Ships & Modules

Hello everyone! o/


I'm back on EvE after two years with some buddies, and I'm rediscovering the joys of this wonderful game. I've been playing for a while with some breaks here and there, but I don't consider myself as an experienced player, so my knowledge is limited.

Since doing mission is what I like the most, I'm currently having a blast doing L4 Missions in hi-sec, flying my Tempest Autocannons, enjoying more and more this PvE Battleship gameplay. :)



This get me to consider the option of flying a Marauder, especially a Vargur, on the (very?) long run... Because...why not? After all, i like flying Battleships, and I love Minmatar ships as well (especially the Tempest/Vargur hull).

But before doing anything, I'm wondering what are the Marauder's used for? What tasks/roles are they good at? Given their stats, bonuses, huge price, and overall gameplay (at least from what I understand), there seem to be overall better options/ships to fly out there.
That being said, I see sometimes Marauders in space, so people are flying them, meaning they are good at something, right? Like you know...they seem insanely expensive for what they seem to do.


Most of the documentation and topics I find on those are either 2 to 4 years old at least, or simply doesn't really answer my questions.


On the paper, I feel like Marauders could fit my play style (Deploy bastion mode > F1 PewPew on targets at range > go back in "normal" mode > MJD to new location > Deploy > Repeat sequence until the dust has settled).
But I'd like to know better about them before investing the time and ISK in skills and fitting to fly one properly.



PS : I didn't know where to post this topic between here and general discussion, so I posted it here since it's about a ship category. Please excuse me if it's the wrong section.

Missions predominantly, high-end DED and wormhole sites also.

They're bag of tricks is basically
#1 : Facetanking Jesus Christ himself.
#2 : Damage projection and application.
#3 : Salvaging/looting while doing the above mentioned.

They all have some PvP niche's but the vague and golem have the added bonus of being able to fight and tank
While being capped out.

Definitely worth looking into, fantastic ships.

What Ralph wrote.

Add to this the Micro Jump Drive bonus giving them quite decent mobility plus your-momma-sized cargo bay so you can haul with you all the junk you need.

For missions they are ultimate pwnmobiles. I've been flying Kronos (my fav.), Vargur and Paladin and they all shred everything. Assuming you have trained all support skills, hope it goes without saying.

I use my marauder for L4s also (Paladin).

1. Warp in.
2. Deploy Bastion & Mobile Tractor Unit.
3. Kill little stuff off if needed, then deploy Salvage Drones.
4. Kill everything else while my salvage drones and MTU clean the field at the same time.
5. Scoop drones/MTU and move on to next pocket.

I fly all 4, my fav by far is the golem. a bonus other than high resist and double rep power in bastion mode, also uses 1/2 for golem/kronos/vargur....my paladin I just use multi freq and melt everything with a 90km optimal

Vargur/Paladin/Kronos-mostly rather tanked esp the paladin = lazy mode and still fast
-warp into mission
-deploy mtu
-mjd
-murder small things
-mjd back to mtu
-deply salvage drones
-murder everything with bastion mode -easy tank
-scoop loot/drones and move on

Golem- lol what's a tank with fury cruise missiles and tank consisting of 1 xl booster, 2 invul and 3 faction target painter
-warp in
-deploy mtu
-mjd
-deploy drones (I have 3 drone augs in highs)
-MDK everything- I 1 hit nearly everything short of battleships.....on avg they last 3 hits
-mjd to mtu, take loot/drones and leave.....may have to wait for drones to finish as I kill faster than they can work

There's a lot of good answers here.

One thing I would recommend against, is using MTU. There are players that enjoy harassing mission runners by probing them, warping in, stealing the mission-vital loot, and holding it hostage for a lot of isk. And that is perfectly legitimate gameplay. However, MTU's can be probed down...if you are like me and keep an eye on d-scan, you see probes and immediately go to warp out. If you leave the MTU behind, they can still probe it down and steal out your mission loot without you even being there. Of course, you could stay on top of that MTU the entire time and take it with you, but you WILL create wrecks a heck of a lot faster than it can grapple them. So, you'll probably end up waiting for it to finish pulling room debris in and that's going to be boring.

Instead, I recommend that you bookmark any room with sufficient loot to be worth your time, then return later in a salvaging ship. You can still use an MTU with a Noctis, and it even comes highly recommended as a very efficient pairing.


On bastion - I'm someone who marauders a lot. And I have Comcast internet. I get "comcasted" a lot. And as others mentioned, you *don't* want to be mid-bastion when your internet goes out, because then you can't e-warp. By the time you log back in, you might have wreckage surrounding your capsule where you once had a mighty ship. If you mission smartly, manage triggers and all that, you'll never need bastion anyway. I've flown every level 4 mission they have that pits you against pirate enemies, and there's no reason to bastion other than deflecting some EWAR if you really must.

Bastion provides EWAR immunity (useful for jams) and boosts your rep through rep bonuses and slightly increased resists when active. If you're not under heavy EWAR and your reps are holding fine (and they should be, you're missioning smartly, right?), then there's no reason to ever activate Bastion (sometimes I do so on the test server because the animations are pretty). You also get a pittance of extra optimal/falloff range, but it's highly unnecessary. The extra optimal only covers a few kilometers at best, and you can make up the difference by just flying closer to the enemy. The risk associated with 60 seconds of immobilization from bastion is really, really not worth the few extra kilometers of optimal, which is then the only benefit you really get from bastion-ing. Active flying achieves the same thing with much less risk.

So my advice to pilots new to marauders is first, "are you sure you don't want a cheaper hull?", followed by "really get to know your ships, and treat bastion as an *OH-SH__* button; avoid using it and certainly avoid becoming dependent upon it".

I will now direct your attention to another thread about marauders. A lot of good advice was also dispensed there, including a few long posts by yours truly. However, people came forward to disagree with my assertions on the Kronos, and I admit it's worth listening to their ideas on it. So, when you get to my post, ignore the bit on the Kronos and absorb the rest of it.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=495488&find=unread

yes salvaging and looting is very worth it on a number of my missions I add atleast 20m to and upwards of 70m for some missions, plus several of the missions have a chance for rare loot, for one mission I have gotten a 70m implant several times now on a mission many don't bother with

I do not have mission completion times for you in a RS for those missions, but I assume the fastest way to do Dread Pirate Scarlet and also the Gurista version of Assault is neither in a Marauder nor a RS :) For Blockade l4 any non Marauder has issues with the TDs, and in Worlds Collide drone aggro can be annoying.

Apart from that, in my experience its very easy to do missions quite fast in a Golem (I use it most of my 4 Marauders, easy and convenient), but a RS is also doing fine. I should really try to log my missions a bit more, efficiency is not a bad thing.

Marauders can be used for running up to Class 5 wormhole sites solo.