Pimp My Ride! (or, fix my noob fitting plan)

[eldaec]

So... my first cruiser.


(Thorax)


Right now I'm loaded like this...

High
5x 150mm Carbide Railgun I   (Antimatter ammo)

Medium
10MN Afterburner I
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
Medium Shield Booster

Low
Medium Armour Repairer I
200mm Tungsten Plate
Energized Basic Adaptive Nano Plate
Energized Basic Reactive Plate
Damage Control I

And most important:
Drone Bay
5x Hammerhead face-melters-o-doom I


Upgrades I'm considering learning the skills for would be a Salvager, a MWD (then I'd also consider switching to blasters), and thicker plate.

Am I headed in the right direction with this, or have I missed something important?

[ajax34i]

If you're gonna do armor defenses you don't need the shield booster.  I'd recommend taking it out and using the powergrid/cpu it frees up for something else.

200mm plates are frigate sized.   Use 400's, or better yet, 800's or 1600's (battleship size).

150mm rails are also frigate-sized, but if you're gonna do L2 missions with the cruiser, they may be ok.  You may need a webifier for the faster frigates orbiting you.

Train your Engineering skills (Engineering + all the energy-related skills) and Mechanic skills so you can maximize your powergrid (so you can fit the oversized stuff), cap recharge, and armor stats.

If you feel like using drones as a primary weapon, why not use the Vexor instead?  It has bonuses to drones.  The Thorax bonuses are more suited to fitting cruiser-sized blasters, and using a 10mn MWD to zoom into close range to use them ("Blasterax" they call it).

[caladein]

For the armor tanking, I'd suggest reading Murgos's post on tanking philosophy (as well as the next few posts in response to it).

As for a general fit suggestion, after playing around in EFT a bit:

===

[Thorax, Thorax Test]
Damage Control I
Medium Armor Repairer I
Energized Basic Reactive Plating
Energized Basic Adaptive Nano Plating
800mm Reinforced Steel Plates I

10MN Afterburner I
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
Cap Recharger I

Dual 150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
Dual 150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
Dual 150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
Dual 150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
Dual 150mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M

[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]

Hammerhead I x5

===

The Cap Recharger I really isn't going to do a whole lot for you (+7s with guns+repper, and you're already cap-stable without the repper), so you may want to go with a Medium Capacitor Battery I (which is beyond my fitting skills with this set-up, but gave me ~30s over the recharger) or simply a web to pin those nasty frigates down.

And I'm sure someone will come along and post a giant in response to this, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

[Morat20]

Shield booster isn't that bad in the mids if your support skills are so high that l2s are easy. It just resets your shield to full before you hit the next room of a mission. It's still a wasted slot, in a sense, though.

You could fit a shield extender there, if nothing else, and get more buffer before you're into your armor tank (and boosts your shield recharge for cheap that way).

If possible, upgrade to T2 drones. The damage increase is considerable.

Fit at least 400 or 800 plate. 1600 if you can do so without gimping your ship, and upgrade to a named or T2 armor repairer. Send and eve-mail to Acica (in Bat Country) and I'll happily give you the cash for the armor rep upgrade. Makes life a lot easier.

[ajax34i]

Yup, named armor repairer, named guns, named afterburner would be the next steps, IMO.  Don't need to go for the best, it might be too expensive, but the Meta 2 or Meta 3 versions shouldn't be that bad.  For example, Scout rails.

Webifier is good, you can get the I or one of the named versions too, some are as cheap as the I.

[Phildo]

I would agree with switching to blasters if you're running a gun platform(which you really are).  You're already using antimatter charges so your range is pretty gimped.  Consider switching to railguns and ammo that doesn't impede our range as much.  The Hammerheads will be sufficient damage at range if you need to kite.

[K9]

What's the key difference beterrn blasters and rails?

[bhodi]

rails are long range, blasters are short range. Both use the same skills and ammo.

[K9]

Cheers :)

[Phildo]

And a noticeable difference in damage, even with low gun skills.

[eldaec]

Thanks for the advice guys.

My plan is very much as suggested, MWD to replace AB, and medium blasters to replace the railguns. The concept then is that drones will continue to melt down the cloud of a gazillion frigates, while I zoom in to deal with the bigger targets. Need more Afterburner Skill, more Navigation skill, more Gunnery and Med Turrets, etc etc. Right now, in level 1s, it is all about mission speed, and I can use this setup to flatten a frigate with one or two volleys at reasonable range.

Thicker plate will go on as soon as I get around to Hull Upgrades II.



Also, Level 2 missions, I can't get any. Anywhere. Do I really have to do a gazillion level 1s or am I doing something wrong?

Wording on screen suggests that F13 corp standing should unlock missions for everyone in corp? But when I look up npc corps F13 has high standing with, they are still listed under not available (I haven't tried actually flying over to them - should I)?

Finally, Salvager in place of a turret, worthwhile investment in training and reduced dps?

[Slayerik]

Start an alt now...you'll love me for the advice later (if you have the RL cash)

[ajax34i]

Train Connections skill to 4 and you should get access to L2's.  The rest of the skills in Social are also good if you're gonna do a lot of missions.

[kidder]

I just unlocked L2's with my noob pilot.  I trained Social to III and then Connections to II (Might have only been to Connections I, when I could finally talk to some of the L2 agents.)

[Phred]

150mm rails are also frigate-sized, but if you're gonna do L2 missions with the cruiser, they may be ok.  You may need a webifier for the faster frigates orbiting you.

