Shield Midslots, and other questions

[K9]

So my character is just 2 months old, and 2.4million SP. I'm currently messing around in L1 missions in my Merlin, I could probably be doing better, but a combination of some low-sec excursions and not actively playing for about a month due to work mean that I'm pretty broke. I have a good Q14 agent in 0.5 space who seems to offer better returns for less risk than the Q-16 (ish) L2 agents I can access in 0.8+ space, so I'm content for now. I'm Caldari for reference.

Anyhow, my main question is about midslot shield items, specifically Shield Extenders vs Shield Hardeners vs Shield Resistance Amplifiers.

My current setup is:

Merlin -

Low:
Damage Control I
Beta Hull Mod Inertial Stabilisers

Med:
Small Supplemental Barrier Emmiter I
Small Supplemental Barrier Emmiter I
Small Supplemental Barrier Emmiter I
Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters

High:
Standard Missile I - Bloodclaw Light Missile
Standard Missile I - Bloodclaw Light Missile
125mm Compressed Coil Gun I - Antimatter Charge S
Salvager I

 - IStab or Ballistic Control Unit?
 - Should I swap out one of the shield extenders for rat-specific hardeners or resistance amplifiers, and which are better. I only have Tactical Shield Manipulation I, and none of the specific compensation skills (how high a training priority should those be by the way, Tactical Shield Manipulation looks less important to me than other skills).
 - Is a DCU essential, it only seems to make a minimal difference when I run it, but then the targets I get seem to be somewhat below my level.
 - I'd love to fit a 150mm rail, but I'm 0.1 powergrid short, and Engineering V is not at the top of my list right now (although it will be soon).

Other general questions:

 - When does ratting become profitable? My forays into 0.4 space to try this out resulted in me getting popped several times (by players) although the rats I could handle. Does it seem profitable to keep pursuing this and just bail on any belt the second some other player comes into my overview, or should I just stick to missions?
 - I'm not overly hurried to get into a bigger ship, I'm quite happy pottering around in my merlin training support skills for now, although I was thinking of picking up destroyers because I think I can just about afford to run a cormorant, and I'm guessing these are the best ships for when I can get decent quality L2 missions? So straight into destroyers, or get more support skills up first? Like I say, I'm not in a massive hurry at the moment.
 - What do you do if you get warp scrambled? Other than beating the other ship down I don't seem to have a lot of options.
 - Is cross-training worth it? I was thinking of picking up Gallente Frigate so that I could use Gallente Destroyers, since they also use hybrid turrets. I'm wary to go into the others since I think I'll need to train up a butt-load of other weapon skills, and I might be better off aiming higher than a rifter, although I do like the look of some of the Minmatar and Amarr T2 frigates :)
 - Why does everyone on the EVE forums reccomend the Kestrel and the Rifter as the best starter frigates? I can sort of see why the Rifter is good, but I can't see why people would reccomend the Kestrel over the Merlin.
 - Is there any way to reduce salvager cycles?

And that's about all of them, for now. Thanks in advance.

[Nerf]

Fly a caracal, do level 2s, grind faction until you can do level 3s, hop in a drake.

Caldari are Eve's EZ-mode for running missions, but our frigs suck monkey balls for them.  Hop into a cruiser, do the level 2, you'll grind up standing alot faster and be able to move into a higher quality agent in no time.

Let someone know if you're short the cash for a caracal/books/etc, we'll take care of ya

[ajax34i]

Ratting becomes profitable in 0.0.

Destroyers are good salvage ships.  They otherwise have just big enough size to get hit with full damage from missiles (whereas a frigate will take half due to size) yet have the same defenses as a frigate.  Thus, vs. missile swarm missions, they kinda suck.

Beat the scrambler down is pretty much the only option, if you're warp-scrambled.

Cross-training may be worth it, depending on the ship.  Getting another race's frigate isn't that big of a deal; pick it up if you want to.

The Kestrel has a small power grid, but is otherwise quite nice for Caldari pilots who start with the Special Ops school, as they get bonuses to missiles, and thus increased DPS with it, vs. the Merlin.  It also has a nice cargo hold (for a frigate) and I'm using one for salvaging (instead of a destroyer).

Train the skill, use multiple modules on the same wreck, use tractor beams to reduce travel time...  that's about it.

I like to passive shield tank for PVE:  I typically use oversized extenders (large on cruisers, medium on frigates) and 2 active shield hardeners, and my low slots might have shield power relays, if they're not taken up by RCU's or PDU's required to fit bigger guns.

