Missions & Complexes

IF you are going for hybrid weapons, I would recommend going for gallente.
This way you can transition into drones easier if you should choose so.
The thing is Caldari are too wishy washy about their ships, some of it is great some of it is useless in comparison.
They also have the most SP expensive weapon-mix, missiles and hybrids and they really don't go together, whereas drones and hybrids do a LOT and will both be on your ship. for BS they're a complete necessity.
Gallente have total winners in just about every ship category.
Caldari tend to be overspecialized conceptually flawed sniper platforms with very strong PvE ships as well but missile based which is a very focussed skill path.
That said there are plenty of guides and threads about good skills for newbies.
I don't have the proper links but you browse for 15 minutes you are bound to bump into it, search terms; skillplan newb noob beginner.

All things aside I would recommend a newbie to go for drones and gallente, and gunnery after.
BUT you really need to decide what you think is more fun and forget about the most powerful ship because all empires have very evenly matched ships when it comes to PvE but it will go like this for the highest achievable mission boats: Caldari=missiles/drones, gallente=hybrids/drones, minmatar=projectiles/drones, amarr=lasers/drones.
All use drones, most use gunnery, some use missiles.

Marcus is right in the sense that for missioning purposes, Caldari missile boats do far better than Caldari hybrid boats. The Kestrel, Corax, Caracal, Drake and Raven are all excellent mission ships with good damage, projection and tank. Missiles are a more specialized skill tree but less so now as you still have the option of cross training to Minmatar as they have a missile ship in every class now.

However don't discount the viability of Caldari, they have great ships in every category both missile and hybrid and some of their hybrid ships (like the Merlin and Harpy) are amongst the top in their class for PvP.

Overall I'd say go ahead with a Caldari focused path as you have been on, but you'll need to mix in some missile skills to make the best of missions, but don't worry about hybrid skills as well, they may not be the best in PvE early on but they're quite popular in PvP and will come in handy later on. I'd recommend you to stick to the Merlin for the time being and start training some missile skills for a Corax, this link:http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Missile_Launchers has a list of missile support skills, you should get them all a.s.a.p. and train them to 2 or 3 and you'll also need Light Missile Launcher skills for the Corax, from there you can upgrade to a Caracal or straight to a Drake depending on how it goes.

Hi

Thanks for the replies.

I am using the Merlin with those fittings as thats what I got for free during the tutorial arcs and its done me well so far.

I have started missile training and I am currently training up, light missles, rockets, Missile Projection, Rapid Launch and Missile Launcher Operation

I also have a Kestral as I needed that for one of the missions in the tutorial arc.

Cheers

Atlantia

If your going to stick with shield booster fits for your ships, I'd recommend getting your sheild tanking skills up as far as you are willing.

Go and buy the Shield Compensation skills (Kinetic, Thermic, EM and Explosive) immediately as they will help your shield resistances as you progress in EVE.

I'm Gallente and Armor trained, but the principle is the same, the more damage resists, the longer you live. As you progress in EVE, you'll find out how easy some missions can be, and then find how brutal they are.

Also, Fly what you can afford to lose, don't rush into a Drake and then lose it first mission you do. You have the time to do any route you want, you are Immortal!!

Fly safe.

- every faction has some good agents. you can find them on eve-agents.com
- it's not hard to find out on your own what a good agent for you would be, you just need to spend a few hours on research.
- you will not be sent to lowsec if the constellation your agent is in consists only of highsec systems.(in case you wonder, constellations are groups of solar systems, every region consists of a few constellations).

In regards to your question, generally speaking you won't be sent out more then 2 jumps from your mission station.
When you get sent to low sec it will warn you, there is almost always a risk of this with the special once a 10 missions assignment in which case you just cancel it.

Since you have decided on missiles.
Target navigation prediction and guided missile precision are the most important skills for damage application well before techII missiles.
Other then taking that into consideration train your missile according to their training time modifier, but don't slack on the "tracking" skills.
You would be well advised to skip the drake if possible and capitalize on the caracal.
The drake as all missile boats requires very strong "fitting" skills, but more so then usual, and on top of that really doesn't shine until you have caldari BC 4 which when you are just beginning is a very large investment alongside heavy missiles.
So to fly a drake you will need near maxed support/fitting skills, at which point you are better off adding to capacitor skills and active tanking and going for a BS, do not forget to do lvl 3's in it.
When you start doing lvl 4's don't do the 4000-6000 LP reward ones for a while until you have become familiar with agro control and gates etc..
You will need that time to understand the Raven, or raven navy issue's strengths and weaknesses make sure to always pre-align so you can warp out easily and kill webbers and scramblers with your drones.
Make sure to park your missile skills at lvl 4 and focus on your core skills, having the proper fitting skills "techII modules" will increase your dps/effectiveness by a larger margin and by core skills I mean "navigation skills" included, so much more important then most realize as newbs.
These things govern targeting range/speed, mobility=speed+tank, e-war=target painters=more damage, more capacitor energy=everything.
And more importantly for you, join a mission runner corporation because it would do you well with this many questions.