Ships & Modules

You are correct. Auto targeting missiles go for closest rats. Frigates being the fastest rats close on you first. So they die first. It can be a problem with frigate is a trigger. On the other hand if you are 200 km away and moving away, you, usually, can trigger all the spawns and kill them and not worry about anything.

I am glad you liked my fit. I am even more glad that you have successfully used it. And yes, by its nature, being such a safe fit/tactic, it is slow. But! Now that you have seen how it works... How little tank you need... You can upgraded it.

How to upgrade.
If you compare regular cruise and auto targeting cruise, you will see that regular cruise does more damage. So, you take the FoF Navy Raven fit and you remove some of the tank. For example:
- You said that you almost never turn shield booster on. That means that you don't really need shield booster amplifier. Take the shield booster amplifier off, replace it with sensor booster with targeting range script. That will let you target rats about 130 km away.
- You used tp to get agro from rats, this agro is needed to turn auto targeting launchers on. Since we ARE NOT using auto targeting missiles, we don't need tp. Put another signal booster there and load it with targeting range script.

Now that you have two signal boosters with targeting range scripts, you should be getting 150-180 km targeting range. The tactic stays the same, warp in, head away from rats, lmjd 100 km, manually target rats, start killing them with your regular cruise missiles and count your volleys.

Notes.
- The elite npc frigs (they have 3 words in their name) will eat your drones. Kill them first if you want to keep your drones alive.
- Don't forget that you do have drones! Use them on the regular rat frigs (2 words in their name) while you kill cruisers/bc/bs.
- Since I am lazy and don't want to manage drones, I only use light scouts. So I would have 5 salvage drones and the rest light scout drones. I don't mess around with medium and heavy drones, too much work. ☺
- Some rats are triggers so be careful, read eve survival so you know what to kill and in which order.
- The above fit might need more cpu, you might want co-processor in low slot. To play it safe do 3x bcs, 1x co-processor, 1x dc. Or you can do 4x bcs, 1x co-processor.
- To avoid cpu troubles, upgraded bcs to faction (caldari navy ballistic control system) as soon as possible. They use less cpu and do more dps. Either buy them on the market or farm tags and get them from lp store, or farm tags and get bpc from lp store and build them yourself.
- Rigor Rigor Rigor Rigor Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! rigs. Forget other rigs.

Actually have already taken the lead on the upgrade Caleidascope as you're absolutely right, the fit is wonderful! I'm using it on my mission runner and spending some time on an alt learning exploration since it is so safe :P One problem I've run into on the upgrade so far is that with 2x sensor boosters I get 200km+ so targeting isn't a problem yet with t2 faction cruise missiles I'm only getting a max flight range of 127km. Guessing this is skill related but i'll be darned if I can pick which skill it is heheh. Thanks for the fantastically detailed post!

There are actually two skills.
1) Increases missile speed (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Missile_Projection)
2) Increases missile flight time (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Missile_Bombardment)
Speed x Time = Distance.

There are a couple other skills that pretty much is a must for missile ship.

Also don't forget implants in slots 6-10. You can get them on the market, from lp store or even drop in a mission (there was real nice one like that).

Raven a la Liang
Navy Raven a la Liang
One Shotting Non-Elite NPC Cruisers a la Stoicfaux

As others have noted, the MJD tank strategy is viable.

As others have noted, but it bears re-repeating, using a single Cap Booster (that uses Cap charges) can replace many, many, oh so many mid, low and rig slots devoted to cap regeneration (e.g. cap rechargers, capacitor flux relays, CCC rigs.) In place of cap modules/rigs you can use the now-free slots for damage application (i.e. applied DPS) and tank (but Gank is also tank.)

If you have less than stellar skills or have a ship full of capacitor regen modules, then stick to T1 ammo. If you mount 3 Rigor/Flare[1] rigs, 1 or more TPs, and have your explosion radius and explosion velocity skills at IV+, then use Fury. Raw DPS isn't meaningful unless you can actually apply the damage to the target, so Rigor/Flare rigs and a TP or three are a must when using Fury ammo.

Missile Damage Formulas and overview a la Eve University.



[1] Rigor II > Flare II > Rigor I > Flare I

So it would seem my quickest way to be able to efficiently do lvl 4s would be to upgrade the kalidescope fit by not using the fof. So I need more missile range. Think the path is clear... I think! :)

Yes. Now that you have a good fit, that does any mission any time and you know what to expect from the rats, start using regular cruise missiles.

