I’m a bit rusty on which subforum pertains to what content, but my search came up null, so I figured this was as good a place as any.
I have been flying a blaster Moa for a couple weeks to work on standings between wasted trips trying to salvage in Lowsec. After reading around the forums I’m now thinking that blasters are the wrong system for missioning, or if perhaps there is a general fitting rule that short-range systems are inferior when it comes to PvE and I should have been using railguns for easier LP farming.
So, stick with long-range PvE and save blasters and rockets for PvP?
In general I’d say use rails as they can hit at various ranges, and do pretty decent damage. That said there’s a handful of places where blasters are great some missions have some very close spawns, spawns that move into close range, or maybe just need to kill a structure.
You just need to hit withing comfortable range profile. For lvl 4 missions its 50-60 km, if you can hit that far - you’re good.
As you fly moa i assume you are doing lvl 2 missions? you’ll need around 20-25 km distance for them to be comfortable.
It really depends on the size of the gun , type of gun and ship you are flying. Blaster are the shortest range weapon system so they are the most polarizing.
Hybrids, Rails are good for small and medium but not so great for large. Blasters are in general not great unless you have a big range bonus (see Kronos mentioned above).
Laser are a bit less polarizing, Pulse with scorch have good enough range and have higher damage / better tracking. beams hit far but DPS is lower and so is tracking.
Projectiles, Autos have good DPS and range is pretty flexible even if application at range is not that good, Arties have great range but big alpha, low DPS and poor tracking. So its a bit of a mixed bag.
Fly to mission, use gate, STOP THE SHIP (do not move!!!). NPCs were orbiting you at 12km and you max range is 5km - conclusion: this weapon system is bad, I quit!!!11111eleven
Maybe the different colors and shapes gave it away but all the ships in EVE and all the weapons do require different behavior:
Blasters require you to go very close and brawl you target down fast
Railguns require you to move away from the target, so it follows and dies
Pulse lasers require you to not get too close and brawl your target down at a not so close distance
Beam lasers require to fly away from your target and manage your capacitor carefully
auto cannons or air condition (ac) for short require you to dance around your target(s) and show everyone, you have commitment issues
artillery turrets require very low intelligence and slow perception, you press zee button
Rockets, Heavy assault missiles and torpedoes are very powerful close range missiles
Light missiles, heavy missiles and cruise missiles are more or less powerful long range missiles that require defensive flying and managing your maximum effective range for missiles except for cruise missiles, which have always more than enough range but require application mods to be good.
Drones require you to watch out for them or they may not return anymore and you need to launch them first.
If you are going to stay with Caldari ships, then train up missles as that is the main weapon system. They’re skill intensive but IMHO more flexible and effective.
You can have ammo of any damage type and switch as you like, or long range / short range, or prcision or more DPS, and they don’t use cap.
Later on you’ll be using MJDs and need to hit at 100km+, rails kinda suck for this, have a lot less DPS and require tracking modules. Blasters, as you already said, are better for brawler style PvP, they have great short range burst.
Short range systems are generally bad for pve except when the higher DPS is absolutely necesssry, or when marauder bonuses and the like make your B.S. sized short range weapons effective at medium to long range. When I had just a few million sp, I was very ratting in nullsec in a thorax. Blasters were the only way to even be able to kill NPC battleships. But once you are able to do high DPS with long range weapons, the slightly faster killtimes of brawler weapons stop outweighing the travel time.
Thanks for all the info, pilots. I have been using railguns and the missions are going notably faster. I started working on missiles but the Moa just looks so much better than the Caracal to my eye and I want to nerd out to it while zooming around blasting. I guess I’m alright with being suboptimal.
As a side-note, I remember reading that even PvE ships should be fit for PvP, at least while traveling between mission agents. Would railguns be a better default travel option than blasters?
blasters -> big damage and big tracking but range is really short
railguns -> big ranges but damage and tracking are lower than the other turret weapons
in a much more basic sense, hibrids range between extreme range sniping and extreme damage in brawling range.
for PvP i mostly see blaster boats, railguns would be used to snipe people in gates (but artilleries are better at that due to the huge alpha damage).
i dont know which region is that you’re talking but PvE ships shouldnt swap to PvP fits at all, perhaps for Burner Missions. you shouldnt really change the fit outside of swapping hardeners for a specific type of NPCs.
the main advice i can give is that you fly what you feel comfortable with. unless you really care about ISK per hour then there’s no reason to not fly the ships you like, even if they dont have the same performance than what people usually suggest for the role.
Ferox, Naga and Rokh are down the pipeline after the Moa if you want to grow bigger.
but Blackbird and Scorpion can also do it despite being EWAR ships. the extra midslots can earn them a good tanking potential and can still pack a punch.
After reading around the forums I’m now thinking that blasters are the wrong system for missioning, or if perhaps there is a general fitting rule that short-range systems are inferior when it comes to PvE and I should have been using railguns for easier LP farming.