Am I doing mission running right?

New Citizens Q&A
1

Hey all,

I’ve been running missions lately and I’m not convinced that I’m doing it in a particularly efficient way. Some quick background - I played a fair amount years and years ago, but university and RL really stopped me getting much Eve time, and eventually I forgot my account details. So, I remade this one a couple of years back but only recently have decided to give it another dedicated try. So, I understand/remember most of the mechanics, but I can’t shake this feeling that I’m missing something when it comes to efficiency.

I’m running L3 missions, currently in hi-sec, with an arty cane and passive shield tank. Killing things is not an issue, but the amount that I’m making really seems to be off-kilter with my other activities such as exploring. As an example tonight I ran L3 missions for 3.5 hours and made just over 5k LP points and 20 mil ISK in bounties/loot, but the previous two days I made about 100mil/day from exploring / scanning down combat sites. I’m not expecting to make oozles of money with mission running, but it does seem like I’m doing something wrong when finding a wormhole with a couple of relic sites will be more profit/time than an entire session of mission running.

My usual strategy is to get into the site, boost within targetting range of everything, drop my MTU and orbit it while aggroing groups and killing them as they approach. Usually I’m not waiting long, maybe a minute or two, for the MTU to finish pulling in all the loot before I can leave and hand in. I’m using a MWD, I’ve got 650mm II artillery, a couple of missiles and warrior I drones. Still training up a fair few of my skills for drones, and only just starting to really train into the damage (well, in 2 days I will be after I can get T2 shield hardeners) as I was working the tank first.

I’ve tried using autocannons but they seem to be slower mission finishing because I’m having to boost between groups to get things killed, and less efficient with ammo usage. I end up wasting a fair bit of my LP just to replenish my faction ammo.

So, is this normal? I mean, I don’t dislike running the missions and it’s a nice change from more dangerous activities when I need a break from being on edge, but I still can’t shake that feeling I’m borking it up somehow.

Any advice would be apreciated. For reference, this is the fit I’m using on my cane, I know it’s not the greatest thing ever but it works for me:

[Hurricane]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Damage Control II
Power Diagnostic System II
Tracking Enhancer II
Tracking Enhancer II

Large Shield Extender II
50MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive
Enduring Explosive Shield Hardener
Enduring Multispectrum Shield Hardener

650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
Upgraded ‘Malkuth’ Rapid Light Missile Launcher
Upgraded ‘Malkuth’ Rapid Light Missile Launcher

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Warrior I x8

Faction ammo as mission calls for, shield hardeners also swapped out as needed.

Cheers for any advice :smiley:

1 Like
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How is your tank holding up? 0 gyrostabilizers seems like a weird choice for a PvE boat. If you’re not having a hard time hitting things maybe change a tracking enhancer or both for a gyrostabilizer for more DPS.

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In general the tank is holding up okay. I can’t do something like pull everything on The Blockade to blitz for example, but most stuff I can pull groups as soon as I’m about to clear the current group.

I’ll give that a crack with the gyros. I only really threw the tracking on because I wasn’t sure if I could handle frigates easily but I don’t seem to be having trouble.

Do you think active tank would be better? I get 65 hp/s without my implants at the moment, I didn’t seem to be able to match and have capacitor for the MWD but I have shield IV completing soon. With purger II’s and T2 hardeners I’d be looking at 42.5k ehp and 79hp/s before implants.

I’m pretty sure the build is a hot mess to be honest, but I’m very out of practise lol.

Cheers for the advice :smiley:

4

Well, the question is how much tanking you can give up(in favor of damage and damage application) and still be running the missions. It is all about how fast you can kill the rats.

1 Like
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As mentioned above, you’d wanna go for more damage. I’m not familiar with anything outside of caldari and missile specific ships so i reached out to some of my mission runners with USIA and here’s what one would suggest:

personally I’d want to reduce the tank somewhat in favour of more damage, and probably fit an AB and MWD, maybe with some tracking computers

6

Thank you guys, I’m reading from the replies that I’m probably not being particularly efficient with the mission clearing. I’ll swap a few things around later on today more towards the DPS. My first port of call will be to swap out the tracking computers for the gyrostabilizers.

When it comes to the tank sort of levels would you guys be happy with in terms of a tank for ehp and regen vs dps for this level of content?

@Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras Could I ask what they would run to do the tank by any chance? That seems like it would use up all of my mid slots, would that mean an armour tank with the low slots?

Once again, really appreciate the input, thank you :smiley:

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Ok, after messing with pyfa a bit that is what came up:

[Hurricane, Hurricane fit]

Medium Armor Repairer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Explosive Armor Hardener II
Explosive Armor Hardener II
Kinetic Armor Hardener II

10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Medium Cap Battery II
Tracking Computer II
Tracking Computer II

650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
650mm Artillery Cannon II
[Empty High slot]

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Something along those lines should work.

8

Thank you :smiley: I’ve copied and saved that, I’ll have a crack at it when I get a bit of Eve time tonight (hopefully).

Just wanted to pop back in here and say thanks for the advice guys. I pushed more towards damage and I appear to be clearing things a lot faster. Makes the mission running a bit less monotonous too. I knew I was missing something and I was just a bit too focused on staying alive rather than making rats un-alive.

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Especially if you start blitzing, you wanna go for as much damage as possible to get in and out

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Missions are low risk/low reward activity - unless you royally screw up, you are unlikely to die. Explo is high risk/high reward activity - any given run could be fruitless, or get you popped. That means you should expect to see differences in income depending on the activity, and that’s normal.

Missions are most profitable when you blitz them - killing the minimum targets to complete the mission, plus critical value targets (ones with valuable loot or unusually high bounties). A ‘full clear’ strategy, while satisfying for completionism, is going to yield less profit per hour due to fewer direct currency (isk/LP) rewards and burning more ammo on low-yield targets.

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