EVE Online - Catch All & new meat check-in

Zaque wrote:

Well that will depend on the mission, but you should be able to take on most of them, although I think you'll make better money doing lvl 3's till you get large guns at least as you might not be able to break the tank of some of the bigger guys with just 5 sentries and a low bs skill rank. Once you get that upto 4 and/or get L2 senties it will make things much easier. Good luck with it anyway.

BTW, which system do you usually run your missions near?

Level 3s have lost the challenge. I couple are difficult but I seem to have done them all so they're getting a bit boring.

I've read that a couple of NOS can help break tanks if I am having trouble.

I was going to start out with an agent in Dodixie. I didn't realize you practiced the fine art of ninja salvage

Copingsaw wrote:
Zaque wrote:

Well that will depend on the mission, but you should be able to take on most of them, although I think you'll make better money doing lvl 3's till you get large guns at least as you might not be able to break the tank of some of the bigger guys with just 5 sentries and a low bs skill rank. Once you get that upto 4 and/or get L2 senties it will make things much easier. Good luck with it anyway.

BTW, which system do you usually run your missions near?

Level 3s have lost the challenge. I couple are difficult but I seem to have done them all so they're getting a bit boring.

I've read that a couple of NOS can help break tanks if I am having trouble.

I was going to start out with an agent in Dodixie. I didn't realize you practiced the fine art of ninja salvage :)

Lol, no not ninja salvage. I was more thinking if I see you on and your doing missions maybe I could help a bit as I don't really have the time/desire to do lvl 4's by myself anymore.

Copingsaw wrote:

I was going to start out with an agent in Dodixie. I didn't realize you practiced the fine art of ninja salvage :)

If you run in Dodixie you'll rapidly discover mission thieves run around in packs there, it's ridiculous. I used to be based there a long time ago and moved factions/agents due to having about 2 missions in 3 interfered with.

I haven't seen people stealing mission objectives from me, but I have seen people hoovering up my salvage. They leave the loot as I can fire on them if they take that. But they don't get any aggro if they use a salvager on my wrecks. The salvage is often more lucrative than the crap items that are dropped.

I finally ran my first level 4 mission last night, "Cargo Delivery".

The good:
1. I didn't lose my Dominix
2. I finished the mission
3. I cleared the room

The bad:
1. It was not a long mission but it took a long time, maybe two hours
2. I had a tough time killing the Battleships
3. I had to warp out once

I played it really cautious and it was probably a good idea given that the 2nd pop included seven battleships. I managed to get some distance before triggering the 2nd wave and was able to set up my sentries to address the battleships. I apparently don't have enough DPS and was only able to take out one BS before they closed from about 60 km to 30 km. I then scooped the sentries, brought out the heavies and tried to keep my distance. This worked for another two battleships before my cap ran dry and I had to warp out. I warped back in and finished the room.

It took a few hours from start to clear. I'm guessing I took in maybe 15 million ISK in the mission including bounties, salvage and loot. Not bad but certainly nothing to write home about. Still, I enjoyed the challenge. My biggest disappointment after spending the last week training up for large rails is that my 350 mm rails did squat for damage - barely more than my mediums rails did. I guess more training is necessary. I can see how T2 sentries, heavies and rails would make life easier. I can also see how spending the money on a CCC rig will help my cap out immensely. But man, those rigs are so damned expensive.

Gratz! Regarding your large rails, I think you need to train a new weapon skill up to level 3 before you really see them to start to become effective.

And support skills. There are a lot of gunnery support skills in there that you should make sure you have. But if you are sticking with a Dominix, then you probably want to emphasize drone skills over gunnery skills, for now.

Raising drone and battleship skills up will help with the drone DPS issues, but your rails will never be as hard hitting as you'd like. Other than training support skills, you can try to improve the rail damage by reducing transversal. Move away from the targets, force them to chase, this will significantly reduce transversal Or get them in close, web them, and open up with blasters, since your ship bonus is for large hybrid turrets it will work for blasters as well as rails. That may be a bit more fun than you want, though, until you are happy with your fitting skills.

One thing to note: If you aren't happy with the performance of large rails, you still probably won't be happy with them once you can use T2 large rails.

