f13.net

I am spending my efforts on raising the learning skills, and otherwise I have put most of my efforts into mining and refining or semi-random skills, such as a couple hours to get missile skills to install a light launcher with Bloodclaws.  I figure I will spend some time in gimp-land but I have been thinking I might be missing out on something.  Example: I am already having issues with the suitability of frigates for mining operations and obviously need to get some ship skills up.  Still, I would like to hear some opinions or even wild speculation on doing a mining focus in EVE.

If you take the Industrial ship skill you get a ship with around 3000 cargo capacity and you can mount one mining laser on it.

If you skill up to cruiser the highest french cruiser cargo capacity is 600 but you can add expanders to it. I don't remember how many slots for mining lasers that cruiser has but there are also mining drones you can get. Or you could add cargo expanders to your frigate (I think).

Can get 3 mining lasers with a 20% yield bonus on the caldorian cruiser. Also has like 20M3 of drone space and 450M3 of cargo space.

Was a great mining setup. Then I got stuck on a rock.

Doing a mining focus is completely viable, although you'll increase your output by getting a buddy to haul for you.

Most races have a low-level cruiser (cruiser skill 1 or 2) that gives a +20% bonus to mining laser yield per level of cruiser skill. Usually, this sort of ship can mount 3 Miner IIs (the standard lasers that require mining 4) and it's an excellent ship to mine in, both solo and in groups. Solo, you can usually fit a few antifrigate weapons and float a few drones which will let you fight off highsec asteroid-belt rats without too much interruption of your mining ops. In groups, you're a relatively speedy and portable mining machine with a very respectable output rate. For Caldari it's the Osprey.

The three main skill tracks for mining are:

Mining -> Astrogeology
Refining -> Refinery Efficiency
Drones -> Drone Interfacing (and ancillary drone skills)

Doing the first two will also let you eventually use modulated mining lasers with mining crystals that boost your output to really impressive levels; they're also a large part of the requirements for a Mining Barge, which is one of two possible targets for a high-volume miner. The drone skills are useful since level 3 in drones (and the proper selection of drones to float) should let you mine without a full-time guardian in highsec space.

In the long term, you're looking at either battleship mining or mining barge mining. Battleship mining, from what I understand, basically involves getting Amarr Battleships and fitting an Apocalypse with a huge number of mining lasers. Amarr ships are built for using lasers as their primary weapons and so can fit more mining lasers than any other race's battleships. Battleships are also extremely durable.

Mining barges are big, slow tubs with unsurpassed range and output compared to their peers. They're also made of tissue paper. I can mine without protection in my Retriever mining barge in 0.5 space with Drones 4, but some spawns still require warping-out and repairing. A Retriever's output is roughly 20% more per minute than a decently-fitted mining cruiser; a Covetor, from what I understand, is almost impossible to beat in terms of output.

Mining Barges will also let you mine ice; ice mining products are required for POS operations.

In the short term, while still in a frigate, the essential skills to get are refining 4 and mining 4; you may also want to pick up astrogeology 4 after completing mining 4 since it's another +20% output bonus, but that's postponable.

Here are some newb minings tips from another newb player.

Frigate mining is certainly possible in higher sec space -- either get the mining specific Frigate for your race or the Frigate with the largest cargo hold. For Gallente that's either the Imicus (largest cargo hold) or the Navitas (mining specific). I went with the Imicus since the Navitas cargo bonuses didn't get it close to the Imicus's cargo hold and the Imicus is their Electronic Warfare ship which means it has more than enough CPU to power dual Miner 1 lasers while on the Navitas dual Miner 1s won't leave much extra CPU to power other modules (not that you need much more if you are just mining). In 0.8 - 0.7 space I could mine with just the Imicus using drones as my defense (another reason to use the Imicus it has a 15m3 drone bay vs 5m3 in the Navitas). In 0.5 space, though, that was not enough and so I setup two ships in my preferred 0.5 mining system, my Imicus for mining and my Tristan for combat and when the Pirates would appear I would warp back and get my Tristan.

Once you can get a Destroyer mining becomes easier in 0.5 systems since you can fit dual Mining 1 lasers and multiple combat weapons on it so you can mine and fight without having to warp back and get another ship. That's what I'm currently using (a Catalyst) to mine the ore needed to build my Vexor Cruiser (bought a BPC from Escrow).

