Missions & Complexes

At least for now. I have done only 7 missions so far and have lost 4 battleships.(2 Mega's and 2 Domi's) With my skill set I should be able to have better success than I thought. http://eveboard.com/pilot/Zornia_Estemaire. I realize I need to get T2 guns and better drone skills(which I have been working on for the past month). I use battleclinic set ups for Level 4 missions. I always study the mission specs before accepting the mission but my main problem is understanding the mechanics of not aggroing all the groups at once. I can't seem to be able to grasp how keep a safe distance from one group will working on another. Before I realize it the whole room is creaming me and I can't get away. The last one I did was "Pirate Invasion", the angel version and I was aggroed by the whole room again and was unable to warp away. The overview for this mission said the best way to handle the room was to stop upon warp in and wait for them to aggro me. Well within 5 minutes the whole room was on me. Might just wait the 54 days until I can fly a Kronos.

For a Dominix, all you really need is 2 Large Armor Repairs, and 4 T2 or faction hardeners (two for each resist your enemy attacks with. See eve-survival.org for details on what kind of damage the rats will do, as well as the triggers which will cause more to spawn). If you don't have T2 sentries or heavies yet, focus on getting T2 hobgoblins and hammerheads and use them to clear out any fast-moving frigates first before they can lock you down, that way you can always warp away if you get in over your head. Once scram threats are eliminated, let your T1 ogres or faction sentries tear through whatever is still on the battlefield.

Hang back, shoot the closest enemy, and wait a minute to see which ones in the group go flashy red and *then* release your drones. Then basically stay still and let them come to you. T2 heavy guns aren't necessary, you can do fine with T1 mediums in most cases, or even a civilian gun to draw aggro if you have T2 drones to do your damage. As long as you keep the dual reps going and have the cap to perma-run them, you'll do fine. Pull your drones back immediately whenever they grab aggro.

It's slow but should be safe as long as you mind your triggers.

Something odd there I think but yes, you may have to learn a bit more about mission behaviors. Flat out hard to do that badly with the SPs you have. Also get some T2 Sentries or Heavies.

Post some fits.

T2 gun skills are important, but L4s can be done without them. Hell, I do them using the wrong missile damage type half the time, because I'm lazy.

Drone skills? Mediocre drone skills will end you, especially if you have no other hope of eliminating warp scrambling frigates (eg, no precision cruise, no web/good tracking guns).



This might be a bad idea, depending. I bought my mission running alt a Navy Scorpion, because Navy Scorpions look awesome. Rawr, scorpion, sting, sting! Ahem. Having never flown one before, though, I ended up spending three hours alternating between laughing and crying at the many absolutely clueless fits on Battleclinic. There are good fits there, mind you, but YMMV.




1. Fire at things that are blinky to you only. If nothing is blinky, target something, shoot at it, and wait to see what else turns blinky before selecting additional targets.

2. Drones often are NOT your friends. They'll often aggro non-aggressed groups, which will result in those groups moving toward you to shoot your drones, which eventually results in them going, "OMG LOOK AT THAT HEY NPC GAIZ LETS SHOOT AT THIS MISSION GUY I JUST DISCOVERED!!!!11111" This is a mission by mission thing - sometimes a pocket by pocket thing. Drones don't always draw aggro. But you need to learn when it's safe to use them and when it isn't.

3. Don't fly at enemies. Let them come to you. And back away from the entire pocket, if necessary. Yes, it sucks slowboating to the activation gate after flying 80km out from the mission pocket, but it's better than aggroing an entire pocket.

4. Keeping with point number three - range is god. Don't use short-ranged weaponry until you know what you're doing. Long range weaponry at least gives you the chance to realize you're about to be boned, and GTFO of Dodge.


Oh, and learn to prioritize. Anything that can warp scramble you (almost always restricted to elite frigates) should be your number one target. Discretion is the better part of not buying a new battleship. After that, cruisers and battlecruisers - they pop quickly and thus quickly reduce incoming DPS. Battleships, despite being potent, are usually best saved for last, where you can beat on them while your drones mop up whatever trash is still left after the cruiser/battlecruiser mess.

Megas aren't as forgiving and require good gun skills. You should use a dual rep cap-stable Domi, it should be able to tank entire rooms for long enough that you can kill the dps/scrams.

In EFT, open your fit and click the ship icon. Drop down to "copy to clipboard". Paste on forums. You can do the same in Pyfa though I forget how.

Both those fits are fine though I'd suggest an Afterburner on the Mega as you need it to control transversal to get good hits on the guns.

If you're struggling it's simple really, as I said above, fit another repper to your Domi, drop the mag stabs for Capacitor Power Relays and fit whatever guns you can fit, also make sure to use mission specific hardeners. This will give you a HUGE tank that will allow you to mess up aggro quite alot while you learn your way around L4s, when you're comfortable, you can drop the tank for more gank.

I'd suggest dual rep and more tank mods. At least in the beginning. Also you should really skill for T2 reps. Swap both mag stabs for a second repper and an EANM. Later you could upgrade to one expensive repper (faction/complex)...that way you free up slots.

Goal is to find a balance between tank&gank. Overtanking just leads to longer mission times. Tune down your tank by fitting damage mods step by step and look how it works. When fitting damage mods on a Domi I'd use that new one for drone damage. Reason: all your drones benefit from it.

I have been doing L4s for about a week now. I have 5.5M skill points and use a Myrm, it takes me a while to complete the missions since both the damage of my guns and drones is low, still I have not died a single time although I was 400 points left in the hull once to a group of bombers, I have been carrying light drones ever since - you are going to need them to take the webbers as soon as posible.

I just added this char to "eveboard.com".

Forgot to mention that I ALWAYS MOVE OUT after I warp in, and I rarely agro the whole room. WIth my current speed of 340 or so m/s when using afterburner I can stay away from any hard hitting ship until I'm done sniping the small/fast ones all the way to cruisers, then close the gap enough so I can hit with my harderst ammo (antimatter) but prevent from getting hit at the same time.

Level 4 missions are actually intended for small gangs to do as opposed to doing them solo, however that being said there are 2 ways of doing them solo

1: The long way

Technique 1: the sniper

You set up a battleship with a good tank and kite the mobs, picking them off with your guns before they can get close enough to lay down serious damage, basically this takes ages and you would likely make much more isk just doing level 3 missions

Main benefits

If you lose your ship you can afford to buy a new one, its not the end of the world

Main drawbacks:

>You have to use SCOUT DRONES, not mediums or heavys as you will find yourself webbed and warp scrambled otherwise

> Mistakes cost you a lot of time: battleships are slow so if you have to warp out then come back your looking at a while to get back to were you was


Technique 2: PIMP MY RIDE

Get command ship, pimp it... do mission

Main Benefits

> you can put down massive close range DPS, and carve through the missions reletively fast
> Blazing through a mission in a command ship is quite a lot more fun that doing it in a bs


Main drawbacks :

> Its easy to get overconfident and get yourself killed
> Your setup cost for your ship is going to be well over a billion isk
(note: can also be done with a tech 3 ship though not nearly as effectively)



Truth is that even if you go the cvommand ship route its still much more fun, not to mention much safer and efficient with 2 people.