Ships & Modules

Just another one of these posts you've probably seen around a thousand times. I however got lost in all the replies and - moreover - would like a direct answer to my questions with the changes of retribution patch in mind.

You see, I'm quite fond of the Minmatar race. The biggest reason for me to play eve and especially minmatar is just for the sheer looks. How silly that may sound.
Therefore I am not interested in other races, other ships- even if that means I'll not get a 100% out of what I'm willing to do.

Other than that, I'm also quite the carebear so as for now I'm not really interested in PvP either. Though, that aspect may well change in the future after I got me some isk and experience. Especially isk thus.

Now, baring all that in mind- I'm a bit lost in the fittings of my ships for the use of missioning L3's and above. (see below a summary of my skills)

As I'm fairly low on isk, the only worthy ship i've got is the Cyclone and I do assume that in the same path the Maelstrom is next?


I always loved the looks of the hurricane, but seeing as most of my skills are shield based.. that's probably not such a great idea? Or is it possible to fit the hurricane with a shield tank? Be it active or passive.

What would be a good (shield) fit for the Cyclone, the maelstrom and eventually the hurricane? Or should I drop the shields and go for armor tank instead, get me just the hurricane? What about the Tornado tho - mainly for pvp later on i guess?
I mainly go for arty's because the speed of the ships seem so extremely slow that I can't see me flying autocannons (and well, the sound of the arty's just sounds amazing anyways)

On a sidenote: I'm an extreme fan of the minmatar carrier looks. Though, knowing it'll take me more than a year training (and twice as much for gathering the isk..), might just keep that path in mind.

It's hard finding a "minmatar" only guide or maybe i'm just not searching it right. The biggest problem, however, is that whenever I ask "hey guys anyone got a good cyclone fit or fit for -insert minmatar ship- people always come up with other ships, other races and that's just not what i'm looking for.


Anyways, thank you for your time reading this and - eventually - thanks in advance for a helpful reply. Even if it covers but a small part of the above request.
Oh and, my excuses if I may have posted this in the wrong section in the wrong forum or anything of that sorts.

Cheers.

Little skill summary of supposedly most important skills:
All shield compensations L 2
Shield Management L 4
Shield Operation L 5
Shield Upgrades L 4
Shield rigging L 2

All armor compensations L3
Hull Upgrades L 4
Repair systems L 3
Armor rigging L1
Jurry rigging L 3

Heavy Missiles L 3
Missile launcher operation L3
Missile Projection 2
Rapid launch 3
Rockets 2
standard missiles 3


Gunnery 4
Medium projectile turret 4 (6d from 5)
motion prediction 3
rapid firing 3
sharpshooter 3
small turrets 4
surgical strike 3
trajectory analysis 2
weapon upgrades 3

Drones 5
combat drone 3
drone interfacing 2




A bit of a jack of all trades not knowing what to continue first, also trying to make isk by salvaging (4) and mining (4).
And is the following page still viable? http://eveinfo.net/wiki/ind~1740.htm

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

I have Tactical Shield manipulation level at the moment and as far as the drones go, i only have Scout Drone Operation lvl 4 as well need to get those other ones indeed but thought to focus on gunnery and shield skills first. Having a hard time choosing which skill to lvl first as they all seem important.
I also like those heavy missiles, tho they don't seem to do that much damage at the moment (maybe i should start using the right ammo, kind of sticking to heavy mjolnirs atm)

I might just swap my cyclone for a hurricane, just need the isk for it - so mining, salvaging and missioning away for it.

Thanks for the response, going to try this out till i've got the Cane

The Cyclone fit is bit "wrong" mixing extenders/rigs with active shieldboosts isnt generally good way of making your tank.

