Missions & Complexes

Scorpion Navy issue til you're super dooper confident then a Raven navy issue or a Rattlesnake. If you need to know how to fit them go to the battleclinic loadouts that place is a nest of carebears and a good place to start.

Mr. Chill Palmer (Original Poster),

Unfortunately you made the fatal error of asking a generalized question without providing much in the way of information.

Whereas more simplistic MMOs such as WoW have only a few 'paths' to follow, EvE is a wholly different animal.

Everything *depends* upon so many factors.

You really need to answer the following questions:

How many skill points do you presently have?
How soon do you anticipate going into level four missions?
How much ISK do you have available for ship/module upgrades?
What is the division of your skill points?
Are you a Missile Boater or a Gunslinger?
Do you have significant CORE skills, or are you all ship/weapon skills? (Many people see the CORE skills much as in the certificates, relating to Engineering and Electronics.)

Now, to illustrate the importance of knowing this data.

First, let's take the second to last (Missile vs. Gun).

If you are a Gunslinger -- nearly everything the above folks have offered as far as advice will be useless to you. Why? Because *MOST* (Yes,I know I am going to get flamed for saying that) Caldari Level Four (4) mission boats are MISSILE using ships.

So, if you are using guns and have lots of skill points in guns -- you may want to look into the Ferox. While not a COMMON L4 mission runner, it can be done.

Next, if you are sitting around 2-4 Million Skill points -- you probably don't yet have all the fancy skill points across the engineering and key portions of the electronics category. This means that T2-oriented fits are probably not for you, and thus although the NIS (Navy Issue Scorpion) is amongst my favorite; this ship may be out of line for you. As would be the the Rattlesnake.

If you are closer to 6 or 7 million Skill Points, go ahead and put those Faction/Pirate ships back on the table.

Pay careful attention to how far up the missile skill tree you have gone. If you are already into Torpedoes and the like, and you are happily skilled up that far - you may indeed want to stick to Battleships.

HOWEVER, if you have put more training into SPEED (Navigation category) than you have missiles - it may be time to train the Heavy Missiles skill and just get into a Tengu. The Tengu is so beautifully customized, however; as many have noted, it does get quite expensive trying to get specific Faction/Pirate modules.

A key recommendation one way or another:

IF you ignored the entire rest of the post -- please read this.

Take time to read websites such as eve-survival... learn the missions you will face. DO NOT OVERTANK.

This is one of the earliest newbie mistakes

It reads something like this
"Look at my new ship guys!! It tanks 30,000 DPS!!! woot! shields for the win!"

Corp responds... "and, what's your outbound DPS?"

"50 DPS?"

Laughing and mockery ensues.

Most level fours (aside from storyline missions) don't actually deal all that much DPS, and quite honestly -- if you manage your aggro at all (know that if you attack certain ships out of order that you will get additional waves and attacks against you) then you will not even take the full brunt of the mission.

DO NOT be afraid of killing the little Point (Scrambler) frigates first during your first few forays into level fours, and then warp out... a lot. Don't be ashamed - it's part of learning. Until you have figured out how the missions work, go ahead and change around your fittings over and over until you get it where you want it. I tend to go passive tanked-tengu, why? Because I like it that way and it works for me. It's not recommended by a lot of folks, but it works incredibly well for me. However, there is a caveat - I spent an arse-load of ISK on faction shield hardeners and such, so I can pull it off. Now, I do intend to change my fit again soon, but, that's because again - I can afford to do it.


Moral of the story -- when posting a question, if you have any LESS information than what I asked above -- you need to start over on your question.

Okay - you've got the resources available, and hopefully already have some modules available that you can swap from one ship to another.

Suggestion:

Choose either the Raven hull or the Scorpion Hull.

Basically you're choosing from:

Caldari Navy Raven (CNR);
Raven; or
Navy Issue Scorpion (SNI).

Raven hull advantages? Quite a lot of missile 'splody power, and a little bit of a drone hull. Downside, utter lack of tank. This is the proverbial glass cannon.

SNI advantages? More mid-slots than you can shake-a-stick-at and plenty of cap recharge to handle whatever needs to go in there. If you are a cautious player - the SNI will fulfill your tanking dreams. Even without T2 modules, you can probably overtank every level four mission with this bad boy without even trying. Downside, not as much overall firepower as the Raven hulls.

First piece of advice on modules -- pony up the bucks for the Caldari Navy Ballistic Control Units. You're already a missile boater, do it. Get four of them. Yes, Four. That is a LOT of bonus damage.

sure it's a navy issue? it'S upwards of 300mil usually