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One ship for all four epic arcs: candidates?
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Not A Spankalt
Doomheim
#1 - 2012-02-07 22:48:04 UTC
My mission/incursion/trade alt has become quite a chore of late so I decided to spice up her life and run the various epic arcs for the first time. Having waded through most of the mission reports avalible and reading the comments there seem to be quite a plethora of ships being used. However, for the sake of my sanity and my good business (I hate having investment capital tied up in assets) I want to get this done with one ship. Being that my alt flies caldari I think that more or less leaves me at the tengu, nighthawk, raven, cnr, sni, and golem as prospective options. I debated training for a rattlesnake just for this venture, as it seems to be one of the most popular choices, but having no other use for the ship It felt like a waste.

Looking for anyone with experience here, particularly running the arcs with one of the cal ships mentioned. When did you have tank or dps issues, how shiny was your fit, and are there any words of wisdom you would like to impart before I go on my vociferous journey of explosions and potential embarrassment.
Substantia Nigra
Polaris Rising
Goonswarm Federation
#2 - 2012-02-07 23:21:36 UTC
Not A Spankalt wrote:
Looking for anyone with experience here, particularly running the arcs ...


I have run all the epic arcs, quite a few times each.

Firstly there is **no** ship that can run all epic arcs. This is because the lvl3 arcs are restricted to frigate/destroyer hulls and those ships simply cannot cope with the incoming DPS on the lvl4 arcs. So the discussion below will be limited to the lvl4 (hisec faction) epic arcs.

I have run all the lvl4 arcs in a number of ships, solo and dual-boxing. Most dual-box combinations are fine (e.g. hurricane + maelstrom is fine) so I won't expand on that.

Solo I have only found two ships that relatively easily cope with them all, although I have not tried every ship available to me. My thoughts:
1. Tengu. Copes well with all lvl4 arcs. Not super-quick but stable and safe. Easy enough to refit for the lowsec / nullsec phases of some arcs if you want to run them. I expect nighthawk would be much the same for NPC-killing, but less able for going solo into lowsec / nullsec.
2. Rattlesnake. Copes well with all lvl4 arcs, although I never took it on the lowsec / nullsec segments. Again not superquick, but with decent skills has little real difficulty.
3. Machariel*. Kills the NPCs more quickly than tengu / snake but I had trouble soloing gallente / Amarr lvl4 arcs in my beloved mach. I could do it, but not without a few warpouts during the higher-DPS missions.

I have flown CNR and SNI in w-space and found SNI preferable ... passive buffer. While I have no expertise in those other ships I would be surprised if a decent CNR, SNI, or golem could not relatively easily complete the hisec combat missions of each lvl4 arc. I'd not be keen on taking them into the lowsec / nullsec segments, solo, though.

* I tend not to bother swapping hardeners or ammo etc. It's entirely possible that a purpose-fitted mach would do fine if you wanted to go to that extra effort.

I guess I am almost a 'vet' by now. Hopefully not too bitter and managing to help more than I hinder. I build and sell many things, including large collections of bookmarks.
Not A Spankalt
Doomheim
#3 - 2012-02-07 23:30:35 UTC
I wasn't intending to run the pirate arcs, so that is a good reply. Tengu it is.

On a side note, how camped are the lowsec/nullsec portions in your experience? Bad enough to merit a lot of premeditated bookmarking and a run close to downtime or what?
Substantia Nigra
Polaris Rising
Goonswarm Federation
#4 - 2012-02-07 23:47:45 UTC
Not A Spankalt wrote:
On a side note, how camped are the lowsec/nullsec portions in your experience? Bad enough to merit a lot of premeditated bookmarking and a run close to downtime or what?


They are not areas where I'd spent much time, so I don't know what is 'normal' for them. When I chose the various lowsec / nullsec arms of the lvl4 arcs I found them to be very quiet systems. I don't recall the details but those lowsec / nullsec missions were also pretty easy.

If you're going to run those arcs then I commend Jowen Datloren's guides to you: http://lorebook.eve-inspiracy.com

I guess I am almost a 'vet' by now. Hopefully not too bitter and managing to help more than I hinder. I build and sell many things, including large collections of bookmarks.
DeMichael Crimson
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2012-02-08 00:36:19 UTC
You should have no problem completing all of the level 4 epic arcs solo in a Tengu, especially if it's Faction / Deadspace fitted.

'The Plan' | California Eve Players | Proposal - The Endless Battle
Not A Spankalt
Doomheim
#6 - 2012-02-08 00:59:26 UTC
Substantia Nigra wrote:
If you're going to run those arcs then I commend Jowen Datloren's guides to you: http://lorebook.eve-inspiracy.com


What a gem! Much appreciated.

And thank you DMC for the confirmation. I may have to bump up the bling on my tengu before starting this.
mxzf
Shovel Bros
#7 - 2012-02-08 01:06:56 UTC
Yeah, a Tengu should work fine for them I would think.

And I know you weren't planning on doing the pirate arcs, but I will toss out there that they are quite fun (and runable in an interceptor or AF) and not bad profit either. It's a nice change of pace, so long as you're not afraid of nullsec.
Substantia Nigra
Polaris Rising
Goonswarm Federation
#8 - 2012-02-08 01:10:29 UTC
Not A Spankalt wrote:
I may have to bump up the bling on my tengu before starting this.


