Missions & Complexes

It seems Ive made some bad decisions in skilling and painted myself into a corner..
I hope someone can recommend something.

Basically I can fly nothing else well except Minmatar Cruisers (T2) and Minmatar BCs (Fleet Navy).
Only weapons I can use well are medium projectiles. Im pretty much perfect with artillery and associated skills.
Only defence is shields. Drone skills are poor.

Ive been trying to make a living doing HS DED 3-4/10 Angel sites, but revenue has gotten very poor recently and tbh Im bored to death of it.

What else can I do with this limited ship range to try and earn a somewhat steady isk income?

Id rather not grind L3 missions, and I dont think I can handle most if any L4s in these ships solo.

I made the mistake of hoping Loki would give me options of attempting DEDs in null or some WH content, but it seems every single thread I read on that recommends AGAINST Loki. This really feelsbadman. Im already heavily invested in it... I statrted researching threads too late...

Only shipline I can easily cross-train to, is Angels for Cynabal, which is basically just a modified T2 cruiser and doesnt open up any new options.

Ive considered running FW missions, but Ive read its not viable in cruisers mostly, and I have next to no PvP experience.
I suppose I could train up frigates but it seems a bit of a waste when im already near perfect with cruisers.

Feels like I chose a really bad ship/weapon line to go down and have ended up at a deadend with very few options.

Ive considered that maybe I should try to join a null or WH corp, but I have very little to offer them, least of all PvP experience, and from what Ive read, II basically wouldnt be able to earn anything with this range of ships in those areas of space anyways.

Did I really shoot myself in both feet this badly, with my choices that there seems to be very little these ships are good for interms of isk generation and options to sustain my costs in EVE?

Help, please. Is there so ething I overlooked?

Im rapidly losing enthusiasm in EVE, not cos I dont love the game, I do, a lot, but cos it seems I managed to choose the worst possible skill progression line with so few options open to it..

Norian, you seem to be worrying yourself out of fun. That is a mistake.

1st of all you need some patience. You seem relatively new. you just started, slow down and learn the game and then figure out what you want to do and where. You post is all over the place talking about null DEDs and then missions etc.

Secondly, you don't need great skills to do anything in EVE. There is no such thing as 'skilling yourself into a hole', you are never ever further than a few days away from training other tech1 stuff of other races or even the same race and Tech1 stuff is all you need to do almost every activity in EVE. You don't have to train things to 5 to be able to use them.

If you can fly a minmatar BC you are thus not far from a Minmatar or Angel Battleship with which you could easily do lvl 4 missions while figuring out what else to do. The Tempest and Maelstrom are obvious next steps if you don't have missile skills for a Typhoon (Phoon is the best T1 minmatar ppve BS by a long ways imo).

Your best option though is to find people in game who do whatever it is you want to do, and let them teach you. There are plenty of new players friendly groups around.

Nikea Tiber:

"I don't see how you feel that you shot yourself in the foot. You aren't prevented from training into other racial ships or weapon systems, and doing so does nothing to the skills you already have trained."

The point is the skills I have trained seem to be largely nontransferable to much of anything else, with the exception of shields.
The Minmatar cruisers and medium projectile arty seem to be a dead-end option in terms of doing anything except 3-4/10 DEDs.

I recognize that I basically need to start skilling entirely different weapon systems/shiplines from mostly scratch.
What I was asking, is there something I overlooked that I could do with my existing skills.
Apparently, there isnt.

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Jenn aSide:

"Norian, you seem to be worrying yourself out of fun. That is a mistake."

Im not so much worried, as I am disappointed in what my chosen skilling ended up in. Feels like I wasted a lot of time and effort for very little reward, whereas if I had simply trained drones/missiles and non-minnie ships, Id have far more options open at this point. That was my mistake.

