Ships & Modules

Don't cry in your beer, it is all a work in progress.

As for tanking, I have tried a host of different tanking setup.
At the moment, I am favoring 3 one-size-bigger shield extenders, invulnerability mod, purger rigs, shield power relays and an afterburner for speed tanking.

This has worked pretty good until this weekend.
I was in my Loki and found a "Angel Vigil" site and in my arrogance did not read up on it.
I shot the stasis towers and could not get away in time and ended in my pod.

I have another Loki to configure.
I was thinking of all 650's with a lot of tracking or maybe the subsystem that would let me have drones.

What do you think?

How do you guys afford these ships. (Troll alert) There is no way you can afford those ships if you do not know why a single weapon system is better. (Unless you bought plex and sold it, in that case, carry on...)

I have never bought plex and never would.

I do not understand why you would think i am trolling. I have been doing lvl 4 missions for about 6 months with no real problems except the time it takes because i am soloing. I have a second account that mines a lot while i do the missions.
I like this challenge. Although i am wanting to move out into wormholes.
The challenge is not to just get things accomplished by using a bigger hammer (more people) but to enjoy doing it.

Right now, I am doing level 4 missions in a hurricane with my brother who is also in a hurricane. We salvage ever thing and
have fun doing it.

I have been playing eve for over a year now and have lost a mammoth (before i knew about gate camps), a rupture before i knew about mission escalation, a maelstrom to bad strategy and just recently the Loki. You tend to have more isk if you don't lose ships often.

Not loosing ships is part of the challenge. But because it is just me and my brother (who is a causal player) I have to figure everything out for my self. That is why i decided to start asking questions on the forums.

I have listened to the eve university lectures and they seemed to think highly of the passive shielding. And since i have been trying it along with the mixed guns, my missions have been slow but less stressful and less warping out.

Now before anyone suggests i join a corp, that would not be a real option because i do not play well with others and have to question every thing. (Just as i am doing now) I have a real problem doing something just because everyone else is doing it.
I want to know why and what are the reasons.

I am looking for information and then I will make my own decisions.

I don't think the problem is questioning things. I think the problem here is that you're simply not accepting the collective answer. You don't have to do it like people here are explaining them, but they have answered the question about the problem with mixing guns.

Mixing guns reduces your effective damage capability at both long and short range. Period. Done.

Fit how you want. But the answer has been provided. There is a reason and the information has been given to you. You can now make your own decision.

Ok, let me make this abundantly clear - you do not mix guns, ever. The reasons have been pointed out several times, but lets go over why more specifically, and how to maximize whatever you choose.

Lets take a typical lvl 4 mission as an example. I'll go ahead and use "Worlds Collide" against serpentis/guristas. I know you fly minmatar, so you are more likely to have flown against angel/sansha (or whatever), but I always flew missions in gallente space with serps/guristas, so I'll speak from my experience. For an example ship, we'll use a typical Maelstrom, fit like this:

Highs:
8 guns (1400's, 800's, or mix), standard phased plasma ammo used
Mids
1 large shield booster 2
3 hardeners
2 tracking computer 2's (swap 1 for an AB with 800's)
Lows
3 gyro 2's
2 TE 2's
Rigs
3 CCC
Drones:
5 hobgoblin 2's
5 hammerhead 2's

If we fit 8 1400's, we are doing a max of 593dps at a range of 44+91. If we swap to shortrange, 8 800's, we do 763dps at 4.2+46. If we do 50/50 split, we do 678dps, at a mix of ranges.

Room 1, we warp in, everyone is sitting 100+km from the warpin. Lets take serpentis side. There are 4 BS's, 4 BC's, and 4 frigs.

With arty fit, we're doing the full 593dps to all the targets, and we can kill everything before it closes range. With auto's, we burn into range, doing 381ish dps at 50km, increasing to 763 at 5km. If we split the guns, then we are doing either 381dps at 4km, or 486 (292 from arty, 190 from auto's) at 50km. At 5km, the arty won't track, but you have trouble closing range for the auto's. So in this room, due to travel time the arty will clear it fastest, mix would probably clear it 2nd fastest, and auto's slowest.

Room 2 - serpentis side
There is 1 group at 7km, and 3-4 at 25km. In this room, the autocannons have a clear advantage at the start, though several of the ships in the room do want to keep at range. Lets take a few targets as an example.

The rear admirals are going to start trundling out to around 40km - if they get to that range, the arty has a clear advantage. However at 20km the auto's have an advantage in killing them. So the AC boat is going to keep the range low, while the arty will let it get range before pounding it. The mixed guns? Well, you can plink at it at range, or try to keep it close, but either way you are going to be doing less applied dps than a full rack of the same guns.

The Core Commanders are going to try to close with you - they do max dps at about 5-10km. What does the artillery boat do? Move away - blow them up while they have low transversal. What does the autocannon boat do? Let them come in and then melt their face. What does the mixed guns do? well... if you let them close, the AC will do more dps, but the arty won't hit. If you try running away and lowering transversal, then you're going to be doing less dps with the auto's because they won't be closing. You are buying yourself the worst of both worlds.

Frigates - either way your drones will take care of them. The battlecruisers - arty will oneshot them if you lower the transversal. Auto's will melt them when they come close. Mix... mix is going to have problems again - either the auto's are going to be doing good damage, or arty is, and you have to choose which one you are killing.

Now, you can tell me that you put the auto's on one target, and the arty on another. However, then you have to ask - which are you watching your transversal on? Also, the rats rep themselves, and halving the dps more than doubles the time it takes to kill the targets. Lastly, a ship at 1% hull does as much dps to you as a ship with 100% hull/armor/shield, so killing one target first clears dps off the field, reducing the amount you need to tank, which allows you to carry more gank than tank, which allows you to clear missions faster.

Now lets move on to room 3 - guess what, works almost exactly like room 2. Once again, maximizing your dps at either shortrange or longrange, and manuvering to take advantage of that range is going to allow you to kill rats faster, which is going to allow you to fit less tank, which is going to allow you to fit more gank, which is going to allow you to kill the rats even faster, and all of which is going to allow you to complete missions faster, safer.

Then you just need to determine which weapon configuration makes more sense. Damsel in distress? Auto's baby, auto's. Serpentis Spies? Toss some arty on man (and a sebo too for good measure). Swap it up as you need it.

Exploration? Decide which space you are flying in, fit to maximize your capabilities against your preferred sites. When doing anoms in null, I fit to fly one or two types of sites, then go and find those. Probing sites? You can set up well for doing a specific type of site (ex. 4/10, 8/10, etc.), then go find that site. For the harder sites, you are pretty much going to have to refit anyways, or have a specific ship setup to fly them. But choosing 1 range to do damage at, then maximizing your flying to fight at that range, you are going to do better than trying to fight at every range.

-Arazel

Maybe all guns wouldnt have to be the same if the ship bonuses would apply to lower tier similar weaponsystems allso.

Now if you have bonuses to large .. it would be rather pointless to add mediums in the mix due to ****** damage. If you would get same bonuses for both on the otherhand ... hmhmmhmhmhmm would end up with some intresting fitting options.