Another tip is to setup "insta" bookmarks to and from the station to make drop offs as quick as possible since you won't have any significant hauling capability at the beginning stages to setup Huge or Giant Secure Containers in the area to drop your ore into.

Edit: actually I was able to fit 3 Mining 1 lasers on my Catalyst, not two.

Getting certed for an hauler and getting anchoring to place a secure container would also be a good plan.

I've got a couple of giant secure containers around, I can bring those to wherever we end up doing our mining ops.

I think the most of us are on Saturday night, so that might be a good night to plan on doing a group activity (mining or otherwise).

Thanks for the tips, everyone.  I am not opposed to joining the corp mining effort, but my time is limited this week.  I can stockpile tritanium, pyrerite and mexallon if there is need, but mostly I am selling it so as to buy that cruiser.  I had 1.2 mil ISK last check; if mineral prices stop dropping I might be able to get 2mil next week.

I have the "mining bonus" French frigate (Navitas), with ~344m³ cargo (two Basic Expander I or somesuch) and two Mining I lasers.  One mining drone but he is only somewhat helpful and not worth mention.  With two laser cycles (120 seconds) I can get ~840 units of plagioclase, almost filling my hold, at which point I dump at the station, or maybe get another 90 units but that takes another cycle.  I naturally have instas set up to all of the belts.

My most recent idea to boost things short-term, which I can't remember the elements of, involved reducing the laser cycle time below the stock 60 seconds.  That would be great, but I will still be warping a lot.  High volume, I think, is key, for which I need a hauler.  Or some way to throw a rope around a container and pull it.  Using the Imicus might be a good idea; I will have to look at the specs and think about it.

I recently fit a Miner II on my Navitas but immediately realized that activating both lasers would completely drain my capacitor.  Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.  I decided I needed a cruiser at that point.


The froggy one I was looking at is the Exqeror.  I totally misspelled that name.  A second alternative is the one with a huge drone bay, but smaller cargo.  I might look this shit up but eve-online.com isn't responding to me right now.


I seem to be on track in this department, but postponing Drone skills a bit since I don't have a ship with a decent drone bay.  Drone lv 2, mining drone lv 1 or 2.


I have Mining 4 and Refining 4 already.  I had not looked at Astrogeology but another quick 20% would be nice, and I would feel better about selecting ships just on cargo space.  I will work on those skills after mem and int learning skills hit 5.  I expect Instant Recall to be lv 5 early this Friday, then another five days for the intelligence one.

I see that I will want to go the barge route.  My perception is absolutely terrible, so I am very interested in making sure I don't waste time on ship lines I will never use.

I have enough Anchoring to field a container, and I even have one somewhere, however since the ship I would use to carry it to the belt is also my mining frigate it seems silly to mine into a container at this time.  Postponed.

I took a break from mining to run missions, hoping to cut back on that 5% refining tax.  My standing with the U. of Caille has increased a TINY bit, so I am starting to think that I should spend more time on amassing money instead of standing.

I'd mine somewhere closer to the base and ask a corpmate to drive the indy out to pick up your ore.

The barge route requires:
 Astrogeology 4
 Industry 5
 Mining 4
 Science 4
 SS Command 4 (I think, might be 3)
 Mining Barge 3

 Astrogeology requires science 4 and mining 4 to start, I think, and gives a +5% bonus to output per level.

 Aside from Barge and SS Command, those are all int/mem skills. Since you're raising your learnings to 5, you may want to consider investing 9mil in the advanced int/mem skills and bringing those to 3 or 4. I can help out with interest-free loans to get people those advanced skills; they significantly reduce training time for skills of ranks higher than 2.

 For mining cruisers, output is what matters to you (especially if you have an indy and a secure can to mine into), so I'd recommend going with the cruiser that gives +x% output.

 If you already have frigate 3 and SS command 3, you may consider investing in getting industrial 1 and an Iteron, which has a base of 3000m3 cargo space, enough to tow one of the larger secure containers around. Head to a belt, anchor the can, set the password, and then get your mining frigate to fill the damn thing. Haul as appropriate. If you feel really safe in your mining system, you could just mine into a jetcan instead of a secure can. Getting the industrial skill and a base-level indy generally costs about 1mil.

