f13.net

This is so I can keep track of BPCs I need to watch out for.  In exchange for guarding/hauling of goods I'm willing to mine the required minerals for everyone's cruisers, or you can just pay me. 
Cadwin: Rupture
Zetleft: Rupture

Post away.

Caracal

I'm planning on building a Caracal too, so if you wanna split a BPC with me Sky I can buy one today.

Are cruisers the next step up from Frigates? I imagine I will be ready in a week or two. Or more  :?

remember - buy 2... You will lose one.

Kind of.

Destroyers are actually in-between Frigs and Cruisers.  They use small guns/ modules and give small gun bonuses so your fighting skills aren't gimped in them and you don't have to buy bigger modules.  Of course, they don't lead anywhere, the way Cruisers do. (Cruiser Skill lets you branch off into Battleships) so a lot of folks just jump right into Cruisers and skip Destroyers.

 You can fly a cruiser with small guns/ light missiles while training-up mediums/ heavy missiles, just don't expect to kill some things very fast.  I did it and it was fine, I just had to find bigger shield/ armor modules and buy a bigger afterburner or Microwarp. (They adjusted ABs/WMDs to have a trust rating back in July so you can't use a small one on a med ship and expect it to push that mass with any appreciable speed difference.)

Like Furiously said, buy 2 if you're building them.  Otherwise you'll have to wait-out the build cycle again.  (Or be like me and pay retail on the market!)

Do we have BPOs for all Gallente ships? What is the price difference between building and buying on the market? How long does it take to get all the mining done?

I am considering branching into trade and or research at some point.  The whole economy fascinates me. I may need to get out of the house more often  :-D

I'm buying a Thorax in the near future. If someone wants to build it and get the 6.9m instead of the market getting it that's fine too.

BPOs are really expensive for ships - but BPCs can be had for a fraction of the overall cost. The rule of thumb is the bigger the ship, the cheaper it is to make it from a BPC than to buy it on the market. I think Cruiser-class ships are the place to start when it comes to making ships instead of buying them on the market. Anything smaller than that just isn't worth it.

The only BPCs the corp has for ships right now are two Caldari ships: Osprey and Blackbird.

I'll be buying a BPC for a Caldari Caracal later today, so we'll have 3 total. We can look into getting a Thorax BPC too, but I have no idea how much those cost. If someone wants to use it to sell to Krakrok (at some kind of discount) then that'd be a good goal for someone(s) to go for this week.

Vexor, baby!

I can start actually training the cruiser skill... tomorrow.  then drones.  and then small to medium hybrid turrents.  then shields and cpu stuff and everything else.

I think Reg mentioned he has a Vexor BPO, anyone can just haul minerals to him and he'll make one.   

Do Battlecruisers count?  :evil:

Do we have anyone doing research so we can get into the Tech 2 raffles? I have been thinking about heading down that path at some point. Also- how hard is it to learn another race's ships? Seems like we have tons of Caldari ships and no Gallente.

Are BPOs ever drops, or do they come from research only?

We have a bunch of Caldari, a handful of Gallente, and a few Minmatar. I know at least one guy is training All of the ships, including Amarr.

I may one day cross-train into Amarr, but that would not be for a very long time.

My corp has a partially-used multi-run Caracal BPC that we're not going to be employing in the near future, so I can run it for people if they need it.


Getting another race's ships is as easy as heading to the nearest bookshop and picking up that race's Frigate skill, then Cruiser once that's up to 4, and so on and so forth.

Me, I'm contemplating putting together a Raven over the next two weeks. Because, really, it's a big shiny. :)

BPOs can be bought on the market or given as Agent prizes.

Researching is what makes your BPCs better than the BPO.

Yoru, can you sell us the Caracal BPC or do you still want to keep it around? I think we'll buy a 5 run Caracal BPC tonight, as it'd be easier for everyone in the corp to use than to have to wait for you get online.  :-P

It wasn't intentional, I just have commitment problems   :oops:

It might be useful down the road.  Right now?  very useless. 

I'm sure your significant other finds this very endearing.  :evil: Sorry, it was just too easy.

Yeah, I can check how many runs are left on it and price it accordingly, but I might not be on until very late tonight. How does 100k per run sound? I'll escrow the thing to you.

