Missions & Complexes

I'd say get yourself a navy raven if you are focused on missiles.

The general progression is: Caracal > Drake > Raven > (CNR || SNI || Golem)

Some people would include the Rattlesnake in that last bunch but its not really a missile boat.

Mission running efficiency honestly comes down to your ship and the grinding pace your willing to set.

Personally I find a single station with at least two level IV agents and a storyline agent within 1-2 jumps.

I accept and run every mission (two at a time) that isn't an anti Faction mission (those I decline). I will wait out a timer if I get offered too many anti-empire-faction missions. This rarely happens to me for the most part.

Mathmatically speaking, there is an old post somewhere that explains as long as you complete your faction storyline missions, you can cherry pick missions and decline the rest. It takes some 20 or 30 declines to cancel out a single storyline mission (with the empire faction).

Depending on how much effort I want to put into it, I will run 2 to 4 missions at a time, then come back in a nautics and salvage / loot everything. If you haul your stuff to market you will find the loot is JUST as valuable as all the rat bounties you shot out and takes less time, increasing your isk gain (but slowing your LP gain).

Actual Mission efficiency comes down to your hull, your skills, and how you fly.

Move into a battleship hull.

Are you AB fit at the very least?

Are you using long range weapon systems? (This is a BIG point for quickly grinding missions). You should be able to aply damage at 35km - 60km at a minimum for fast blitzing.



DPS comparison chart =


600+++ DPS tank - 350 or less DPS - You are a motionless brick tanker (dominix / drake). Slow mission running.

500 DPS tank - 450 DPS - Minimum needed to actually accomplish mission running.

450 DPS tank - 550 DPS - You finally loaded a damage enhancer. Good for you!

400 DPS tank - 600 DPS - Sweet, that's two damage enhancers... Almost there

400 DPS tank - 650 DPS - Ahh, you remembered you damage mod implants! - Great spot to be if you don't have elite skills.

350 DPS tank - 700-800 DPS - This is a "standard" high efficiency Level IV mission setup. Remember to watch you NPC agro.

250-300 DPS tank - 900-1100 DPS

----- Advanced mission running. Your paranoid about loosing your ship (You took your DCU off to get that last mag stab / tracking enhancer on there). Your are in a faction pirate BS and you all ready know exactly witch missions your gonna 'dip' into structure on when shooting out rats. Your faction fit with +5% implants, and your entire setup costs 2-8 billion isk.


A good way to check efficiency is watch your bounty kick outs. Different mission rythm's will of course effect you payouts, but here are some good rules of thumb.

2 million a tick (20 minutes) - go back to blitzing level III's. Your DPS isn't high enough.

4 million a tick - Getting there. You are beating out level III's at this point.

6-8 million a tick - Standard optimization. 800 DPS output

9-13 million a tick - very few level IV missions have this available, but it IS possible if DPS is over 900. You /can/ easily manage this in null sec havens and sanctums.

Patrice Macmahon -- very informative reply! A few follow-up questions if you have a minute...

Are you AB fit at the very least?

>> Yes, 10MN Afterburner II

Are you using long range weapon systems? (This is a BIG point for quickly grinding missions). You should be able to aply damage at 35km - 60km at a minimum for fast blitzing.

>> Maximum range on my Heavy Missile Launchers II is 54km with ammo


450 DPS tank - 550 DPS - You finally loaded a damage enhancer. Good for you!

>> What sort of damage enhancer are we talking about for this setup?

My current setup on my Drake is roughly this (swapping out EM/Therm/Kin mids based on mission damage types):

Low "Ballistic Control System II"
Low "Ballistic Control System II"
Low "Ballistic Control System II"
Low "Beta Reactor Control: Shield Power Relay I"

Mid "Large Shield Extender II"
Mid "Large Shield Extender II"
Mid "Kinetic Deflection Amplifier II"
Mid "Thermic Dissipation Amplifier II"
Mid "Adaptive Invulnerability Field II"
Mid "10MN Afterburner II"

High "Heavy Missile Launcher II" x 6
Rig "Medium Core Defense Field Purger I" x 3

Drones "Hornet II" x 5

Thanks again.

@ Jonas,


The 500 Tank - 550 DPS is meant for a battleship with one or two Ballistic Control Systems. It also represents a solid skill set in damage support skills.

You are still using a Drake. Which /can/ slow boat level IV's. With the smaller sig radius and movement you effective Tank is near the 500-600 mark. Your hurting in the DPS department (which is where moving up to a battleship hull comes into play).

