So I figured I would post a follow up. Thanks to @DeMichael_Crimson for his excellent Loki fit. I managed to play around and came up with a similar fit in tank and DPS at about half the price. Still not cheap mind you but when is a T3 anyway right?
I had already started Penumbra (caldari) epic in my Kronos. Man that epic especially was painful having to go back home to pick up a ship appropriate for the low security missions etc.
I bought the loki and ran Wildfire today (Minmatar arc). Man it was the fastest I’ve ever run an epic arc. I was a bit nervous flying something so expensive, especially after getting so useful to a MJD bastion blap maurader. However the Loki performed flawlessly. It was also more fun as you have to actually pilot. I think for the most part it killed faster than my sniper kronos.
Gallente arc is next. I won’t lie I am still very nervous about that one. I’ve had times where I was worried about my Kronos in some of those missions due to the DPS.
There’s usually good info, tips and tactics posted in those comments. As for the actual Mission details, I always try to update them whenever I run the missions.
By the way, I saw your Eve Mail message (using 3rd party site), I just haven’t had time to log-in and check the fit due to working a new job, I’ll definitely check it over this weekend.
Yes I keep eve survival on my second monitor. I built up a combat and exploration fit and swapped as needed. The exploration fit worked great for the hacking missions.
The only big surprise is the auto cannons. Honestly this is my first major time in a minnie ship. Those things chew through ammo like a fat kid in a candy store (sorry if I cant use that euphemism anymore).
Also I found the exploration fit works great if you like to chase down the new triglavian scouts that are showing up randomly in systems.
Nice, T3 Cruisers are great, easy to customize them to fit your game play.
As long as you quickly remove all web/stasis items from the grid, the ship will easily maintain a good speed to help tank against the rat packs. The only issue is Newts, once your Cap is gone, so is your tank. So for missions with Newt Towers, I always lead the pack out beyond the Newt range and then engage them.
As for ammo, Barrage is pretty cheap and works good on small hulls and even on some of the Medium hulls, I usually use Republic Fleet Phased Plasma and Drones for all the Medium and most of the Large hulls, will switch to Hail ammo for tougher targets and structures.
I finished up my epic arc run with my new DMC inspired loki. I will say it was probably the most fun I’ve had running the missions. Overall it did seem faster, especially with all of the travel time. Some missions seemed slower but it was offset by fast travel.
I was still a bit wary of traveling in an expensive ship so I took the time to switch to a covert setup when traveling through the normal gank pipes etc. Not sure if it is 100% necessary but it doesn’t take that long.
Of the epic arcs I did find the amarr one the most annoying with all of the tracking disruption. I had already run the caldari with my maurader, so I can’t comment how well it works with the ewar in those missions.
I’d be happy to eve mail you. Is this the character you would want it sent to? I’m out backpacking with my sons scout troop this weekend but I’ll be back tomorrow
I won’t lie, I was super nervous about doing the gallente arc, especially Studio and Showtime. I’ve run those the first time in a sniper/sentry drone Dominix and sniper Kronos. in both cases even when MJD way out of range the DPS would get beyond my tank before I could knock down the ships. So flying something designed to be up close and personal, and expensive, AND would lose SP if I popped made me very nervous. The reality is that those missions were magnitudes EASIER in the Loki than any other ship I’d used.
I’m sure command ships work. If you read the eve-survival notes @DeMichael_Crimson stated in the past he ran them in a sleipnir. I’m sure a HAM loki would be fine as well. My missile skills are not as good as my turret skills so I haven’t tried
Yeah, I first started the Epic Arcs in a Command Ship, active shield tank Sleipnir. Actually worked pretty good, plenty of firepower to quickly reduce amount of rats on-grid. I believe I ran 2 arcs with it and then halfway through the 3rd arc I switched to T3 Cruiser Loki and have been using that ever since…
The reason why is due to looking at previous comments posted about a certain mission, I wasn’t sure if the Command Ship would be able to complete it. In fact I actually used a Machariel Battleship to run that specific mission. It worked fine but I don’t really like piloting large Battleship hulls so after completing that mission I decided to go with T3 Cruiser Loki.
I was surprised at how easily the Loki could tank the missions, the fit was based on what I originally had on the Sleipnir. The Loki actually had more tank, higher resists, faster speed, more agile with a smaller signature. The only issue was it’s DPS was lower compared to the Sleipnir. However it still put out enough damage to kill the NPC’s, just had to do some creative piloting on a few missions instead of just jumping into the middle of the rat packs like I did with the Sleipnir.
Also T3 Cruisers have the Sub-system hold which will carry 3 different Sub-systems that can be re-fit for different applications, like Hacking and Covert Nullification. I just carry a couple of small secure containers in the cargohold filled with extra munitions and modules needed to run those fits.
As for using a HAM fit, I think the Missile Sub-system fit actually puts out more damage so it should work fine, I just prefer using AC’s.
I’m sure you could. There are plenty of ships that can run them. Way back in the day I ran them in an Ishtar. It was actually pretty effective. I would burn out to about 100km, drop wardens and blap all the frigates and cruisers as they approached. Then when in range I’d switch to gardes and kill everything else.
The Ishtar IMO is one of the few ships that almost kinda benefited from the NPC drone changes. So often my sentries would pull aggro that I fit RR on the ishtar. I’d orbit them (for sig tanking) and play logi and they often pulled much of the rooms aggro.
After I skilled into mauraders I tended to use those. One of the defining aspects to the epic arcs is more EWAR than average level 4’s. With bastion negating most EWAR it was almost easy mode.
The big downside is the missions have so much travel you started to really feel it in a BS hull.
That being said, this thread was originally at least, a single ship that can do the arcs. IMO the only one that really does that effectively is a T3. Mostly because you can swap subs on the fly. Some arcs require some LS or NS travel, where you can easily turn your T3 cloaky.
I did Caldari and Amarr ones in Golem, Gallente in Kronos, Minmatar in Tengu. While marauders will negate EWAR I don’t recommend them because they are so slow at warping and aligning. Missile T3s like Loki and Tengu (HaMs are fast) are the best but they may be a problems with full clears because missiles are very heavy and are taking lots of cargo. I don’t recomment Golem at all, micomanaging TP’s and slow application - very tedious ship.