Ravens are lovely. Even though I love my Minmatar ships, I'll be training for a Raven if/ when I decide to go for Battleships.  Plus they seem fairly nerf-immune. Even after "the great missile nerf of '05" I recall them being formidable and are one of the tops now in RMR.  Luv.

So can I get 2? :)

When do we go for the mining mission on this one? Thursday and Friday nights are tougher for me to play.

Ravens look cool and eventually I want a covert ops ship, even if they aren't all that. But for now I'm all about the Caracal and missiles missiles missiles.

That'd be more than fine, though it seems a bit low. Don't feel like you need to give us too much of a break, but it's appreciated!  8-)

Sky: You can make two if you want to, though I'm only going to make one. If I blow mine up I can always get more minerals to make another one.

What is involved in getting one made? I'm a newbtard. *By one I mean two*

Most of the minerals are easy to get except for the ones that can only be mined in low sec space. Those you have to buy out of pocket.

So i take it by this thread, that manufacturing the cruisers ourselves is chaper than buying them? If so, plz do be signing me up for a Bellicose.

I have a researched Vexor BPO and the mineral requirements for me to make one are:

Isogen      - 5463
Megacyte  - 56
Mexallon    - 27619
Nocxium    - 1346
Pyerite      - 81448
Tritanium   - 324569
Zydrine      - 275

Anyone that wants one can just bring the minerals to Nakugard V - Republic Universiity and I'll put one in the oven.

I also have a Dominix (Gallente Battleship) BPO that will be out of research in a couple of weeks. When people are ready for that I'll offer the same deal.

What's the normal build time for a Cruiser? 

I'll be interested in the Dominix in a... month?  2 weeks?  I have no idea, really. 

For posterity, the mining cadre that I've been a part of so far generates (on average) about 25,000 isogen per hour with 2 miners on duty (1 barge, 1 2-laser cruiser) and one hauler or 15,000 isogen per hour if I'm the only one firing lasers. I haven't clocked our production rate of mexallon, trit or pyerite, but it should be similarly ludicrous.

However, this hinges on having a system that's chock full of ore; ore spawns haven't been kind lately, although that primarily affects high-value ore (i.e. the isogen-heavy omber rocks) so trit/pyer/mex will be less difficult to acquire.

Nocxium of any significant (>100) amount really forces us to go for jaspet or some other lowsec ore; there are some systems near our usual mining spots that have it, but we'd need heavier guns than we currently usually field. One guy in a heavy combat cruiser would probably suffice. Alternately, it can be purchased at moderate expense.

Zydrine can be found in trace quantities in hemorphite and hedbergite, which I've not seen above 0.2 space. Buying zydrine is probably the largest expense in building a ship for us right now.

Megacyte, just buy it on the market. The ores for it only spawn in 0.0 and aren't all that common down there, from what I've heard.

If you buy the nocx, zyd and megacyte on the market, then the rest of the materials can be acquired in a few hours of mining.

Build time for the Vexor is an hour or two I think. I'm not at my factory station right now so I can't check.

Caracal - I have some minerals on me now.

Okay I have 4 orders for caracals, 2 ruptures, 1 bellicose, 1 vexor.

Here are the total requirements for that

Tritanium
2,701,287

Pyerite
677,655

Mexallon
206,089

Isogen
44,960

Nocxium
10,961

Zydrine
2,066

Megacyte
757

Also looking to get a Caracal. Have all the skills just need $ and materials. No hurry for me - running rat and fedex missions in my missile frigate atm.

I'm on the reasearch agent ladder - unfortunately I believe that the 'bp lottery' is only held when CCP decide the market needs some more T2 BPO's - so its [alot] of work and skills for very little opportunity.

I think I had to train up science a bit and also caldari starship engineering and I think I still need to get gravametric physics (or similar). The agent will email you every once in a while saying that research has halted (so you stop getting R&D points) andl you need to do a mission for him to resume (the R&D points are the number of lottery tickets you have - obviously more points give you a bigger chance of getting a T2 BPO if/when CCP decide to hold another lottery)

IMO you'd be better off working for one of the faction [navy or pirate] agents that give out the 'enhanced' T1 ship BP's (Raven Navy issue for example) the problem here is I gather that the BPC is sold to you in exchange for cash and goods and often (especially on the low end stuff like frigate BPC's like the Caldari Hookbill) the price the agent asks just isnt worth it for what you get in return.

