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Gallente and the use of Drones/Turrets.
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Doomheim 21
Dorwath Aivil Doomheim Likes received: 21	#1 - 2012-12-17 18:24:30 UTC Rightio, newbie here to the whole drone way of things. Do i fit my ships with only drones or do I mix them with drones and Hybrid/missle hardpoints? Also what should I fit my ships with to be of any use in the PvE sector? Thank you.

Cyniac

Federal Navy Academy

Gallente Federation

Likes received: 243

#2 - 2012-12-17 18:29:11 UTC | Edited by: Cyniac

Tank and Spank.

High slots are virtually useless as tank so that goes to spank -> Turrets (Spank)

Drones are also useless as tank -> Attack drones (Spank)

Midslots are a bit tricky as they can provide tank (Shields) Mobility (which helps mitigate incoming damage) and e-war which can help with spank as well as the all critical cap (Which you need to run everything else)

Lowslots are similar to midslots but with a different flavour as they provide armor tank, not shield tank. In the same way they also can help with Spank (damage increase modules), mobility or cap.

And then you have the rigs to help keep you sane.

Initially you probably want to keep tank high and will be dedicating a lot of slots to cap (if you use a ship which needs cap) with increase in skill (both pilot and player skills) you'll move more and more of those slots to mobility and spank. (You need to learn to fly, if you don't last long enough to know what happened there is little point to the exercise, thus the need to start by building up tank)

It will depend mostly on your ship and skills and partly on your flying style.

Drones are said to be a bit tricky these days though I've not noticed much of a difference (but then I use e-war as a matter of course on my ships).


Dorwath Aivil Doomheim Likes received: 21	#3 - 2012-12-17 18:33:34 UTC Sorry for my dullness so what weapons do I use? Or none at all? Kinda feeling a bit confused by all that you have said, not that upto date with the meanings of such things. Just want to run some missions while my skills are being raised.

Cephelange du'Krevviq

Gildinous Vangaurd

The Initiative.

Likes received: 293

#4 - 2012-12-17 18:56:51 UTC

Gallente hulls are bonused for hybrid weapons. Those come in two flavors- railguns (sniping) and blasters (in-your-face). Typically, Gallente hulls don't often have the powergrid to support the larger caliber railguns, but can fit blasters no problem. Using blasters, however, pretty much means you will want a propulsion (aka, "prop") module on it, such as an afterburner. Having that activated lets you move faster and close the distance quicker, though it uses capacitor ("cap").

When it comes to your tank, one of the biggest things to remember is do not mix types. Choose either shield or armor. Like Cyniac touched on, shield tanking uses your medium power slots. Gallente hulls tend to only have a few of those, so an effective shield tank can be challenging, especially for a newer player. The low power slots are used for armor tanking; Gallente hulls usually have a decent number of slots to set up a good armor tank.

Now, that being said, if you're running level I security missions and then level II security missions, you should eventually get a feel for how much tank you need.

Let's look at the Thorax, a popular Gallente cruiser. It has 5 high power, 3 medium power and 5 low power slots. It has 5 turret hardpoints, and 0 launcher hardpoints. So, you can mount up to 5 turret weapons; "Gallente Cruiser Skill Bonus: 5% bonus to Medium Hybrid Turret damage per level" - this means that for each level of skill you've trained in Gallente Cruiser, any medium hybrid turrets equipped will do 5% more damage.

With 3 medium power, or "mid", slots, any shield tank you would try to set up would be minimal. If you plan on equipping a prop mod, this would further cut you to 2 slots. Not saying you *can't* shield tank it, just that it isn't as effective a tank as an armor tank.

When the word "tank" is used, it's referencing how you keep your ship form being converted into a pretty, blue explosion and a wreck. You can buffer tank, which means having a large pool of shield/armor hit points, and essentially betting you can destroy the opposition before they get through your hit points. You can also active tank, which means equipping a module that restores/repairs shield or armor health. These modules utilize capacitor, though, and are generally not intended to be run continuously (some fits can, though they tend to be the exception).

"I am a leaf on the...ah, frak it!"


Cephelange du'Krevviq Gildinous Vangaurd The Initiative. Likes received: 293	#5 - 2012-12-17 19:08:20 UTC If a visual example of what an active tanked Thorax setup would look like, you can check out this fit on BattleClinic. "I am a leaf on the...ah, frak it!"

Fronkfurter McSheebleton

Horse Feathers

CAStabouts

Likes received: 276

#6 - 2012-12-17 19:18:14 UTC

For PVE you'll almost always want railguns on a gallente boat. All of the drone boats except the Myrmidon also have a bonus to hybrid weapons, and blasters just don't have the range.*

The notion that gallente ships are "drone" ships is a bit of a misconception...they actually have more hybrid-bonused ships than drone-bonused ones, and like I said the drone ships are mostly dual-bonused anyway.