Got different "fits"
High
3x XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay
5x 650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I

Medium
2x cap recharger II
2x Limited Adaptive Invulnerability field I
1x Medium Shield Booster II

Low
1x Damage Control II
1x Overdrive Injector System I
2x Counterbalanced Weapon Mounts I

Rig
3x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

5x Hobgoblin I (4 days till II's)



High
3x XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay
5x 650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I

Medium
1x cap recharger II
2x Limited Adaptive Invulnerability field I
1x Medium Shield Booster II
1x Experimental 10MN Afterburner

Low
1x Damage Control II
2x Counterbalanced Weapon Mounts I

Rig
3x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

5x Hobgoblin I (4 days till II's)




High
2x XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay
5x 650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I

Medium
2x Limited Adaptive Invulnerability field I
1x Medium Shield Booster II
1x Shield Boost Amplifier I
1x Experimental 10MN Afterburner

Low
1x Damage Control II
2x Counterbalanced Weapon Mounts I
1x Overdrive Injector System I

Rig
3x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

5x Hobgoblin I (4 days till II's)

aren't capacitor boosters for med slots rather than high? Or am i looking at the wrong ones?

edit: read the edit =p , will see what it gives, as for the rigs, i'm afraid i can't swap them as all i've currently got is about 16m isk and it ain't going up much any time soon

This one is much better and I would suggest this. Fit T2 where you can OP and follow this general fitting. Note that it is using a large shield booster rather than a medium. This will make your tank a bit more burst than what you are used to, but it should be sufficient for any mission you are running.

I would have fitted one up myself but I'm at work atm. *grumbles*


EDIT: Also note the tracking enhancer that he has. This will help with your range and tracking. I would recommend you stick with a cyclone until your skills get quite a bit better. You could get more damage out of a hurricane, but it is MUCH harder to tank than a cyclone.

From my experience with level 3s and 4s:

For level 3 missions, check the mission for spiderdrones. If there aren't any, use a Tornado. There is no other ship (besides the Oracle in Amarr space) that runs L3s that quickly. Doing it in a cyclone is bad, when you have the skill to use the tornado.

Tornado, L3

8x 800mm Prototype Autocannons (the meta 3 ones)

2x Hardener (use invuln if you are lazy)
MWD <---- superimportant
2 Large Shield Extender of your choice

2 Gyrostabiliser
2 Tracking Enhancer

(For the nado, you might want Large Projectiles IV, Battlecruisers IV and trajectory analysis IV asap)

Rigs don't really matter, just use what seems necessary


A lot of people you might fly with will call you stupid for using a tornado in L3 missions, but trust me on this one: They got no clue how to pilot. I never lost a Nado in PvE, neither in L3s or L4s.

I ran all L3 in that fit (Dark Blood - Blockade L3 -- ~20 minutes including accepting mission, piloting and warping back/handing it in), when I encountered a spiderdrone, I warped out and back in something that can kill those. Sometimes you can volley them on approaching.

For L4, a well skilled Tornado runs a couple easily. A few L4s got non avoidable webs though, or situations in general that force you to not rangetank, so you might need a maelstrom or later a sleipnir.

Anyways, stay away from the hurricane and the cyclone for L3s if possible, calling them subpar is actually still giving them Kudos regarding how they get the job done.



Clarification: I think I made around 150k LP using that fitting in L3s, and the completion times are normally around 1/3 of what a cyclone/hurricane needs. It might be an investment at start, but it's waaaaay better than throwing your money away to buy a pve-hurricane. pve-hurricanes are for c1/c2 wormhole-sites, they are the wrong choice for basically everything else.

Thanks all for the valuable input.

I'll try the above recommendations out as soon as possible (and read it all first more thoroughly since I was a bit short on time due to x-mas (merry Christmas to all btw)) and keep that Tornado fit in the back of my mind since I do love the ship itself- which is after all the real reason to fly it!

Unfortunately i'm stuck on Tech 4's at max for most of the things, but I am aiming for Tech II's as soon as possible. Now it's just a matter of making the right skill choices at the right time

**** yes, I am happy about that aswell. Dafuq was wrong with all those missile names, and who the hell needs an YT-8 Hypercarbon Spacedrive if it's the only MWD that you ever fit (ever=98% of the time).

To the meta levels: Using Tech II (meta 5) guns is plainly awesome, they don't take that long to train and amplify your damage for little money.

Aside from that, meta 3 guns are the most cost-efficient (in my opinion) - especially as you most likely won't use the 'scouts' (meta 4) for long enough to profit by that additional investment.

On a sidenote: Drones V and combat-drone operation / drone interfacing to IV are about as awesome as Tech II guns, takes around 10 days and god it's so worth it.


Anyways, as you stated earlier that you are interested in pvp: The cyclone is one of the most generally useful 'few-people-in-my-fleet' - pvp-ship there is. Every skillpoint you invest in that ship is soooo not wasted at all!