I've been playing with destroyers since returning to Eve, the ammount of firepower they have is very nice but be aware that they arent (or dont appear to be) as good as taking damage as the top combat Frigate. The 7 guns and missile on the Caldari Cormorant<sp?> make a mess of stuff really quickly but I do get the feeling I'm having to run away and repair more than I did in my Merlin

Destroyers definately bridge the price gap between Frigates and cruisers (which use to be massive. IIRC Merlins were about 500k and the Osprey about 1.5Mill) but I'm not convinced the fill the combat gap (because they can still only fit frigate gear and guns - albeit more of them with a rate of fire penalty)

I'd imagine battlecruisers are a similar deal (i.e. fill the price gap, no idea about their combat capability)

The only Caldari cruiser I dont have is a Moa. The other 3 are relatively cheap to pick up on the market (especially the Osprey and Blackbird which are only really any good for mining and electronic warfare respectively). I managed to pick up my Caracal quite cheaply (make sure you got lots of missile skills and equipment if you are going for one of these) but the Moa is the gun boat of the Caldari cruiser batch and is priced accordingly.

Dont get my wrong you can Frigate hunt in pretty much all of the cruisers (mainly because the guns are bigger) but the minute you go up against an NPC cruiser with a coupld of frigate escorts you start to understand why the Osprey and Blackbird were so cheap....

I just got my minmatar destroyer yesterday and I must say that I like him very much. I am running level 1 missions at the moment (time to get that social and connections skills up) and I just tear through stuff.

It sounds like you have more experience with this class, so I have a few questions.

Long Range or short Range ? I am using 280 mm howitzers at the moment and I am either oneshotting frigates at optimal range or gnawing on them, when they close the distance to about 2k-4k. At the moment I can take the punishment quite easily and level II missions should not be that more difficult as soon as I can install some decent shield/armor upgrades.

Is it possible to take out cruisers (NPC) with these ships or should I just run ?

I've only played with the Caldari and Gallante destroyers but they _appear_ to be aimed at close range combat, let me qualify that

Pretty much all of this data is from fighting 8k-13k Guristas rats in a 0.5 system in Caldari space - I keep meaning to get back on the agent missions but I haven't been able to devote enough time to Eve recently to get around to it.

My Cormorant can have 7 turrets and a launcher, however the bigger the turret the less of them I can mount due to powercore restraints (I dont have any powercore boosting skill or gear), if I'm mounting 75mil railguns I can get 7 on no problem, if I try and put 125mils on (which have a longer range) I can only get about 5 on, I think I'd only be able to get about 3 150mil's on it. This is alongside an EM shield hardener, 2x small shield boosters, a small armour and small hull repairer.

My max lock distance in it is 35k (not sure how much of this is boosted/crippled by my [lack of] combat skills though) so I tend to avoid groups of kestrels over 10k bounty each as they just kick the crap out of my before I'm in range. The fact that my antimatter ammo cuts my range in half obviously doesnt help here (I tend to start shooting at 12k and keep closing).

IIRC the Gallante destroyer is about the same, having used it anywhere near as much since its butt ugly

I'd expect projectile turrets to take less powergrid and the Minmatar destroyer might have a bonus to Proj turrets but I wouldnt be surprised if you ran into CPU problems instead

Not really, those Howitzer sure suck a lot of power.

Hm, I will try to pick up some Autocannons, I should be able to equip 7 of them no problem. Is there any way to auto-lock the nearest threat or anything like that ? Having no targetting skill at the moment is quite annoying  :-P

On the main options  screen in the bottom left corner you can set a number of ships that you auto target when they target you. Even with no skill in Targeting you can set that to 1 which helps a bit. I've got mine at 6 now.

Don't be in too much of a hurry to move up to level 2 missions until you're in a cruiser. Most can be done in a destroyer but there are a couple that will blow you right out of the water. Silence the Informant is one to watch out for. Even in a cruiser you may well need to warp out and do repairs. Once you're in a battlecruiser the level 2s become boring.  Unfortunately, the battlecruiser isn't quite up to level 3s.

If I had to do it over again I'd have just skipped past battlecruisers right into battleships.

