Missions & Complexes

It "works," in the literal sense that you can do it. It is also miles more efficient than it used to be. Having said that, caldari hybrid ships are likely the least efficient ships for -most- pve applications. If you want an easy crosstrain gallente/amarr has immense overlap since they both armor tank, utilize guns on the vast majority of their ships, and have generous drone bays.

I'm still relatively new (7mill sp) but I can give you my views for what it's worth.

I Started with Caldar and went straight for Drake/CNR to do lv 3/4s and this was before the minor hybrid buff.

I got lucky and won a Rokh in a draw so decided to train up for that. After that I decided to train up for an Arty Mael to help with dps/utility in corp wh ops and random stuff like that.

So atm I have +- 1mill sp in drones, guns and missiles and both Caldari and Minmitar BS 4 but only T1 guns/missiles for them. Got pretty decent shield tanking skills tho as all 3 ships are shield tankers.

I put in some time recently to really get to know my ships and what they are capable of with my current skills by doing all kinds of missions with and without corpmates and here's my take on them.

Cruise Raven(CNR)
- No tanking bonuses and having fit rigor rigs instead of CCC rigs means the tank on it is a bit on the meh side tho I can fit more tank modules since I don't *really* need Painters or targeting computers.
- Most DPS AND most applied dps to BS/BCs. Relies heavily on Hobgoblin II and Hammerhead IIs
- Can do 100% of damage to weak resist of rats
- Probably fastest on mission times but not THAT big of a difference (for me fun is more important)
- Boring as heck

Arty Maelstrom
- Tanking bonuses and CCC rigs means tank is decent and can be improved quite a bit easily but needs tracking comps
- Very good dps even with just t1 sentries and 5 hobgoblin IIs
- Applies damage pretty good at range, has trouble at short range so sucks ion certain missions like worlds collide last room etc.
- Has good selection of rat specific ammo and even ammo that increases tracking
- Flexible in range for the most part with combination of ammo and tracking comps. Fun to fly and has that instapop factor popping 4 frigs at a time and/or instapopping cruiser/BCs
- Good support ship if flying with corpmates

Rail Rokh
- Tanking bonuses and CC rigs, needs tracking comps
- Much better dps after hybrid buff
- more forgiving on range issues than Maelstrom
- No rat specific ammo (sucks at sansha but does well agaisnt gurista (orbits at range) and mercs/angels (if you can warp in at range
- Good support ship to fly as it can react faster than Mael
- Same flexibility in range as Mael, slightly better at shorter range
- Sexiest ship I own

Thats the short of it. CNR/Marauder/snake will still be the BEST lv4 mission runners but by no means are the other ships bad in any way, just not as good. Some missions will be a lot tougher/impossible tho.

Many Minmitar ships shield tank and a lot of them are rather good with missiles to boot. So if you are going hybrid Caldari might I suggest some cross training to Minmitar so you can use the Hurricane for lv3 missions while you train up for a Rokh and so you can later on use an AC Mael for missions where a Rail Rokh will get creamed. There is a ton of overlap between Caldari and Minmitar (shield, secondary gun skills, missiles, drones) and Minmitar is the go to race for PvP.

Never used a Ferox tho. Medium rails still suck donkey nuts but might be able to do something with MWD and blasters perhaps. Don't think the new tier 3 BCs are really meant to do missions as they have rather paper thin tanks. Blasters always felt more like PvP weapons.

Tengu is op, nerf tengu :P