Ships & Modules

Ive recently come back to the game after a bit of a break and i thought i would try doing something new that i hadn't before.

Drone boats !

My main focus atm is PVE in high sec so i have kitted up a Vexor to do some level 1's and 2's and learned tons of skills to boost drone abilities but im still a week away from tech 2's drones. I have been looking all day for a decent ship to do 3's and 4's in and some incursions as well. Preferably a ship where i can make use of my drone skills if poss, if not, then i will adapt.

I'm led to believe drone boats arent so great for incursions so ill probably target 2 ships one for missions and one for incursions as i do really like drone boats and i dont want to have all the time ive invested in learning the skills to go to waste. Unless ofc there is a ship that can a reasonable amount of dps with drones and still be effective at both missions and incursions.

I dont have access to a lot of the tech 2 stuff as yet but its something i am working heavily towards.

What i am looking for are a few examples of 2-3 ships that are recommended for incursions, level 3-4 missions or both roles and then a few reasons why they would be better at this job than others and if possible t1/t2 fits that might do the job so i can down or upgrade where appropriate.

Please keep any discussions friendly and if you disagree with anything posted, please provide evidence as to why your argument is valid.

Thanks in advance

Thanks for your response, but i think you may have mis understood part of what i typed or perhaps it was my bad wording but i did say "i am led to believe drone boats AREN'T great in Incursions" :P

So i can aim for a nightmare for incursions as its only 4 days of training to get into one and i'll only need to train Amar as i have the other factions already. Getting decent mods to fit it however could be another story altogether.

I did think of the Ishtar for missions, but there's 2 months of training needed to get into that also. Any particular ships you would recommend for missions and incursions for the short term?

Well, i never said i'd actually missed it. I said i was after some recommendations. Ive seen various people suggest different things and yes the Dominix was one that i had seen suggested but so many people have so many different opinions and never justify it so i came and asked for an opinion here.

The drone skills ive learned have all been what was recommended from http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Vexor and i have all of those listed at at least 4, so if im doing it wrong, then so are they :)

Also, i never said small or medium drones weren't affordable, i said i was still learning the skills.

vanguard sites can be done in gilas and the hp bonus of the drones means the rats will barely scratch them

The gila is a monster at PvE and PvP.

I like T3Ds for level 3s and RS for level 4s.

For L3s you might consider the Vexor Navy, For L4s you'll probably find the Dominix easiest - though in the longer term you might want to consider the Ishtar (it's being gradually nerfed at present so that may not be true for too long but...

For Incursions I would certainly aim for the Nightmare but if you wished to speed things up you might consider (as you're training Gallente already) the Vindicator (Gallente + Minmatar skills) - the Nightmare may be the effective backbone of an Incusion fleet's DPS wing but the Vindicator is generally what wins you contests and so is probably about as sought after.

I dont really have any plans to go for a Tengu or a Basilisk at all im afraid. At least not atm anyway. As i said in the OP, i want something that will utilise my drone skills such as the Gila or Dominix for example

I would recommend a dominix for level 4's, or a rattlesnake if you feel like splurging.

For incursions, as was said earlier, drone boats aren't particularly liked. I know Warp To Me will accept them, but they greatly encourage switching to a turret ship. I would personally recommend the vindicator, especially if you have hybrid skills.

Oh and I don't think anyone mentioned the Ishtar? Not sure how badly the recent nerf hurt its missioning potential, but it should still be good for lvl 4's, and it'll crush any lvl 3's. It is a t2 ship though so it'll take a while to train into.