I see all these costs in millions of 'Isk'...  And it seems pretty common to have these kinds of numbers.  Is everyone in EVE just fabulously wealthy, or what?  If you have 100 million Isk, can't you retire to a planet and live the rest of your life in style?  Or does the Empire just have a bad inflation problem... or like the Yen, just an inherently low value?

Alkiera

I have two Covetor barges. That's the large one.

I mine in 0.5 with 5 hammerhead drones for protection.

With the skills for a large barge you can mine ~1000 m3 per minute.

Fit two alpha expanders and your barge can hold 6170 m3. Create an insta for the station and one for each belt and you can zip back and forth quite well without even having to use a hauler.

It's some training but you can mine easily as the re-cycle time on the Strip miners is 3 minutes so you don't have to pay as much attention.

It's more like the costs are high because you are buying military hardware. If you think of it that way, the value of an single ISK is pretty high relative to today's currency -- e.g. 30K - 300K ISK for a Frigate class starship, 800K for a Destroyer, 3 million for a Crusier and so on. How much does it cost the US Navy to build a destroyer these days? A few hundred million US$ at least I would guess. I know a crusier costs >1 billion.

I don't understand your concern about cargo space. Sure, it's important when you're mining directly into your hold and going back to the station but for real mining you'll be putting that ore into a jet can or secure container. Your hold just has to be big enough to contain a single mining cycle's worth of ore.  And if it's not you just stick a cargo expander or two on until it is.

For you miners, just call on me to guard ya if you feel the need. Heck, it's what I am built to do. I just ask that you consider sharing a portion of the profits, because I could be ratting instead of waiting for trouble while you mine.  :wink:

I haven't taken a cut from mining in...awhile. We need more people in cruisers.

Bear in mind the mining barges big brother is in the game now - The Exhumers<sp?>

The Hulk is the largest of the large, no idea how available they are, hell I only just finished certing for the basic barge

In every corp I've ever heard of the guards and haulers get a full share of the profits.

The last few mining runs they did were exclusivly for Cruiser building, I believe.  I won't pretend to know the innerworkings of their corp.

I will hang out for a bit next time, though. I have this itch to blow up people.

Well cruiser building as a special project is different. As long as everyone gets a turn when they need their new ship I think that's fair. But for just a regular mining op where you want to make money it's normal to give everyone that participates an even share with possibly another share for the corp wallet.

Oh, I know. I have received money for guard duty before.

But then we realized that only Yaeru was running a cruiser, while everyone else was in frigates - this severely limited our system choices for mining. But with 2 Caracals, our miners are now a much less-attractive target for pirates.

We want to go even deeper into low-sec and go hunt bastard pirates, so we need more cruisers. The corp helped put me into a cruiser, so it's at least fair for me to put others into bigger ships if it benefits everyone.

Don't bother with barges unless you're gonna go all the way to covetor (a good couple of months training).

A brutix (gallante battlecruiser) can fit 7 miner II with co-procs in the lowslots.  That'll outmine a medium barge, can actually defend itself and it's useful in combat.  That's your best best until you're into BS or covetors.

Also don't forget the new mining foreman skill. :)  Only requires leadership 1 and gives everyone in the gang 2% output per level.

Nice tip,

By the by, my Prophecy will definitely be up and running again on Saturday, the modules have been purchased, as well as the ship I may put it together Friday or I may go get drunk (expecting the latter).  It will not be uber (I want to take up all the armor speciality skills to 4 next week) but it should work.  So you can add 6 heavy beam's and what I hope will shake out to be a fairly solid armor tank to our protective abilities for a weekend op.

I'm available Saturday 10am-5pm PST and Sunday all day when football isn't on.  But I'd be nice if we could arrange what time we're going to shoot for today because I do need to finish my AV grind in WoW (need >6k for exalted) so I wont be checking on EvE unless I'm expecting there to be an Op.

My only concern here is a short-term one.  My largest cargo bay is 344m³, so I would be able to take out a ~300m³ secure container.  That ship is also my mining frigate.  So if I mine and load up the container, I still have to make two trips in the Navitas to get the ore to the refinery.  Since I don't have a hauler yet.  Once I get to the point where I have a ship with great mining ability but not-great cargo space, and another ship with a huge hold, then I'll do container mining.  Unless I am missing out on something, that seems to be the thing to do.


