Level 4's

[Raging Turtle]

As rich as it is, 0.0 is way too tedious for me. 

Piracy is not worth the time solo, and my play time is too sporadic and limited to join a pirate corp willing to pay for wardecs. 

I do like missions though, and CCP's idea of less-ships-in-a-mission + tougher-ships is very appealing.  So I'm looking for a little advice outside of Eve-0s "BUY A RAVEN!1!" plan... unless the Raven/CNR really IS the fastest way to plow through missions?  It can be hard to seperate fact from popular opinions on the official boards.

Right now I'm Amarr spec'ed, and can fly really anything Amarr, from all T2 frigs to command ships, fully trained on armor tanking, most lasers, etc.  I also have Amarr BS V.
That said, I also have almost full shield tanking skills, and my missle and drone skills are at around 1m-1.5m each - wouldn't be that hard to switch to another ship line, especially Caldari or Gallente. (although I don't like using heavy drones that much, too slow for my tastes).   

So do I train up Caldari BS IV?  Or is there a better way? 

[neep]

The raven probably is the easiest way to do level 4's. Missiles are king when doing missions. Aside from that any BS with the right resists or t2 fitted BC or higher is sufficient to do them without too much problems.

[Endie]

You need a raven.  My alt runs level 4s with a bunch of people out of a spirit of generosity and the Amarr are useless in there, due mainly to range and damage-choosing abilities.  Drone-users can choose damage but aggro entire rooms in seconds.

Fit your raven with a balance of torps and cruises depending on what the mission gives out, noses or very rarely a in the spare highs unless it's an easy-mode mission (tractor/salvager), with T2 mids: x-large booster, amplifier, four hardeners (2 rat-specific, 2 invuln).  Lows should have a T2 damage control (double the effective structure for getting out when you fuck up), as well as something like 2 PDS and 2 BCS, although some boost their sensor strength to avoid jamming vs Guristas.

T2 drones for the frigs, drone interfacing to at least 4.

Rigs cap recharge, with some preferring at least one of the shield extender rigs (I do this to help with the alpha damage in some big BS-heavu rooms).

Shield and energy skills in engineering to at least 4.  That's shield comp, shield operation, shield management, shield upgrades, energy management, energy systems op, tactical shield manip.  Sounds like you have the shield ones.

And be very careful about doing the Blockade if you don't have a perma-running booster like an X-Large Gist X-Type with at least a T2 amplifier.  A snip at 1.56 billion at the moment.  There are L4s that will see you scrambled and fighting 40 ships, of whom 10 or 12 are battleships and 10 or 12 of whom are dire pithum types doing minute-long bouts of jamming.  And there are some missions that are completely untankable (one in Recon?), and you are meant to jump through.  Otherwise you will lose your raven, Caldari Navy or not.

Hope that helps.

[neep]

And be very careful about doing the Blockade if you don't have a perma-running booster like an X-Large Gist X-Type with at least a T2 amplifier

I did it yesterday with a 3.5mil exploration alt in a maelstrom with mostly t1 stuff. It can take quite a long time to complete but you can do level 4's without getting yourself killed even when you don't have all the uber gear or a cnr. Its a nice challenge.

But if you want to do it fast and clean, go with what Endie is saying.

[Vinadil]

I have run the L4s with my Megathron for a good while, but I will agree that the Raven is a superior ship in many ways, especially if you have some drone skills.  Forget heavy drones, T2 Light scouts is the way to go, because your drones will only be used to kill frigates anyway.  After that it is pretty much common sense how to outfit your ship to shield tank and Cap recharge.  That is the biggest reason to make a missile boat... your weapons don't use Cap so it all goes to tanking.  Plus, your torpedos DO hit frigates, even if for 5% damage.

[dwindlehop]

Yote, I can get you into <-10.0>, if you're interested. Yarr. 

[Slayerik]

I have run the L4s with my Megathron for a good while, but I will agree that the Raven is a superior ship in many ways, especially if you have some drone skills.  Forget heavy drones, T2 Light scouts is the way to go, because your drones will only be used to kill frigates anyway.  After that it is pretty much common sense how to outfit your ship to shield tank and Cap recharge.  That is the biggest reason to make a missile boat... your weapons don't use Cap so it all goes to tanking.  Plus, your torpedos DO hit frigates, even if for 5% damage.

The reason the raven is such a good ratter/mission runner is that you can choose what type of damage to do. If the cap use was the reason, then Minny ships would be just as good...they just arent :)