While I was theorycrafting a Machariel for doing full clears in L4s, I took time to watch what the others pirates factions had to offer. I must admit, the Sansha Nation designs are extremely interesting : those aren’t reskins, like Guristas or Serpentis ships, and they have the unique gameplay of combining shields systems with energy turrets. Because I mainly use railguns, I have some skills in capacitor cost per shot, and overall energy output of my ships, however lasers have a bigger capacitor consommation than rails, and none of those hulls have capacitor related bonuses.
I would like to know : would the Phantasm and Nightmare be capable at running L3 for te former and L4 for the latter ? And what about the Succubus, how well can it run burner missions ?
Thanks everyone ! It’s good to start new topics in the PVE section ^^
The best way to fly those ships is ignore cap stability and focus on DPS. Fit a cap booster and XL Shield Booster and go to town. The Nightmare can snipe all the little stuff at range in one shot. Use it only when you are facing enemies with EM weakness. Never use it against armor focused pirates. Learn to switch your crystals and you should be good. It will melt L4 missions.
I can confirm the Nightmare is great for running L4 missions.
I’ve been using this:
[Nightmare, Spike]
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Tracking Enhancer II
Damage Control II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Field II
Thermal Dissipation Field II
Pith B-Type X-Large Shield Booster
Tracking Computer II
Large Micro Jump Drive
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 800
Tachyon Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L
Auto Targeting System II
Tachyon Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L
Tachyon Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L
Small Tractor Beam II
Tachyon Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency L
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Energy Discharge Elutriation II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Since prior to when I stopped playing some time in 2016, and am still using it now without any issues, against all types of mission rats… it may not be optimal but I don’t have to change hardeners for different missions and is able to blitz or full clear depending on what your after. When I first started using it I was using lots of cap charges, these days (more comfortable with ship, better at timing triggers) I can get through most missions with only a few pulses of the shield booster, cap booster is just a safety net.
I would imagine a Phantasm would be able to run L3s, but I haven’t tried it… I like to use the Phantasm for PvP
PS don’t turn on the auto targeter, it increases the lockable targets without being activated, and is only there to increase lockable targets to 10 (up from 7).
The Phantasm and Nightmare are very good at pve and pvp. I haven’t done regular level 4 missions with the Succubus but I can do level 4 burner missions with this small spiked one.
Well, even without any skill trained for Energy turrets, the DPS I get with Multifrequency ammo is already higher than my Ferox >.<
However, since lasers are locked in their damage like rails, I think they will be suboptimal in Caldari space, no ? I regularly get missions against ships like the L3 Angel Extravaganza, and Cartel ships are extremely resistant to EM/Thermal damage.
They are suboptimal, in that depending on the mission there are better damage types to be using (kin vs Guristas, for e.g.) but I haven’t found it to be a problem.
I run L4s out of Caldari space (ran 2x Guristas Extravaganza over the weekend) and the Nightmare does so much dmg the fact that it’s the ‘wrong’ type doesn’t matter.
I haven’t used anything else but the nightmare for such a long time so I can’t say if a Raven/Navy Raven using kinetic missiles would be faster or not, but the nightmare is certainly capable.
AFAIK for ‘optimal’ mission clearing you would be using a Mach for blitzing or a Rattlesnake for full clears, but the Nightmare is fun!
Rat resists become immensely more important in the higher tier missions because not only are they using bigger ships with higher effective total defenses but their resists also become a lot better. Which cuts damage that doesn’t match their resist hole by a considerable amount.
That said, EM/Therm goes through most rogue drones at high effectiveness except for some of their battleships. Plus it works exceptionally well against Blood Raiders. I wouldn’t worry too much if the paper damage is a couple hundred DPS over the correct damage types you have access to. Just be aware the longer it takes to kill things the more importance you have to give to your tank.
Thank you !
I’ve done multiple missions that granted me some Standings with the Amarr Empire, so if needed I could try to “day trip” to a second home base in Amarr space, for some missions against Blood Raiders or Sansha Nation.
TLDR : using em/therm instead of kine/explo makes you lose half your DPS against angel.
Blood BS resonance is 51/41/31/21 (pope)
Angel BS resonance is 21/31/41/51 (seraphim)
that means that when dealing em/th (50/50) a blood BS - or kin/exp on angel BS (50/50) , the BS takes 51 * 0.5 + 41 * 0.5 = 46% of DPS
same em/th (50/50) vs angel (or kine/explo vs blood) leads to 0.5 * 31 + 0.5 * 21 = 26% DPS
basically you deal 56% of your DPS when going with wrong damage type. (or you gain 77% dps when going from wrong type to correct type)
if you go with the other BS , it’s 54/44/34/24 resonance so 49% / 29% DPS applied so going wrong type makes you deal 59% of your DPS (or gain 68% DPS from wrong to correct ammo)
of course if you go missile it’s even worse. You go eg from 51 to 21 applied DPS, so deal only 41% of the DPS you can. or gain 143% DPS by using the correct missile instead of the wrong ^.^
nightmare is fantastic, just yea don’t shoot angels with it. There’s probably also an argument against shooting guristas with it too, but I never bothered to do the math on that one.
phantasm never really looked at it for pve
succubus, can do at least a few of the burners, I have a build for the angel agent, and the caldari team (basically same fit as the angel just swap to kinetic resists), then I’ve seen a gurista agent fit floating around somewhere but I’ve never tried it. It could probably do more but might involve some crazy mutaplasmid rolls or something. been a while since I looked at it. more in this thread: Burner Mission - Ship advice to solo them including fittings
You put a lot of effort in your maths but math in EVE doesn’t work like math in our world. The fitting screen assumes a change to hit at 100% and a damage output of 100% to give a value that should be taken as a template for how this can look.
The reality is that all the turret ships do miss or scratch or smash or wreck all the time and the “real” dps is most of the time much less than the value on the fitting screen.
However blasters will do fine against the angel cartel.
Shame! I was doing all of my pve with my pvp Phantasm when I lived in Stain. And I soloed the Sansha 5 / 10 in mine.
Sig tanking with a shield buffer that has moderate nice regeneration is awesome, I recommend heavy beams.
It’s like flying a Drake - just with lazors.
Really, you lived a time in Stain ? That’s great ! I actually wanted to move a bit in Stain, to run some missions for Sansha agents. However, it appears no corporation or alliance are near that place or want a newb like me ^^"
Null sec is not really a place where I would risk a pirate cruiser for now… But when I look at it, Phantasm is dirt cheap when compared to other faction cruiser (99 millions, quite small when compared to something like the 235 mils to get a Gila). I should try some daytripping in nullsec with a Mobile Depot and a PVP fit (and using safe spots, not going to refit in front of a Leviathan ^^).
Phantasm have apparently a good application in PVP. Still need to learn that part of the game >.<
I strongly recommend that too. When you get settled there and have a good idea of who is who and what is going on, I can only recommend that ship and it also happens that Stain is one of the places, the Phantasms come from.
I got one Phantasm copy from belt ratting, another one from a DED complex I found, Stain is an awesome place.
Sounds nice !
But eh, even if I get the BPC, I won’t be able to mine the minerals with it (unless Venture can mine enough ore, but I thought Mining Lasers couldn’t penetrate the nullsec advanced ores).
Well that “problem” solves itself the longer you stay and do some pve.
If you get to loot some wrecks and shoot some hauler spawns, in time the minerals will just gather themselves over time, enough to use the copy and make it yourself.
Hull repair modules and smartbombs, which drop a lot are perfect sources of minerals and nobody said that you have to use the copy right away.
