Missions & Complexes

the thing with lvl5s and "actually doing them in fleets" instead of just blitzing solo, is that you must try to stay T1. moving into t2 and bringing logistics just makes you a gank magnet.

currently drakes with med RR can do all lvl5s, the critical mass point is 5 drakes, less than that and it will either take too long, tanks wont hold, or you wont be able to fend off ganks. any pirate scanning 5 drakes on a mission site knows hes in for a long, boring fight, that could easily go wrong due to the obscene alpha drakes still have + all the free med slots for ewar/webs/point. so most wont bother you.

but after the next patch its over, drakes need to go full ****** on the tank, and the utility high is gone. so you will have to sacrifice even MORE dps to fit RR... and yeah i tried lvl5s with drakes on sisi, doesn't work, or to make it work you end with 180DPS "Purger" drakes... the poor fat bastards are just too slow, both to move around the pocket, and to kill stuff.

we tried using 650mm artycanes + t1 scythes, and it works just fine. i was flying 4 canes 650mm, another corpmate was on a 220mmAC cane, and some random dude we recruited from 6-CZ49 was on t1 logi. :p all canes with 3 gyros, dcuII and 2 nanos.

the HUGE problem is the gate warp in on missions like honor that have 2k+ dps + webs + neuts on the first damn second, and with the buffer on a cane being the crap that it is... takes two or three warp ins to get it right, but once you have distance, and the room controlled the alpha you have negates all reps on NPCs, and your speed allows you to kite with no problem. im guessing if i weren't flying all 4 it could have gone beter. :p but it was needed for testing.

as far as logistics goes, scythes with large reps and 4 - 5 small cap xfers from the canes work great and easily replace t2 logis, just get them in the room last, when the canes are at warp distance from the warp in (30 secs if burning ABs, could be way less with mwds), the canes can survive with small RR + speed tank for a while.

mission completion time with 4 canes on long range DPS, and one killing off frigs is surprisingly good, but if you get ganked you don't have the free meds the old drakes had... that means the one web on the 220mm cane is all you have. no point, no ewar. anyawy, you still have the ewar drones to escape... if that's your thing.

and as far as pvp while on lvl5s, it will happen, and you don't want to avoid it by "docking up if neutrals are on local" if you play that game you will never undock on lvl5 systems. almost 80% of the time it will be a pirate trying to alpha or Jam the logi ship and then warping off. ECCM is recommended, as it is to fly in formation at RR distance from the logi. (the new cane still has a utility high.) the other 20% of the time it will be a lolhotdrop and you will end up making a post ranting and asking for a nerf on "power projection" on GD.

the whole point of flying t1 is to make the whole experience fun, since you will lose fleets from time to time. keep in mind that with 5 - 6 people taking lvl5 missions from the same agent you are bound to get 3 that will be blitzable, and should be blitzable, and 2 that could be rewarding to do the old way. so for every fleet mission, you will get a good 60k - 80k free LP from all the blitzes in between. even if you screw it, the ships will be paid for already.

im pretty sure someone will be a smart ass and tell you not to ever do one LVL5 if not via blitz.... they just don't know when to stop min-maxing, and have some fun.