Hey, all. I’d put this in the PVE sub forum but I haven’t posted enough to leave the the New Citizen forum, I guess.
I know a lot of people rag on missions, but I actually like them. I plan on paying for my account for a good long time, so I’m not looking to grind for PLEX. What I do want is to have something to do that isn’t Super RNG dependent every time I log in. I enjoy exploration, but only occasionally when I feel like diving into null or WHs. In the meantime, I want to run missions, salvage and explore various industry/research options. But missions are sort of the bread and butter of that plan.
With social skills and a myrmidon, I got most of the way through Level3 missions no problem. Then I was able to skill into a Gila using a mostly tech1 passive shield fit. That made level 3s even more of a synch. And now I’m able to do level 4s but I’m really nervous that my Gila can’t handle it, though I hear all the time that Gilas are aces at level 4s. It can handle 4/4 DED sites without much trouble as long as I’m paying attention and not just diving straight into the middle of the enemies.
I’m at work on my phone, so I don’t know how to link the actual fit, but here’s a breakdown:
4x prototype arbalest RLML
10MN Afterburner II
EM shield gardener II
3x Large Shield extender II
Multi spectrum Shield Hardener II
Damage Control II
2X Drone Damage Amplifier
3x Medium Corp Defense Field Purger II
I’m not actually flying fully tech2 at the moment, but this is what I’m currently skilling into. I’m loathe to change out of the passive shield mode because those rigs were darn expensive. But I’m only getting 72 passive regeneration/second which I’m told is really bad. I’ll have level IV in both Gallente and Caldari cruiser skills soon enough.
Any help people can give me regarding the passive shield Gila and it’s ability to run level 4 missions would be incredibly appreciated. Thank you!
I have been summoned! Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA] here. For over 11 years we’ve been hiring mission runners and paying them handsomely to run missions they were planning on running anyway in order to service our clients. We have a lot of experience running missions and designing fits (theorycrafting and modeling them in pyfa w/ custom target profiles) for optimal blitzing.
So a Gila can do L4s, but it isn’t an optimal hull to use. It’s somewhat of a turtle: reliable, yes, but slow. Too much effort is required to tank it, and not enough slots are left available to increase its raw offensive throughput or precision (Actual Damage = Raw Damage * Precision-Relative-To-Target, and Gila is a VERY imprecise ship), or operational range/mobility (it’s slow and range-limited, and this hampers throughput in missions). It’s important to note that that hulls/fits that are good for high-end PVE are often (comparatively) bad for low-end PVE and vice versa; this comes as a surprise to most, but it’s true, and there are good reasons for it. Gila is one of those ships that shines bright up high, but is rather dim down below. There are T1M0 ships that outperform the Gila (and even the Rattlesnake) when running L4s - this is something that is worth keeping in mind. (I’m making a a distinction between “good” and “sufficient”, where “good” is comparing performance in relation to cost and skill levels.)
If you were forced to use a Gila, your fit is in the right direction. I would make some tweaks (such as using Restrained Shields instead of T2 in order to mitigate incoming damage), but you have the right idea. Also - you will mitigate more damage from knowing how to speed tank properly than you will recover by blinging out your passive shield tanking. (If you weren’t already aware - that shield recharge rate is not constant, that is a “peak” recharge that only occurs at 25% shield capacity, and drops sharply below and slowly above 25% shield capacity; your average passive shield recharge will be far lower than peak.) I have a near-completion guide on speed tanking you can check out on my under-reconstruction website that you might find insightful on how to mitigate incoming damage simply by changing your flight patterns and making use of AB/MWDs. The best thing you can do, however, is simply use a hull better suited for L4s.
If you’d like to get paid to run missions or would like any additional/more specific fitting advice, join the USIA Discord and we can discuss further. If you’d like to see some of the fits our runners use, check out our USIA fittings page.