Warping out is nothing to be ashamed of, since you are still skilling up for a battleship.

I've run a Domi (currently in a Mega) anyway don't be to concerned with your rail damage, it will get better but never great focus on those drone skills to start. The cap rigs brought both my ships to cap stability so you'll have to decide when it's worth the expense. I'm still new but it just gets better as you go.

A drone guide that I should read again - http://forum.battleclinic.com/index....

Really, you appear to be spreading yourself too thin. If you're going to be flying a Dominix for missions then your main DPS will be coming from your drones, and those are the skills you need to be working on. The Domi may have a rail bonus, but once you actually start fitting large rails to it then you find there's not enough power and CPU left to fit a proper tank.

Don't ignore the weapon support skills. Large Rails 4 won't be any good to you unless skills like Motion Prediction, Rapid Firing, Sharpshooter, Surgical Strike, and Trajectory Analysis are also trained up. Likewise when using drones, you need Drone Interfacing, Drone Navigation, Drone Sharpshooting, and Scout Drone Operation trained up. You should also look into Electronic Warfare Drone Interfacing for the range boost.

You can run a very strong and successful fit on a Dominix with only a single small rail fitted to aggro with. The highs are usually better off with a couple of Nosferatu, a pair of Drone Link Augmentors, and a remote repair module to patch up your drones with.

Not sure if this one has been linked here before but I learned a lot from it...

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard...

Congratz on your first soloing of a lvl 4. Have you looked into any of the hardwiring implants. They could help your dps, and/or cap, instead of going all into a CCC. I have to agree with the fitting issues you start to run into with large rails on the Domi, in some respects its better to just use mediums, at least until your gun support skills are upto snuff.

Thanks for all the comments. Good stuff, I'll definitely be experimenting.

My current fit:

Highs
4 x 350mm rails
2 x Drone Link Augmenters

Mediums
4 x Cap Recharger II
1 x Omnidirectional link

Lows
4 x mission specific hardeners
1 x Large Armor Repairer II
1 x 1600mm rolled titanium
1 x Damage Control II

Rigs
None

Before y'all scream about the Damage Control, I know it's not the best choice but I wanted to have the 60% resist to hull in case I badly misjudged things on my first mission. I'll work myself out of it. Will probably swap for a Capacitor Power Relay. Other suggestions are welcome.

This fit is not cap stable but is good for about 6 minutes. With a CPR it is stable.

Currently training battleship up to L3. I'll then take a bit of a break to train Spaceship Command V so I can purchase my Freighter. Most of my primary drone skills are already at IV or V. I really just need to pick sentries or heavies and take the month or so to train up to V. Ugh.

Zaque wrote:

Have you looked into any of the hardwiring implants. They could help your dps, and/or cap, instead of going all into a CCC.

No, I haven't. Good idea. I don't think implants past the basic attribute modifiers were even available last time I played so I have kind of ignored this option.

Anybody who screams about a DC2 in your fit is on crack. It's one of the best modules in the game, for both PvP and PvE fits.

What you want to look into doing is ditching the 1600mm plate in favor of a second LAR2 and adjust your highs as necessary. In general buffer tank = PVP, for missions you want pure sustained repping power.

If you're not cap stable, don't be afraid to ditch the Omnidirectional Tracking Link in favor of another Cap Recharger II. The links are nice items, but in the long run being able to tank longer while your drones whittle away at the spawn does you more good.

DC IIs are a great mod. I use it in a lot of ships.

Yeah, if you didn't have a DCII on your ship I would have screamed at you. You can either play with a second LAR2 (or the best named T1 version to save yourself some CPU), I've also seen people go with a medium armour rep 2 to save CPU and Grid. Which type of hardners are you using, active or passive? After you get your armour tanking skills up (ie the armour compensation skills) to lvl 4 you might be able to go with just 3 hardners and put in a cap power relay.