As far as I noticed. this only works the first time they start targeting you, no ? Anyway, I will pick up targeting and some sensor and just toast them bitches ... :evil:

Yeah that's a pain. If they target you and you don't have the skill to acquire more targets then you have to do it manually.

I believe that is not correct. The little missions the research agents give you are not required to be done, research never stops. The little missions give you a bonus to the research points. I very frequently do not do the missions for my research agent as they ask for something that I cannot even find on the market. The research has never stopped.

Wouldn't surprise me to find it had changed since I last played (which was over a year ago) which was when I got my R&D agent - thanks for clearing that up

I'll post about my BC and stuff during lunch, but anything short-range NEEDS a MWD or ABs on it.  Missile Boats will kick your ass, and it's worse in L2s because you'll start to see interceptors which are fast little MFs.   I prefer ABs because MWDs don't function in deadspace, which is where most missions take place these days.

I didn't have any trouble with multiple 12-20k Angel rats last night in my frigate (Tristan- 2 125mm rails and a rocket launcher for close range). I had to boogie when a 50k rat jumped me as I was finishing off his buddies, but I am pretty sure I could have taken him 1v1 if I wasn't beat up first. Are destroyers really having that much trouble with stuff I am handling in a frigate? If so, I am definitely skipping them and heading straight to cruisers.

I think the problem with destroyers is that they're easier to target and hit than frigates because of their greater size. They're fun to fly and nice damage dealers and you can clean up a level 1 mission faster in a destroyer than in a frig but they're notoriously fragile.

I went into destroyers too fast, and went back to my frigate. It really pays to skill up before you move up. I was a much better fighter in a frigate than I was in a destroyer. Don't rush into more ship than you are capable of handling. Just being able to fly one, is usually not enough.

I still keep going back to my Rifter on occasion (I'm in cruisers now), love that ship.

Ok, the battlecruiser stuff.

They are directly in-between Cruisers and Battleships, and a good price increase but not overwhelmingly so.  (My BC cost 30mil, my cruiser 7mil, battleships will cost me 90-120mil)

The smallest Minmatar battleship (Typhoon) has a Sig Rad of 320m and a scan of 115mm the largest (Tempest) a sig of 340m and scan of 100mm.  My battlecruiser (Cyclone) sits at 240 sig and 220mm scan and my cruiser (Rupture) is 130m sig and 245mm scan.   This means I've got just slightly worse scan/ lock capability than a cruiser but far better than a battleship.  In trade, but my sig is a lot bigger, but not quite as big as a battleship.

  I get a ton more power in my battlecruiser, though (1210mw vs 860mw) and 2 more med slots and one more high slot than a cruiser, so I've got 8 weapons I can load-up and more shield tank/ toys than  I can fit in my cruiser.  The BC isn't too much slower (165 vs 200 m/s) but fitting a MWD or AB means I don't have as much room for other toys or tanks.

Right now I'm fitted with Heavy Missiles (2) Autocannons (3) Arty (2) and a light missile launcher.  One shield booster, an invuln shield, armor rep and a lot of cap recharge/ shield recharge modules in the mids, a webber and a target painter and some damage mods and cap rechargers in the lows.  I'd love to have one of the energy drains to keep my cap up and suck theirs dry, but I'm working on other stuff at the moment.  Maybe after I get into my assult frig.

   It's not the best weapons set-up for the level 3 missions I've started taking on, but it blew-through all of the Level 2 missions without any trouble at all.  I really wanted to see how ACs would do for me in L3, because Arty didn't work well in L2.  Too many frigs/ intys would close-in past my tracking & optimal range and I'd be chewing on them forever, even with a webber and the painter and my light/ medium drones.   Level 3 I'm finding a lot more cruiser spawns and missile ships.

 Without a MWD or AB I'm way too slow, and missile ships chew me up before I can get into good autocannon range (about 5km). Last night I had a group of 4 80k missile ships in a mission that I had to warp-out on about 5 times to finish off.  They'd keep me at range, so I could only rely on my own missiles and arty cannons to take them out.  Since I only have 2 arty this meant they'd take out my shield and part of my armor before I'd pop one, then I'd have to warp-out recharge/ repair and warp back to take on the next.  (And the one time I *DID* get in close - whoops aggroed another group, emergency warp!)

