Warfare & Tactics

Yup. That kind of sig tanking just isn't viable for Gallente missions, because missiles. And ECM makes it a whole lot harder to gank the small stuff quickly.

You could theoretically use something like a dual MASB / dual MAAR AF to run them, but it'd take so long I really don't think it'd be worth it. Especially since a lot of the jamming rats are battleships, making them take a long time to kill.

Like I said, mission balance is the first thing that needs to get fixed. Once that happens and a lot of farmer alts leave, we'd be better able to reassess what else would need to be done to FW to make it better.

After discussing it with one of my friends for awhile, I considered a harpy with 90 sensor strength a viable option, although I was unsure to how it would perform vs all the missiles since I've never done a gal mission. I assumed once the frigs would down it could passive tank them.

Here's the setup; see if it works for you:
[Harpy]

[High Slots]
Light Ion Blaster II
Light Ion Blaster II
Light Ion Blaster II
Light Ion Blaster II

[Med Slots]
Medium Shield Extender II
Conjunctive Gravimetric ECCM Scanning Array I
Conjunctive Gravimetric ECCM Scanning Array I
Coreli A-Type 1MN Afterburner

[Low Slots]
Gravimetric Backup Array II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

[Rigs]
Small Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I
Small Core Defense Field Extender II

It does require a 3% slot 6 pg implant to run which should be fairly cheap. Aside from that, I'd think the best way to make sure it would work would be having a wingman to run them in pairs with, that way when aggro flips you have some time to regen the small hits your shields took from the tiny missile hits that pepper you, as well as drop commanders in short order. Generally the best strategy to is immediately go after and drop the frigates and destroyers in the room, as they have the highest tracking so they actually hurt. After they're gone, it should be fairly easy to sig-tank the room aside from some stray missiles that should be able to be taken care of by the passive regen.

In regards to travel, you can all fit 3 warp stabs, and one or both of you would be carrying a mobile depot that you could refit in when you get to the mission site. Fairly straightforwards and low-risk.

I think the idea is seeing what you CAN do that balances cost efficiency with effectiveness. Certainly a tengu is viable, but tandem harpies seem like a good idea since either one of them has the tank to break the mission boss, if there is one. There are a lot of good ideas, but generally I like approaching situations in-game with a minimalist attitude.

The setup with the merlin works for me generally because most of the time it's only the initial light spawns that cause any severe issue. Dropping them, especially the t1 dessies is extremely easy; shades of gray does have an elite spawn, but they take so long to get within weapons range to you that it's a complete non-issue to that mission and many of the commander-killing missions as well. The timetable actually balances out fairly nicely, especially if you have a wingman, and the missions that I generally avoid are ones where there are battleship neuts, and that one with the starbase main reactor. Other than that, you can solo the indy-killing ones quite easily, and if you have a buddy they and the commander-killing missions go extremely quickly.

Staying power is FAR less of an issue than you might think; in the caldari missions, the railguns and blasters can't hit the broadside of a barn if they're larger than smalls, so you only barely get scratched by any as long as you're moving and NOT moving straight at or away from a battleship. The same applies to the amarr missions, and considering the resists on that harpy fit vs kin/therm, the issue with being peppered my missiles won't really be too much of a problem with the passive shield regen.

Also, you do make an excellent comparison with them needing to be a lot tougher like hisec level 4s. Perhaps a good way to change it up a bit to allow for use of larger ships would to make the mission sites local in the same way normal missions are? Adding more elite frigates and fast ships would be a great way of discouraging use of a bomber for everything.

ant that is how it should also be, variety between different races, different solutions.

Assuming that all races had to put in an equivalent amount of effort or take an equivalent amount of risk, I would agree with you. At this point in time, however, Caldari / Amarr / Minmatar militia pilots get the same reward for a lot less risk and a lot less investment in skills / equipment. That's what's totally skewed about this deal.

The same does not hold for regular L4 combat missions. Those all require similar equipment, kitted differently for the various races. In addition, running missions for Caldari Navy for example can have you facing several different factions. The amount of work a normal L4 mission runner has to put in in terms of fits, ships, and the like is far far far greater than a CalMil bomber pilot does - there's a reason you see multibillion isk mission running ships get ganked in highsec, and not in FW. And yet the Caldari Navy L4 runner only gets 40-50mil isk/hr worth of isk and LP, while the State Protectorate alt in a Manticore can easily clear 250k LP / hour and another 15+ million isk at Tier 3.

THAT is why the balance is so out of whack. Until it gets fixed, Caldari / Minmatar / Amarr FW will continue to be seen as a mechanism to make a whole lot of easy low risk isk without having to be involved in the occupancy warfare aspect.

Gallente, thus, is the only true home for real PvPers, since we don't have easy mode isk faucets. Q.E.D.

Agreed. There are also hidden benefits to harder missions such as overall higher isk/lp ratios and players joining your militia that value pvp over easy missions.

^This. I would like to see the other factions missions get harder to match Gallente difficulty, not make Gallente easy-mode as well.

That or you could just get rid of FW missions.