Fairly new player (5.5m sp). I’ve been running L3s as myrmidon, and have no problem finishing missions quickly.
The only problem is, while I enjoy turrets (so much stuff going on), drones are a bore… so much micromanagement needed, and even then I keep on losing them: Wait till I’m targeted, let the drones out, they seem to be doing fine, take my eyes off of drone HP for 5 seconds, and whoop I lost yet another one… And yeah I can buy new ones, but I feel like I failed the game every time I lose a drone :).
That’s fine though, lots of other ways to deal damage, so I started searching for other fits to target going forward. BUT, almost all L4 fits I see has drones in them, I think to deal with frigs in missions (don’t think there is high-level PVE that’s focused on small ships)… Am I cursed to use them? I just want to enjoy missions without the hassle of using drones
ISK isn’t really an issue - I’ve already made more than I can spend. So don’t care if it’s not the most super-duper ISK/hr efficient ship.
I am not a L4 mission expert but i am pretty sure you can do them with any type of weapons. drones are often used, because many players find them easy to use, no cap, etc. But a bs with missiles, or an arty machariel or a tengu etc will do the same
for example, see this post:
i like it. So many players focus on isks/h rather than having fun the way they want
So what is it now? Are they boring or are they too much for you to handle? You can’t have both.
As for viability of turret ships. They are very much viable. Why did you even start with a Myrmidon and not a Brutix? Figure out your own fitting if you cannot find one or search through Zkill for inspiration. Or use your preferred search engine and search for “eve online Brutix pve fitting”. It’s not hard to find suitable fittings.
Most mission fittings go for drones because they don’t waste your ISK income on ammo. If you don’t care, then you should go for a turret ship. Personally, many years ago I ran L4s in an Abaddon, one of the arguably worst ships for missions due to the capacitor issues. But I loved the Tachyon Beam Laser barrages.
So Drones damage mechanics are extremely complicated, because they use existing turret mechanics, which are already complicated, and add on several more considerations that make them a pain to use. It suffices to say that smaller drones have better speed and tracking, and as such you’ll want to use them more frequently unless you’re making heavy use of webs. As a rule of thumb, in the absence of webs you will want to use Light drones up through Cruisers, Meds on BCs, and Heavies on BSes (though you might also want to use Meds also in some cases). Occasionally I give lectures on the theory and practice of damage modeling (and how to design fits based on damage modeling) if you’d like to sit in some time and learn how to improve drone utilization (what drone enhancements to use, which drones to use and against which targets, etc). I should also point out that while drones reigned supreme in PVE/PVP maaaaaaaany years ago, that is far from the case today. In low-end PVE, missiles reign supreme - this isn’t a matter of opinion, this is a matter of damage modeling (I can show you the graphs).
As a newbie doing missions: how would you like to 1. be paid to run missions you’re already running and 2. learn how to blitz missions more efficiently (with any weapon of your choice, including drones)? I’m the Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA], and we’re hiring more mission runners to help satisfy our clients’ demands. If you’d like to learn more about the opportunities we provide, kindly join the USIA Discord server and I’m happy to discuss. (If you are already in a corp you like, you do not need to leave your corp to work for us and join our community.)
turret or missile ships are actually better than drone ships.
The only good thing about drone ship, is that they don’t need as much interaction. But in reality, if you want to go fast you need to manage drones as much as turret ships
So why are dones so convenient ? Well first the VNI has been the go-to ship for anoms for a while. Now myrmidons have taken that place. They don’t need much management, and their drones are powerful enough to not need to handle tracking, or even targeting.
Second, the gila/rattle. Those two ships have huge bonus to drone damage, also tank, allowing people with low skill to be efficient . But actually if you want to be really efficient, you rather skill your missiles and use application modules , because they lack application. Still they are the goto for L3/L4 with low skills.
What is better ? Well for one, I think typhoon is now a very good ship for sniping. It has to be fit armor, but RAH+painter+MJD make it a very efficient one. Its bonus to application and the native range of cruise missiles make it able to hit at ±100km , which is very nice.
Also, same kind of bonus : the raven navy. Even more range, you need a targeting range module to have good benefit. However ships with a bonus to missile rof eat ammos a lot.
Another good sniper : the navy apoc. good range, good application, bad tank but you can MJD around.
Unfortunately, the Rattlesnake is one of the worst possible ships you can use for low level PVE in terms of throughput. It’s throughput is inferior to even some of the T1 hulls. Not a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of damage modeling. It’s one of the most popular ships in use, but I attribute that to having a sexy name and most players being ignorant of the theory and practice of damage/precision mechanics and how to damage model in pyfa. Gila is above average in performance in low level PVE without question, but surprisingly the Caracal Navy Issue outperforms even that ship (again, matter of damage modeling) and is what our organization uses for those climbing up through L1-L3 missions.