For implants I'd suggest:

Slot 6 = 'Noble' ZET 1 series for armour repair time reduction.
Slot 7 = Any of the gunnery ones, the best would be either the tracking ('Gunslinger' AX series) or the cap reduction ('Lancer' G series) for you.
Slot 8 = 'Squire' CC4 implant or the 'Squire' CC8 (if you have the isk/loyalty points) as they give you the 3 or 5% cap size bonus.
Slot 9 = Either the 'Noble' ZET 4 series (increased repair amount), or the 'Gunslinger' CX series (increased turret damage).
Slot 10 = Either the 'Noble' ZET 5 series (increased armour amount), or the 'Deadeye' ZGL series (increased large turret damage).

You should have a decent amount or Loyalty Points at this point. You might be able to pick up the mid level (ie 3% bonus) ones without having to spend a ton of isk on the market.

Oh god, Dominix fits. I could go on forever about this...

Like Elycion said you almost never want to put plates on a PvE ship because it's pretty much a wasted slot. A buffer tank is about keeping you alive until you can get RR, kill the enemy, or escape. An active (PvE) tank is about keeping you alive indefinitely and 8 cycles from a T2 rep, about 1½ minute, will have given you as much survivability as a 1600mm RT plate, and it's downhill from there for the plate.

The classic overtanked 'newbie' domi uses 2 Large Armor Repairer II and 4 mission specific hardeners. For this to be cap stable you will need a few Capacitor Control Circuit rigs (CCCs). A setup like that allows you to get aggro, deploy drones, and go afk while the kill stuff, in most missions at least. Like the name suggest though, it's very overtanked. For most missions you will only have to pulse the 2nd rep. Overtanked equals underpowered. Lets say your domi does around 400 DPS and a BS rat in a mission can tank 300 DPS, then an increase from 400 to 500 DPS would double your effective DPS and increase your mission running time a lot.

Here's an example of a dual rep fit:

[Dominix, Dual LAR]
Large Armor Repairer II
Large Armor Repairer II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Capacitor Power Relay II

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I

350mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge L
350mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge L
350mm Railgun II, Antimatter Charge L
[empty high slot]
Drone Link Augmentor I
Drone Link Augmentor I

Capacitor Control Circuit I
Capacitor Control Circuit I
Sentry Damage Augmentor I

Warden II x5
Garde II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Ogre II x4

There's no DCU II in this fit and the reason is that one Cap Power Relay does a whole lot more than a fifth Cap Recharger (stacking penalties). You can fit it if you want and lose the Tracking Link.

When you get enough DPS you can 'tank' by killing fast enough that you reduce the incoming DPS so quickly that a big permarun tank never becomes necessary. Here's a fit like that:

[Dominix, Single LAR]
Ammatar Navy Large Armor Repairer
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Damage Control II
Capacitor Power Relay II

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I

350mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
350mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
350mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
350mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
350mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Drone Link Augmentor I

Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Sentry Damage Augmentor I

Bouncer II x5
Garde II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Ogre II x4

This fit is also overtanked, but you can easily throw in Magnetic Field Stabilizers in the lows if the mission allows it.

The faction rep has one main benefit, it uses 300 powergrid less which allows you to fit one extra gun (it also reps a bit more). The Aux Nano Pumps are the core of the fit though, they increase the amount of armor repaired each cycle (which is close to 1200, compared to the 1600 of a Dual LAR CCC Domi). The Sentry Damage Augmentor is also very important. Rigs in general are very important on PvE battleships and if you're not using them then you're going to be gimped.

Faction ammo is debatable, but it's worth it for me. Costs maybe 2mil per mission but speeds things up. With a magstab this rail domi gets over 800 dps. Omnidirectional Tracking Links are aweeesome, especially with T2 Sentries which you should train for ASAP.

Since you're just starting out level 4s I would probably recommend a dual rep cookie cutter dominix but you will find that your killing speed is not all that high (the money is still way better than level 3 misssions though). Neither of the fits I suggested have an afterburner which is a problem in a lot of missions, especially in a sentry domi that sits still for the most of the time. It's up to you if you want it or not, for me it depends on the mission. Also, always manage aggro regardless of your tank. Unless it's a level 5 where everything always auto aggros

Edit: btw, if you don't use this resource, start using it:
http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wa...

It is often right, and not killing trigger ships too early is the key to survival in a lot of missions.

