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Level 4s, raven or maelstrom?
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Daniel Plain
Doomheim
#41 - 2012-05-21 11:38:45 UTC
Marc Callan wrote:
Fit the proper hardeners and weapons, and the Mael can run most missions like a champion. Keys:
  • Use an XL shield booster, but pulse it; don't perma-run it.
  • T2 medium and light drones for cruisers and frigates, respectively.
  • Fit hardeners according to the mission. Common fit for Guristas, for example, might be 2 thermal, 2 kinetic, letting you absorb over 1000 DPS in short bursts with your booster running.
  • Swap out your weapons depending on what you're facing. For close-range hostiles like Angels, 800mm autocannons will tear them apart. For rats that like to hold at range, like Guristas, 1200mm or 1400mm artillery will work wonderfully on their battlecruisers and battleships. 1200's are easier to fit while you're training up, and do roughly similar DPS to the 1400's, but use ammo twice as fast. 800's are easiest to fit, but go through ammo like water.
  • If you're worried about your tank, fit a Damage Control in one of your lows. You may sacrifice one gyro or tracking enhancer, but if you screw up a mission and your tank does get broken, the DC's hull resistances will mean the difference between bringing a battered flaming ship back to station, and coming home in a pod. Plus, bonuses to armor and shield resistances without stacking penalties.

    • Special note: in missions where the rats throw ECM at you, the massive alpha damage that you get from 1400's is a lifesaver, and, oddly enough, the long cycle time of the cannons works for you in that case. With autocannons, you lose a lot of DPS for every second you're jammed out; with 1400's, there's a chance the jam cycle will end and allow you to re-lock before your guns have cycled for the next shot, and at worst, you lose maybe five or ten seconds.

    Plus, one-hit-kills on battlecruisers, and three-hit kills on battleships. With T1 guns, even. Even if they're stood off at 50km or more. (Yeah, tactical says your optimal's only out to 35km or so with the short-range ammo types, but that massive falloff means that if you can lock it, there's a better-than-even chance you can hit it respectably.)

    i hate you so much right now.

    I should buy an Ishtar.
    Sup B1tches
    Sebiestor Tribe
    Minmatar Republic
    #42 - 2012-05-21 11:56:36 UTC
    The Mael is a pretty wild beast to fly, there are lots of things you have to get right with it. That said, i think once you have 'tamed' it, it's an awesome missioning boat.

    - I use to fly Maels a lot in missions and learned that the Mael really has two tank types: DPS and shield boosting. Ya have to use your specific hardeners, and (at most) one invuln.

    - 3 Gyro's, one TE, one briefcase in the lows

    - Because there is a pretty big gap between the cost of a Mael and any T2 BS or pirate BS, you could have a lot of isk to spend on mods that do make a big difference: Pith X-Large boosters, like an A type for eg. A DG Shield boost amp as well, Even a low grade crystal set.

    - Try some Operation Solidifier rigs iinstead of CCCs.

    - Train up your thermal dynamics skill so you can OVERLOAD your mids. Never be afraid to overload, the modules are cheap to repair back in station.

    Any and all of these things should shield you long enough for your 800's to cut down a lot of incoming DPS so you can ease off on the shield tanking while you continue.

    Don't worry about RF Gyro's, the extra damage they do is insignificant on a Mael, RF ammo would be a better short term choice.

    [Maelstrom, New Setup 1]
    Gyrostabilizer II
    Gyrostabilizer II
    Gyrostabilizer II
    Tracking Enhancer II
    Damage Control II

    Pith A-Type X-Large Shield Booster
    Dread Guristas Shield Boost Amplifier
    Caldari Navy Heat Dissipation Field
    Caldari Navy Ballistic Deflection Field
    Caldari Navy Ballistic Deflection Field
    Invulnerability Field II

    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L
    800mm Repeating Artillery II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma L

    Large Core Defence Operational Solidifier I
    Large Core Defence Operational Solidifier I
    Large Core Defence Operational Solidifier I


    Hammerhead II x5
    Warrior II x5
    Hobgoblin II x5

    All @ 5, this will give you a 3,500 DPS tank Vs Serpentis/Gurristas for 52 seconds, then you are out of cap. In that 52 seconds though your drones should should easily kill any scramming frigs.

    Overload the mediums and you get a 6,666 DPS tank for 45 seconds. Should be able to pulse the booster at whim to make that last longer. Train your thermal dynamics skill up to 4 at least and the modules should last longer than your cap.

    Add in a LG crystal set and your tank is 4,692/8,883 DPS. That is stupidly high!

    Add in a top boosting tengu if you are in a good corp and your tank can get up to 8,939/16,500 odd DPS.

    Now lets get some prices:
    - Mael: 200m
    - Hardeners: 152m
    - Booster+amp: 490m
    - LG crystal set: about 900 mil. knock off half that to go without the omega
    - Fleet boosting tengu pilot: Priceless.

