Trying to decide my Battleship for L4 missions (security, solo run))

Communications Center General Discussion
1

Hello! First off thanks for anyone who is taking the time to respond to this noobs questions :slight_smile:

so background info: I didnt do my research and used my brand new bought mymidon for my first ever L4 mission. BIG mistake as Im reaaaaly new, dont have the proper skills, and that was basically all my isk sunk into it :confused:
but what really stuck out to me was that there was only one ship that deployed 4 drones, each drone slowed my ship and prevented me from warping. so what i did was to focus everything on one drone (5 hammerheads, a target painter, my 4 lasers and my own module that slows a target). long story short I didnt hit them once and couldnt warp away so i died.

I now know that lasers arent good in pve ever and not to fly anything that I cant afford to replace. But, what really stuck out to me was that fact that my drones couldnt hit the target either. So after doing some research I found a lot of people talking about how missiles are really good for PvE and how they “never miss”. I also found out that battleships are recommended for L4 missions…not battlecruisers

So now Im looking at battleships with the focus of finding a good missile boat. Everyone says to get either a Gila, Rattlesnake, Dominix or a raven. Looking at my options it seems like Raven is a good fit for a missile boat. But coming from gallente I really like using drones. The raven has terrible drone bays and bandwidths so I was looking around for a ship that has good drones, and missiles. well I found one. The Armageddon. It has good missile slots, a bonus to drones and good drone bandwidth/bays. top it all off its an armor tank which is what ive been specing into.

No one talks about the Armageddon as a good ship for L4 missions and I was wondering why? I dont want to waste my money again after losing the mymidon. Also in your opinion what ship should I really be focusing on? Id like to stick with gallente and get the Dominix but I dont want to end up in the same situation where I cant hit the drones with my hybrid rail guns and then just die.

also for anyone who asks this is my Mymidon set up that I researched for hours to get destroyed on the first mission :confused:

[Myrmidon, Myrmidon]
1600mm Crystalline Carbonide Restrained Plates
Medium Armor Repairer II
Mark I Compact Reactor Control Unit
Reactive Armor Hardener
Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Phased Scoped Target Painter
Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifier
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
Cap Recharger II

Heavy Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Heavy Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Heavy Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Heavy Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I
Drone Link Augmentor I

Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Salvage Drone I x5
Hobgoblin I x5
Hammerhead I x5

Imperial Navy Multifrequency M x4
Imperial Navy Microwave M x4
Navy Cap Booster 800 x4
Cap Booster 800 x2

2

Its been a very long time… but a domi for missions is tank (not guns) - the dps is all in the drones

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3

Greetings mate , I will lead a lv 4 mission fleet tonight , y can join us and learn something, also get some isk for a new hull . Send me a in-game mail if interested

4

No. You should just get into a Domi ASAP. You will have greater HP. Use sentries (faction unless you can T2 it) along with a MJD. Keep a fleet of smaller drones in case the frigates get under your sentry range.

Warp in at ~100, BLAP! BLAP BLAP!, MJD out, BLAP! BLAP! BLAP!

Rinse and repeat until you can fly a RS with high-end missile and drone skills.

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5

Agreed. Use high-slots to extend drone range.

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6

pffft Drake’s solo level 4’s like a charm even now days

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7

first mistake . Also it meant you needed the

so it consumed two slots for nothing.

It does not stack with the RAH so use energized adaptive instead

You have a cap recharger module and a cap rig. use a large cap battery instead of the cap injector.

don’t use lasers, it uses a lot of your cap. You can go for 220mm AC instead to specifically be able to shoot small fries while your drones do the job on bigger ones.

try this

dual rep 
[Myrmidon, *Myrmidon]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Stasis Webifier II
Denny Enduring Omnidirectional Tracking Link
Large Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery
Cap Recharger II

220mm Medium 'Scout' Autocannon I
220mm Medium 'Scout' Autocannon I
220mm Medium 'Scout' Autocannon I
220mm Medium 'Scout' Autocannon I
220mm Medium 'Scout' Autocannon I

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I




Tracking Speed Script x1
8

I’m regurgitating info because I don’t actually run missions myself, but the biggest thing for missions is speed.

You don’t really want a battleship that isn’t a Mach, because the time it takes to travel around between missions is the biggest drain on your time.

You should strongly consider training into a Tengu (or a Proteus if you want drones). A T3C will have lots of punch, while being WAY faster than a battleship. The flip side of course is that it costs more, and takes a lot more training for the subsystems than a battleship.