In short I love it because it doesn't cost the small fortune a battleship does, and I can use my medium gunnery skills and modules on it to complete level 3 missions.  It takes me a while and a number of warp-outs to do them because it's not as hearty as a BS, but I CAN do them.  If I had the skills and cash, though, I'd much rather be inside of a battleship and use drones/ pulse weapons to take care of the nuisance ships like interceptors.


Agreed. I worked hard to get my battlecruiser, but without a few key skills being at level 3-4 I was having a rougher time than in my cruiser.  Problem is, as a noob (and I still am largely a noob) you don't know what it needs until you actually try it.  Even reading the official forums doesn't always help, because of the PVP aspect. Too many people that will keep their lips shut or be unhelpful because it means they might have to face you some day.


I still do some level 2 missions in my Rifter because I love it so much.  (Though after RMR I'm notcing it's a lot harder to do that than it was.. I should find a new setup for it.)  My love for the look and the ship is part of the reason I'm going for assult frigs rather than interceptors or battleships.

I use medium guns in my battleship on level 3s. Since those are all cruisers and frigates large guns would just miss way too much.

I agree with you about jumping to a better ship before your support skills are up to snuff. I think that may be why I had so much trouble doing level 3s in my battlecruiser. Making the jump to battleship to do them allowed me to solo the level 3s even with my sucky skills because I was using an overpowered ship for it.

Maybe I'll take the old Brutix out of mothballs and see if it works better for me now. A little more challenge would make the missions more fun.

So it sounds like most people keep their older ships when they upgrade to a new class? That sounds more prudent instead of selling off the old one and being royally fucked when the new one goes poof and insurance only covers the hull.

So...how do I get this Caracal, anyway?  :-P

Well, yes that and I like owning my own fleet.  Call me Admiral!  I've got about 9 ships total.  The battlecruiser, a cruiser, my space-train hauler (I won't buy another indy even if I train up just because I love the look.) and a slew of frigates. (and then like 6 shuttles stashed around that I should put on the market or recycle..)  I've gotten a few of the frigs as mission rewards, but 2-3 I've picked-up because someone left them lying around.  Sure, I never fly that shitty Reaper anywhere, but damnit, I own it!

 If there were taxes or something I'd dump them as I upgraded, but with no downside to owning them I keep them around.

The rifter was the fastest ship at one point wasnt it?

What skills should I get up before really putting my Caracal out there? I'd iike to skill up before I get the ship so I can just jump right into it and with all the extra hours at work, I don't mind throwing a couple skills up to train while I'm gone.

I own but have never flown a Caracal (have a corp-mate who flew one exclusively for a while) but what I can tell you is this

Missiles

You either want Assault or Heavy launchers on it (depending on what you are hunting) and anything to increase your lock range and keep you out of theres (afterburner/microwarp drive)

Looking at the stats, you want to train up all the missiles and all the shield abilities you can.  That ship has nothing for armor, so best to enhance what it does have, since they're % based skills.

Being Caldari you were probably already working on your missile skills. Don't forget that each missile type (rocket/ heavy /standard/ cruise/ torp) has a book all its own that adds %5 damage for each level.  Then after level V in one of those, you get the specialization books that let give additional bonuses.  Don't worry about moving on to V until you're in your cruiser and have most other skills up around IV.

The other skills you would want are under navigation and engineering.  The shield skills you definatly want are management, operation, compensation, upgrades, and tactical shield manipulation.  I'd also get Energy Management and Energy Grid Upgrades (upgrades in case you need to pop in some power modules).  Then I'd work on getting the AB or MWD stuff, depending on what you're doing. If it's missions rather than rat-spawn hunting I'd go for Afterburners, since most missions happen in 'Deadspace' and MWDs don't work there.

I'd take all of these up to at least level III before trying out your cruiser.  You should get some decent shield modules as drops, so keep them around in your hangar and then play the min/ max game.

The Carcal also has a drone bay, but can only hold 10m^3 of drones.  I wouldn't worry too much about even training them up unless you were going to mine.

There's a couple other skills I think bear mentioning. First up is Target Painting, which will let you fit target painters which let those nice heavy missiles hit frigates and destroyers for more damage. The effect stacks, so if you're in a gang of cruisers and you all paint the same target, it's gonna be toast real fast now. It'll continue to come in handy later on as you move up in ship and weapon classes.