Ah, thanks.  I am definitely going all the way with this industrial stuff.  I have done combat in every MMOG I have played other than UO, and while I don't have any aversion to combat, it is definitely on the back burner.  Given the option of additionally learning battlecruiser with a base 3 perception, or going directly through the barge and hauler lines, I'll take the less time-consuming route.  At this point it would be ludicrous for me to spend serious time on combat skills with this character given his attributes; I'd roll up a new guy for that.  Also, I am planning on doing trade, and having skill with the largest of the large haulers will allow me to make a profilt on smaller margins.  But that's a while off.

Regarding corp contributions, once I get into a good mining routine I expect to supply F13 with minerals and cash on a regular basis.  Details are hazy at the moment, but historically I am pretty generous with my guildmates.

Aside from what Trippy said, what you might not know is that you buy ammunition by the round.  Prices for those are pretty low, depending on the type.  I think the small iridium hybrid shells I usually use are something like 3-4 ISK per shell.  Some of the more combat-oriented people here, like Strazos, can tell you how much ammunition you can expect to burn in a typical day.

Speaking of ammo- do we have folks that can manufacture it cheaply? I go through it like crazy and am tired of having to pay higher prices just to get it in a convenient area. Maybe let me know what minerals are needed and add a small service fee? Eventually I will be in a place to make my own, but that is a few months down the road most likely.

Actually, prices tend towards deflation in general, with things getting cheaper over time, overall.  But things can get expensive as you move up the ladder, a well-equipped cruiser runs 10M, a Interceptor 20M, a HAC (Heavy Assault Cruiser) 70M, a battleship 100-130M, and then you get in Player Owned Stations in the hundreds of millions to billions (if fitted out for defense), Dreadnoughts for the low billions (can only be used in low-sec space, and need a pathfinder to change systems), carriers for the same price range, and Motherships/Titans for tens of billions (no one has actually built anything bigger than the dreadnoughts yet yet, although the alliances are all scrambling to do so).

In Empire, a BS is the result of months worth of work, in 0.0 it's "Easy come, easy go", you can earn enough for a BS in a week's play max.  Dreadnoughts and carriers are a stretch for a good 0.0 corp, motherships and titans are for big alliances and the very richest corps (Stain has 2000 members and one of the most productive regions, and can field 7 dreads).  There are a handful of individuals with that kind of wealth, but they didn't get there by squandering it on the biggest ships around.

--Dave

I just started looking at making ammo myself.  I like EMP, Proton and Phased Plama shells, but very few people make or sell it reasonably close to the quantities I need or an ammount I want to pay.  ( I buy in lots of 4000 rounds, minimum.)  The problem is finding not only the research space to reduce mineral costs, but training-up all the other skills so you can produce efficiently.  Takes time away from my combat skill training..

I only have a BPO for small thorium hybrid right now, since it's the best small hybrid that I am able to make with the three minerals I refine from plagioclase.  I am going to scout out some .7 belts soon so I might be able to make other stuff later.

Like Merusk, I need to find a place to research mineral cost.

The last few mining runs were, indeed, to get everyone in cruisers. The last three ships were put in the oven last night; I'll pull them out when I get on late tonight. It was less a consensus among the corp and more a couple of us looking at the profits we were making with omber stripping, looking at how many people were still in frigates, and just deciding to go for it.


I have a Scourge heavy missile BPO researched up. If you want to supply the minerals (small amounts of trit, pyerite and nocx; nothing you can't pull in a few minutes mining scordite and pyroxeres), I'll run the blueprint through the factory for you.

Being able to make your own ammo doesn't take too long; you need the industry and science skills at a dead minimum. Tech1 ammo BPOs sell for a few hundred thousand isk from the standard market and take a day to research up to the appropriate level (I prefer ME 10). You won't recoup the cost of the BPO (vs. buying the ammo) for a long time, but even if you move to 0.0, you'll always have an ammo supply so long as you have minerals and a factory slot.

I haven't been using my research capabilities, so I can research up BPOs if you need it.

Am I able to drop my BPO in a corp hangar (at the Gall HQ I assume) and someone else pick it up?

Provided they have access to that particular hangar, I think that's possible.

If someone has the appropriate permissions with the corp, they can also run blueprints in corp hangars directly, without having to remove them from those hangars, provided that the appropriate materials are present. (There's a special tab in the science&research UI for corp blueprints.)

