Missions & Complexes

Good evening,

I have read many good threads about level 4 mission ships that usually drift towards the pros and cons of the different Navy ships. At this point in time, I do not have the ISK to properly take advantage of the benefits those might provide me. I do not claim to know the intricacies of level 4 missions as I am still learning, but I would like to fly a cruise missile battleship in these missions as strongly suggested by many players.

Since a Navy ship is currently out of my reach, I assume I am now looking at the Raven or the Typhoon. I have played around a bit on SiSi with both ships, but a master of fittings, EFT, and soufflés I am not. So my main question and quandary is this, for someone like myself (And hopefully others with the same question), is there a strong reason or recommendation for one ship over the other? I am not knowledgeable enough about the two ships to come to a concise conclusion, so I leave it in your hands.

Thank you, and have a pleasant evening.

Typhoon is better armor tanked Raven is better shield tanked. Both are a bit troublesome with low SP, the typhoon possibly more. The typhoon lost the ability to use a full flight of sentries, which makes the Raven the (slightly) better choice ATM IMHO.

IF you have reasonable sentry skils, the Typhon is superior at this point, otherwise go for the raven.

Points of note.
- Both get get 6 bonused launchers, so weaponry is basically identical.
- The expl. velocity bonus on the phoon is significant, it will make it much easier for you to hit smaller ships without sacrificing rig slots.
- Sentries are also a large boon for the phoon. They can generally take care of anything smaller than a BC before it gets in range of you so you can keep your missiles focused on larger ships where they do full damage.
- The phoon can be either armor or shield tanked. You should be using a MJD for a cruise/sentry fit so that you are burning things down as they come into your range, the 5 mids for a MJD + 4 slot tank should be plenty if you manage things properly. For EM heavy NPCs, a three slot armor tank is plenty of tank as well.
- The additional range the raven get's is basically irrelevant. I hit in the 120 range on the phoon as is. You're engagement range will exceed your targeting range by quite a bit on a cruise raven unless you start wasting slots on boosting range, so the range bonus is basically a waste.

Both are capable ships, but for a T1 cruise boat, the phoon is generally superior at this point. The geddon is worth mentioning as well, but is setup for sentries first, missiles second.

My recommendation... T1 BSs are a stepping stone from a PvE point of view. If you want to keep ratting/missioning you're going to end up moving on to Navy/Pirate/T2 sooner or later. That considered, pick the race(s) that fit the ship that is your long term goal, and fly the T1 BS that is on the path to that ship.

Edit: Here's the phoon I've been playing around with in 0.0 anoms since the patch. About 650 DPS (700+ if you want to use navy missiles) with my skills, fun/easy ship to fly.

[Typhoon, Anom]

Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Core C-Type Large Armor Repairer

Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
F-90 Positional Sensor Subroutines, Targeting Range Script
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron

'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
Medium 'Arup' Remote Bulwark Reconstruction

Large Anti-Thermic Pump I
Large Drone Control Range Augmentor I
Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst I


Imperial Navy Curator x4

I'd also recommend getting a micro jump drive as this will allow you to get away with a weaker tank as you can ping yourself 100km in any direction.

The advice and information in your responses has been amazing, and I thank you for the thoughtful answers. I thought I would answer a few points mentioned in case you are following the post.

Schmata: I agree with you about Navy and Pirate hulls, and look forward to playing with them in the future, perhaps in an incursion.

Cipher: With missioning I previously assumed that you would want to fit as many damage modules as you could, so would this mean an armor tanked battleship is a little less preferred if a handful is needed for a tank?

Chainsaw: I heard nothing, in fact that shield booster being sold by some dude with a monocle for 200 million sure sounds tempting. On drones I do not have the best of skills, but it would only take me about 5 days to field sentries if I decided to go with them to augment damage.

Dyphorus: The explosion velocity bonus is one of the jewels that attracted me more to the Typhoon. The MJD + 4 slot shield tank would prevent a target painter, do you think a target painter exclusion would be a major negative for going that direction?

Jen: Nothing worth doing is easy right?

Hmskrecik: You are correct in that I have no requirement on race. I am open to every race, and the Dominix sure is a frightening boat.

Thank you all again, and I am constantly blown away by the kindness and helpfulness of fellow Eve players. I am fully prepared, however, to be blown to giblets by any of you if you were to catch me being an idiot in low/null. That is what Eve is right, a volley of love bullets, or perhaps a rocket propelled explosive hug.

It depends on the exact scenario. Typhoon has 7 low slots, so 3 for damage is OK. Most people run BCU's and Drone damage amps, so that would be 6 slots. Which is why they shield tank. 3 damage 4 tank with rigs for tank (armor) is doable. It also depends on the mods. I run mods that cost as much as a navy hull in the lows so that I can armor tank efficiently.

The typhoon has high resists for Sanshas, medium resists for serpenits and mercs, and not so good against angels. I use mine just for sanshas so that I dont have to swap mods, and use a machariel for angels. Utility is more important than raw DPS a lot of times. For my mids on my TFI i run an AB, TP. Web, Omnidirectional, and cap booster. It slaughters frigates with that setup and faction missiles. Mid slots are also good for eccm or tracking boosts vs guristas or serpentis respectively.

Hence why I said with low SP it can be troublesome.

Thank you, though it's not my idea, being honest. It was hinted on Battleclinic by the guy commenting my own fit, the one with Autocannons. ;)

And it works quite well but requires a bit of forward planning, with regard to both place where you want to be and time, when cooldown ends and you can jump again.


Funny thing is, Domi has also bonus to drones' tank. It all depends on situation but still when I find my sentries being attacked I don't pull them before shields completely go down. Which usually takes a while by which time I quite often manage to kill the aggressor.

Which of course doesn't mean one doesn't have to keep an eye on those sentries. I only say they can take some beating, esp. if happens from MJD's 100km distance.

I'm not selling mine! I'm just glad I got mine cheap, although I'd say they are at the price they are at more so because they are awesome on tengus. the point was you could do things with low sp if you really wanted to.

but yea sentries are pretty awesome, just remember your shortcut for recall drones and sit on top of them, makes it really hard to lose them. buy a few faction sentries and you should be good to go!