Hi everyone, I’m a new player that has recently started to explore wormholes.
My base of operation is a pretty empty part of lowsec, and in the last two nights I made up to 200 million ISKs by doing Data and Relic sites by exploring 4-5 perfectly deserted Wormholes. While I’m really happy with the results, I was thinking that maybe I could do more with those wormholes. In particular, I was wondering whether I could do combat sites and the sleeper data/relic sites.
I’ve tried googling to understand what ships and fits I could use for the purpose, but most of the results I found were at least 1 year old, so I’m not sure how reliable they were. And, of course, they come from a time when Alphas couldn’t fly anything bigger than a cruiser, while now they can fly all t1 and faction ships from frigate to battleship.
Are there any t1 ships that can solo combat sites to up to C3 systems? Are there any that can solo sleeper data/relic sites? If so, how are they fitted? If not, what is the wormhole level I should focus on?
As of now, if my luck with Wormholes continues, I could probably afford to fly t1 battlecruisers or Navy Issue cruisers without fear of bankruptcy. So if there is a battlecruiser or smaller ship that can do all of the above (or even part of it) I’d be really happy.
My skills as of now for flying ships are Gallente Frigate IV, Gallente Destroyer II and Caldari Frigate IV, which I trained when I realized the Heron looked much better than the Imicus (which is the ugliest ship in the game :P).
In other words, I’m so low skilled I can train for almost anything for little to no detour.
I can’t really say what type of ship is good for an Alpha Clone but I do know that training up the Core Fitting skills will help you a lot. These skills will allow you to easily fit up ships which in turn allows you to enjoy the game much sooner.
Core Fitting Skills
Summary
Acceleration Control - To maximize Afterburner & MWD speed.
Advanced Weapon Upgrades - To reduce turrets and launchers powergrid need.
Afterburner - To reduce Afterburner duration & capacitor need.
Capacitor Management - To maximize Capacitor.
Capacitor Systems Operation - To maximize capacitor recharge rate.
CPU Management - To maximize CPU.
Electronics Upgrades - To reduce sensors & co-processors CPU requirements.
Energy Grid Upgrades - To reduce power modules CPU requirements.
Evasive Maneuvering - To increase acceleration & agility.
Fuel Conservation - To reduce Afterburner capacitor need.
High Speed Maneuvering - To reduce MWD capacitor need.
Hull Upgrades - To maximize armor.
Mechanics - To maximize structure.
Navigation - To increase ship velocity.
Power Grid Management - To maximize powergrid.
Repair Systems - To operate best armor/hull repair modules.
Shield Management - To maximize shield.
Shield Operation - To maximize shield recharge rate.
Shield Upgrades - To reduce shield upgrades powergrid need.
Spaceship Command - To increase ship agility.
Warp Drive Operation - To reduce capacitor need for warp.
Weapon Upgrades - To reduce turrets and launchers CPU need.
These are listed in alphabetical order only, which skill to train first depends on your needs.
I suggest you work on maxing them asap. Don’t just queue up one skill to train multiple levels, queue up multiple skills to train up one level each, that way you’ll notice the benefits much sooner. Don’t forget to mix in other main skills as well such as specific ship, defense, offense and career oriented skills.
I’m sure other players will be along shortly to answer your question on which ship is best for w-hole diving. Good luck to you, may you have a long and rewarding career here.
Thanks for the info! Yeah, those look like great skills to train for the meantime. For now I had trained some drone skills (Drones and Drone interfacing) because I wanted to play around with Tristan a bit, so I started thinking about whether going droneboat or gunboat.
Anyway, those look like general skill that I will need no matter what, so I’ll probably start training them.
For beginner pilot, take BC in C1 and see how it goes. As your skill grows, take cruiser there, and BC in C2. C3 will require some getting used to and good damage but can be done in anything from navy cruiser to BS.
Do remember that blue loot is good but sleeper salvage is also good
Laser/drone boats, due to unlimited ammo. Nothing sucks more when you are balls deep in W space and run out.
Also remember you need to loot and salvage ideally. While omega can live by salvage drons easily, alpha will have a harder time.
I have read that Sleepers like to target drones and kill them quickly. Is that true? Would I have to micromanage them recalling the damaged ones?
Anyway, technically I should never be too far from a station, but I agree it would mean I might have to go back to a trade hub to refill ammo, which isn’t great.