(D’aww @Xeux pinged me. It’s almost as if she respects me. Almost. )
Not really related but I use a Raven Navy Issue to run L4s and it perfoms pretty admirably, so if you already have caldari and missile skills that would probably be a better missioning ship than the Gila, and is (relatively) less expensive.
So I definitely appreciate both archer and felix’s responses. Sorry, I don’t know how to link names.
I Might have to join Archer’s discord, it sounds like it could be a source of some eve wisdom.
But I also do have to say that it’s very frustrating that it seemed like the progression from level 1 to 3 missions seemed pretty organic. At a leisurely pace, by the time I advanced in mission level, I had the skills required to take on the next level. But now between level 3 and 4 there is such a huge gap in skills required. Each one of those fits on archer’s site is at least a month and a half train time from where I’m at right now. Is there no ship that is a week’s train time from leave 3 missions and then you can run level 4, even if it’s only slowly?
It just seems poor game design, or mission design, whatever, that you have a normal progression from level 1 to 3 but then you have to wait more than a month to go on to level 4 even though you already have the standings to do it. It really seems to break the flow of progression!
So if anyone has a T1 fit that can reliably, if not speedily, do level 4s, I’d be much obliged!
Well, you need some boom.
Using a 250 dps Battleship will be tedious, and it took me several months of skilling to be able to deal more damage even with meta guns or torpedoes.
Lots of posts, lots of typing and no one actually covered the most important part. Understandable for a newbie asking for help, NOT acceptable for people pretending to be helpful.
resists and damage profiles
The tanking number you listed in from the ingame fitting window is useless because it takes all 4 damage types in to account but you’re not being hit by all 4 damage types. The VAST majority of NPC, especially the normal mission ones, only do two damage types and even if they technically do more realistically it’s just two.
So what you need to do is every time you accept a mission figure out which npc faction you’ll be fighting and adjust your hardeners for that. That and replace the DC with a shield power relay. So if you’re fighting Guristas you fit a kinetic and thermal shield hardener and you’re pretty much good. Depending on skills you could even drop one shield extender and add, in this case, another kinetic hardener. Once you’re used to this it just takes 10-15 seconds of time between missions if you even HAVE to switch.
The problem is that the ingame fitting window doesn’t allow you to adjust variables, for that you need an external fitting program like Pyfa. THERE you can simply select the damage types you’re being hit by and then check how well you’d do in that specific situation. It’s also very useful to try out fits and see how they would perform. You can get Pyfa here: Pyfa - The Python Fitting Assistant
Most people have no clue how much tank they have or need vs specific targets, this is why they just bling everything to hell and back in a “this should be enough” kind of way. And again for a newbie that’s fully acceptable but there are tons of people who after years of playing still don’t know and given that none of the replies in your thread mentioned resists you have to wonder…
If you don’t want to become one of those people I would suggest to really start playing with Pyfa and put in the effort to learn to use it, you’ll become a better pilot because of it.
Cygnus - awesome help, there! Do you think my Gila, if fitted with appropriate faction specific hardeners would be able to handle level 4s? Also, I’ve always considered DCs to be pretty essential considering the significant boost to resistances. Would the increased shield recharge really compensate for that loss in pure resistances?
Edit - also, I’ll definitely look into pyfa. I assume it’s relatively complicated. I’ll hope to find tutorials on YouTube
Edit #2 - apparently I earned some kind of badge for using an emoji… wow, who said eve doesn’t have participation trophies? Clearly eve forum is too soft and we need to increase forum pvp as a result. J/k
Your whole setup is based on regen: the ship itself, your purger rigs so you’re better off to focus on MORE regen from the shield power relay than on more resists from a DC. If you would use Pyfa, load your fit and set the damage profile to Guristas you’d see that swapping to mission specific hardeners helps MASSIVELY. Omni tanking just isn’t good enough, you’ve been able to get away with it as the Gila is OP as hell so you didn’t really feel it yet but now that you want to try lvl 4 you have to use mission specific resists.