Big thumbs up on the Mission Reports website, its my mission running bible. If I check only one thing, only one site, its that site.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I'm away from home this weekend so don't have time to sit down and type a lengthy response. A few quick comments ...

Yes, I am using active armor hardeners.

Yes, I use eve survival before every mission.

Okay, I'll ditch the armor and pick up a second LARII (or maybe a MARII) and spring for a CCC rig to help my cap.

Unfortunately, I don't yet have the skills for Tech 2 armor hardeners, Tech 2 cap power relay, Tech 2 large rails, Tech 2 heavy or sentry drones. Which should I train for first? I'm thinking of just taking the month to train up for Sentries. Although I'm not sure, I think I could train up for the armor hardeners or CPR in less than week ... would it be worth it to pursue that first instead?

From the items you're listing, I'd suggest training for T2 hardeners, then T2 Heavies, then take your pick between rails and sentries, although the training for T2 rails is very long if you don't already have the skills for small and medium T2 rails.

I can't say that I'd actually recommend using a Cap Power Relay at all, since your lows should be Rep X2, Hardener X4, and DCU2. If you decide to use one anyhow, fit that in whenever since it only requires a level 4 skill and is pretty darn quick.

In general, I'll say that I think sentries are overrated and that a good set of T2 Ogres is a better idea. When I ran missions in a Dominix I'd only use the sentries to pop frigates and sometimes cruisers at long range, then pull them in to deploy the Ogres once the rats got too close. T2 is a waste of skill training time at that point.

Definitely get T2 hardeners first and then drones.
As for which drones, well... I'd suggest trying them both out. T2 sentries are easier to train for and do more damage than T2 Ogres with a rig on, but without a rig Ogres do more. The reason sentries are good is that they don't have any travel time (heavies are sloooow, and it matters when BSes are orbiting you at 40km) and you can easily recall them if they get aggro. I love them, especially with Tracking Links, but I guess it's down to personal preference.

The main reason to train T2 sentries is for use with an Ishtar for PVP (aka flavor the past few months.) I'd stick with training T2 Ogres first myself.

I'm gonna go for sentries I think. The instant damage is great and puts them well ahead of Ogres for actual damage in my opinion. I've got L4 and L5 to train, which will be about 27 days for me. Of course, I have several other skills I plan on training up first so it'll be over a month. Ouch.

Question: What exactly does cap stable mean? I tweaked my fit a bit based upon suggestions above and the fittings overview tells me I am now stable. However, I am clearly not stable in battle when I am running all my modules. The only way I appear close to stable is when I have everything off and am just running the armor reppers. Even then, I seem to be very slowly draining my cap. What am I missing?

Cap stable is being able to run the mods you want and have your cap hold at a certain point. My Domi for example is cap stable at about 55% with my hardeners, a Damage Control II and a LAR II running. I can then pulse the second as needed but will only be able to hold for 5 to 10 if I am running both and or an AB.

That is one thing to note if using EFT to see where you are at, turn off the AB to get a good idea as you are not likely to be stable when running one if you are repping.

Yeah, if you run outta cap, all the neat toys you have mounted stop working, which more or less leaves you dead in the water. So a cap stable fit is beneficial to keep you in the fight longer.

The ship's capacitor doesn't recharge at a steady rate. Its a bell curve, as your energy available drops your recharge rate climbs, until you hit a certain level of energy in the capacitor and then the recharge rate starts dropping.

So, initially, with everything turned on you will steadily lose energy. Eventually, if you are cap-stable, you will hit a spot where you aren't gaining energy, but you aren't losing it either.

Set up your load-out in EFT, turn on everything you expect to run during a fight (i.e. if you have a tractor beam, uncheck that, make sure the hardeners and rep are checked, etc) and see how long EFT says you can run. If it says '51%' then you will be cap-stable about the time your capacitor is half-empty. If it gives a duration, then your current skills/ship/gear mix won't get cap-stable.