IIRC most of the ‘professional’ mission runners will use a T3C.

If your goal is to just run missions, not pump out isk quickly, consider:

Bagel (barghest). You can easily shoot out past 200km away with cruise missiles, where the baddies can’t even hit you.
Nestor. Drone damage, nice and tanky.
Rattlesnake. The rattler is the ratters wet dream. Nice and tough, lots of damage.

These are of course all faction battleships. Attainable, but it sounds like it could be out of your price range at the moment… something to work towards.

Something cheaper, use a Dominix. It’s a drone boat, and insured you’ll almost make money getting destroyed if you buy it at a decent price.

9

Just some notes:

level 4 missions in battleship require you to have at least 300 sustained tank assuming you do some piloting to mitigate incoming damage, missions against one of 4 main factions are harder and drop your standings against those factions.

100mn AB might be better for missioning than MWD because it doesn’t bloom your sig and doesn’t reduce your cap life. Although if your battle ship is set up to be a close range brawler then MWD is paramount

make sure to look up mission guide you haven’t done it before. Eve-survival is a nice source for information.

overconfidence is fast and hilarious killer!

P.S. Praxis is a nice ship for a character with low skills.

10

I’m not a fitting expert but some things seem a bit off in your Myrmidon experience. Not the “losing it on your first level 4” part, that’s not unusual for newer players who first get into a battlecruiser. It feels like a pretty big jump upwards, ship-power wise… the only problem is that (some) level 4’s are a much bigger jump up in difficulty than the 3’s.

First: you don’t mention what the drones deployed against you are, but I find it very unusual that 5 Hammerheads with a target painter and a web on a single drone meant you could not hit it with either your guns or your drones. That means (IMO) either it was some sort of super-fast low signature drone (which I’ve never seen, myself) or that your ‘application’ skills are not trained. ‘Application’ is about making sure the damage you deal actually hits your target, so the Gunnery and Drone tracking skills, optimal range skills, speed skills, etc.

Second: if you are having trouble hitting a target, you can recall the medium drones (which are slower and hit bigger targets) and launch the small Hobgoblins to eat the smaller, faster targets (drones and frigates). When those are gone, you can either warp away or recall the Hobgobs and launch the Hammerheads again to tackle the bigger targets.

Third: as others have mentioned, your armor tank is not set up quite correctly. I’ll leave the details up to others but for level 4s your tank definitely should be set up properly and you should have your support skills (Hull, Mechanics, Repair etc.) trained up.

Fourth: Some level 4 missions are significantly harder than others. It helps to google the name of the mission and look for other people’s reports on how that mission works, what you encounter etc. before running it. It takes some of the ‘thrill’ out but it beats going in and getting surprised by something you haven’t encountered before.

Personally I would go for the Dominix if I was already trained up to Gallente BC. The issue is less “is it the right ship, will I get nuked again?” and more “why were my drones and guns not working even with a target painter and web on?”. That definitely should not have been the case.

11

As much as I like Amarr ships, I must recommend to you to get a Dominix as you favor drones.

That is not the case. Much depends on the damage types the rats you are shooting are most/least resistant to. In Amarr space, many of the rats (mostly sansha and blood raider) are most vulnerable to EM and thermal damage. Lasers do EM and thermal damage. Lasers work well there. Lasers are limited to only being able to do EM and thermal damage, but they reload instantly, apply their damage to their target instantly, and T1 focus crystals don’t wear out so they can have unlimited ammo. All weapon types have they’re pros and cons. Enough zap will melt anything, though, rendering damage resistance types perhaps a bit less important.

Personally I really like lasers because I like to zap and fry things, this is a game and my enjoyment in it is more important to me than shaving a little bit of time here and there off completing a mission.

Get you a Dominix, fit it for using your drones as it’s primary weapons.

low -3 drone damage amplifiers, Tech2 large armor repair, no plates for pve, damage resistance modules specific to counter the damage type the rats you will face do to you or an an adaptive module, damage control…optional

mid - omnidirectional tracking link with tracking speed script, two drone navigation computers (unless you decide to use sentry drones - then replace them with a tracking computer with range script and a sensor booster), 100mn afterburner, large microjumpdrive, maybe a target painter if it fits.

highs - two drone link augmentor, small guns (your drones are your main weapons, guns are mostly for close-in defense against webbing/scramming frigates that might get by your light drones and small guns track close fast targets best) Projectile turrets - although they are the weapon of choice for those traitorous inferior minmatar anarchist scum - are easy on your powergrid to fit them. Lasers - whilst being the purifying light of the Empire making things as they should be - are indeed energy-hungry especially in larger sizes.

