just by typing the mission name into google. Honestly, those two things cover most of the "how to fly in PvE" problems, too.

Random bits of newbie-drone-boat advice:

-- Drone control units (or whatever the high slot ones are called) allow you to send your drones out 20km further, giving you better ability to do things like warp in at 50 instead of 0 and then kill things before they get to you.

-- Your drones are going to die occasionally. When you start using large drones, they're gonna die all the damned time. Be prepared to replace 'em.

-- Make sure you grab the drone interfacing skill and shove a few points into it basically as soon as humanly possible. Seriously. 20% damage per point, multiplicative with ship bonuses and other skill bonuses. Big difference.

4x Dual 150 rail guns.
1 x medium nos

2 x cap recharger
1 x experimental 10mn ab

1 x medium accomadation vestment reconstructor
3 x racial hardener

2 x capacitor control circuit
1 x auxiliary nano pump

Racial medium and small drones.