    So yeah... doesn't have a lot of cap but even if you have an alt or corpie along feeding you cap, the Mael can be a very tanky ship when used right.
    Raziel Walker
    NPC Tax Evasion Corp
    #43 - 2012-05-23 14:22:15 UTC
    I would simply say both ships have their advantages and just pick what you like most.

    I think I did something wrong because I had the feeling the tank on the raven was better. (Although I always fitted the raven for the mission and for the maelstrom I just use omniresist fit.)

    Raven = missiles meaning no tracking/range issues. Can probably be fit and flown with less skillpoints.
    At the time I flew this ship I was fairly new and dps (and tank) was enough for all missions. Not sure if I would agree now that I fly the same mission tengu everyone flies.

    Maelstrom absolutely doesn't need to be pimpfitted with faction mods to be a good ship as some people seem to recommend. Guess they just want to sell you faction items and loot them back afterwards.
    I flew AC fit when I did because it had less tracking issues and range was still good enough (I do fit my ships with a propulsion mwd though.).

    Biggest advantage over a raven was the (almost) full damage against things smaller as a Battleship.
    Mavnas
    The Scope
    Gallente Federation
    #44 - 2012-05-23 20:09:33 UTC
    The Raven is a bad/mediocre ship that you should only fly if you intend to graduate to a CNR afterwards and almost certainly not if you have more gunnery skills than missiles. It does lackluster DPS at long range with a small tank and damage application issues of missiles. At least they fire super slow which means you don't get the as much of the micro-management issues of heavy missiles, which with my skills I have to stop cycling one volley before the kill happens for ever ~22km to the target in order to not waste cycles shooting targets that are already dead.
    Marc Callan
    Center for Advanced Studies
    Gallente Federation
    #45 - 2012-05-24 17:04:55 UTC
    The thing is, if you've gone the Caldari route, the Raven is a whole lot easier to step into than the Maelstrom - the only skills that carry over between the two are shield tanking; for gunnery and ship command, you'd have to start from scratch. I remember it took me a while to train from Gallente to Minmatar - first the gunnery (I wanted to use a Tornado for something unrelated, and it needed large projectile skills), then the ship command levels.

    However, the ships' bonuses also matter. The Raven has pure offensive bonuses, for rate of fire and pure range, but if you're fitting cruise missiles, the range bonus becomes irrelevant once it takes you past 90km or so - you can't lock up targets any further than that without either Sensor Boosters or Signal Amplifiers, which will cut into either your DPS or your tank. The Maelstrom's only offensive bonus is to rate of fire, but its defensive bonus amounts to a free shield-boost amplifier that can free up a mid-slot for an extra hardener, an AB/MWD, a tracking computer, a boost amp that'll work on top of the shield-boost bonus, or what have you.

    And don't forget: the Mael has an eight-weapon broadside to the Raven's six. With essentially identical fits (meta-4 cruise launchers for the Raven vs. 1400's for the Maelstrom in the highs, identical hardeners (2x invul, 1x EM, 1x thermal), XL booster, and boost amp in the mids, and four weapon upgrades and one damage control in the lows, and three CCC rigs), the Mael can both out-tank and out-gank the Raven out to about 55km. The Raven doesn't have any falloff or tracking issues, so it can out-gank the Mael at range, but the Mael can absorb half again as much DPS with a pulse tank, and it's got a bigger buffer to begin with. (The Maelstrom's cap will also last about ten seconds longer, but that's chump change.)

    Now the Navy Raven comes closer, with its seventh missile slot, and its much more massive built-in buffers; it'll last longer before the shields need to be boosted, but it still can't regenerate shields as quickly as the Maelstrom. It also gets out-ganked by the Mael out to 45km even with the seventh cruise missile launcher, and its bonuses have the same problem as the standard Raven's - its missiles can reach out to about 250km, but it can't lock past 90 or so.

    Granted, the Mael's almost 50 million ISK more expensive than the standard Raven at present, but it's not even close to the price of a Navy Issue.

    On the other hand, battleship missile skills have the advantage of not needing to train up lower-tier missile skills, while with battleship projectiles, you've got to take frigate and cruiser guns to Level 4 before you can even start training for the large guns. And the difference is even more dramatic when you get to Tech-2 weapons. Even if you've got all your gunnery skills at 4, you'll still need over a month of dedicated training to get Tech-2 large autocannons - first, you need to get small projectiles to 5, then T2 small autocannon to 4, medium projectiles to 5, T2 medium autocannon to 4, large projectiles to 5 ... you're looking at better than a month of training right there, while for cruise missiles, you just need Cruise Missiles 5 and you're ready to roll.

    So.

    Raven: Easier to step into if you've gone Caldari, decent tank and DPS, cheap at 150M ISK.
    Maelstrom: Much longer to train into, superior tank and DPS, more expensive at about 200M ISK.
    CNR: 400M ISK more expensive than the Raven for one more missile launcher and about 50% more shield buffer.

    I started out without the skills for either, went for the Mael, and have no regrets.

    "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." - Kurt Vonnegurt
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