[Akkori]

technically, can't you use ECM to break target lock and void the scramble? Or did I get that wrong?

[lac]

Yes you can.

[Endie]

It offends me that you're stuck on L1s, still.  Next time you see Justinianus Flavius or The Groundskeeper in the F13 channel convo me and I'll give you the cash for a caracal.

[kidder]

I'm fairly new to Eve too, my character is a month old 1.4mil sp.  I never tried the Merlin, I used the Kestrel with some success in L1's.  I did train Destroyers and fitted a Comorant with the idea that I would do L2's with it.  That ship got ATE UP in the first L2 I tried and while I did not lose the ship it did end up costing me more in repairs than the mission reward!  The comorant was able to soak up a ton of damage in L1's and I think it would be a nice salvager, but not a ship for L2's.

Anyway, I trained up Cruisers and bought myself a Caracal and the L2's are pretty easy with it, so I like the Caracal advice.

[Thrawn]

That ship got ATE UP in the first L2 I tried and while I did not lose the ship it did end up costing me more in repairs than the mission reward!

Don't EVER pay for repairs.  Just buy your self an armor repairer or two and fit those, undock, run them until your hull is fixed, then dock back up and switch back to your normal loadout before you head out.

[Der Helm]

Don't EVER pay for repairs.

To clarify you need 2 types of items:

Armor repairer (large=BS size,medium=cruiser size, small = frig-size) low-slot item

Hull repair system (large,medium, small) mid slot item.

Hull repairer are SLOW(!1!eleven), just switch all your mid slot items for hull repairers, undock, repair, redock, put old fitting back in.

[K9]

Thanks for all the answers and offers.

That ship got ATE UP in the first L2 I tried and while I did not lose the ship it did end up costing me more in repairs than the mission reward!

Don't EVER pay for repairs.  Just buy your self an armor repairer or two and fit those, undock, run them until your hull is fixed, then dock back up and switch back to your normal loadout before you head out.

Does that hold true for damage to modules too?

[Murgos]

No, I don't know anyway to repair modules short of a station.  However, they cost MUCH less to repair that Hull or Armor.

[Der Helm]

No, I don't know anyway to repair modules short of a station.  However, they cost MUCH less to repair that Hull or Armor.

Somone told me there is a way to repair overheat damage to modules, no idea if overheat damages moduels in other ways than combat damage.

And no, I don't acutally know what the above mentioned way would be.

[ClydeJr]

I read that Nanite Repair Paste can be used to repair modules in space. However the paste is used up during the repairs. I think you need the skill Nanite Operation to use them. I personally have never used it so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

[Endie]

The problem about hull damage is that once you dock, you won't be allowed to undock again with hull damage: it says your ship is in no state to fly :(

So unless you're already packing a hull repair module (don't) you'll need to get your alt with a remote hull repairer to come out and rep you.  You do have an alt with a remote hull repairer in the system, don't you? 

[Der Helm]

The problem about hull damage is that once you dock, you won't be allowed to undock again with hull damage: it says your ship is in no state to fly :(

I feel that this depends on the amount of hull damage you suffered and how high your related ship skill is.

I have minmatar battleship 5 and recently undocked with round about 25% undamaged hull.

[Endie]

The problem about hull damage is that once you dock, you won't be allowed to undock again with hull damage: it says your ship is in no state to fly :(

I feel that this depends on the amount of hull damage you suffered and how high your related ship skill is.

I have minmatar battleship 5 and recently undocked with round about 25% undamaged hull.

I have BS 5 too.

Strange: I got some hull damage and was not allowed to leave.  Of course, being caldari I didn't have armour reps, so that was 100% damaged too.  As soon as I repped the hull I was allowed to undock and manually rep the armour.  Cost me millions.  I wonder if you cannot undock with armour and hull damage?  Being minnie, had you already repped your armour damage before docking?

[Murgos]

It reports your damage as a %.  Hull and Armor make up almost all of this percentage so if you have no armor and only 25% hull you probably look like you are 87%+ damaged.

Being an armor tanker I pretty much never dock without armor being maxed so I don't see this issue but I could see that being a real problem from a shield tanker.

[Der Helm]

It reports your damage as a %.  Hull and Armor make up almost all of this percentage so if you have no armor and only 25% hull you probably look like you are 87%+ damaged.

Being an armor tanker I pretty much never dock without armor being maxed so I don't see this issue but I could see that being a real problem from a shield tanker.

That would make sense. I think I saw that "can't undock" message once when I ran l3 missions in an experimental typhoon passive shield tank setup. 