Given the ease with which an expensive faction/deadspace tengu tanks them I would not be at all surprised if a decent T2-fit tengu (mebbe with CN BCUs) coped perfectly well. If you do not have all the expensive doo-dads on-hand already I suggest giving it a go with a T2 setup.

I guess I am almost a 'vet' by now. Hopefully not too bitter and managing to help more than I hinder. I build and sell many things, including large collections of bookmarks.
Not A Spankalt
Doomheim
#9 - 2012-02-08 01:15:12 UTC
Thanks mxzf, i'm not afraid of working outside empire as my main lives there full-time and flashy red; however, I do a lot of business on my alt that requires good faction standing across the four empires. I'm unaware of how much of a standing hit is incurred by doing the pirate arcs so if it is marginal I will look into those too.

@Substantia, Currently using a cheap faction/ds setup that's been good for generic L4s but has not been stress tested in bonus rooms or tough missions very much. If anything i'll be dropping the gist-b cheap booster for something with a little more umph.
Substantia Nigra
Polaris Rising
Goonswarm Federation
#10 - 2012-02-08 01:17:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Substantia Nigra
mxzf wrote:
And I know you weren't planning on doing the pirate arcs, but I will toss out there that they are quite fun (and runable in an interceptor or AF) and not bad profit either. It's a nice change of pace, so long as you're not afraid of nullsec.


Absolutely! They are a lot of fun, and are the only way that a frigate can easily mission-earn a half billion isk :-)

Of course they are a lot more fun, more profitable, and way safer if you first buy our support kits (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=12973&find=unread).

/me ducks for cover before CCP notices flagrant advertising and nukes me :-)


Not A Spankalt wrote:
I'm unaware of how much of a standing hit is incurred by doing the pirate arcs so if it is marginal I will look into those too.


Hisec faction losses = SFA from the pirate arcs. If you kill stuff you don't need to (such as all the NPC ships in 'Fuel Dump') then you can engineer to suffer some substantial caldari faction loss.

Not A Spankalt wrote:
@Substantia, Currently using a cheap faction/ds setup that's been good for generic L4s but has not been stress tested in bonus rooms or tough missions very much. If anything i'll be dropping the gist-b cheap booster for something with a little more umph.


I totally approve of bling-ing tengu, it turns them into something else altogether ... but you may be able to manage just fine with your 'ordinary' tengu setup.

I guess I am almost a 'vet' by now. Hopefully not too bitter and managing to help more than I hinder. I build and sell many things, including large collections of bookmarks.
mxzf
Shovel Bros
#11 - 2012-02-08 01:26:14 UTC  |  Edited by: mxzf
Not A Spankalt wrote:
Thanks mxzf, i'm not afraid of working outside empire as my main lives there full-time and flashy red; however, I do a lot of business on my alt that requires good faction standing across the four empires. I'm unaware of how much of a standing hit is incurred by doing the pirate arcs so if it is marginal I will look into those too.

@Substantia, Currently using a cheap faction/ds setup that's been good for generic L4s but has not been stress tested in bonus rooms or tough missions very much. If anything i'll be dropping the gist-b cheap booster for something with a little more umph.


The faction hit really isn't that bad TBH. I did the Guristas arc and I don't remember exactly what the standings hit was, but I don't remember being overly shocked by it. I was amazed at how much it bumped up my Guristas standing though, it took me from negative a ways to a tiny bit positive after skills.

The missions I did for Minmatar before I knew about declining faction missions hurt my standings far worse than the Guristas epic arc did, lol. And the gain you get from the Caldari epic arc should be far greater than the loss from the Guristas arc.
Substantia Nigra
Polaris Rising
Goonswarm Federation
#12 - 2012-02-08 01:53:57 UTC
Excerpt from my Smash & Grab manual, re the rewards for that arc:

    "Congratulations on your purchase of our Survival and Completion Guide for the Guristas Pirates Epic Mission Arc, Smash and Grab. Depending on the choices you make this arc will offer you 12 or 13 missions, the completion of which should see you better off by:
    - Cash, to the tune of 60 - 70 million ISK;
    - Items worth 200 - 400 million ISK (1 Dread Guristas ECM multispectral jammer, 1 Gila BPC, and a collection of Caldari Navy dogtags);
    - Standings boosts of approximately 30% with the Guristas (faction), 4 - 5% with the corporation of the starter agent, and 30 - 40% with Guristas (corporation);
    - A small or large standings drops with Caldari State (faction); and
    - A small collection of miscellaneous other loot and salvage … if you’re into that sort of thing."

Normally your empire faction standings loss is less than 5% but if you kill everything (e.g. in Fuel Dump) you can conspire to make it closer to 40%. In Fuel Dump the extra 30%-or-so caldari faction standings loss delivers you an extra 100M+ in dogtags ... but the mission is easily enough completed without going that route.

I guess I am almost a 'vet' by now. Hopefully not too bitter and managing to help more than I hinder. I build and sell many things, including large collections of bookmarks.