There's a couple of hangars open to everyone (Items, Skills, Ammo, and Private). Everyone can also run jobs with Corp Blueprints, so if you drop something into the Blueprint hangar you can run jobs with it still, but you won't be able to get it back out without asking a director or the base's XO (which hasn't been setup yet).


It looks like Grimpyone and WayAbvPar are our new Directors, who will have the same corp access as the CEO (me). Strazos was 1 vote behind both of them, so we'll probably be nice and give him an XO or other department head position.


On another note, it looks like they are going to be setting up a new hardware cluster in mid-Feb. That'll be nice!

Mmm yea, i'm much in the same position. If i'm on and people are planning to go mining, let me know. I'm not all that useful in combat (being in a frigate and all) but i'm nice and fast and i can scout systems/belts for nasty things.

There are some decent roid fields in Hror and Hek (just a couple jumps from Onga and Rens). From what I have heard, that is potential highway from 0.0, but I rarely see anyone else in Hror in particular. Get some instas set, be on alert for newcomers in local, and we can mine the crap out of that system with a few folks. I think it is a .5 system, so any NPC rats are small enough to take on with a frig, and big enough to give some sort of cash incentive for doing so.

Holler at me if you are interested- I have a frig for defense, or a hauler for mining, so I can do whatever is needed.

I'm just about to start playing with my 'cloaked ninja miner' (read cheap ass frigate with cloaking device to go mining in low sec space).

I'm not expecting big things, was just a goal to work towards

On the question of ammo prices, so far, all I can say is that the costs are...negligable. I honestly don't care too much. A stack of...lets say 4,000 Kinetic Heavy Missiles doesn't cost a whole lot, and the costs are easily recouped by killing....just about anything.


EDIT: I'll have to make a point to look at what I pay for ammo next time I resupply....but seeing as I'm still using the missiles I bought when I originally got my cruiser, that could be awhile.

Yeah, ammo making makes a lot more sense when you're Minmatar and your ROF is so high that you find you're running out of the stack of 600 ammo you brought along on the mission.  You burn through a lot of ammo as a projectile user, which is why I buy in lots of 4k if/ when I can find it.  Bought 1800 phased plasma last night because I was out. 20isk per unit.  I'll probably have to resupply that on Sunday if I spend a lot of time running through missions this weekend.  Autocannons are a bitch.

 Missiles I just buy on the market (or get as rewards.. just got 3100 bloodclaw as a bonus last night.)

Autocannons = :heart:

btw.

what are your tactics/setup for those autocannons ?

I am using sabot rounds at the moment , have 3 AC in the high slots, medium are 1 shieldbooster 1, 1 afterburner and 1 webifier I will exchange for a target painter. low slots are 2 overdrives and 1 50 mm armor upgrade.

Usually I close the distance as fast as possible, then stop and  kill the rats one by one (Level 1 missions most of the time)

Would a target painter help if used with Autocannons on short distances (about 1 km)

The ACs I was bitching about being ammo hogs are on my BC where I've got a lot more freedom in slotting since its got 5 mids. Being that you're flying a frig or cruiser, the strategy would be a bit different.

My current understanding of target painters is they're worthless on short-range setups, particularly so on Frigates since their slots are so tight.  They have an optimal range of 25k meters, and even the large ACs only have a range of 5k so you're just burning capacitor and slotting on something that's not doing you much good.

 ACs are for in-close fighting, so when you're in close you need to slow your target down so a crawl, which helps more than making them "bigger" to your guns. As such, a webber or two is much, much better, particularly on a frig where slots are so tight.

I mainly keep the ACs around because my drone skills are lackluster and I'm encountering a lot more webbing interceptors on missions now.  I have a webber to slow them down and 2 425s to chew them to bits, though I'm probably going to change that to a couple of dual 180s or 220s because while the damage is lower, they track so much faster. 

Any advice beyond that will depend on which ship you're flying.  They all need different setups to make them 'optimal' and even then, it depends on the pilots skill and flying preference.

Thanks for the advice.

I prefer an "in your face" approach when it comes to fighting. At the moment I am flying a rifter, because of its speed, but I have a minmatar destroyer docked as well.

