Missions & Complexes

edit: you asked for a fitting, here is the standard one:

[Caracal, Caracal: My Lvl2 Mission Runner]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Experimental 10MN Afterburner I
Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Large Azeotropic Ward Salubrity I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Experimental SV-2000 Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Experimental SV-2000 Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Experimental SV-2000 Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Experimental SV-2000 Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Experimental SV-2000 Rapid Light Missile Launcher

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

3x Hobgoblin II


this should get you through lvl2s easily. if it doesn'T you should work on your missile skills. if you cannot fit the Tech2 items, you should use metalevel ones but in the long run, tech2 is mandatory.

The main thing with the Caracal is staying at range.

You should be able to sit at 30km+ and still hit the enemy targets comfortably without taking much damage, if any damage at all.

On your overview, right-click on the "Keep at range" icon, and set the Default to 30km. Then whenever you target something, just click on Keep at range and it will automatically make you fly away from a target to keep it at 30km, and also stop if you are getting too far... this way you always keep them in range of your missiles while staying out of range from their weapons.

Also, in some missions such as "The Blockade" the rats will spawn in new waves if you kill the "trigger". The trigger (meaning the rat that will make the next waves spawn) is usually the ship that has either 1) The highest bounty of them all or 2) Has a unique name that differs from all the rest.

For good details on the missions use this link: http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=MissionReports

The link also works with the ingame browser so you can bookmark it there and have it easily accessible without needing to hop out of the game.

Reading up about the missions on that link will become more important when you start on Level 3 and Levle 4 missions where you want to be more specific about which resists you fit depending on what damage type the rats in the mission shoot you with, and you want to kill the rats faster so you want to bring the missiles with the damage types the rats are weak against. All of that is information available at the MissionReports website. Furthermore it also details which rats are commonly the "triggers" for spawning additional waves.

Simple rule of thumb for the Caldari missile boats (Kestrel, Caracal, Drake and Raven) is to bombard the rats from a safe distance.

Also, don't forget to train up droneskills. While they have a limited use in L2's, they become alot more useful in L3 and L4 when small frigate-size rats will close up on your ship and be hard to kill with your missiles or cruise missiles due to their signature radius and velocity. In those cases you want to pop out a set of drones to eat the little frigates while you keep bombarding larger ships with your main launchers.

If you for some reason decide to go guns instead of missiles, then stick with Railguns for missions (again, because you can shoot far and kill the rats from a safe distance).

Drop the HAM's (Heavy Assault Missiles).

HAM's are basically the cruiser size Rockets. Short range, nice DPS, but for missions it requires you to get up close, which in turn means you need to beef the tank (in most cases).

Use Rapid Light launchers. They are cheap on ammuition (considering they use Light missiles), they are fairly easy to fit (low requirements, leaving more room for tank and other mods), and they have good range due to Caracal bonuses.

Optionally use the Heavy Missile Launchers (HML's) to have even greater range and more damage against the cruiser+ size ships (though in most L2's there is still a heavy amount of frigates, which is why Rapid Lights are still good). Heavy missiles do less damage to small and fast ships (unless you use a target painter and/or train up Guided Missile Precision).

Also, the Rapid Light launchers, considering they are using Light Missiles, will still apply the bonus to damage you get from the Light Missiles skill you trained up. Which means you get good damage while still skilling up your Heavy Missile skills.

Rapid Lights means,
Frigs die alot faster (and you'll still face a majority of those).
Ammunition cost is lower.
You can fit more damage/tank on your ship.
Still have good range (thanks to Cara bonus)
Your already trained skills in Light missiles from when you flew a frigate will still be effective for you.

The fit Daniel linked in his post is a good Caracal fit. Just downgrade the T2 modules according to what you can afford / what you can use (have skill for). It should serve you well for doing L2's.

*edit* Feel I have to specify this... you should buy RAPID Light missile launchers.

The Rapid variant is a module made for cruisers (it has a much higher fitting requirement than regular Light launchers, however it has a much higher rate of fire and it can hold 72 missiles in one clip, which is nearly twice as much as regular light launchers).

So in the process of darting about getting drones skills and cheap ballistic controll units from all over the place, should have top build up by tomorrow... let my skills level.. >.<

Thanks for the advice chaps.

The good part is knowing that a Caracal with decent HML skills can also be used in some of the L3's, in case you find yourself able to take L3 missions before you can buy, fly and outfit a Drake.

It's less efficient, of course, and you need to keep that range... but it's doable for grabbing some better missions and ISK while you are saving up for that Drake :)

It seems that I can only hit them at 20km and even then I am doing little to no damage with 5x Rapid light launchers and 2x ballistic etc

what kind of missiles are you shooting and what faction are the mission rats?

With cruiser 2 I'd definitely use inferno missiles (thermal) against mercenaries.