"If you can fly a minmatar BC you are thus not far from a Minmatar or Angel Battleship with which you could easily do lvl 4 missions while figuring out what else to do. The Tempest and Maelstrom are obvious next steps if you don't have missile skills for a Typhoon (Phoon is the best T1 minmatar ppve BS by a long ways imo)."

Thank you for the advice. But again, seems like projectile artillery are the loser, and I should have gone missiles. Especially since missiles can be cross-trained to various other shiplines, whereas projectile artillery is only Angel ships...
Also, Minmatar BC skills are not transferable to BS, as they use Large rather than medium turrets, nor does being skilled in BCs reduce training time into BS. Basically I should have NOT trained into BCs, and instead skipped them and gone straight to BS. Yet another mistake I made...

Im not enthusiastic about BS. I think I would rather stay in cruiser size hulls or smaller.
From what Ive read, non-minmatar cruisers, especially t3, have far more options open to them.

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Zhilia Mann:

Thanks for the Loki build and reassurance it is workeable. But if I am going to do just relic sites in null, wouldnt I be better off in a much cheaper covops frigate? Which wormholes combat sites could I do in a Loki?

Thanks also for the Muninn build. But there, again, Id need to skill into Armor, which I currently dont have (only shield).

Ill consider adding to my options to perhaps try and join a LS corp so Im not on my own and vulnerable in their space while running those DEDs you mentioned.

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Do you guys see what I mean? Seems that the specific choices I made turned out to be a complete dead-end.
All options require extensive re-skilling into something else.

I dont mean to sound whiney. Im just disappointed in my results and bad decisions.

Purpose of my post was to ask if there is something I had overlo8ked that I could do with my current skill set.

I will just have to bite the bullet and start largely from scratch in re-skilling, and continue this Angel 3-4/10 grind in hopes of trying to make a little isk while waiting months more for the skilling to complete...

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To any other newer players reading this, dont make the mistakes I did. Stay away from minmatar cruisers and especially artillery builds. You may find yourself painted into a corner like I did. Go drones or missiles, and preferably not minmatar, and especially not up to Loki.

I should take less than a week to get into a proper blitzing T1 gun fit Machariel. Minmatar skills is actually pretty great for making money / missioning / etc. It's also used in Burners (Daredevil, Vagabond, Vigilant). It's one of the core races to skill into if you want to blitz missions for your iskies. There's a link in my sig.

Thank you all for some very helpful tips that offered many options for me to choose next.

To sum up:

There was Loki for null/C1-3 WH Relic sites and Sleeper sites.
Apparently its also good at cloak/nullify, and can handle some pvp with explorers.
There was BS options for L4s.
There was references to cruisers/frigates for running Burner missions.
There was the HM/HAM option (but unfortunately I realized there is no Missile T2 cruiser for minmatar)
There was biting the bullet and training into Sleipnir.

All options (except some of the cruiser/frigate fits for buners) will in anycase take me atleast over a month.

Ive chosen to bite the bullet and train into a Sleipnir. Its the ship I have the most existing skills to fly well once training is finished and the ship bonuses are excellent for medium artillery DPS and shield booster tank (atleast looking at them).

I hope it will serve as a sort of fast "pocket battleship" to help me attempt some more demanding combat sites, rather than starting the grind through BS hulls and large projectiles.I also really dont like the slowness of BS and Id rather not resort to mission spam.

I also hope it might also give me something I can offer in corp application processes as something perhaps useful with its Command Bursts, should Command BCs become more desirable. I think there arent that many Sleipnir pilots (for good or bad reasons...)

After that, I will consider the Loki subsystem grind for the WH/null exploration, or alternatively missiles to open up Claymore (to deal with Sansha Target Disruption for example, but with a good resist profile) and easier crosstraining into other missile cruisers of other factions. (Cos projectiles are a dead end, except for Angels hulls)

I seem to have read some rumors that T3 cruisers might get a balance pass "soon". Perhaps the Loki will be improved for my purposes.

