Missions & Complexes

Just starting out, but I wanted to know what would be the best Maurader to train up in order to do lvl 4 missions?

Point is I am just starting out, so I don't have skills up for any yet. Is there one that is clearly better than the other?

damn carebears can't even think of the right ship to use, or at least why the reasons they stated are irrelevant.

Welcome to Rubicon!
First, all Marauders can tank on shield with ease now. Some have bonuses, some don't. Still getting a 800 DPS tank on a Kronos with Tech2 / Meta 4 items. Leaves 7 lowslots for damage and application.
Second, they are MJD bonus'd. Why would you *ever* have something up close to you? This makes Turret Rauders better than Missile Rauders, because if range is big enough, they will blap frigs. with one gun.
Third, there is this thing, this... i don't know, tent! Like, you deploy it, and in your vast cargohold, you have all the modules you thought you might need at some point, maybe, like, once in a lifetime, because, well, it fits into the cargo, and you could use it for refitting. For example for a rack of closerange guns. And a rack of Longrange guns. And a rack of tank. And a rack of fullgank. And Salvagers, 8 of them. And tractor beams, ... also 8 of them. F*ck the Tractor-Thing, you're a rauder, your tractors work better, faster, and you salvage all the stuff right after you make the pile. You are a Noctis. You are a Dreadnaught. You are a refitting carrier, you are whatever you feel like.

This leads to 4th:

What damage would you want to shoot? well, for missions, it's variable what damage you need to deal. Lasers and Railgungs fall short because of this.

Rise, Vargur, son of Naglfar, King of PvE!

For missions where groups of NPCs start way back (~100km), the MJD is nice for jumping in on top of them (or just closer to them, if they're more like 70km away). Then, face tank at will.


Just curious, haven't tested one of these yet. How does it prioritize wrecks to grab? Closest? Farthest? If farthest, I guess I can see getting some utility out of it for when I have to shoot something >48km away, but otherwise, it's just going to be fighting me for wrecks.

Oh, and on topic to the OP... I think they all work pretty well. Some possibly a bit better than others, but for as long as they take to train into, if you're just starting out I'd recommend doing a little research on the races in general and picking what sounds most interesting. Your goals may very well change before you get there, so you may as well pick something you can get excited about along the way.

from my usage of it it doesnt prioritise it just seems to randomly grab them but thats y i pop it out b4 i even open fire.
it will grab wrecks as they are made

torp golem with a mjd, jump into the middle and bastillion up throw out a mobile tractor. everything is close so it doesnt take ages to salvage. 2 salvagers and a tractor beam for the rare times your waiting on the mobile tractor. fit 2 tech 2 tp and not even frigs are a problem.

op you probably know but first rule in eve is don't fly what you can't afford to lose.


mjd are not just for kiting and i havent had a mission yet that i can't mjd to within torp range, the extra 20% range when bastillioned up is great .

Last week on sisi it pulled them in closest to furthest, pretty sure it wouldn't have changed on TQ.

i would avoid getting the golem. Stick to a gun boat so your implants and gunnery skills will mostly benefit all 3 races. Golem is fine if you want easy time but is not the top performer once you have good skills due to limits of being a missile boat. There are certain in game mechanics that limits its kill speed. ie cant kill frigates fast, mass overkill, losing volleys for torpedo but worst of all only do about 1/4-1/2 damage if shooting at anything at 200m/s or higher. these are all the things that missile boat has to live with. Cruise missile has the same problem except you rarely lose volleys due to faster speed but you have to deal with defenders.

no amount of training or pimp modules or paper dps can overcome the problem i listed for missiles.

missiles are excellent for some missions but not good for others. Guns are excellent for all missions once you have top skills.

For gunboat, i think kronos is looking very attractive atm being able to use both blaster and rail guns effectively. Vargur use autocannon only because artillery suck very much. paladin mostly pulse lasers and you have to stick to amarr space.
also i tend to not group the guns at all so i have f1 -f4 for each gun.

Golem = Musle car all big horse power , but cant perform at the track
Paladin = F1 only good at clean race tracks
Vargur = Rally car good all arounder
Kronos = Ferrari its beautiful and great for almost all conditions

Nice to see someone who looks at this game from a long term perspective.

If you intend to use Marauders for L4 missions, you should also factor in that you will probably become bored with these missions within 6-12 months & will be looking for something else to do. With that in mind you should perhaps look at a secondary goal/target. In my case that was incursions. That's probably the next logical step up from L4 missions, unless of course you decide to pursue a PvP career or even something else.

Bearing in mind most "high-end" incursion communities now fly exclusively with pirate battleships (shield & non-missiles boats actually), you should probably tailor your skills accordingly. From there it really boils down to personal preference as to what you'd like to fly. I love my Nightmare, but I don't mind the Machariel also. Vindicators are also heavily favoured.

As other people have alluded to you should train to kill the rats in your area of space or train towards something that can deal with any of them. Personally I'd train towards a Paladin & a Vargur - you could then use whichever one you wanted as appropriate. This would also give you a good grounding to get into pirate battleships when the time came.

Good luck.

With the Machariel mentioned that it is being looked at, I would probably recommend the Nightmare over it. So the Paladin.