I don’t know your skills, I don’t know how good/active/lazy you are all I can say is that a lvl 5 Gila with resists for guristas (2 LSE, 2 kin 1 therm) will tank normal guristas missions just fine as long as you don’t mess up.
Will it be GOOD at it? No the Gila simply lacks the raw ranged dps+tank of a good BS, it’s also a slow completioner as someone earlier stated. It’ll work but it won’t be pretty.
There’s no shortage of stupid-low SP/cost available for several hulls that can do L4s - they just would do them at turtle speeds. Bare-minimum skills Cruise Raven is a classic example. I remember even doing some L4s in a Tristan (T1 frigate) some years ago just to see if I could, and I did. The fits on our website are for high-throughput missioning, not baseline missioning - do not think of them as must-haves, they just happen to strike a balance between being among the best in their class and cost-effective. Also: if you downgrade from T2 to T1 Meta modules, then you will have nearly identical performance but will have lower skill requirements in order to fit the ship (ie. ability to use the modules and easier to fit the ship if your fitting skills aren’t maxed)
It’s important to note that there are some ships that simply don’t perform well solo and/or in low-level PVE, so you might want to avoid using them until/unless you find them a niche in which for them to shine. Believe me, I very much would like to find an excuse to fly an Abaddon or (non-Smartbomb) Rokh but…
None of us pretended to write a comprehensive missioning or fitting guide. I did invite him over to join our server to discuss further whether-or-not he joins my crew. USIA fits don’t have damage locks either.
Gila’s damage lock is pretty shitty, but worst of all is expending modules/rigs to defense at all to begin with. Rule of thumb: if your objective is to achieve high-throughput in low-level PVE and you are using defense modules/rigs, you’re probably doing it wrong.
His question was “can it be done because I feel mighty squishy”, then the direct and most helpful answer is “you’re feeling squishy because you use a crap fit with omni resists, it’ll get much better if you focus resists and update your fit a bit”.
Understanding of damage types and resists profiles has actually gone DOWN since the introduction of the ingame fitting window because now a program like Pyfa or EFT isn’t needed any more so people clown even more than they used to. That and mediocre players with laughable knowledge tell newbies that the ingame fitting manager is “good enough” so newbies lever learn (not saying that’s the case here). Understanding damage types is pretty much VITAL to any mission runner doing lvl 3 or 4 missions, not mentioning this is critical.
Also the Gila’s damage lock isn’t shitty at all, first of all it’s just the missiles which don’t add too much dps to begin with so you can’t lose that much anyway, secondly it covers the two main general damage types: you can’t go wrong with being bonused to thermal and kinetic. Would it only be kinetic bonused then you’d be right but it’s not, it’s not always super min-max but the choices you have are “good enough”.
Don’t get me wrong, I HATE the Gila for various reasons (mostly because it’s an obvious carebear machine designed to be used without braincells, made by a carebear CCP) but that’s a personal point of view. I would NEVER suggest people doing lvl 4 missions in a Gila because it’s just not competitive but if someone asks “can it be done” then the answer is “yes if you take care of your fit, get some experience and learn some game mechanics”.
Cygnus
maybe other posters did not comment the entire OP fit, but don’t be too rude, i see these guys answering day after day to newbies here, and taking the time to giving them many valuable advices, while i usually answer “IT DEPENDS” to all the vague questions usually asked in this forum section, or link the evewiki pages when people ask about eve basics
If someone is obviously omni/bad fitting due to being newbie then you address that, even if the “true” answer is “use a different ship”. If in a bunch of replies it’s not even mentioned once then you have to question the quality and usefulness of the of the advice.
Guys, I have found ALL the advice given in this thread very useful at all levels. A noob like me needs to hear it all.