When you want to go down to lowsec, you may want to consider learning Energy Emission Systems (energy drainers & energy vampires) and/or Propulsion Jamming. The vampire/drain modules aren't too hot on cruisers, but they become really nice on battleships and they can still turn the tide of battle when a frigate's orbiting your cruiser. Propulsion Jamming lets you use webifiers and warp scramblers; the former is handy against fast-moving frigates, NPC or PC, and the warp scrambler is almost a necessity when you want to be prepared to start shooting at real people.

I knew I was forgetting something, and it was target painting.  It's still pretty new to me but I like it a lot... it's just such a capacitor hog right now.

The jamming/ propulsion stuff I left out just because he was a missile setup and webbers have a 10k max range.  (plus so many NPCs are 'immune to all sorts of electronic warfare. So it pisses me off when my painter doesn't work.)  Jammers/ stabbers/ scrabblers I can't speak on cuz I don't PVP yet and haven't messed with them.

Just because you're a missile boat with 50km+ range doesn't mean webbers are useless - on the contrary, NPC frigates with their damned NPC uber-MWDs commonly close to within 10-20km, and a webber can help there, especially if you use guns with low tracking speeds. They're really better against interceptors for missiles, since it's rare for an NPC to be orbiting you at more than 350m/s and a few levels of Target Navigation Prediction will negate that.

Still, it's 2 hours of training, tops, for a skill that will eventually come in handy.

I don't think Stabilizers require Propulsion Jamming since I only recently got that and have been using a stabilizer whenever I go into lowsec for quite a while now. I'd recommend fitting one for at least your first few jaunts into lowsec since they serve as an insurance policy against getting warp-jammed; kinda expensive on the CPU though.

Guy, the first thing you want to train up is the Learning skills, you want all the first-stage ones at 4 before you take try any rank 4 or higher skills past 3 (cruisers are a rank 5 skill).  Before you try to take anything higher than rank 2 to 5, you'll want to take all the learning skills to the second tier level 4 (starting with Intelligence and Memory at tier 2 level 4 before you take the others to 5).  It takes about 1/3 as long to train other skills that way, although the month+ it takes to get them up can be frustrating.  But you aren't going to be effective in L3 or L4 missions in less than a battleship, and the supporting skills you really need require some pre-requisites at 5.

And don't be afraid of low-sec space, with good supporting skills you can take anything down to 0.2 spawns in a Battlecruiser, you'll be more effective in a BC with the support skills than in a BS with minimal skills, and you'll have less on the line (BC's cost about 1/4 as much as a BS).  0.0 is where things get dangerous (it's also where you can make the most money), as all of it has been claimed by one alliance or another, and they *will* shoot you down for being there without clearance.

If you want to mine, you're better off doing it in a big group, organized with spawn-clearers, miners, and haulers, even in high-sec space you can find systems with decent belts to strip and stations to refine the ore.  Solo mining doesn't pay very well unless you're in low-sec space with the right skills, including the drone skills to clear your own spawns.

BTW, those low-volume drone bays are about to get a lot more useful with the combat-utility drones (like target painters and armor repair) that are becoming available in RMR, basically they'll let you free up mid slots for NPC'ing.

--Dave

I've found that a caracal with the proper loadout (passive resisters, shield extender, shield booster, painter, 5xheavy missiles, 2 light drones, etc.) can do really well in 0.2 space; Gallente 0.2 space seems the easiest for a caracal, with Amarr space being pretty tough but doable if you have a lot of patience. 0.1 space might get hairy, but should similarly be doable.

Of course, it all becomes quite easy if you bring along a pal, and a pair of caracals may help deter random PC pirates a little bit, as a side bonus.

All the minerals are done except for 3 mil isk iin lowsec stuff.  Please feel free to donate to the f13 navy.

Who has the actual skills to support their new cruiser?

I do, but my character has been around the block a few times.

The caracals will be finished very soon; once we get the BPCs, the Ruptures and whatever-the-hell-they're-called Gallente cruiser will be done in short order.

At this rate I'll be able to play every single race's cruiser within a week!  :evil:

Not really.

But I am switching lines again!

4 caracals ready.