Anyone know why each agents missions difficulty can vary so wildly?
Ive just started lvl 2 security missions with my cormorant. The 1st 3 were super-easy. Weak as enemies, lost virtually no shield even though one mission had a lot of enemies to clear.
Now the 4th? By the time I took any shield from my 1st target, it was time to warp out, armour almost gone.
The mission in particular is Mission of Mercy, where you have to protect a damaged drone
The first and obvious answer is “to provide interest, variation and the occasional good challenge”.
As a new player a Cormorant (while a good mission ship) will occasionally struggle with the tougher Level 2 missions.
Consider that a good mission for learning to manage incoming fire and the capabilities of your ship.
Mission of Mercy is one of those “and everything warps in quickly during the first couple of minutes” rather than being triggered by particular kills. In a Cormorant you need to get to range quickly (Cormorants are good long range snipers - you are railgun fitted I assume?) and pick off the stuff that will close you down quickly. You should be able to then pick off the cruisers as they are slower than you.
It will get easier as your skills improve and, more importantly, as you learn how to fly and manage the ship and the situation you are in.
Well done for taking the Level 2 missions in a Destroyer. Mostly people wait until they can use Cruiser to make it easier, but having a mission you actually have to fight to win in is much more fun.
If it was all easy it’d be boring.
Thanks for a great reply 
Yes, annoying but this is the first mission Ive had to leave. Ive been back out and checked their ships out, got new midslots and am about to try again. Might need better skills, this characters only 2 days old.
Thanks for the tip about the cruisers. Ive been running gauss guns to try them out, happy so far.
As for missions, after the AIR mining, security and exploration I went straight for this ship to run missions. Lvl 1 was boring, but got me a good salvage setup 
Standings have diminishing returns, so its quick to go from L1 to 2 and before you know it, overwhelmed.
There are guides you can use eve wiki for mission information to get an idea what it takes to run a mission. Most typical set up is a missile ship, but that isnt how everyone does them. After learning better skills and upgrading weapons, and how to fly with certain weapon systems, youll get better with time
You may see people talking about “magic 14” skillset. Those are important, but those should be secondary to train to 4 and 5 when you dont have anything in particular like ship command or a weapon skill training.
Levels 4 and 5 are important once you have a lot of stuff mastered and understand your ships and limitations. Plus if you are not paying the sub, you cant train to 4 or 5 on a lot of stuff
All missions offer a wide variety of difficulty levels so that players with different experience levels can run missions. Level 4 Extravaganzas or Blockades are much harder than L4 Covering Your Tracks or L4 Recon 1/3 and 2/3. That is perfectly normal.
T1 destroyers aren’t particullary known to be tanky . T2, T3 and the pirate ones are a different story , but you won’t train those any time soon . The T1 destroyers can hit hard , but they lack survivability, you must be careful on how you position your destroyer on grid and know mission triggers. You can consult this site for that:
https://eve-survival.org/?wakka=MissionReports
There is a special thing that you can do to a T1 destroyer ( it will only work on the missile and drone ones, as you’ll lose any maneuverability) that would be fitting it with a 10 MN cruiser size afterburner . Those use their relatively low signature radius and high speed to mitigate the incoming damage . They can survive even in lvl 3 and 4 missions , though it will take a very long time for them to complete. It will be something that maybe you will use in the future to do a 4/10 DED site for example, as those type of 10 MN setups require very good capacitor, fitting and navigation skills to work.
Meanwhile you should unlock a T1 cruiser… it will blitz lvl2’s with no problem. It’s nice that you attempted lvl2’s in a destroyer . An afterburner, light missile fitted frigate like a Kestrel or Breacher also works . Tristan is also a good option if you like drones. You stay at range and use your low signature and speed to mitigate damage.
Welcome to Eve !
Thanks for insight!
Im going to have to try that idea with the destroyer, ive got a few spare.
Ive gone back through my skill plan, and its going to be much quicker to upgrade to a cruiser then upgrade my skills.
edit: That site looks extremely helpful, so thanks!
Moving on to other agents until I get my cruiser. No harm using that page to skip the occasional mission till then?
Yeah, L2s are supposed to be done in cruiser.
They can be done in other ship but you should not start them in a destroyer. You gonna get de-destroyer’d
Any mission can be done in any ship. Dessies fir L2 L3 can certainly work, provided you have really great skills.
Similarly a frigate can do L4s like a battlecruiser can. If someone says “you cant do that” unless its an actual fact, that comment means they cant do it and they dont wanna see you do it
Old game, X-Wing Fighter. There was an early mission where you flew an A-wing and had a Star Destroyer jump in on you. If you were patient and knew what you were doing, you could earn the game’s highest medal in the 3rd mission by soloing a Star Destroyer in an A-wing fighter.
I sometimes run lvl4s in frigates just to get that feeling again, even though there’s no award. 
Which none said.
Nice strawman argument.
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