Use light drones and kill the frigates first, then heavy drones for the rest (with tracking and navigation mods they should be fine against cruiser-sized targets).

Use Tech1 drones until you are - at least - familiar with using drones in lvl4s, consider them as expendable ammo.

1 Like
12

when you’re new, you want tank over dps starting out because low skills in both will just kill you.

its better to slowly grind isk than to run face first and die. a myrm isnt great for lvl 4s since lvl 4s love to go for drones and it doesnt have enough tank to slow boat around, a domi is what you would want and than with better skills change the setup.

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13

The OP is clearly a new player- do you recommend a T3C for someone who’s so new? Or should they go for something else - and then get the T3C once they know what they’re doing?

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14

This should be in the Missions and PVE section if you have questions.

Here is a rough fit for a Myrm, work on it as you skill up. Change the modules to meta or T2 as you can use/afford them. Upside, its similar when you get to the dominix.

[Myrmidon, *Myrmidon]
Capacitor Power Relay I
Medium Armor Repairer I
Medium Armor Repairer I
Armor Kinetic Hardener I
Armor Thermal Hardener I
Damage Control I

Cap Recharger I
Cap Recharger I
Drone Navigation Computer I
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
10MN Afterburner I

Drone Link Augmentor I
Dual 150mm Railgun I
Dual 150mm Railgun I
Dual 150mm Railgun I
Dual 150mm Railgun I

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Ogre I x4
Hobgoblin I x5
Hammerhead I x5

25m3 space left for the drones, just another flight of lights of your choice.

First off, avoid lasers. They have bigger fitting requirements then hybrids, those Heavy Modulated have roughly 50 more PG then 250mm railguns and hybrids use a lot less capacitor. I suggest starting with the dual 150s starting out, then upgrade to 200. With low skills the 250mm won’t make much of a difference if you can barely fit them.

By swapping to hybrids, you won’t need those wasted +PG rigs and the rreactor control unit. God I keep seeing ships like that on contracts for sell, don’t fit what you can’t put on there. For rigs, use 3x Cap Control Circuit to get yourself capacitor stable. It makes playing the ship easier when you start out. You can change the rigs to your choice later, but make it easier to fly the ship first.

Now that you have PG to spare, you can fit hybrids as I suggested and use two times Medium repair to up your tank; start one repair module and wait 5 seconds then start the second so you over lap the +hp repair and alternate the drain on your cap. Some are gonna argue against it, I only suggest it for a short time until your capacitor/rep skills are at least 4, preferable 5.

Now for the mids, you don’t have a omnidirectional tracking link with script and loose the web. That would help immensely for drones, but this applies only to drones and not guns which use a tracking computer. Web isn’t that great, since its range is 10km but your drones can reach out to 60 with max skills and the Drone Link Augmentor adds +20 km (high slot module). target painter is up to you, better off with another omni directional tracking link, they are active modules but basically passive bonuses to the drones so you can keep more distance.

For the lows, that dual medium repair module and try to get to 75% kin/therm resists for Serpentis you should be pretty solid (assuming you are in Gallente space, always check your mission and use the correct resist hardeners). The reactive hardener is up to you, this fit is a friends but personally I am not a fan of reactives since it consumes some cap and quickly resets after 1 cycle when not taking damage otherwise you will have a solid tank. You could use a drone damage amp instead. Once you get comfortable with the myrm you could use 2x drone damage amps after replacing the medium repair and reactives. Can get rid of the damage control later, helps at the begining you have to warp out in hull (and my friend who made this fit once screwed up a mission in his Kronos with so little hull left he could of been ganked and destroyed with just a few thousand damage hit).

As for drones, use the correct damage type.

This build is less on damage and more on brick tanking so later you can increase the damage, you will need to take baby steps to evolve up to the potate ship Dominix. As I mention before, the build can be copied from the Myrmidon to the Dominix and you just upsize some of the modules, larger repair module and guns.

1 Like
15

Real men fly blasterthron up close and personal, its harder for sure, but the rush is the most.

17

Greetings EVE Player.

How long have you been playing EVE ?
If you’re running Level 4 Missions you must be Omega right ?

If you are already Omega, nothing is impossible.

EVE is a harsh niche game with a dedicated playerbase.
It’s a madhouse with enough space for everyone.