I tried using 150 rails on my vexor and hated it. My weapon dps was horrible. Only thing that did any killing was my drones. Now I'm running mixed 250/200 rails and I can actually do some damage again. I carry a webifier but rarely need it as most ships will follow you in a straight line forever and I usually kill everything before it catches up. The few ships attacking from the side get slowed down enough by the webber to be easy kills too.

[Phred]

Shield booster isn't that bad in the mids if your support skills are so high that l2s are easy. It just resets your shield to full before you hit the next room of a mission. It's still a wasted slot, in a sense, though.

You could fit a shield extender there, if nothing else, and get more buffer before you're into your armor tank (and boosts your shield recharge for cheap that way).

I've  been debating this with myself. I wonder if the extra shieild is better than running a mob specific resist hardener.

[eldaec]

So, skills up a little higher, starting to plan some upgrades. Some observations from EFT:


I can't fit thick plate together with medium guns. Not enough power grid by a mile.

I can't fit MWD with medium guns. Not enough power grid by a mile.

Also, now I have access to L2 missions, I don't understand how I could possibly use blasters without both MWD and thick plate, without them there is too much npc damage to soak up while closing.


So, it's small blasters with MWD and tank, or medium railguns without needing MWD or the extra large tank. As medium does double the damage of small ammo, and the cruiser has extra bonuses to medium turrets, I'm thinking the rails route seems better. Frigates orbiting aren't a big deal - the drones deal with that crap.

Capacitor battery is winning the battle of what to do with my last medium slot.

[Morat20]

I've  been debating this with myself. I wonder if the extra shieild is better than running a mob specific resist hardener.

Extra shield. If you're not actively shield tanking, your shield will shred quickly anyways. Adding resists in there doesn't buy you anything, because your overall shield resists will be shit, you won't be boosting, and you won't have a ton of capacity anyways. Big shield extender gives you a buffer, which isn't much, but also increases your effective regen. It's useful even when you're armor tanking (which, as a good Gallente you should be), because it means a few extra points of shield regen every second or whatnot, which means a few more points that aren't hitting your armor.

150 rails a bit small on a Vexxor, but in a Vex you're doing drone damage anyways, so your guns are more "extra on the side" -- I mounted triple 150s on an Incursus though, and that was evil. :)

I run a pair of 250s on my Myrmidion, mostly to get the attention of the rats. :)

[ajax34i]

[...] because it means a few extra points of shield regen every second or whatnot, which means a few more points that aren't hitting your armor.

Won't he need that dreaded skill, Tactical Shield Manipulation, for that to be effective?

[Morat20]

Won't he need that dreaded skill, Tactical Shield Manipulation, for that to be effective?

No. We're just talking passive regeneration here, which is effective free hit points. Sure, some will just go straight to armor since you're below 25% shields, but every point of passively regend shield is a point of damage your armor doesn't take.

Mostly I use it because I had a spare mid-slot (Myrmidions are really mid-heavy) and I could fit a large on there -- extra 4k of shield is nothing to sneeze at.

[apocrypha]

Quick point here, but wouldn't you be better off with a Vexor for missions?

Thorax is a pvp ship really (and an awesome one at that). One of it's ship bonuses is an MWD bonus, which is useless in most missions since you can't use MWD's in deadspace. With a vexor you still get the Medium Hybrid bonus but you also get a superb bonus to drones.

If you do decide you want to use the Thorax for missions then I'd go for something like:

high
4 x 250mm railgun
1 x salvager

med
10mn afterburner
2 x cap recharger

low
400mm plate
magnetic field stabiliser
medium armour repairer
2 x active armour hardeners (mission-specific)

You'll have to only use the afterburner and armour repper in short bursts though or you'll run out of cap fast. You might find a cap booster and charges better than the cap rechargers.

All in all I'd say go with a Vexor, much much better PvE ship :)

[eldaec]

The problem that ultimately rules out Vexor right now is power grid and cpu.

If you have skills and can fit it, then fine.

EFT tells me that with a few more skills I can do something like you suggest for 20% extra damage, in return for 10% fewer HP, 6% slower speed, and a 30% reduction in gun range.

Though that will be with dual 150s, can't possibly fit 250s.


As for cap boosters/rechargers, I've found cap batteries more effective than either.

[apocrypha]

Ah fair enough. For some reason I was assuming you had good drone skills - I'm guessing now that you don't?

Thing is that wasting ship bonuses is a big deal for me. It's pretty easy to get racial cruiser skill to 3 or 4 and that translates to a 20-40% bonus to something. Using the right ship bonuses for the right job is like having an extra 2 or 3 utility slots. For instance using a Moa instead of the Thorax gets you an extra 20% shield resistances (with Caldari Cruiser 4, only a week or 2 to get to cruiser 4 even with no implants and crappy learning skills), a Rupture 20% turret speed (if you were using projectiles), the Vexor 40% drone damage, etc.

Just suggesting directions to think about going with your training :)

[eldaec]

My drone skills are great, I think that is part of why the Vexor doesn't beat the Thorax by a bigger margin.

Vexor drone kills would happen just under  20% quicker according to ETF, but my drones are already taking names and melting frigate faces pretty fast, their dps time isn't the largest component of mission time, except on the bigger targets, where the reduction in gun dps would cancel out much of the drone gain.

I'd still consider swapping at some point, but I'm not convinced it is worth putting my tank at risk or going without AB while my support skills get learnt.

[apocrypha]

In that case you're absolutely right about it being time to move up the mission ladder if you can, sounds like you'd handle level 2's and possibly even 3's without much trouble.