Ships & Modules

Hey everyone,

I've been piloting an Astero a few weeks now with great success, my drone skills are up and I tend to scout out and achieve most relic sites pretty well now. I am currently working on the Stratios which is a few weeks out from completion and I'm super pumped to see how she flies, especially with the SoE expanded launcher. However! I am finding I don't want to spend all my time in nulsec, (some times of my day are great and quiet, others not so much and I've lost a ship or two and subsequent profits) and would like to start tackling some t1 and t2 missions in highsec (I have clones now so will most likely leave the Astero set up out in nulsec) and am looking at the dragoon or the coerced. Now from what I've read lots of people recommend the coercer over the dragoon, but given my drones skills are high I wondered whether droning would be better? My energy weapon skills are on the rise and I should be able to equip t2 turrets Ina day or two.

So what I'm wondering is people's opinions on the two, fitting them for t1 and potentially t2 missions, and recommended fitting setups for them...


Thanks in advance,
Aphiel

Yeah, but I'd like to park my Astero out in nulsec and use a different rig to mission in, just so that a. if i get caught in a fight in a mission I wasn't expecting I don't loose it, and b. I know I could pilot somehting far more appropriate for them.

As for the expanded, I was just fitting it because I could really, and figured if it can take it, it wouldn't hurt to have it if I needed to scan out wrecks and ships

I would say the keypoint is fun. I have fun flying my Nightmare in level 4 missions and sometimes my Rattlesnake.

For a level 2 I would recommend a cruiser but with more skillpoints and experience you can do them in an Assault ship like the Vengeance or the Retribution.

I even did some level 4 with a Harpy but that was just a prove of concept thing and doesn't earn you much over time but it is fun like going out with friends.

you know the expanded launcher is not a flat upgrade for the normal one right?

its a specific tool for finding player assets i.e. ship , drones , deploy-ables ect ect ...

they're a **** to fit on pretty much anything , yeah the stratios can do it but only with a lot of compromise.
and i do mean a lot , so id have to ask why you want one .

also go for the dragoon, its a little more versatile than the other one

You do not do L1 missions unless you need to fix your faction standings. You train correspondent social skill instead and start L2 missions straight away.

Since you are low in skill and focused on drones I would suggest the passive shield tanked Gnosis for L2 missions and active shield tanked Gnosis for L3. In L2 missions your drones and missiles (or beam lasers - Gnosis is equaly bonused for both) will kill NPC before NPC will dig through shield extenders. In L3 missions it will be hard to maintain the passive tank, but you will be ok with active one. Rapid light missile launcher for L2 (do not need to train correspondent skill pass 4, cause Gnosis is a drone boat) and heavy missile launcher for L3.

It is important to apply correct damage type on NPC when doing missions, and missiles will let you choose the damage type. Check eve-survival before you do mission. If you are serios in missioning you will end up with shield, drones and missile ship - Rattlesnake. Check, what skills needed to fly it effectively and plan skill queue accordingly.

Why not use combat probes? Everything you can scan with core probes you can scan with combat probes, the combat probes have a larger scan radius making them ideal in many systems because you can often cover a system in one initial scan where core probes can take two scans to cover the same area. The only down side I have ever had with using combat probes is the rare signature you cannot lock down to 100%, even then leaving a single combat probe to mark the spot and then launching cores takes very little extra time. And in the end probably the best reason for an explorer to use combat probes especially in in a less safe area tis the ability to switch filter instantly to look for other ships, ships that are outside your d-scan range. This is especially true if you are working cloaked since you do not have to de-cloak to launch different probes.

There is one caution to what I write, there have been two releases since the last time I did any serious scanning so this may have changed.

Here you have the single best reason to use combats, you can switch instantly from sigs to ships.

Looking at the 4 AU from from a celestial aspect combat probes and their greater coverage still have an advantage. There are many systems especially in Caldari space that are so large it is impossible to cover all the celestial objects in a single scan with core probes often leading to the need for 2 and sometimes even 3 scans simply to get basic information on what is there. With the greater coverage of the combat probes most of these systems can be covered in a single initial scan thus reducing the time needed to scan an entire system.

You won't get any basic info with 32 au scan either, pretty sure no sig can get a yellow hit at 32 au so you're just wasting time doing that scan in the first place



Core scanner probes have a lot higher base scan strength and also their minimum scan radius is also 0.25au rather than 0.5au compared to combats

So yes sigs are a lot easier to scan with core scanners

What about an arbitrator or vexor? You are going for a stratios which requires both cruiser skills. A cruiser gives you more tank and room for fun mods plus can easily take level 1 and 2 missions. You can stick with small guns even, using drones as your main damage.

Dragoon also gets nos bonus, which actually is useful in PvE. If you can leech cap from the rats with several nos, you don't need to spend the fitting space on cap boosters or rechargers to run your repper and prop mods. The other thing about the dragoon is it's not bonused with any gun: if you like hybrids or projectiles, you can put them on and play with them, and get a feel for what they can do.

If you put weapons in your highs, a target painter in your mids would help both your highs and your drones apply damage.

The biggest problem you'll have with any drone boat is:you need to pay attention to when the rats start taking shots at your drones.

And, yes, destroyers are squishy. My advice is to just play with stuff and see what works. I found the reactive armor hardener to be a nice tool to figure out what the rats are throwing at you.

Combat probes aren't only useful for finding people. If you start scanning someone down, they will be:
A: Oblivious and probably easy to shoot.
B: Combat probes on Dscan, ruuuuuun!
C: they'll play unsuspecting and try to kill you. Maybe one of their highs has a cyno with a blob behind it.
D: Cloaked somewhere so you can't scan them anyway.