Missions & Complexes

Greetings all!

It's been literally years since I've played so I want to post here to get some advice from everyone who have been steady players.

I'm looking to move into the PVE Tank aspect from a Caldari point of view (shocking I know) and wanted to get just a general feel for everyone's opinions.

Feel free to be as specific or vague as you like. Post your favorite build, fit, etc.

Any input/advice is appreciated regardless of sarcasm level :)

Thank you in advance.

You definitely should put gears that improve survival on your ship.

Was the vague level of sarcasm high enough ?


Jokes aside, i don't know... i just wanted to be silly.

Hello and welcome back to Eve.

I usually fly Minmatar ships and I believe Caldari ships are basically the same, mostly going with shield tanks.

I've found with the small and medium hull class ships doing a speed / passive Shield fit (Extender) with active Resists module (Invulnerability) seems to work fairly good.

I mainly try to do an Omni Resist fit by first plugging the hole in the shield with one Anti-EM rig and then boost the resists with Invul Field and Damage Control modules. The other 2 rig slots are usually fit with Field Purger rigs to help increase the passive shield recharge rate. I also usually add a Power Diagnostic System module which not only helps increase Powergrid, it also increases Shield Recharge, Shield HP, Capacitor Recharge and Capacitor amount too.

Medium and large hull class ships already have a big signature radius so I usually go with active shield tank using Shield Booster with Shield Boost Amplifier modules. Again I plug the hole in the shield with one Anti-EM rig if needed and then boost the resists with Invul Field and Damage Control modules. The other 2 rig slots are usually fit with Capacitor Control Circuit rigs along with a Power Diagnostic System mod to help make the ships Cap stable.

I keep my ships moving with an Afterburner on all the time. Most of my fits are set up for up close combat to deal high damage much quicker.

For weapons Caldari ships use Missiles and Hybrid Turrets (Blasters for short-range and Railguns for long-range). I believe Hybrid Turrets use Capacitor to fire making it tough to have Caldari ships cap stable, especially with Active Shield Tanks. More than likely you'll probably have to fit a Capacitor Booster mod as well.

How you actually fit up ships depends a lot on your skill level and on your piloting tactics. It's no problem doing max fits when all of the Core Fitting skills are trained up. Since I've been playing this game for over 8 years and have over 160 mill skill points, I do bling fit ups on my ships, including the T1 Frigates. The general fitting guidelines that I posted above are still the same, just more expensive which gives the fit ups better ship stats.

For example, my original 8 year old Rifter Frigate (notice the rig size), basically it's retired now due to serving me very well in the past.

Along with having max fitting skills I also have Augmentation Implants which help increase my ship stats :
http://eveboard.com/pilot/DeMichael_Crimson
Implant slots #1 to #5 are all Attribute +5 Improved

Hardwired slots for ship needs :
Slot #6 = Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Upgrades SU-605 (-5% power grid need for modules requiring Shield Upgrades skill)
Slot #7 = Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Management SM-705 (+5% bonus to shield capacity)
Slot #8 = Poteque 'Prospector' Astrometric Rangefinding AR-806 (+6% stronger scanning strength with scan probes)
Slot #9 = Zainou 'Gnome' Shield Operation SP-905 (+5% boost to shield recharge rate)
Slot #10 = Zainou 'Deadeye' Rapid Launch RL-1005 (+5% bonus to all missile launcher rate of fire)

Here's some of my shield fits which can be used as a basic guide :
Jaguar Faction/Deadspace Fit

Rupture Tech 2 Fit

Gnosis Tech 2 Fit

Hurricane Fleet Issue Tech 2 Arty Fit

Loki Faction/Deadspace Fit

Anyway, I suggest using the new 'Ghost Fitting' in-game and do some mock fit ups first before spending any ISK. There's nothing worse than needlessly spending ISK in an attempt to duplicate another players fit up. Normally I would suggest using EFT (Eve Fitting Tool) with your character skill level imported but it seems EFT hasn't been updated in the past few months.

May you have much success and lot's of good luck.


DMC

Fit it with 7 meta4 artillery, 3 damage amplifier (forgot its name lol), 1 damage rig and 1 fire rate rig. Then you have a nice ganking fit.

6x HAM and 4x ballistic control Tengus... all the dps of a battleship but with actually good application.

In highsec a lazy omnitank with relatively cheap mods (less than a couple hundred mil in potential loot drops)... in low/null generally keeping it as cheap as possible whilst meeting tank reqs for the specific sites I'm running.

Also the lesser spotted railgu is fun for blitzing L3s

Less about trespassing and more about just existing/Wrong place wrong time.

The best way to get really helpful info out on people in here is to give a few more specifics. What ships can you fly, what NPC race are you fighting ect.

The Drake has always been a good ship, very dependable.

Caldari Battlecruiser bonuses (per skill level):
4% bonus to all shield resistances
10% bonus to kinetic Heavy Missile and Heavy Assault Missile damage (Scourge missiles = kinetic damage)
Role Bonus:
Can fit Warfare Link modules
25% bonus to Missile velocity

Arbalest Heavy Missile Launchers are definitely good, especially for long range combat. Running 5x HML's can't be split up into equal groups. Personally I'd go with 6x HML's split up into 2 or 3 equal groups. That way I could attack multiple targets at the same time (Frigates) or concentrate all groups with staggered activation on one major target (Battlecruiser). I guess you have the Experimental XT-2800 Heavy Assault Missile Launcher for NPC's that get too close.

