Missions & Complexes

CCP did the right thing, they say
Adapt to that, ya morons.
http://postimage.org/image/s2p7v200l/full/
http://postimage.org/image/3z9anndcx/full/

P.S. and soon TD will affect missiles too

Troll or real?

I started training missiles to counter the TD problem, maybe not the best plan...

It's real. It was ment to come in Retribution, but CCP pulled it so people could adapt to missile changes. Of course, the upside of it will be that TCs and TEs will affect missiles as well.

And ye, those stacked TDs tend to be a bit on the insane side at times. Once missiles get affected by it, I guess the best way to deal with it will be drones (more targets for EW and more independant dps).

OP's problem is not TDs (obviously), but amount of frigates his Cruise missiles can't hit for s*** and his drones getting killed.

Unfortunately, missle boats is kind of mission running hardware I can't come up with good solution for.

The thing is, NPC EWAR in missions is very easy to outrange by using MJD, SeBo and maybe some range mods (probably it's 5th time I state this on these boards within last 24 hours), then destroying anything with any kind of EWAR you don't like with long-range ammo. This also solves the problem of anything small - "improved" approach-F1-screw-angular rat AI ftw, though only gunboats and droneboats work for that well (the only problem is that Wardens and Bouncers are your long-range drones, and their damage type isn't stellar against Sansha and BR we seem to be talking about at the moment, but oh well).

Missile boats, on the other hand, just don't have anything to destroy swarming frigates. Sure, things like Navy Raven could take 3 sentries and a flight of light drones and use those sentries on approach against frigs, but then they'll be doing DPS of said flight of light drones, if not less, and it's just not enough to take out elite frigs in anything resembling timely manner, not to be said about drone control range issue it will face.

Sure, you can do like some dedicated mission runners I met who have like 4 ships just to run different missions with optimal speed, but IMO it kills entire purpose of running missions. While ISK/hour may be good, imagine the time it takes to get and fit all those mission boats. I don't think it will pay off fast enough. Unless your goal is collecting mission boats ofc.

I don't know if Tengu is correct answer to that if you would like to keep using missiles. Sure, it's not really an optimal ship, but maybe it'll still be faster than using BS missile platform when it somes to such frig swarms...

Please, post if you have some ideas.

EDIT:
Noticed this post in another thread:

I'm not missile expert, but maybe that is an answer after all. The obvious downside is that you'll need T2 weapons, something you'd better have than not for almost any ship out there, but definitely it's not a strict requirement for guns and drones...

Drones can be useful, but there are a lot of other things to consider when using drones. You should also keeping mind that drones work best against non elite rats.

The tracking disruptors seem to have 50km optimal and 20km falloff, you might have a better chance using a long range weapon setup. Which also have a lot of other limitations...

We don't have the same experience then.

I started using a Painter on my mission boat 18 missions ago, and since then my Light Drones didn't get aggroed once, even with a swarm of 20+ frigates orbiting me ... heck, I even "paint" a lonely cruiser that I keep for last, and it works.

They changed the mechanic, nothing except ELITE frigs and cruisers will target light drones, it has nothing to do with the target painter.

Target Painter is an e-war module, which increases your threat level ... just saying.


NPC Tackle Frigs are very vulnerable to
Stasis Webbifier
Target Painter
T2 Precision Missiles
all 3 combined means even Elite Frigs only last a few volleys

Web&Paint works well with Drones too, lets them kill things faster.

Target Painter (and prolly the rest of ewar as well, though I never tried it) always protected drones from sleeper AI, recent changes have nothing to do with that.

This is trolling, contributes nothing too, thanks for coming ...