One other thing I am not sure about, is it better to directly approach a target, orbit it at high speed or just sit still and take pot shots at them. My optimal range atm is at about 1km at the moment. I am fighting easy frigates and drones and the occasional destroyer if I feel like it and jump into some 0.3 or 0.4 belts.

I'm pretty sure you want to move at all times, as the damage done by their weapons is reduced the faster you are moving. That said, if you can easily tank their damage, then you *could* just sit there and blow them all up. :P

High speed orbit as close as you can get is the way to go in a fast little close range frig setup.

They way I understand tracking, this is true for enemies with bigger guns (medium/large) because of the slower tracking speed.

Would it not reduce my overall damage (given as well as taken) because of the high lateral (sp?) speeds ?

Oh! One other thing.. pick one tank-type and outfit for that.  It'll not only save you on slots and cap (i.e. drop the shield booster since it's sucking you dry) but will let you fit some other toys in their place and requires fewer skills to do well.   The lowbie Minmatar stuff are all armor tanks, so you can ignore shield tanking until you're thinking of moving into a BC or BS.  Just train hull upgrades to IV, then pick-up the advanced resistance (Em/Thermic/Kinetic Armor Compensation) skills.

Tossing some bigger armor plating and some passive or active resistance to patch the big holes in Minmatar explosive & kinetic damage would be a good bet.  I'd toss one of those new internal forcefields (http://www.eve-online.com/itemdatabase/shipequipment/hullarmor/damagecontrols/5839.asp) in if they weren't 10mil each on the market right now. Those things are NIIIIIIICE and really cheap on the capacitor.

Also, if you're REALLY into min/maxing there's folks who'll swap out ammo based on what they're taking down - shields or armor.  Blah, says I, and I just use Phased Plasma and Proton in the Ac's. Since I'm PVEing almost exclusively, doing thermal as my primary hasn't hurt me so far and most ships are weakest at Thermal on average.



I think so which is why you use webbers on them.  Slow them down to a near-stop and it reduces your chances of missing since you're aiming at a near-stationary target. It also means you're moving considerably faster vs  their tracking. 

I have not tried it yet, but I am looking forward to seeing what happens when I orbit someone at +900m/s at 1200m range.  I might puke.

I'm not understanding the advantages to lasers or autocannons....Are there any or is it just to give the Primarily missile races a big advantage and make everyone want to be caldari?

The advantage I see for lasers is no ammo. I've got a feeling though, that if I ran into someone shooting 5 missiles at a time at me while I try to kill them with my blasters I'll be dead in about two seconds.

So basically - you're bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Lasers advantage is they are more powerful than the same class of guns and have a greater range.  You also never have to reload them (no downtime mid-fight us using-up cargo space with ammo).  Their disadvantage is they have a much smaller falloff, cost cap to fire are slower to track and cost more gridspace. I have heard they're harder to change damage types on, but I think that's just a myth that's circulated.  

Turrets have a greater falloff than anything, use no cap, small powergrid, big rate of fire (more chances to hit) turn fast and swapping damage types is as simple as a 10s reload.  Their disadvantages are that they require ammo and therefore cargo space, run dry pretty quickly in any sustained encounter necessitating multiple reloads.

Hybrids fall in between the two above, sometimes better, sometimes worse depending on the stat.

As I understand it, Missiles, Rockets & Torpedos used to do splash damage.  Using them at short range, or if a friendly was close to your foe was a good way of blowing yourself to bits (due to your own AOE or CONKORDOKKEN!)  They took that out, and as a result missles were wayyyy too damn powerful. 

 So then back around the Cold War patch last July or so they added-in all those missile skills and nerfed missiles (missiles used to do as much damage with just basic missile skills as they do now with all, (what is it like 8?) missile skills.   I imagine CCP figured this was now balanced, without looking 6-months down the road to realize, oh right, everyone's maxed those skills now and we're back to the imbalance... made worse with T2 missiles.

As far as I can tell, Missiles are balanced under the assumption they aren't as nimbile as close-up frigs w/ turrets, do less damage to smaller ships and don't have as much range as the very big guns on battleships.  As far as an all-around weapon, though, they ARE clearly superior.. which is why so damn many people fly Ravens when they hit Battleships (and why I'm going to train for them if I decide to move into BS)

I just trained my missile skills up enough to run a Standard Missile launcher on my Tristan. So far, I love them- they do tons of damage, and really lower the time to grind through all the shields/armor/hull as compared to just using my railguns. Every time I have died it was due to missile barrage too.

