Missions & Complexes

If you just start out doing L4s in a Domi and safety is your primary concern, you might consider fitting 2 Large Armor Reppers and a couple of Cap Rechargers. That should give you enough tank for virtually anything that could go wrong. Just don´t perma-run both them
In fact, consider the second one purely an emergency system.

Once you are comfortable with running L4s and find that you don´t need the second LAR, switch it out (as well as a few of the cap rechargers) for more damage mods. Something like the fits listed above.
DPS tank best tank, after all.

Also, a Domi (or Navy Domi) can be shield fitted too for awesome DPS but that requires very goods skills.

Important thing to remember about the L4 threshold is that rats will warp scramble you.

Luckily, it's only the rat frigates that do this. Which is why when you're doing L4s you always want to kill rats in order from the smallest to the largest. Yes the big ships do more DPS but it's the little buggers that lock you down and make it impossible to retreat. So long as you don't get scrambled you can always run away if things go sour.

The rat cruisers start using a lot of EWAR, but as a drone ship you can pretty much ignore all incoming EWAR except for the buggers that web your drones. That's how you lose non-sentries and it sucks.

CCP's drone hate patch has finally been toned down so that rats actually have to target your drones (read: require time to lock on) and can actually miss them. When that patch first launched rats insta-locked and autohit drones and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth (I was one of the wailers and gnashers myself) as drones would explode literally within one second of launching. Since then it's eased back and if you watch closely when you launch your drones you can spot rats ceasing fire for a few seconds while they retarget over to your drones, and that's the time window in which you need to recall them.

Sentries are great but done forget to pack some light drones to deal with the little frigates that zerg you and get under sentry range (see above). Once those scramble friagtes get under 20km or so you'll want to switch to your lights because they're ideal for frigate popping (fast, high tracking, etc). I've also been told that you can switch to something called "guns" for them but I really don't know what those are.

People have got most covered but the one thing that i didnt take in to account when i started that i wished i had was standings its much easier to repair your standing if you never have to, to start with lol.

try not to do any faction missions if you can help it .Set up a triangle of level 4 agents so you will always have a mission to do if you have to refuse one and remember to learn security connections asap.

Everyone's input on this has been amazing for me (whether in the grand scheme it is the best advice- we won't put that to judgement) because It has brought to light situations that I wouldn't have thought of.
My main issue now is that I am no where near being able to get the t2 stuff that most of you have posted- as of right now 90% of the fittings are a t1...it will be weeks before I can get into t2...BUT ill try out my boat on l3's and get used to how she handles-

another question if you don't mind...for starters id lilke to not be switching out guns/drones/fittings-
so as far as drones go-- what is the benefit of a sentry drone over heavy attack- is it just the armor? they can take a beating?
thanks!

+1

thanks- safety is key for me right now as I build up my isk from blowing 1/2 of it on the dom/fittings :)

yes sentries are basically guns in space with no ammo consumption ^^
but they cant travel at all (1m/s max speed i believe so not counting that :P)

I LIKE THIS! someone else posted this idea too-- props

btw.

garde are pretty good for all missions but angel. u might consider other damage types like warden (kin) curator (em) or bouncers (exp). but i often only used gardes and bouncers on my ishtar.

And since you all are so kind to keep up with my annoying questions-
will I be changing out my charges (hybrid) often for damage/distance? im lookin to get max range but these tungsten charges are the suck for damage- but they give me good range
--im assuming as my skill get better for range-- I can move to a more powerful charge? SPIKE is not an option as of now

Ok - so im limping through level 3's- I can do a lvl 3 faster with my BC-
Drone damage seems extremely weak compared to my hobgoblin 2's (really expensive to lose those)
damage modifiers on medium an dlarge drones are laughable- why are they so low? i'll have sentries trained by tomorrow- but still t1

2 x cap recharger 1
MJD
MWD
f-90 positional sensor subroutines

2x drone link augmentor 1
4 x 425 mm prototype gauss

3x DDA II
2x beta reactor control
1x large armor rep 1
1x Energized adaptive nano membrane 1

---experimenting with medium and heavy drones--- nothing that shines yet

I know this setup needs help-- but remember, im still t1 on most things-- training everything drones right now