Missions & Complexes

Incursions would probably be a better option than 5's if your in it for the ISK. You still might have to deal with some shenanigans, but at least they are in hisec.

Yes... because it's impossible for their -10 alt to scan you down and observe you.

> I have tried very hard to find current information about level 5 missions.
l5 missions are surrounded with misinformation, some deliberate, a lot because people are morons and/or obsolete.

> Or are level 5s so over run by pirates and griefers that they flat out can't be done?
Low sec pirates are comically ineffective. Its trivially easy to bypass them using basic tricks like instawarps, cloak, near unprobable fits, and basic scouting.

Also, if you want to try l5s without risk, visit cale greys. Although the agent is based in 0.4FW space, he often sends you missions next door to high sec (there are several other l5s that do this as well). In this way you can learn to manage the missions and tank before dealing with the pvp aspect.

> What ship class is viable?
Ignore all the haters, run t3. The other junk is worthless except for high sec l5s. The method I used was:

Cloaky, Passive Tanked Tengu <-- served as scout and tank, only did like 200 dps
High DPS Tengu <-- 750 dps, minor tank for emergencies, made both ships unprobable

The tank scouted both ships between gates, then warped into missions to aggro them. DPS tengu warped in and blew everything apart. Missions average about 3-15 minutes to complete. Of course this is for Kin/Therm damage type, but similar combinations work well for other missions.

Another common method is DPS/buffer tengu + logi, but this has less DPS I find. Then there are the people in solo rattlesnakes and the like, but that is extremely slow and not viable outside of high sec.

> Is the loot and salvage any better than level 4s?
No, its just more of it. I typically didn't waste my time salvaging, I just blitzed the l5s.

> What's the next challenge?
Honestly, I'd suggest incursions or wormholes. Considering the hassle, l5s are only slightly more valuable than l4s. I made about 250 mil an hour between two accounts, counting setup time and hauling. The fits I used were fairly expensive, a bil or so each.

The pvp and missions themselves are pretty easy to deal with, but require specialized fits and setup time. Also, the profit is paid in massive amounts of low value LP, meaning you need to do a lot of hauling, market research, and time spent dumping the LP. All the while competing against other bears. And look at the prices of large value items that are easy to sell -- ISK/LP of 600 or lower is the norm, and you don't have access to any good BPs.

TL;DR - Run l4s for Ducia Foundry in high sec.

Fixed that for you.

And after it they start to whine at the forum "buhahaha low is so emtpy. rise reward buhahahaah".

I've run lvl5's for the past 2 years as my main source of income and ran them for about a year prior to that as a supplemental source. So I'll try to answer your questions as best I can.

1) Are lvl5's overrun with pirates? Yes and no. Most of the lvl5 runners are the pirates. Obviously they have no trouble with the local pirate alliance. Anyone else however is going to have a bad day.

2) Are they amazingly profitable and it's a giant secret? They can be pretty lucrative but it requires substantial effort. The reason is the loot/isk is no better than a typical lvl4. The real pay comes from the ~100k LP per mission. It's never been a secret really, the problem is the previous point keeps 99.9% of players away from them. Obviously since LP values are player determined, they wouldn't be lucrative at all if this was not the case. It can be a tricky balancing act on the part of players. Level 5's are frequently not the best source of income for high SP players in low/null sec, it depends on how saturated the LP market is. So most lvl5 runners also do exploration sites (low, null and w-space) when the faction goodies aren't selling.

3) Can they be solo'd? How many people does it take? What kinds of ships are needed? Yes, one and carrier for the short version. A solo carrier can run any ungated lvl5 (about half the mission pool) with ease and complete safety (assuming friendly locals). The gated ones are trickier, generally you'll want something along the lines of a full passive rattlesnake to tank the room + some dps. So a reasonable number is two and you can easily dual client it. Alternatively you can use an active tanker (golem/vargur) with a ship cap transferring to it. I've had good success with that. The augoror is perfect for such a function with a cloak on it to avoid taking aggro from new spawns. Do be aware that in either subcapital case, you will be spending around 2-3B isk on the tank ship since they must be able to survive 3k+ dps sustained and that really is the absolute minimum you can get away with.

4) Are they the next thing up from high sec lvl4's? No, they are not. As said, you have to be on good terms with the local low sec alliance. You must know how to pvp, you must know how probing out ships works and on top of that, you have to be able to survive the mission itself. They are radically different from lvl1-4 missions in their design as well. I dare say that incursions are actually the next step from high sec lvl4's as they are in effect, group missions. Level 5's are basically solo/duo missions that require expensive ships to run and thorough pvp knowledge to avoid getting massacred by guys like me.

I'm not trying to discourage you although I'm sure that's what it looks like. But I think you have the wrong idea on them. I view lvl5's as a resource available to low sec residents. It's sort of like moon goo out in null sec or their anomalies in upgraded systems. It's not enough to just go 30 jumps from wherever you currently live and try to run them. That won't work. You must actually live there and control that swath of territory. They are a contested resource and if you aren't prepared to fight off guys like me then you will not keep it.

Once you control a swath of territory so that you can focus on the mission rather than worrying about the locals, it gets pretty simple. The rats are just as dumb as they are in lvl4's and the missions are 100% predictable. You know exactly what you'll face every time, what the objective is and whether or not it's worth killing everything or just blitzing for the LP. Eve survival has a fairly up to date guide on all the missions, even the newest one (mass drivers). So no worries there. Not that you'll need any such guides if you fit your ships properly. The missions aren't exactly complicated, just more annoying than your typical lvl4.

You can definitely do it in an area with no blues, but you had better know who the dangerous guys are and who you can basically ignore as said. It certainly helps if they are hesitant to attack you as well. I've run them in systems full of hostiles who knew I was running them, but they just wouldn't do anything about it because they were too afraid of me to attack. Some of those fears were legitimate, others were not. It's amazing what you can bluff your way through in this game.

ISK per hour the best income source is high sec incursions hands down everywhere else is just short by comparision

I would like to point out that the guy in the tengu with the Xl booster is and IDIOT and if you lisen to him you will die. The fortress can cap out and kill a carrier, and yes i have seen it from people who dident know how to run it and tried to blitz it and the 8k dps with no cap killed them. I have also seen people warp in supers then have to warp in a carrier to save the super because it was capped out and hung on something and couldent warp, so please by all means believe that idiot, there are some missions with no nuets but very few and they still do a ton of dps and no you wont be able to tank them cap stable for very long.