Is there any effective way to avoid them? I have heard Defender missiles don't work, and can't get the timing down to use my smart bomb (which I also can't use in a gate camp for risk of Concord's wrath if I scratch their goodies). Can I outrun them? How is that done, exactly?

I figured out missiles were overpowered after firing my first one.  I was only somewhat suspicious after being pounded by some.  The skill setup really only means that newbies like me have to train two different skills just to fire one.  Not sure how making it complicated will balance things.

Since my first run-in with missiles, my Tristan is fitted with three armor-plating units and a basic armor-repair unit.  My Atron might be able to outrun them, assuming I am already facing away from my attacker: max 998m/s.  I wouldn't care to try it in a real encounter.

I'm guessing you can run heavy missiles on a frig as well?

One of the attractions of armor tanks for NPC'ing is that you don't need a Shield Booster to recover shields, since they'll slowly regen, but you do need an armor repair module in shield-tank setups if you don't want to go running back to base every time something breaks your tank.  Plus, med slots are a lot more flexible than low slots.  In PvP setups, especially fleet ops, you'll generally skip it (you may even skip the tank), but going back to base is a huge PITA when there isn't one in the system, especially when you're 10 jumps deep in 0.0 space.

Missles are nice, but some NPC's will carry Defenders on rocket packs that will gut your DPS against them.  My low-sec BC rat-hunter carries 3 Assault launchers to clean up the frigate trash, and 5 650mm cannon to kill the cruisers (who frequently are almost untouchable by my missles).

--Dave

I want to know if Defenders work these days or not, because at least for now the only thing I have cpu to mount on my Proph is a rocket launcher so I was thinking defender missiles would be an nifty thing to have if they work.

They work, if you have good skills in them and in Target Navigation Prediction, and fire them from rocket launchers (3-5 times the ROF of regular launchers).  Given equal numbers of launchers, you can get a kill rate of around 80% on incoming light missles, higher against heavier ones (really high against Cruise).  For PvP setups, people generally don't bother, but against NPC's when you know they'll mount missles, it's a good idea.

--Dave

Mahrin meant attractions of shield tanks, not armor.  :-D  Yeah, the need for a repairer is a drawback of armor tanking, but since the 'best' cruiser for a Minmatar only has 3 mids but 5 lows, it makes it a lot faster to step-into them if you focus on armor tanking early in your career and then work towards shield tanking while doing the more-profitable L2 missions.  The other races I'd imagine take different strategies.

Of course, part of the beauty of this game is it's flexibility so you could really do either, depending on what platform you wanted to spend most of your early career in.


No.  This was part of the 'great missile nerf' that I forgot to mention.  Launchers used to take so little power you could do this easily.  With the balance pace of CW they made heavies take ~100 power grid per fit.  Since a frig has a ~40 power output, there's no chance of doing this even with maxed skills and powergrid mods.


They "work" if by work you mean you have to watch the screen and hit your launcher button every time you see a missile incoming.  They target missiles automaticaly, but turn-off if there's no missiles in the air for them to target and don't turn-on again until you hit them.

I've stopped bothering for NPCs and have been focusing on tanking skills instead while using heavy missiles.  I can fire one defender if I take-up a slot (of the 3 I have) with a rocket launcher loaded with defenders. They can fire 3 missiles and a defender, I lose 50% of my missile damage they lose 33%.. not a good tradeoff for me.

I'll have to try out assault launchers like Dave does and see if that fixes my interceptor problem. (probably not since my missile skills are a little weak.)  If it does, though, I can go to full arty and save myself some ammo. Glee.

Actually he was referring to the drawbacks of shield tanking (I am fairly certain)

If you are armor tanking you mount an armor repairer, and that is it.  Because your shields auto regen and you expect them to go down.  You can easily put a hull repairer in one of your many low slots (armor = low, shield = medium) so even if your tank breaks you do not have to back to a station.

If you are shield tanking and your tank is broken even just a little your armor is being worn down and you will not have any way to repair it.