Cap-stable is nice, but not critical. If you can reliably kill the agro'd NPCs before you run out of cap, then you should be fine. Might be a bit bored waiting for cap to recover, but fine. Its a balancing act, finding that right mix of firepower and tanking that lets you run missions effectively. Overtanked is actually a bad thing, since that normally means you are cutting into your firepower, and missions take longer. Flipside, if you can't wedge in more firepower and you still have room, might as well beef up the tank. Can take a bit of skilling up, but you can eventually get all three - firepower, overtank and capstable - my CNR has all the firepower I can stuff into it, 4 hardeners+DC II and runs cap-stable with 3 CCC rigs. But I'm almost 42m SP, and most of that is in making things go boom, so I have pretty damn good fitting skills.

New subtitle for the thread: L4 Domi advice extravaganza!

Gunner wrote:

New subtitle for the thread: L4 Domi advice extravaganza!

Well, stuff like this is what makes it a catchall

Anyway, good to hear things are going well Cope. I'll second all the advice about hardeners > sentries. Also good on the DCUII; definitely ditch the plate for either a large or a medium repper. Also, if you can't fit a T2 LAR, work on that as well. Once you've got T2 hardeners and drones, you'll find missions go much more smoothly. At that point, I'd start in on capacitor skills just to make missions easier; by which I mean you can run a mission and watch a movie at the same time

I've run five or six missions now and am getting more comfortable. The armor plate is gone, replaced by a T2 MAR. I can't fit a second LAR unless I remove a rail or two. So far, I've been able to manage things well enough that I haven't needed a second LAR. My 350mm rails are helping a lot with the DPS so I don't really want to give them up. A CCC rig and a CPR has also helped a lot with my cap.

I'm running an Quality 13 agent out of Dodixie. I've discovered that this is the best Federation Navy agent in high sec. Hmph. I am considering going back and starting to rep up with Federal Intelligence. They have a few quality 18 agents in high sec. Not sure if it would be worth the trouble.

So far the only trouble with Ninja's I have had have been in Dodixie itself. They seem to stay out of the less populous surrounding systems. Yesterday I had two different ninja's pop into a mission I was running in dodixie. Both popped wrecks and targeted me. One was in an Imicus and was actually salvaging. The other was in a Thorax and must have been fitted for PVP because he didn't even try to salvage, just danced around me trying to get me to shoot him. I'm sure both were hoping my drones were set for offensive targeting and would target them. As a matter of practice I set them on defensive so that didn't happen.

Copingsaw wrote:

So far the only trouble with Ninja's I have had have been in Dodixie itself. They seem to stay out of the less populous surrounding systems. Yesterday I had two different ninja's pop into a mission I was running in dodixie. Both popped wrecks and targeted me. One was in an Imicus and was actually salvaging. The other was in a Thorax and must have been fitted for PVP because he didn't even try to salvage, just danced around me trying to get me to shoot him. I'm sure both were hoping my drones were set for offensive targeting and would target them. As a matter of practice I set them on defensive so that didn't happen.

If something like this happens again, and a ship like an Imicus is actually flagged against you (flashing red) then blow it straight to hell. When ships acquire a criminal flag against you, you are free to engage them one at a time if you so choose. You can engage the frigate and the cruiser would be helpless to do anything to assist it. (Really, even with a PvE fit you likely could have blown them both up with no real issues.) The only trick to this is once you kill the ship that has transgressed against you then you should warp to station and dock until your agression timer expires. This will stop them from jumping into a PvP ship and coming after you while you're still flagged.

Just don't lvl 4 missions in Dodixie...it's always full of gonks and piwat wannabes...I know because I'm selling them loads of stuff all the time

There are Fed Navy 3 and 4 agents dotted through Sinq Liason and Everyshore...try popping down to Aydoteaux or similar and enjoy picking up your loot in piece.

It's also worth having a look at the forum threads on the new ships and ship changes when thinking about the purchase of new ships and training. For example, my own L4 machine, the passive Rattlesnake, is being transformed from a cruise missile machine into a passive Dominix with attitude, by virtue of losing 2 launcher hardpoints but gaining a drone bay and bandwidth big enough for 5 Ogre 2's and a 10% per level bonus on damage. And anyone currently owning a Bhaalgorn is sitting on a goldmine, as the prices of them and the Rattler are now into the 1.8bn range. And don't even try looking for a Gila...