I noticed you didn't list any Drones, I thought the Drake could field 5x Light Combat Drones to help eliminate pesky EWAR NPC's that get in too close.

Using a MicroWarpDrive will deplete the Capacitor quickly as well as greatly increase the ship's signature radius, thus making it easier to be hit by incoming DPS. If you're doing long range combat tactics with the HML's, you can replace the MWD with an Afterburner and still be able to keep range from the Rat Pack without quickly burning up Cap or increasing the ship's signature radius. That should make more Powergrid and CPU available to fit another HML.

Course I'm Minmatar. We believe in fitting as much firepower as we can on whatever we fly.


DMC

You guys have been great with these responses, very helpful.

I recently reached my T2 missile goal and switched away from the heavy assault missile launcher (i was really just testing it out). Without knowing it, I took your advice and steered away from speccing into multiple weapons at once. I'm focusing right now on Heavy Missiles.

I'm working LVL4s right now and i've noticed that my tanking isn't really where it should be for some of the missions. Naturally, there are those missions where it's just easier to pull them off in a battleship, but i'm rather fond of my little Drake so I find myself hesitant to do so.

I generally move around with a full inventory of T2 light scout drones (one from each faction) to utilize against those pesky frigates.

What are your thoughts on focusing on staying in the Drake for now for LVL4s or biting the bullet and investing the money for a well accoutered battleship?

I have a few weeks until my mastery III for a Raven hits, but wanted to get your thoughts on it.

In the end of the day whatever you like the most.

A well fit Drake can do almost all Lvl4s but you do ahve to drop a lot of DPS for tank (lots or shield relays + 10MN AB.
A BS will be much faster and earn more ISK however they are a lot less fun to fly as they are much slower .

A Raven with Cruiser Missiles is a good target (Torps are not good) but take your time.

running level 3s quickly should be more income than lv4s slowly, and in a drake lv4s are going to be slow pretty much no matter what you do. Try and work on your mission techniques while you continue to skill up. Things like aligning before you deal the final blow, approaching acceleration gates, being in the right spot to pick up the mission item. Also trigger management is important, sometimes you want to trigger early so if enemies spawn at long range they have some time to approach you or late so you don't get overwhelmed. This should result in faster mission completion times and put more money in your pocket. Also it should allow you to build up your standings so you can access level 4s and have some buffer standing to decline some extra missions or even fail a mission.

My ship is a concept barghest fit, I've played around with it only briefly and haven't flown it in a while but it was a bunch of fun. pressing f1 and watching ships 100km away melt is pretty nice. I typically don't like MJD ships as they typically sacrifice some damage to hit at 100km, or in the case of the raven delay damage thanks to missile flight time but the barghest doesn't have to sacrifice a thing to do it thanks to the mordus ship bonus.

You could fit a raven rather similarly although the barghest has a bunch of strengths that make it work rather well. This fit uses the MWD and MJD to avoid almost all incoming damage, and then has 1000+ dps that applies out to over 100km. With the huge velocity bonus on mordu hulls it applies almost instantly and missiles will connect before the next volley fires at distances over 100km. Also the barghest is a bit faster than the raven. This same fit works on a raven I'd just swap the signal amp for a sensor booster as the raven has +1 mid -1 low.

low slots: 4x damage mods, pretty standard for pve ships. signal amp is needed for lock range, extra scan res is nice and the sensor strength is a new bonus. MGE: furies don't hit so well, needs some application help MGE is pretty much the only lowslot item that helps there. Faction damage mods have an extra 2.5% damage bonus, there were some ships where this made a difference in kill time, not sure how many are worth fitting.

mids: pithum boosters are pretty cap efficient and are really cheap these days, used to help top off shields, and an invlun to help increase shield buffer. MWD/MJD give a ton of range control allowing you to avoid almost all damage. MGC to help out with the missile application, most conventional fits use a target painter here but at 100km that isn't always a good option, if I used missiles more often I'd probably test this out.

highs: cruise missiles, fury ammo for bs/bc, not completely sure on t1/faction/precision for other stuff, I usually use faction but I'm not a missile specialist.

rigs: hyperspatials help with warp speed which is pretty dang low on battleships. add ascendancy implants and it warps like a frigate. Makes the ship awesome for missions where you have to warp in and blap something (or a few somethings) and get out. A more conventional setup would have rigor/flare rigs to help with missile damage application.

[Barghest, hyperspeed]
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Ballistic Control System II
Signal Amplifier II
Missile Guidance Enhancer II

Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
500MN Microwarpdrive II
Large Micro Jump Drive
Missile Guidance Computer II, Missile Precision Script
Missile Guidance Computer II, Missile Precision Script

Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Fury Cruise Missile
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Large Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Large Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Large Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

Acolyte II x5
Hornet II x5
Hobgoblin II x5