Also low slots really dont do much outside of armor tanking and damage mods that I can think of off the top of my head.  So while you have more mids, you are tying them up with your tank setup and you might actually get less utility out of them then an armor tank because his tank is going on the lows.  Of course most armor tanks are amarr which often means they will be devoting those mids to their cap because their turrets use a great deal of it to fire and they are turret heavy.  So of course it is all a matter of which ship, which skills and what you are trying to do.

While there are tried and true setups the only good rule of thumb I can think of is make sure you are taking advantage of your ship's bonus they are listed after the flavor text on the info screen and make sure you know what kind of damage the rats you will be facing do and boost your resists accordingly.

My lows are usually CPU and powergrid upgrades, but that may just be due to my relative n00bness.

Yep. Work on your electronics and engineering skills and that'll start to go away. 5% bonus to cpu/ powergrid per level respectively.

You're right, Hoax.  I misread him before.  :oops:

My 5 low slots on the Thorax are 2 overdrives, a damage control I (or a 1600mm -- I keep switching back and forth), an Inertia unit, and a armor resistance mod. My mid slots are afterburner, shield repairer, and a EM shield resist mod. My 5 guns on the top are usually a mix of medium blaster, small blaster, and railgun hybirds. Plus 3 drones.

Level 2 missions kick my ass.

Lows are also where you put speed mods like Nanofiber and Overdrives.  If you're depending on speed to keep you from getting hit, a tank is less useful than boosting your mps.

Assault launchers are very under-rated in my opinion, which leads to them being cheap, which makes them even more attractive (second-step "Limos" launchers for about the same price as a basic heavy).  I would have trouble fitting Heavies on my grid, and unless I fit a couple of light autocannon I'd be helpless against frigates (which would actually lead to lower overall DPS).  Assaults take comparatively little power, match range nicely with my 650mm loaded with EMP (and far outrange the AC, where the Heavies would outrange my *scanners*), and are only about 15% behind the heavies on DPS because of the higher rate of fire (and the ammo is a hell of a lot cheaper and more portable).

--Dave

I bet.  Drop the shield repairer, the EM shield resist,the afterburner, the inertia unit and the overdrives.  Mount an explosive resistance hardener (the 32.5% passive Energized Reactive Membrane I), another for whatever kind of damage you face most, and a Medium Armor Repair (II, if you can get the skill, I think it's only Mechanic IV and Repair Systems IV).  Stick with the 1600mm plate unless it's making you mount lighter weapons (go with 800mm instead in that case), fit an MWD in place of the AB, and some kind of EW or weapon upgrade in place of the EM shield mod (or an AB, if you really don't want to give it up). 

The MWD has some stiff skill requirements, but the Thorax gets nice bonuses for it and it's the gank-ship of choice for 0.0 fleet ops.  Hit the MWD to close to blaster range, shut it down (make certain you shut it down if you're up against more than one, as the sig radius penalty will get you killed) and start tearing it up.  Speed won't save you against multiple opponents in a T1 cruiser (you just can't get fast enough), the only thing it's good for is getting you close to your primary in a hurry, and the MWD will do it better than 3 slots of speed enhancers.

There are other ways to tune it, the main point is don't waste slots on both an armor tank and a shield tank.

--Dave

I disagree with Mahrin on using MWDs, only because most of us are doing PvE right now.  PvP, absolutly, but a LOT of PvE missions are in deadspace where, convienantly for the rats, MWDs are disabled.  (Note, this is only for deaspace missions where you have to use a gate to get to them.)

Also, people failed to mention that Heavy+ missiles suck against frigate-sized ships without target painters (massively reduced damage). Also, missiles do not critical. They have more-consistent damage, but cannot crit like the other weapon types. I personally also hate the long cycle/reload times....though I don't really reload much (pure Kinetic baby).

Also, (my) missiles have 3k+ mph speed....I don't see anyone outrunning them, short of warp.

Probably a stupid question but as a Caldari flying Caldari ships I should be shield tanking correct?

If so am I basically looking at needing Shield boosters, extenders and hardeners in my mid slots right? (generally, not for a specific ship type). Any useful shield stuff for the lows? (or is that all armour tank stuff?)

It really depends on the ship you are flying...but yeah, Caldari usually go with shield tanking.

You might try a Power Diagnostic Unit, they give small % bonuses to shield & capacitor recharge rates, and shield/powergrid/cpu totals.

Thought those were lows.

Yes, lows; that's the part of his post I was responding to.  Sorry.