For what concerns salvage, is it better to have a mobile depot and fit the salvagers on my current ship (let’s say a Battlecruiser) or keep a Catalyst with 8 salvagers ready in a nearby station?
I think the Catalyst would probably salvage faster (unless I’m ratting with a Talos), but looking at what I saw the Depot is useful for other stuff too and would spare me going back to a station.
Yes, they do but you can see it when they are about to switch to your drones because they will stop firing your ship and the red-box will become yellow, so call your drones back or scoop them back in the bay, depending on the drone.
Considering it seems like I also need to have tank, am I right in saying I’d be better off in something like a Myrmidon or a Prophecy?
In the case I am willing to spend ISK on ammo, I’ve heard the Drake is strong. Is that still the case?
I’ve also read that pve ships should be fitted to be shield tanked. Is that true?
I apologize for this question spam, but all the answer I’ve found come from very different years and I’m still not sure how well they hold up today. And they were also somewhat contradictory (for the same fits there were people saying it was the best and others saying it couldn’t work).
Also, I’ve never actually ratted before except level 1 mission (which are pretty damn easy of course), so I have no experience whatsoever.
My experience, which actually is dating a bit but I don’t think anything changed much, is that sleepers neut quite a lot, therefore active tanking can be quite challenging. That’s why a ship which can fit a passive shield tank works best: You can tank quite a lot of dps without needing cap at all. Of course, having no cap also means you can’t warp away when hostiles come to say hello (with guns). Drones are also challenging but useable as far as I remember. You just need to keep them close to you so they can come back quickly if needed. Fitting a module to repair them might help too.
A passive shield tanked myrmidon can work well if you want to use drones. Gila are also possible for alphas and by making their drones much tougher, they reduce the npc aggro issue a lot, but they are quite expensive of course. Otherwise, if you are not worried about ammo, a drake works quite well.
If you have no experience whatsoever, I would suggest getting up to L3s in your ship of choice, then enter a the lowest class wormhole you can get in and try it there. The NPCs in a C1-2 (whichever you can get in, can’t remember) should be pretty easy, but in a wormhole you have to omni tank and keep an eye out for hostiles on dscan, keep your drones alives, etc. Combat being easy at first is not a bad thing at all. Always fight aligned to something when in a wormhole, so you can gtfo as soon as you spot other ships. Even if they look like a harmless T1 exploration frigate, warp out, assess the player and his corp, and consider your next move carefully.
Thanks! That makes a lot of sense! It also explains why I see remote repairers on drone boats.
The Gila would be good, but being a pirate ship the insurance premium is lower, right? While I’ve found a somewhat quiet zone and WH are usually empty, I’d rather not push my luck too much.
When you say L3 you mean to first try my hand with Level 3 missions, right? Well, if I decide to go with drone boats I might have to train, concidering I might need a lot of micro management. On the other hand, it looks better than a Drake XD
Edit: A Brutix would be less effective because of its low range, right? Asking because I kinda fell in love with its design
To use gun boats yoll need AB or ability to project up to 45km in C1, 60 km in C2.
AB is generally better option, as it can also be used to mitigate damage.
Drakes and Hurricanes will work. I would stick to C1’s and C2’s only as Alpha.
Passive shield tank. Plan on loading the lows with mostly shield power relays and your mids with extenders. Bring a mobile depot and swap in damage mods as your tank will allow. This will allow you to play it safe and scale your damage as you get used to it
The insurance payout is similar to other cruisers for a Gila, but it costs a lot more than that so it is definitely not much help… it’s a nice option if you have too much isk but I would start with a BC.
A brutix would be hard to use. Blasters for up close might work, but then you have to catch up with the long ranged sleepers and some might web you… using rails you might not be able to track the frigates… I would not recommend it.
And yes, by L3s I mean level 3 missions. Sleepers are some of the hardest npc enemies. Do yourself a favor and learn against the easy ones in HS instead of the hard ones in WH space where you are likely to get ganked. It’s a great objective though. WHs are a lot of fun.
IMO Gila is the way to go. Did C3s with alpha skills, but you need to choose specific sites. Drone aggro can be annoying sometimes, but hammers are cheap. Just watch the triggers, spam dscan and you’ll be pretty good.
Joining a wormhole corporation that has C3 or C2 statics would be a considerable option.