[lac]

It works like this:
You have 10k armor and 80% is damaged. You put on some reppers, try to undock and you get a confusing message about damage and skills.
You caused this message because when you removed armor plates to fit those reppers you lowered the ships hitpoints.
That 1600 rolled tungsten you removed lowered your armor hitpoints to 7000 but the system still thinks you have 8000 armor damage to that ship, it doesn't compute and you get that odd message.

[Stephen Zepp]

It works like this:
You have 10k armor and 80% is damaged. You put on some reppers, try to undock and you get a confusing message about damage and skills.
You caused this message because when you removed armor plates to fit those reppers you lowered the ships hitpoints.
That 1600 rolled tungsten you removed lowered your armor hitpoints to 7000 but the system still thinks you have 8000 armor damage to that ship, it doesn't compute and you get that odd message.

I think he's right--I've never had this notification at all, and I routinely use docking to re-fit hull repairers with even as little as 20% armor and 10% hull left, then undock to fix up, dock back in to recharge cap, then rinse/repeat.

[kidder]

You guys are going to save me millions.  Thanks for the tip!

[Endie]

It works like this:
{Wisdom}

Gotcha.  That makes sense.  As I was in a Caldari ship with no armour mods (beyond a DC for resists, of course) it's a bit more complex, but I think you're right that adding a 1600 would have fixed the problem.  In my case I think the fact that I was grouped, with armour bonuses, was the issue.  Since group bonuses don't apply until you're both in space together, I'll bet that it was seeing me having taken 8% more armour damage than I had in total.

Nice work.

[apocrypha]

Quick reply to the OP about shields and midslots:

First thing to do is to learn what resistances you need for any specific mission. There's a couple of great websites that give you details about missions, EVE Survival (see the Kill Mission Survival Guides link) and EVE Info (Missions DB) are the ones most people use.

Once you know what you're going to be facing you can work out what to fit. Generally resistances are better than hitpoints, but it's worth having a play with the EVE Fitting Tool (EFT, found here) to get the feel of things with your ship and skills. Sometimes you'll find a mixture of shield extenders and hardeners will give you a better effective HP than just hardeners or extenders alone.

Good luck, have fun and yeah, stay out of lowsec really, the rewards just aren't worth the risk for solo players IMO.

[K9]

thanks for the comment.

Once you know what you're going to be facing you can work out what to fit. Generally resistances are better than hitpoints, but it's worth having a play with the EVE Fitting Tool (EFT, found here) to get the feel of things with your ship and skills. Sometimes you'll find a mixture of shield extenders and hardeners will give you a better effective HP than just hardeners or extenders alone.

Any views on active hardeners vs passive hardeners? I rarely seem to run low on cap, so would active hardeners be better?

[ajax34i]

They give better resists for lower skills required (there are some skills that you need to train to raise your passive resists only), but their disadvantage is that they're off by default, which can be a problem if you're taken by surprise (for example, they're off when you come out of a gate and when you undock, and a gatecamp + lag could mean death before you have a chance to turn them on; also, if you travel with them off and someone decides to suicide-gank you, they will lock you AND fire their alpha shot before you get any sort of warning from the UI).

EDIT:  Also, the capacitor drain for the Invulnerability kind (resists to all) isn't chump change.  The single-resist ones are bearable, though.

[apocrypha]

For missioning then active shield hardeners are way, way better than passive ones apart from certain ships, most notably the drake. However, bear in mind that I've been running level 4 missions for a couple of years now - it's a long time since I flew frigates or cruisers in PvE, so I may have forgotten how much cap active setups suck out of small ships. I certainly rarely use active tanking setups in PvP because cap tends to equal life in PvP :)

Generally I have in my head that in small ships best tanking asset is speed... but again, that's been hammered into me by pvp :D

If you're flying Caldari for PvE though you're going to want the skills that let you use the active hardeners anyway (Tactical Shield Manipulation) and by the time you move up to bigger ships, i.e. cruisers and above, you'll be aiming for 70% and higher resists in the damage types you need for your missions, which is really hard to do with passive tanking setups.

[Llyse]

Just to confirm T2 missile launchers do nothing if you're using T1 ammo right?

[bhodi]

Just to confirm T2 missile launchers do nothing if you're using T1 ammo right?

They still have increased rate of fire (and thus DPS) and increased missile capacity.

[Ratadm]

the specialization skill also affects their damage as well doesn't it?

[IainC]

It does for guns (2% per level), for missiles it increases the rate of fire instead.