Missions & Complexes

Isn't Ishtar more SP-demanding than Gila? Besides the basic support skills, for Ishtar, you need Gallente Cruisers (where V is a must), Energy Grid Upgrades (V must), HACs, Light Drones Operation, Heavy Drones Operation/Sentry Drones Operation, totally 19x; for Gila, you need Caldari Cruisers, Light Drones Operation and Medium Drones Operation, totally 8x, or plus Light Missiles and Gallente Cruisers if you also want to use missiles, totally 14x.
And you don't need sentry drones and range tank on a cruiser, because you can speed tank those battleships well. If you're using Ishtar in lv4s, heavy drones are better because of both better basic damage and better damage bonus.

Looking at what I can do once I omega. Just wondering going from a fully trained alpha which ship I should aim to train initially

To maximize the Gila where a significant portion of it's damage comes from thermal or kinetic missiles Gallente cruiser 5 should be considered a requirement especially for level 4 missions. While the BS may not do much damage due to speed the frigates, destroyers and the cruisers in the pockets will take a serious toll on your tank so the resist bonus per level makes the Caldari skill a virtual requirement as well. Again because a significant portion of your damage comes from missiles training all applicable missile skills to level 5 adds a significant amount of time to training for the Gila. In the end, and considering starting from a brand new character the Ishtar and the Gila are remarkably close in training time requirements.

Looking at your list you have skills listed for the Ishtar that are not specifically needed.
Both heavy and medium drone skills are entirely optional for a pilot using an Ishtar for any level of missions.
Because nearly instant switching for range, damage type and damage mitigation sentry drones have more damage applied over time even though they have less paper damage than the heavies. And we have not started to talk about travel times that not only eliminate any paper DPS advantage the heavies may have but actually turn the equation in favor of the sentry drones.
When it comes to smaller things what the Garde cannot handle because of tracking issues lights are generally a better option anyway so having medium drones is not required. In fact given many of the NPC proclivity for shooting drones I find a set of armor maintenance bots are a much better alternative than mediums allowing you to repair drones between pockets or groups more quickly and efficiently than using remote reps from your highs alone.

And that leads me to the final advantage the Ishtar has over the Gila. Since the Ishtar has no bonuses to a hull mounted weapons system flying one with no guns at all is a viable option which frees up high slots for whatever a pilot wants to use, with the Gila you loose to much of your damage to even consider not filling your highs with missile launchers.

In the end both ships are capable but neither one of them is even close to the "best" option for level 4 missions. They are more like I am bored let's try something that puts a little more challenge into these type of ships.

L3 missions are ridiculously short. You should take a ship that warps around quickly because that will take as much time as it will to kill any rats at the sites. And something else to do on the side because some missions will have you wait around for spawns.

A plus vote for the Gila, very effective at l3 missions, focus on the scrambling webbing ships first and then go to town. Rlml tear through those. T1 missiles and T1 missile launchers with gallente4 is quite sufficient if your drone skills for mediums are decent but caldari5 and T2 purgers are highly recommended. It is also able to work with blitzing L4 missions as well if one is very alert, but not ideal for that role. A tengu is a significantly better choice.

For L3 I actually prefer my max skilled Gila to a max skill machariel, or tengu. It is not so efficient, but everyone has there own preferences.

Edit, If you can afford a gila, why bother with a drake?

Well my usual response would be get a T3 cruiser, and just keep using that in L4's. But CCP announced incoming nerf-hammer for them so I'd go with HAC or pirate cruiser.

The problem with moving into battleships is doing it at a low skill level really gimps your fits and functionality. It's almost always better to fly something smaller well than it is to fly something bigger poorly. The benefits of moving into that larger hull are offset by doing so with poor skills, and the training becomes very long when you want T2 everything.

BC's are another option to stick with medium sized weapons, saving on the training for T2 large. I just don't feel that they stand out enough in a crowded field of contenders. Likewise, T3D's will handle many of the L3 missions (and a couple L4s) but when advancing to L4, you'll really want to either have strong medium weapon skills, or get into large size weaponry.

Drone boats really offer the most versatility. Sentry drones for anything bigger than a frig, and usually a flight of lights to deal with those. There is a bunch of drone skills that need trained, but if you're looking to invest training time into moving up in content, consider training up drone skills. Drones are also handy when you are facing EWAR like jams.

Second Response (post):

What are you planning to do in addition to running missions? That question will help identify what route you should go.

1) If the secondary goal is High-Sec Group PVE (incursions): train into the Machariel, Vindicator or Nightmare Battleships
2) If the secondary goal is Low Sec PVP (or faction warfare), pay attention to frigate and destroyer hulls.
3) If you are planning an eventual null sec or wormhole space move: pay attention to the various cruisers.


Outside of null-sec alliance warfare, Battleships and Battle-cruiser's are mostly used only for running PVE missions. You will get burned out quickly if that is all you ever do in-game.


Edit: (regarding Incursions):

Caladari Battleships (and missile weapons) are not desired for running incursions. However, the Caldari logistics cruiser, Basilisk, is. One of the requirements to fly is Caldari cruisers V, a requirement shared with the strategic (T3) and heavy assault cruiser......

its more like

Level 1= anything that can fit a weapon
Level 2= T1 frigate/DD
Level 3= CL
Level 4= MJD CH or BB, BB typically faster

you want to use the fastest ship possible for each mission, this means research the damage types so you can stack against those and know which type is best to use yourself. This allows you to bring smaller classes of ship to do the same mission. T1 CL's can easily run L3's, for the OP id suggest an RLM Caracal and you can start them even as an alpha.

there is an obvious trade off with travel time and kill speed, one of the main reasons the mach does so well is it has great travel time and kill speed. For newer players kill speed is usually the limiting factor. going up usually gives you more damage and range, there is typically also a cost of application and travel time.

back when I was grinding standings with some new corp I went out in a frigate and ran one level one which gave lv2 access and since I was already there I decided to try a few missions in my frig. they went mostly well until I got to the blockade. none of the rats were an issue it was the permajam meaning I couldn't hit anything. also the very long ranges in that mission meant I spent a lot of time not doing anything. I went back to station grabbed a warp speed ishtar and annihilated the mission. I traded a little warp speed for a ton of damage and range and completed missions much quicker.

Tell me how much dps your caracal has and I'll compare it with my cyclone. You should already use the damage type the rats are most vulnerable to whatever you are flying, so this is actually not a bonus. If you can really do those missions easily, then the ship cost doesnt matter too much, because you would almost never lose it. As for the alphas, I really doubt whether they can survive all those lv3s in a T1 cruiser without retreating.