Ships & Modules

So I'm back from quite a long break and I find that the split bonus Minmatar ships have been fixed.* Hooray!

Looking at the Typhoon in particular, it's got a bonus to launcher ROF and explosion velocity. Given the ridiculously long range of cruise missiles, it seems like a Cruise Typhoon for PvE would be better in every way than a Cruise Raven; the Raven's range bonus is wasted, and the 'Phoon's EV bonus helps with damage application. I don't see it being much different with torps: the range bonus could be useful, but the 'Phoon is fast enough to help compensate for it, and that EV bonus would really shine with torps (especially if you coupled them with a target painter).

Aside from the slot layout being more conducive to armor tanking (and sheer stubbornness), is there any reason at this point to use a Raven over a 'Phoon for PvE?

(Of course, with the "new to me" drone range/tracking bonus on a Domi I think a Sentry Domi would likely be better than either of them, but that's another matter entirely. )



*Except the Typhoon Fleet Issue. Sigh. I guess they couldn't all get fixed....

Your numbers for the Typhoon and Raven are extremely low. With a decent fit you can get:

1239dps@30km or 1139@80km with a T2 fit Typhoon (with a cheap DG X-Large Booster)

978dps@80km or 888dps@122km with a T2 fit Typhoon (with a cheap DG X-Large Booster)

The Typhoon needs good sentry skills as well so it's far more skill intensive, but if you have the skills it's definitely a better option than a Raven IMO. A little bit more work to fly as you have to deal with sentry aggro and you get less tanking slots, but it can achieve better completion times than a Raven can on most missions.

I've been playing around with a Typhoon for doing L4's. The only problem I've had is with Serpentis rats. The 'Phoon doesn't have a lot of range to begin with and you can get damped down pretty hard.

Against anything else the Typhoon is a pretty good missioning ship.

I fit mine with a MWD, or AB+MJD, and full rack of cruises. One XL DG booster in the mids with two mission specific hardeners. I typically have one mid slot open for utility, extra tank. 3 BCU's in the lows, with dual Nanofibers, DCU 2 or and a sensor boosting low slot thingy... can't remember the name of it. Gives a little extra range. I played around with the rigs. I think I settled on one rigor, a prop rig, and shield/fitting rig.

I take two flights of Hammerheads and a flight of Hobs to deal with annoying frigates.

Basically warp in to the pocket, pulse your MWD and kite the damage from the rats while spitting cruises at the BS's and kiting everything else. Once all the BS's are dead, I mop up the small stuff with the drones. If you get webbed or scrammed and start taking damage, I just warp out of the pocket, repair, and come back. Doesn't happen too often.

Alternatively with the MJD+AB you can basically do the same thing, agro a pack, MJD away, pelt with missiles, kill small stuff with drones when it gets close.

The Phoon is really brittle but you can get close to 1200 DPS out of them. I prefer to do less damage and capitalize on how fast it is compared to other BS hulls. The only other BS (that I know of) hull that is faster is the Machariel.

He asked about a Typhoon, not a TFI. If we're including Navy fits in the mix, TFI blows the Navy Domi out of the water, in no way is it "best".

If you have a lot of money for the tank and a lot of drone skills I can give you some TFI fits. You can easily fit a sensor booster in the mid, and one in the low if you really need it.

The Fleet Typhoon has 8.75 effective launchers and 9.6 effective turrets. I dont know how much more fixing you think it needs.

The CNR's precision bonus and mighty alpha (and it's 7 mids :p) do make it an extremely relaxing ship to do missions in. You don't really have to pay attention to anything much, including counting volleys because the CMLs go fast enough that they generally hit anything in range before the launchers cycle. Warp in, set course for the gate, blap all the BS with Furies, then blap all the smaller ships with T1. Job done.

The Fleet phoon will put out a good bit more DPS, but all the mission fits that I've seen that produce this DPS look like they're flying on something of a knife edge. So if you want 10-12-15% more ISK/hr and you're prepared to put in 2-3x the atttention to get it, go for it. That's too much work for a tired old man like me.

But then, if you're prepared to actually pay attention to your PvE, then why not get a Nightmare or a Mach and go do Incursions tbh (or a Stratios for lo-sec plexes)?

I think you doing it wrong. The main advantage is the better mobility and the bigger drone bay(use sentry drones), on the fleet phoon bigger drone bay + bonuses turrets. If you use a mjd just use a raven, since you can't utilize the drone bay and turrets anyway at 100km and just end up with more volley counting(because against targets over 50km the first volley will still be in space when the 2. starts, different to the raven where it is about 70km).

The fleet phoon is most effective if you use a mwd, switch around painters a lot and omni scripts. It is kind of a lot micromanagement in reality. On the plus side you nearly never have to count volleys if you move the hull within garde II range anyway.

You would be completely correct. I meant to say pulsing a MWD not an MJD to kite. The T1 Phoon is pretty zippy as it is, I get around 1200 if I leave the MWD running with dual nanos. But in most instances I'm up against Angel mission rats, and Angel BS tracking simply can't cope with the transversal. I barely use my booster on most normal missions. Blockade and Worlds Collide give me a little problem, but it's mostly due to me shooting triggers before I'm ready for the next wave.

Is there any decent fit based on cruise missiles? Or its a NONO without sentry drones?

It is about as good as Raven without sentries - although with heavies getting a speed boost in upcoming patch in few days these might be somewhat useful after the Kronos patch. It can still carry quite a number of medium drone waves without sentries. Alternative is to use T1 suicide sentries - just kick em out and leave them to die letting them do (hopefully) some damage in the process.

What I like to use is:
6x Cruise ii 1x small gatling pulse 1x drone control range
1x propulsion 1x drone tracking (or navigation, i guess) and some tank
4x cn bcu 3x drone damage amp ii
2x rigors 1x missile speed

The point of small pulse is to act as a drone trigger (I'm sometimes using more than one of these in a group with other guys drones slaved to one guy) - you can squeeze in also some republic AC, but its mostly on paper dps which is hard to apply without tracing computers and enchanchers. Getting away with split weapon system is kinda okish with dual weapons but using all three systems .. well .. that is tricky, at best. Cheaper faction propulsion can be good idea to conserve a bit of cap, if you are needing it for something (i.e, have regular shield booster or something). Dont be afraid to use ancilliary stuff (if you can afford it cpu wise) or cap injector (instead of drone tracking/navigation) if needed.

I personally prefer to use Bouncer II's for PvE. They have more or less same range as your non-sebo'd locking range.

As pointed out this thing is damn tight on CPU, especially if you start fitting missile rigs. As there is not much options to "save CPU" other than tank if you already go for navy BCU's then that is where I save usually. I'm getting away with pretty basic and non-blingy buffer setup most of the time (navy hulls have quite healthy buffer compared to base BS hulls) but ofc if you end up in trouble then you are in trouble. Another alternative is as posted above, dropping something for a CPU mod and/or going bling-bling in tank. I personally do not believe in Gist stuff as I have yet to see a rat I can tank to death. Navy damage specific hardeners are pretty ok bang-for-buck on the other hand to save some CPU without skyrocketing the setup price. I would suggest keeping the cost of the fitted modules within approx 1 bil ballpark to not paint a target on your hull. I see mission-runners getting ganked on regular basis in mission hubs. Usually Tengus but if you bling a BS hull enough it would be also worth the effort.

Take it with grain of salt. It has been a long while since I have flown only a single ship in a L4 mission. But it works okish for me so far.