Warfare & Tactics

Of the Minmatar T1 battleships, your best bet is probably the Maelstrom, which can sport an impressive active shield tank and has a decent drone bay for scraping off tackle frigates. It's also adaptable to almost all mission types, if you're willing to switch out shield hardeners and swap between autocannons and artillery based on the engagement range of your foes.

What I'm posting isn't the most time-efficient setup out there, but it should be enough to start with (it assumes you've got Weapon Upgrades V, because it's tight on CPU; you can use a C5-L meta-4 booster if you come up short on CPU). As you get more confident, you can replace the DC with a third Gyro. Switch hardeners depending on what you're facing, and if you need to be mobile, pull one hardener or the boost amp in favor of an afterburner or microwarp drive, CPU and powergrid permitting. Some people like to use a cap booster as well.

[Maelstrom, 1200 Scratchpad]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Damage Control II
Tracking Enhancer II
Tracking Enhancer II

X-Large Shield Booster II
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Shield Boost Amplifier I

1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L
1200mm Heavy 'Scout' Artillery I, Phased Plasma L

Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

Hobgoblin II x5
Hammerhead II x5

As an approximate rule of thumb, your ship is ready for solo Level 4s when your applied DPS and active tanking DPS (both for the type of damage relevant to the mission) sum up to 1000.

I would use an 800AC maelstrom with a heavy cap booster. NO fit handy as I am at work, but if I remember I'll post one later.
You should also read the mission guides to make sure you know whats coming... http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=missionreports
If you want to make sure your fit will work, try it on the test server first.

Pretty sure you could do lvl 4's with even the worst bs's in the game. They are really easy.

Never mix your weapons like that - you'll just end up being ineffective at all ranges, not effective at both.

Like others have said, take a look at what you're dealing with in the mission and then either bring artillery or autocannons depending on which will be best. And make sure to have a flight or two of small drones.

After you've trained up and made some money, think about grabbing a machariel or a vargur, then you can just slap 800mm Autocannons on and destroy everything up to about 60k away.

Once again thanks to all, I have tweaked the above suggestions somewhat and come up with this

Gyrostabalizer II
Gyrostabalizer II
Damage Control II
Tracking Enhancer II
Tracking Enhancer II

X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster
Thermic Dissipation Amplifier II
Thermic Dissipation Amplifier II
Kinetic Deflection Amplifier II
Explosive Deflection Amplifier II
Shield Boost Amplifier II

800mm Repeating Artillery II
800mm Repeating Artillery II
800mm Repeating Artillery II
800mm Repeating Artillery II
800mm Repeating Artillery II
800mm Repeating Artillery II
800mm Repeating Artillery II
800mm Repeating Artillery II

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Core Defense Field Extender II
Large Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II

The suggested drone payload

Gives me 75125 EHP
Cap stable
1177 ehp/s

1) The CDFE rig adds to raw shield HP, which isn't the best idea for an active-tanking ship like the Maelstrom; for missioning, always try to fit resists before buffer, because improved resistances will also magnify the effect of your shield booster.

2) For maximizing mission resists, avoid using rig slots that you can't change without ripping out the rig; shield hardeners can be added or dropped between missions as needed.

3) Don't try to omni-tank a mission boat unless either you're expecting all types of damage from the mission, or you're worried about being ganked along the way. If you're confident you're only going to be facing Guristas (thermal and kinetic only), slots dedicated to pumping up EM and explosive resists are wasted.

4) Ancillary shield boosters have great numbers, but don't forget they're inoperable during their 60-second reload time; if you get hit by a fresh wave of battleships and your ASB has just started its reload cycle, you're in trouble.

A cruise Typhoon would work fine for level 4 missions. Here:

[Typhoon, PvE]
Large Armor Repairer II
Large Armor Repairer II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Sensor Booster II
Large Micro Jump Drive

'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
Drone Link Augmentor II

Large Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

Bouncer II x4
Warrior II x5



Here is the gist of it: Warp into mission space. Align out, MJD 100km. Pop sentries. sebo on. Start shooting. When you or your sentries start taking damage, scoop them and MJD away again. Honestly, as long as you can stay at range, which is ridiculously easy with a MJD, you don't even need tank. But if you do get caught by a fast frigate, you can abandon the sentries, pop warrior IIs, web/TP the tackler, and obliterate it. Recall warrior IIs, reconnect to sentries, resume profit-taking.

If things go really bad, you can rep ~500 raw HP for as long as you have cap charges. Honestly, you should only need to do that if you get dropped right in the middle of a massive full-aggro room with scramming frigates. Web is there for frigs that get too close. Feel free to swap hardeners as required. The Reactive Hardener is imo one of the most under-rated modules around. But if you don't like it, again you can swap it for something else that gives resists.

I'm showing 689dps out to 85km (drone control range, yo). Beyond that, you're limited to missiles only, which is still pretty good.

Hello?! Anyone - AWU is PG not cpu