The main emphasis of my fof fit is that instead of struggling... loosing time, loosing ships, not making isk, not making lp, loosing isk, and getting frustrated in general, you get a fit that does the missions with some ease. You get the experience, you get isk, you get lp, you get loot and salvage, you get confident. But all these good things come with a price. The price is that missions take longer to run with my fof fit.

Carry regular and 2k of auto targeting missiles for gurista and serp missions. If gurista jam you, reload with auto targeters and keep on killing them. If serp damp your sensor range, reload with auto targeters and keep killing them. Other rat factions don't really do anything too terrible so just use regular t1 ammo on them.

Rigor rigs is key to killing frigs and cruisers. I think it takes one salvo from navy raven with t1 cruise missiles to kill regular rat cruiser, but that is with all 5 skills and 3x rigor rigs.

Once you get your navy raven maxed out. You can go and add the skills needed for rattlesnake. By that time you only need the drone skills and ship command skills. Your missile, shield, etc. skills would be at 5 already because you trained them when you maxed out your navy raven.

With the barghest's 50% penalty to missile flight time I'm guessing that's more of an 'in your face' strategy not the sniping type :)

Just for something different, I cooked up an alternate L4 mission missile fit that's actually a riot to fly. The short version is that it's cap stable, applies near-perfect DPS without webs or target painters, zips around quickly (between missions, gates, objectives), is not heavily skill-intensive and won't break the bank @ $464-million (~) ISK - so it'll pay for itself in about 8 hours.

Polarized Orthrus

5x Polarized Heavy Assault Missile Launchers (Rage Heavy Assault Missiles)
Auto Targeting System II (gives you 10 targets)
5x Warrior II drones

Federation Navy 100MN Afterburner
Gistum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Shield Boost Amplifier II
2x Cap Recharger II

3x Ballistic Control System II
Power Diagnostic System II

2x Medium Hydraulic Bay Thrusters II
1x Medium Warhead Flare Catalyst I

Recommended Implants: Zor Navigation Link and Hyper-Link

With Low or Mid-Grade Nomad implants, you get an align time of something insane like 2.5 seconds - which also ensures that you both accelerate quicker and orbit at higher velocities. The extra inertia also ensures you enter and exit warp faster, so you're actually getting the equivalent of around 4 AU/s warp speed. Obviously the ship is paper thin in terms of tank (9.35k), so safe undocks are recommended at your favourite mission haunts.

With perfect V skills this deals 951 selective DPS with missiles to 35.4km (Javelins yield 661 DPS at 64.2km, with Faction somewhere in-between). Drones will deliver another 80-100 DPS depending on selection (I prefer Warriors). Polarized launchers hold 198 rounds (!) of heavy assault ammunition, so you'll almost never need to reload during any phase (or even entire missions). The rate of fire is around 2.5 seconds/volley, so you'll rarely lose a volley in-transit when a target is destroyed. The Auto-Targeting System (optional) is just to give you more targets to lock-up.

With a bit of bling and a few missile implants this thing will actually dish out close to 1200 DPS! Yes, you do need to maneuver around a bit - but at 1738 m/s (2454 m/s overheated) it really doesn't take very long. A Core X-Type 100MN Afterburner actually pushes this to 1921 m/s (2729 m/s overheated) and actually frees up a bit more capacitor if you're short on skills.

It's a fairly solid fit, so there's not a lot I can suggest. By going with a T2 BCU you're only losing about 1.25% DPS (although that does reduce CPU by 16). I would be more inclined to do that, save the ~85m ISK and drop the DDA in favor of a co-processor which would allow you to run another rigor. I would also upgrade two of the rigors to T2s, so instead of a -40% signature radius you get -60% (that's 50% more damage application). You may find that you can get away with a single TP, but if not - a pair of target painters with the upgraded rigors will allow you to use Fury ammunition against even cruisers. Good luck.

If you need a prop mode for the few missions that require one (and if you cannot decline those missions,) then drop the sig amp (or BCU II) for a cpu and one of the TPs for the prop mod. Another consideration is downgrading the shield booster to a c-type to save on CPU.

The Sig Amp is there because 110km is pretty much the highest range that level 4 NPCs will be at. Upgrading the Rigors to 2xRigor II + Flare II is a personal choice due to cost. Carry Hobgoblins and Warriors to deal with frigates.

[Raven Navy Issue, New Setup 1]
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Ballistic Control System II
Signal Amplifier II

Pith B-Type X-Large Shield Booster
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Explosive Deflection Field II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron

Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile

Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst I