Missions & Complexes

That it takes you hours and hours is normal. I had the same situation when I started doing L4.

You will need to spend a couple of months training the support skills. Just matari bs 5 will take you a month. Then add all the support skills for gunnery, beef up drone skills, the engineering skills for your tank.

L4 WC is a rough mission. I do one side, then dock, switch resists and ammo, then do the other side.

I think for killing smaller rats, you will want to kite them instead of orbiting. I bet you could not hit frigs because you were trying to orbit them or they got too close to you and were orbiting you.

As far as drones, you can complement them with a couple light missile launchers or assault missile launchers. It will reduce dps of your guns, but you will be able to kill scram rats faster and be able to warp out if needed, otherwise you could easily loose this ship.

Hi,

i started my L4s in the Maelstrom, therefore some suggestions:

Lows - 2 TE II , 3x Gyro II

Meds - 2x mission spec. shield hardeners, 1x X-Large shield boost (later faction), 1x Shield boost amplifier, then take any 2 of:
100MN afterburner, Heavy Cap booster, Tracking computer

Rigs - consider also projectile ambit extension, cap. safeguerds (for decreasing cap usage of the shield booster)

Drones - you will definitely want to have at least T2 scout drones to deal with scrambling frigs

You also dont need too much cap, i have something under 2 minutes cap with all modules on and dont struggle at all,
you will activate the shield booster in bursts.

Skill up......Min. BS / Large projectiles to IV to increase DPS......the faster you kill, the less you need to tank.

Also choose your missions - Aim for those where you dont have to tank too many rats at once (angel extravaganza 4) or deal with rats orbitting behind your falloff (until you get more confident with your ship).

Yes, they are worth it. Ask your corp mates, perhaps some of them are producing rigs and can you give a good price.

Check your log while trying different setups. If the quality of your hits is satisfactory with the range script, use it. If not, use the TC without a script. Again, check if your hits land. It's better to have low quality hits than none at all.

T2 ammo, turn those autocannons into mini-arttilery with Barrage.

Or use Artillery. Distant 50km slow moving artillery just screams to shoot at them.

T2 drones for frigs, and by god use the correct damage type. Warriors is for Angle, Hobs or Hornets for Gurista.

Or avoid Gurista all together with Minmatar ships, cause I think that is their weakness (other factions like Mordus and Generic Mercary flying Caldari ships pop easier). They got sick EM / Therm resists negating short range high damage ammo, once you swap to kinetic it just isn't the same since the longer range ammo doesn't seem as worthwile to use even in falloff that hard hitting short range ammo types still hit freaking hard! I <3 EMP, Fusion, and Phased, forget the rest except for T2 ammo.

I will mention it as no else seems to have picked up on it.

Dont use Warrior I on Gurista due to their high resists to Explosive damage.

I defo recommend dropping down to doing L3 missions for a while, they will be faster IMHO.

Work on getting your gunnery skills a little higher as well as those drone skills up.

I know it can seem like a step back but telling someone to skill up Matari BS V when (I assume) you cant use Tech II turrets yet is a bit pointless.

In summary then,

Get Tech II dones....you wont regret that move.
Get Gunnery skills up...in particualr tracking and RoF. Dont neglect Weapon and Advanced Weapon Upgrades.

Conside investing in a PVE JC. Plug in some tracking, damage and fitting hardiwires.

My overiding advice is that if you have to do Missions then you want the smallest tank you can get away with and the maximum gank you can fit. Look to skill yourself into a Machariel (when I say skill I mean more than plug in skills I mean a little research and understanding) Vargur is ok if you a little more of a lazy PVE pilot but Marauder V is a beast of a skill and I would much rather put my SP elsewhere (for now)

Hit me up if you require any help with fits or futher advice.


Edit*

As far as the Track script thing goes, well fly a few missions with your Tactical overlay up and you will have a visual on exactly where your optimal and fallloff is (if you hover mouse over your GROUPED guns) IMHO its always better to have tracking over extreme falloff so get used to using that Prop Mod to get you to your desired range, its all good practise for PVP anyhow. Who said PVE has not relevance to PVP lol


Darik 07

At the bottom are the dps graphs on a battleship orbiting a Maelstrom. Drones fly slow and to getting their range out to 50 takes an additional skill. Long term its nice but only sentries are good for heavy damage at range as the heavies fly too slow.

The red line is original fitting minus tracking computer. It made little difference at 50.

The green line is 3 tracking enhancers and cut back to 2 gyros and one tracking computer with range script

The blue line is 1200 prototypes, 3 tracking enhancers 2 gyro, tracking comp with tracking script and phased ammo.

The turquoise line is the same setup but with titanium ammo

It looks like a switch to titanium and enhancing and computing for range will double dpd at ops stated range. investing in cheap 1200's will quintuple damage at range

Once you've done that, skill up up drones for the close stuff suddenly makes sense. In order I would do:

buy titanium ammo
buy another tracking enhancer (for range
buy 1200 prototype siege and phased ammo

Skill up drones and buff those gunnery skills more and the above posters failed to mention trajectory analysis. That's for falloff. But get the drones if you going to arties cause they don't work for crap on cruisers and frigs inside 20 or 30. Anything that buffs falloff for Minmatar really puts the dps down onto the target. Look into some hardwirings for projectiles and large projectiles gunslingers mr703, ss903 and lp1003 look affordable in minnie space but you might have to go to Jita cause they are an LP item that isn't very profitable.

low skill maelstrom against orbiting battleship