EVE New Citizens Q&A

I'm doing L3s now in my drake, and I like to shoot stuff from afar (ie near max missile range). However, since the warp-ins usually land me somewhere smack in the middle of all the rats (range of < 10 km where I get scrambled), is there a way to instantly (or quickly) get back to range? (Which for me would be 60 km)

I haven't used MWD yet, but would that work? I suppose I ahve to target somewhere for that to work so it might not be an option since there wouldn't be anything at 60 km that I can target.

I can certainly do that, and kill the scramming frigates, but is there a way to get out of range quickly in the meantime?

Some kind of propulsion mod is necessary to do this. For a battlecruiser that means you need to decide between an afterburner and a MWD. The MWD is faster, but scrams can shut it down, it's harder to fit and it bloats your signature when active, so it can increase the damage you take. The afterburner is significantly slower, so you can't pull range quickly, but it can't be shut down, is easy to fit and helps you to mitigate damage while in use. It's up to you which option you prefer.



I don't get what you mean by this? Are you mistaking MWD for warping to a target, are you mistaking it for MJD(micro jump drive) or don't you know how to manually pilot your ship? MWD stands for micro warp drive. It boosts the speed of your ship and therefore you don't need a target for it to work. Just activate it and pilot your ship away from the enemy. MJD is a battleship only module, so you can't fit it on a battlecruiser. In the unlike case you don't know how to manually pilot, just double click your mouse in the direction you want your ship to move. Do it to a target and your ship will approach it. Do it in empty space and your ship will proceed in that direction until you tell it to do otherwise.

Battleships do NOT have a jump drive.

Only Black Ops.

Battleships can fit a Micro Jump Drive module...which is a HUGE difference.

Mission NPC's don't warp scramble (2 points). Mission NPC's do, however, warp disrupt (1 point), which does not affect an MWD or MJD in any way.

Having said that, an afterburner is all you really need on a Drake for L3's. Use drones to pop the warp disrupting frigates. Increase your missile skills and it won't matter if the targets are 60km away or 5 km away, they will pop just as quickly.

The Drake is incredibly solid at tanking, and should easily be able to take on level 3 rats, even at close range. Get your effective hitpoints up, and train some drone skills to deal with the frigates, and you should blitz through l3's with a Drake.

I do L3s in a Drake and this is how I deal with this issue.

When you're not in combat - say, floating in space outside of a station - left click on your ship and hold. You'll get a radial menu with various options. One of them is a slider to set your default "keep at range" distance. Set that to your preferred distance and head out.

When you are plopped down on top of a big group of rats in your mission, first target up a few of the closest rats while getting your drones out. (Make sure your drones are set to Passive.) Send the drones after the frigates using the 'F' shortcut while you left click and hold on the target you want to fire your missiles at. That radial menu will come up again - select the straight line which is "keep at range", turn on your propulsion mod, and you'll be burning away from the pack immediately as your missiles bombard your target. Keep adding targets as you and your drones kill stuff and and the place will be cleared in no time.

I just re-read this and it sounds more complicated than it is. It's even easier if you memorize the keyboard shortcut for targeting and other stuff, and of course have your launchers grouped so you can use F1 to send off a big volley.

Also I find that an afterburner is perfectly adequate for getting a range on the rats fast, but my Drake is fairly heavily tanked for L3s (53.7 EHP) so maybe if you're getting hit pretty hard then fit a MWD to get range faster.