I think one of the issues (for me) is that The information overload is just that, overload, at least when you’re starting from scratch. And this is compounded by the jump in difficulty between level 3 and level 4 missions (IMO). Because you don’t really gain the experience in levels 1-3 to prepare you for level 4. Now I’m more than willing to admit that other folks are far more intelligent and/or intuitive than I am, so maybe they were able to fit something successful just by sitting down with the market window and pyfa and put together their own fit. I’m the kind of person that needs a baseline to use first, then start understanding why it works like it does and then I can start making my own alterations for my preferences.
So for me, archer’s “here’s a bunch of fits as well as a discord where you can discuss them and ask questions” is really helpful. But I also appreciate Cygnus’ encouragement to more directly address the more particular issues. It’s ALL very helpful. So my appreciation to everyone!
I basically ended up using the Navy Raven fit from archer’s site, did some messing around with it both in the in game simulator as well as pyfa and it looks like I can be in it in about 16 days, which is a whole lot better than the 45 days for some of the fits I was seeing. My cruise missiles would have 125k range and putting out 350 dps. And that is probably low, but I figure if I snipe from that far out, it’s just a matter of time until everything is dead and I’d have hobgoblins for any frigates that got too close. Then as I continue to skill, the dps just gets better and missions get quicker.
So this is what I’m going with unless anyone sees any major red flags or caution lights in general. And I truly don’t mind criticism as long as it’s not rudeness for rudeness sake. Incidentally, Cygnus, I don’t think you were being rude at least not to me as OP.
So thank you, Archer, thank you Cygnus and others!
You don’t have to “snipe” from far away, just because you’re scared of being hit. A decently fit Raven can tank more than enough for basic use to not have to need to be super far away.
A few things in regards to fitting:
Resists, hardeners and damage profiles. Read the mission info or use eve-survival.org to figure out which faction you’re fighting and change hardeners (and ammo) accordingly.
Damage application. This is often overlooked because it doesn’t show anywhere on the fitting screen but damage application is almost more important than raw dps. There are many ways to help missiles hit better like Guidance modules (both computers as enhancers) rigor/flare rigs or if there’s really no other option painters. If a fit doesn’t have any or enough damage application modules it’s thus a bad fit.
You can gain so much actual perfomance, especially if you’re low SP so you’re already struggling, by making SURE that if you hit you hit for (near) full damage.
350 dps with possibly bad application just isn’t enough to do lvl 4 comfortably or even make it worth while. There’s a really good chance you are better off chaining lvl 3 missions instead of struggling in lvl 4, income wise. How that works out in your specific situation all depends on how active/good you are and how good the fit is.
I’d not suggest people to do lvl 4 missions with just 350 dps, I’d suggest to stick to lvl 3 missions till skill or fit allow for more dps.
To be honest, even though I did look at things in Pyfa last night, I relied mostly on the in game fitting simulator as I found it easier to visually see the feedback regarding capacitor, cpu, etc. but I can see myself depending on pyfa much more as I get used to it. So thinking about it now, I think 350dps is with the skills I have now and so could be considerably higher simply because if need to increase missile skills and battleship skills just to actually get in and shoot the “guns” in the first place. So maybe tonight (at work now) I’ll try to get even more familiar with pyfa and see if I can get a more accurate depiction of what I’d actually be putting out there when I have the necessary skills.
Basically my first goal is to have a “content” range of activities all within about 4 jumps of my corp’s home base, including PI in Lowsec, a low index industry system with appropriate citadel, three level 4 mission agents of the same corp, obvious salvage opportunities, and accompanying industry. Then I have a route plotted to Amarr with a loop of systems if I want to do combat exploration.
I’m looking for the level 4s, as I said, to be a bread and butter activity, but my main purpose is to just always have SOMETHING to do. I’m not a high intensity player, I play games to relax. So if it takes me an hour to churn through a level 4 mission to begin with, I’m really not too concerned. I just want to know I’m in a fit that won’t go pop due to an early mistake as I learn. But then I can learn and improve from that baseline.
Not looking to PLEX, not looking to be a billionaire. Just want to have some fun and learn about the game as I go
Co-Head of the 
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