Missions & Complexes

made a mistake second post lol!

If that is the only way you know to make isk, switch between ships, turret types etc. All kind of mix and match stuff you can do. In the end though missions become mind numbing and you realize there are far more lucrative avenues.

Where are DED complexes anyway? Are they in high sec? I'm still not up for solo flying in low or null. I've been part of a 50-75 man fleet my corp throws together now and again for a low and null roam (Last time my Atron dropped out of warp on top of an exploding bomb a hound had dropped ), but know next to nothing about surviving outside highsec LOL! I might be more willing to leave highsec on my own once I have a fat stack of isk to absorb losses. My character may be almost a year old, but I spent several months just updating my skill que, and 3-4 months unsubscribed due to being unemployed. I only got into L4's and flying BS's in the past month.

Also, I don't want to join a player corp. Too much drama and wardecs. I'm in a NPC corp that is actually organized and does stuff and I'm happy. We even have a website LOL!

Pretty much anywhere. Ded 3s and 4s spawn in highsec and the cerb you were thinking of can enter them. Just need a probe launcher to find them.

Afaik Henry Plantagenent spends most of your (and my) timezone announcing whatever loot just dropped from his exploration on CAS chat so you should have a good picture of how much loot a dedicated highsec prober is extracting :)

Start a locust fleet assign a couple of guys to salvaging then have the rest in maxed dps BS killing the npc. Your isk/h should stay roughly the same and you'll have a lot more fun as flying in a fleet is always more fun.

It's fairly easy to cross-train into Minmatar from Caldari. Just throwing that out there for the OP, in support of your suggestion. :)

Minmatar is primarily shield-tanked, so you won't have to bother too much about training a whole new tanking system. Many Minmatar ships use missiles as a primary or secondary weapon system, which you obviously already have. The only thing that might take a little while is training projectile turrets; but in the scheme of EVE's timeline, really, the time it would take to train to Large Projectile Turret is nothing.

Get a jump clone in all 4 empires and fly 4 different mission ships. Salvage and loot everything and use industry to make more money off of your reprocessed stuffs. LP and non LP wise. Each region has its ups and downs, and requires different strategies.

Right now the market is doing good because everybody is rushing SOE LP for the upcoming expansion.

It's really the gear that makes the mach. The reason people use cruise missile Battleships is because they can MJD and be used at long range and they can fit 4x damage mods and a strong tank as if you really need much tank at 100km.

The mach works so well because it fits a full rack of damage and tracking mods. Generally you are left with only 3 or 4 mid slots to fit a shield tank on a ship that has no tanking bonus. The mach is an investment more than just a hull. Fleet tempest, Vargur, Fleet phoon are also good options. These ships are generally close to medium range DPS ships with very low tank.

The maelstrom is more of a tanking ship so you loose DPS and a lot of mobility. If you are looking for fun to fly then you really want a ship specialized in DPS. The maelstrom, being close range and slow, might leave you struggling with keeping the tank running as well as burning a micro warp drive to get in shooting range.

The pith tanked Vagabond does over 650 DPS and tanks very well. Fun to fly but for what it cost, it's really better to go with a mach for more DPS. Pith tanks are not cheap.

Overall, Minmatar Autocannon ships are better options because they are more agile and faster than Blaster boats with a little better range. Lasers struggle against things resistant to EM and thermal, otherwise Pulse lasers and scorch are bad to the bone. Missiles have poor damage application. Missile boats do have the best survivability but that isn't fun.

My current advise, Farm isk with what you can. After the next expansion, the Vargur very well may be the ship of choice.

In my experience, the only way you can make L4s interesting is to do something that's not L4s on the side - talk with people, watch stuff, listen to music, podcasts and such, read webcomics. L4s are deeply flawed when it comes to the fun factor - when they're difficult, they're difficult in a way that's unexciting and just drags out instead of challenging you. When they're easy, they're trivial and just a routine, a chore.

I see them as a necessary reliable income that I resort to now and then, but if you can afford it, you're better off avoiding them than trying to solve the impossible riddle of making them fun. Do something else, and explore different ways of making money, be creative, do your research because you've only experienced the tip of the iceberg. Hell, I could bet anything that you'd have more fun if you found a proper corp that actually creates its own content instead on relying on monotonous missions.

I'd like to address one more point as well - you don't need to keep piling up your ISK hoard to PVP. T1 PVP frigates can cost as little as 5 mil (with effective, t2 fits). Do some missions, and then do some cheap-ship PVP, it's a nice balanced approach that won't kill your wallet, but will kill your boredom. Don't even worry about your sec status, you're gaining a ton from missions and there's always tags if you go overboard with podding (not a good idea due to killrights).

I've never liked the idea of Artillery because they fire extremely slow. As for the tank, I always go tracking enhancers and shield tank. A very expensive shield tank with full crystal implants. Before I had a Deadspace tank, I dropped DPS and tracking for extra tank helping mods such as cap flux, power diagnostic and or damage control.

The advantage to artillery on the other hand is that you could try using it with a MJD and it might actually be worth doing. Just keep the guns split because it might only take one or two turrets to single shot a frigate once you are putting out max DPS.
Don't forget hardwires as well. +3 gunnery mods are cheap.