Typhoon is one of the better ships (outperforms the Rattlesnake in low level PVE)- it’s the second most preferred ship my organization uses for L4s, though ours is speed tanked so that, apart from MWD/MJD, it uses zero defense modules and 100% offense modules for maximum throughput. With the exception of one mission in which it hull tanks (doesn’t need to warp out to repair, however), it never breaks shield. It also uses Missile Guidance Computers instead of paints since the effect is stronger and the strength doesn’t dissipate given its operating range. Typhoon Fleet Issue is our preferred ship - has 3x the throughput of the Typhoon - except it is both a speed tank and a hull tank (still uses 100% offense modules), so only pilots with high skill levels who are well versed in the art of speed tanking and manual piloting (eg. Q-clicking, spiraling, angles of approach/departue and how they translate to radial/traversal velocity, etc) should attempt to fly it. It’s a freaking lawnmower, though, if you do use it.
no, it’s not.
protip : use rf painters, they are dirt cheap.
TP give a better application bonus than guidance computers. especially if you already have rigors(which you should anyhow).
MGCs affect both precision and RoF. When you do the math and factor in the damage increase from precision on top of RoF, you’ll see they do, in fact, increase damage to a greater extent against most targets’ sigs/speeds. I have a full set of custom target profiles I punch into pyfa for damage modeling for this purpose - I see the net increase over TPs. I also do the calc by hand occasionally. The numbers add up, opinions do not.
MGCs also don’t have falloff decay, TPs do. That’s a problem when your ship operates beyond TP optimal.
You’ve chosen Gallente and drones are their primary weapon system. Other races are less dependent on drones but large turrets can’t track small opponents so drones are your point defense or close-in weapon system on most ships.
A few ships are designed to fit multiple weapon systems. The Minmatar Hurricane Fleet Issue can fit a pair of rapid light missile launchers in addition to a full rack of 6 projectile turrets and a small drone bay. This gives you options if you don’t want to use drones. It’s big brother, the Tempest Fleet issue has similar fitting flexibility for L4 missions.
Sorry, brainfart. I meant to say that MGCs increase EV and decrease RF. I’m not comparing against rigs, I’m just saying when it comes to precision-scripted MGCs vs paints, MGCs boost missile precision better than paints in most instances against targets found in low level PVE and does not suffer falloff penalty as can be seen by punching in target profiles for subcapital ships in pyfa when damage modeling.
yes if you do not have skilled painters they are worse than scripted MGC. But otherwise, they are better.
Not comparing to rig either. If you have a rigor the effect of the MGC is penalized thus lower than a painter. The +17% speed -17% sig (so +40.9% precision) becomes +37.3% once you have rigor, which is worse than the +41% of a rf painter and same as the +38% of a T2 painter.
What’s more, getting a sig bonus is more valuable than a same bonus in explosion signature, because not only it compensates for the speed (while the speed does not compensate for the sig), also the effect of speed is reduced by the drf of the ammo.
for example, if you use a cruise missile, its drf is 0.882 ( Missile mechanics - EVE University Wiki )so the +17% speed is actually a +14.8% application.
Therefore the gain in application from the MGC becomes ×1.148/(1-0.17) = ±38.4% (without a rigor).
If you have a rigor, the bonus becomes 1.17^0.882/(1-0.17×0.869) = 1.35 so a gain of +34.8 precision (compared to the +38% of a painter)
You are correct that speed does not compensate for sig. I am intimately familiar with the formulas used in the damage mechanics and its mathematical properties, so I know this fact very well. I’ve written my own custom tools around them. However, I emphasize for a third time that the falloff is what renders paints useless for our specific fits. Our ships have an operating range of over 100km, so the falloff cripples the sig bonus to an extent such that MGC sig bonus by itself is comparable and the velocity bonus makes it even better.
The rigs are the same in both instances, so no, in this apples-to-apples comparison it’s not.
And if you’re using the “Ideal Target” profile in pyfa, that’s useless for modeling actual combat. Your evaluation will be misleading. Hence I use custom profiles in pyfa with actual sigs and speeds modeled after actual ships.
fit is 1 T2 cruise missile, 1 T2 BC for base 99.1 DPS ; one T2 rigor, then scripted GC, T2TP, RFTP. 87km is the distance at which MGC becomes better than T2TP and around 103km (the targeting range of the phoon) RFTP is better than MGC.
I’ll start by training for missiles a bit, and see how it goes from there. maybe even start at L1 with another faction (was doing sisters, but caldari navy seems to have acceptable (80% of SoE) isk/lp as well) no point in specializing, would rather try new things out at this point. pity about my T2 light/med drone skills, but I’ll probably use it at some point… maybe
out of curiosity, what’s RF painters? I know target painting, but couldn’t find what an RF painter was.
RF = Republic Fleet
a faction (green) target painter.
If you like turrets, fly Amarr ships. Managing the transversal and switching crystals quickly whilst frying things with lasery goodness is satesfying. Damage type dealt can be less than optimal depending on opponent, but enough zzap and anything melts.
thanks guys.