*the exception being the proteus, which can perma-run a MWD, negating a lot of drawbacks from the short engagement range

thhief ghabmoef

Calamitous-Intent 454
Red Teufel Calamitous-Intent Likes received: 454	#7 - 2012-12-18 02:27:35 UTC tank and spank spank spank.

Scoville Bessler

Scoville Imports and Exports

Likes received: 1

#8 - 2012-12-18 22:43:10 UTC | Edited by: Scoville Bessler

I recommend the Vexor for a solid entry level drone cruiser for pve lvl 2 and - once your skills are stronger - lvl 3. With a 100m3 drone capacity and a 75 Mbit/sec (how many you can carry and launch at once respectively) you can a wide range of scout and medium drones (or scouts and salvage drones). It's also a versatile ship that will afford you the opportunity to work out your playstyle.

Personally I prefer an armor/range tank and have forgone inclusion of railguns or blasters at all. I use a crappy civilian blaster to draw aggro. Not the way you're going to want to go early on. In which case two or three railguns will be helpful with your dps (Clarification, I primarily pilot Vexors and Ishtars - the Heavy Assault Cruiser version of a Vexor).

Remember that you can swap out drones to maximize damage against various enemies and should get in the habit of doing so.

There are a number of excellent drone modules available which increase range of operation, damage, etc. Being able to fit them all to your ship is challenging.

I would suggest holding off on training E-War, Sentry, or Logistics drones until you get comfortable using the three primary classes (Scout, Medium, Heavy).

The Retribution changes for NPC aggro (hostility towards) your drones makes life a little more complicated and you're gonna lose some learning to cycle drones in and out of the drone bay before they get popped.

Best of luck, hope my two cents was helpful, fly safe.

Mund Richard

Likes received: 559

#9 - 2012-12-19 00:24:59 UTC | Edited by: Mund Richard

Scoville Bessler wrote:

Let's have a bit of different playstyle then:
I would advise the use of rails on the Vexor, just because you can, and the added dps is always nice.

Holding off E-War and sentry drones: E-War drones let your drones fly just a bit further away, so they are nice.
Heavy drones I value less than sentries, and as such I'd advise you hold off training heavily into them after you are comfortable with light/medium scouts. Heck, I wish I hadn't trained them at all! lol
Theoretically a mix of 1 light 2 medium and 2 heavy gets you more dps than 5 hammerhead on the Vexor, but realistically the tracking and travel speed of the Ogre is jiffy, plus they take up more room in the bay, which is an issue with the new AI.

Swapping out drones to max damage:
Before 125 bandwidth, you'll be probably best served using small/med drones, gallente against almost everything, against angel pirate rats or in pvp against frigs/fast guys minmatar.

Learning how to handle drones with the new AI is a hassle I imagine.
Before, I would have advised for the use of a Thorax (it had more slots, more guns, now only more guns and less health).
A rail thorax with 10 scout drones may not be that bad still with the improved tracking, and afterburner running, and a web at hand if a frig gets too close, dunno.
Lots of stuff changed for us older players in this expansion.

One interesting thing to note is, that although Gallente always get more lowslots than mids, and all the tanking bonuses they get are for armor, that doesn't mean that you cannot shield tank.
For instance, at low skillpoints, it's waaay easier to get more tank from a passive shield myrm, than from an active armor tanked one, even though it had an armor repair bonus Roll

Just don't try to passive tank anything but a BC or a Rattlesnake.

A crazy but fun shield Vexor could be built like this:
(If you don't have T2 skills, or they are too hard to fit, go for a meta4 version, information on items let's you look it up)
Lows: Damage Control, tripple drone damage amplifier, cap flux coil
Mids: Medium shield booster, one kinetic one thermal hardener, one cap recharger
Highs: 200mm railguns
Rigs: cap control circuits
It should do 33% or so more drone dps than the following armor one:
Lows: kinetic+thermic hardener, Damage control, one Medium armor repper, one drone damage amplifier.
Mids: 3 cap recharger, one afterburner (hurray for mobility)
Highs 250 mm rails, rigs the same as before.
More cap-stable, tanks just as well, moves a lot faster, kills slower.

Now... cap stability is something you do not need.
You need to be only cap stable long enough for either one of the following two to happen:
1) finish the mission and dock up to turn it in
2) kill enough enemies so that you can turn your repper on and off, and still tank the incoming damage
Or, you can alternatively fit a cap booster, which is the norm in PvP, and for some interesting and good L4 builds.

There are out-of-game fitting tools like EFT and Pyfa that let you play around with these.
If you import your char information via an API key into those, you can tailor it for your current skills even! (just don't forget to update it every once in a while)

"We want PvE activities to require active participation and mirror PvP more closely." Stacking penalty for NPC EWAR then? Lock range under 9km from over 100 in a BS is not fun. Nor is two NPC web drones making me crawl 10m/s. PvP SW-900 x5: 75m/s.