As far as the fit you posted. It's perfect for a standard mission drake. You COULD get DPS up even higher if you started faction fitting it. With faction hardeners and what not you could even push for a target painter to increase effective DPS further. But for all practical purposes, you have maximum potential out of you hull (not counting pushing skills to level V)

Your next move is to up ship once your battleship skill hits IV.

First Off, Caldari ships are the worst for Speed, isk/hour. The are the best for negating Damage and being easy to use.


At 350 DPS, it is taking you Ages to run a mission. That sounds like WAY to much trouble to me.

To Break it down. Take your 350 DPS from your drake. Now consider that a BS rat is tanking 200 DPS. That mean you are effectively doing 150 DPS to that Battleship. On the other hand, A Navy Raven with t2 cruise launchers and faction ammo and a full set of +5 missile hardwires and 4x faction BCS is going to give you around 825 DPS. The Damage application on cruise missiles is not the greatest but atleast against BS, you are hitting hard and doing an effective 675 DPS. This is killing the Rats over 4 times faster than your drake.

Now lets say that Speed really is the key factor here. While it's not the thing you just go buy and pimp out overnight but a Max DPS Machariel Is going to give you 1175 DPS and with it's high Rate of Fire, instant damage and guns split in two groups, you are typically killing a frigate or destroyer every 1.5 seconds. So in the time it takes a Raven to launch one volley and be ready for the second, the mach can kill 5 frigates.

It's not long before you are left with just Battleships on the field at that rate. In which case, you are doing an effective 975 DPS after taking the rat's tank into consideration. Getting there is not easy and certainly not cheap. You could even be opting to fit to the point the suicide gankers start eye-balling you. You can get it to the point where even the longest and hardest Level 4 missions can be easily run in less than 30 minutes.

I always recommend wedging a MJD for emergency. It could mean a lower tank but it guarantees you have the ability to get out of any PVE situation.

This is really just written to give you a couple of examples to know what you can potentially expect and understand what you can be working toward. There are many great options to go with. For the cheaper ship, The Dominix really can go the distance.

As much as I love the Scorpion Navy Issue for it's tank, I would not recommend it over the Navy Raven for missions. While it does basically the same DPS on Paper, it's not so hot in practice. Even if you use target painters to make up for the lack of explosion radius bonus the Raven has, the Rate of Fire Bonus is the Scorpion's downfall. It leaves you spending an awful lot of time reloading. That drove me mad when using one for null sec complexes.

The slower Rate of Fire and more launchers makes the Raven better suited for having two missile groups as well as nearly 70% more Volley Damage. This gives you a better chance of actually hitting smaller targets in a single Volley where the Navy scorp can easily require 2-3 volleys.

It's really a matter of player mindset. Prioritize Damage or Prioritize Tank.

It's probably harder to realize those little details when you are spending more time looking at your Avatar's boobs than you are your shields in which case I would suggest go Priority Tank.

Raven+Cruise+MJD is a very efficient boat for its price and will get the job done. A faction fitted Navy Raven isn't much better and you know what will happen eventually if you run missions in crowded/popular systems. It's up to you.

As a player with (probably) fewer total skill points, it makes me kinda sad that you spent all that time training for tech 2 heavy missile launchers, when you could have almost trained tech 2 cruise missiles in that time. Heavy missiles aren't a useful weapon system outside PvE, so its a huge waste to train them to tech 2 when you could have upgraded.

I graduated to a battleship as soon as I had tech 2 shield tanking skills, and even with terrible missile support skills, I was putting out 450 dps with a MJD kiting Raven. For probably a fifth of the SP you invested into your drake. Now I'm doing almost 600 dps with a younger character than yours in a Navy Scorpion, and still have a ways to go before I'm putting out max dps. And I don't even have to refit hardeners between missions even with target painters, which I prefer to the slightly higher dps of a Navy Raven, which seems to be the popular go-to missile ship.

I think its pretty sad that so many people encourage newbies to stick to level three missions for so long. Its not hard to out dps a drake in a battleship at 2-3 million skillpoints. Thats absolutely nothing. By the time a semi-casual player hits enough standings with a mission corp to run level 4s, they should be able to run them at a semi-decent pace.

Upgrade now, stop putting SP into your drake. I promise you won't be disappointed.

You are correct. The only thing that possibly could be considered wasted would be heavy missiles 5 + specializations and battlecruisers 5 if you happened to have trained it. Heavy missiles are absolutely not wasted training time as they are the go-to weapon system for the tengu, which is still arguably one of the most useful and versatile ships in the game.