Sleipnir will take me months to fly well, and its not really useful in HS except for the occasional 5/10 Angel escalation to clear them faster, but its the rational choice, even if niche, considering my existing skill set, and hopefully can operate as a "pocket battleship" and that the Command Bursts (which I havent learned about yet), might be useful to a corp somewhere in whichever space.

I might regret not going Loki for those null/wh exploration profits, safe travel or what a loki might offer a corp, but on the otherhand I may as well finish off the projectile BC line since I have already put so much info it.

Thanks everyone. I feel a lot better about my options, and can atleast look forward to really fat DPS bonuses as I skill up Command Ships.

PS: How do I thank your posts? cant find the button anywhere.

no need to panic

minmitar t2 cruisers and battlecruisers are great in amarr space due to their natural resists. match with emp ammo to deal much damage

any minmitar shield ship should do well in minnie space too

There is a limit to what any kind of tanking/ weapons can do when only limited to t2 cruisers. A t2 zealot with t2 lazers is also limited

but this is why its easy and reasonably quick to cross train

if you have good shield skills, getting a t2 armor tank only takes a couple of weeks. you already persumably have good gun supports, so cross training new gunnery skills wont be that intensive. minnie ships can also use missils so youre not wasting your time to train them either.

you have lots of choices- decide want you want to do, then decide how to skill afterwards- another race, weapon, tank or go battleship etc

only Sansha's tracking disruption works significantly more effectively on gun ships. Serpentis and Guristas affects your target, and missile boats and drone boats also can't do damage ideally when they can't target. Yes, there exist auto-target missiles and drones can respond to enemies automatically, but they almost always pick a wrong target. Blood raiders' cap warfare hurts active tank and energy/hybrid turrets a lot, but Minmatar can passive shield tank and projectile weapons don't use cap. And of course you can just stay in minmatar space and fight angels.
Crimson Harvest has ended, but I'm sure another event will come soon.

Sansah TDs used to be crazy powerful but they are not too much of an issue these days, Just move closer (have to do that with Damps anyway), ECM is more of a pain and that effects everyone.

Either way you can either fit for it and or kill the Ewar ships first.

If you play eve for long enough you will use pretty much every ship/weapons system so training is almost never wasted (Other than maybe Mining/research skills)

Also the Sleipner is a great Solo/small gang PVP ship.

Hey fellow Minmatar specialist, good to see I'm not the only one swimming against the stream out there! Lv3 Missions do get a bit boring and HS DED sites can get stale too. Here's my suggestions to spice things up a bit.

Wormholes! - A Hurricane (fleet or otherwise) can easily handle C1 and C2 wormholes for very little isk investment. You can even fly something like a Vegabond or a Munin once you get comfortable with it. A loki is even better as you can use a mobile depot to swap modules/subsystems and instantly turn your stealthy scanner loki into a sleeper killing monster. Sleeper salvage and blue drops are very small cargo wise and can easily accommodate the fact that you're carrying extra modules in your cargo.

Low/Null DED - I have personally run quite a few null DED sites in Sansha space. These work just fine in a Loki or a Heavy Assault cruiser. Some of the escalations aren't soloable and you might need a little extra help taking down the tank of the 8/10 and 10/10 sites though.

Battleships! - You're not far from doing level 4s or null ratting in a Tempest or Maelstrom. Your secondary projectile skills (tracking, falloff, etc.) will make your lower level Large projectiles better even if your medium specialities won't. Consider skilling into a Machariel for mission blitzing or ratting.

Exploration - It's nice to take a break from the combat sometimes and try your luck at relic/data sites. If you fly into Null you'll find these sites can range from 5 to 100 million per site depending on your luck.

PVP! - Maybe Medium Projectiles aren't the best cruiser sized weapon these days but a skilled out character in a shitfit cruiser can still have a lot of fun for very little risk. Lots of fun and sometimes it can be very profitable. You may even get some of those DED modules you've been selling back. :)