0.1 - Level 4 Missions

Mission Reports - Get ready for each one of the missions.

Level 4 Missions are the highest level of Standard Missions in High-Sec.
Surpassed only by Epic Arc Missions, Incursions and some Special Events (Triglavian Invasion).

PVE is often predictable and very repetitive. So I hope you are prepared to the Griding.

0.2 - Recommendations for Level 4 Combat Missions:

  • BattleShips usually have plenty of EHP, and are easy to tank, but their DPS can be hard to apply against small ships. And the variety of missions will require many Fit changes and often a whole different ship. That’s why mission runners usually recommend the Gila.
    Gila Fits
  • The Gila can be Fit to have the EHP and DPS of a BattleShip, with the damage applicability of a Cruiser. You can carry “Medium Drones” of the four damage types together with Thermal and Kinetic Missiles. On the “High Slots” the “Rapid Light Missile Launcher” is very good when a small ship is causing you trouble, or when you need an extra damage to break a BattleShip Tank. Improve the Drone Damage with the “Low Slots” modules. The recommended defense is shields.
  • For missions it is better to use Active Shields Tank. On the “Mid Slots”, improve your shield resistance with two or more “Shield Hardeners” against the mission damage type or fit “Omni”. Fit a “Large or Medium Shield Booster” and a “Large Cap Battery”. To better damage applicability fit a “Omnidirectional Tracking Link” or a “Stasis Webifier”. Fit a “10MN Afterburner” for speed. On the “Low Slots” complete them all with “Drone Damage Amplifier” if necessary exchange one of them for a “Damage Control” or other module as needed. On the Rigs complete them all with " Medium Capacitor Control Circuit". Depending on your choice of modules and how much ISK you have left, investing in implants can help stabilize your “Capacitor”, improve your “Shield Booster” and increase the damage of your missiles.

0.3 - Flying the Gila:

  • Your worst enemy is “Webbers” (kill them first), a slow Cruiser is easy for a BattleShip to hit with maximum damage. You always need to be orbiting something at high speed to avoid being hit. With a Gila you have the option to orbit close to the enemy ship or far from it. Avoid flying straight to a Turret-BattleShips, prefer to approach at an oblique angle. In the case of a Launcher-BattleShips (missiles), the angle does not matter, what matters is your ship speed and signature radius.
  • Your second worst enemy is “Cap-Neutralizers”. Your Cap is your Active Tank and your Afterburner life line.
  • The Warp-Disruptors will always be among the top of the list to kill as they prevent you from fleeing.
  • Beware of “Triggers” on each mission, avoid attacking them before shooting down the other ships.
  • Your Drones are powerful weapons but they are very fragile. Avoid launching your drones before the enemy start to Aggro your ship. You can use your missiles to get the enemy’s attention before launching your drones. You can orbit near your drones to speed their return if the enemy begins to aggro them. Setting your drones to Aggressive Mode can help if you’re being Jammed or Damped (EWAR). To avoid attacking “Triggers” put your drones in Passive Mode.

The rest is gaining enough experience, testing, failing, and exceeding.

Be sure to try PVP.
Beware of Scams.
Try Joining a Corporation.
Interact with other players.
Do not share your account email with others.
Try multiple corporations until you find one that suits you.
I especially recommend learning to hunt other players in wormholes.

UniWiki
EVE-Marketer
EVE-Praisal
zKillboard
dotlan
EVE Workbench

18

Actually, I recommended training into one. Learning to fly a T3C is the same as learning to fly anything else… it’s not like L4 security missions are offering a lot of risk for a cookiecutter mission Tengu, so unless he gets baited into PVP he’ll be fine.

At the end of the day, the right tool for the job is… the right tool for the job.

1 Like
19

It’s funny how suddenly the forum warriors get outed as being utterly terrible at the game by something as basic as a newbie asking for mission ship advice.

20

Thanks. I was considering skilling toward the Tengu for running lvl 4 missions myself- but someone told me I should go with a T1 battleship instead (I made a point to mention I was new to missions).

Was I misled?

21

Tengu is mediocre for lvl 4 missions. It either has range or dps, not both. It’s also kinetic locked and it lacks drones so you have to deal with all the small crap using your main weapon system. Also they won’t work as advertised (or being bragged about) until you have maxed out support skills. They don’t allow for hickups or mishaps much.

I would suggest to aim for a good BS and ultimately aim for a Marauder, if you’re serious about missions.