L1 or L2

[Chick]

(Reposting thoughts on ruptures from the other thread)
Gottaa: You have fallen into several half-way house traps with that fit.
Never fit plates to PvE ships. they are there for Passive buffers on PvP that is all.
Drop the salvager and Tractor too. if you are going to Salvage, get a salvage boat, if not, don't bother.
With artillery and no web, you will quickly get surrounded by Frigates, of which there are lots on l2 missions which you won't be able to track / hit / destroy.

4x 220mm ac's (scouts or t2)
2x Assault launchers
Web, Cap Recharger/Injector(*), AB
MARII, DC, EANM, 2x Gyros
Hobgoblin(II) drones

Use T2 where you can of course. If you are facing lots of angels, swap the EANM for a Explosive hardener as armour tanked ships have a huge resist hole there. It's fine to shift up to Artillery for L3 missions, as you're fighting larger things, but for 2's it's a waste of time, ammo and ships.

Since L2's are basically frigateswarms with a few cruisers, you will often not even lose shields on 70%+ of your missions. Swapping the Cap recharger and Cap rigs for a Medium Capacitor Booster (400's) and swap the rigs for damage ones, you will cream through missions and have some emergency cap injecting for when things go Bad(tm).

Zed - Nice. i may well take you up on that offer. Can you do me 2 or 3 of them without too much hassle?

 

[Aciiid]

hmm interesting, i thought the 800m plates were like shield extenders, just increase the base amount of armor you have, am i wrong again?

On a side note Gotta, you'll be pulsing your AB so your cap needs should be a little lower.

 

[Darakor]

Chick, I can give you your fully equipped BC back if you want it. I expect that will save you some money.

Gottaa, a dedicated Salvage-Destroyer really pays for itself in the long run. Between larger cargo space and quicker salvaging, it saves a lot of time. Get Gallente Frigate to 3 and get a Catalyst. I used that for a good bit and it is a very nice one with a good cargo space. I only replaced it after a few dozen level 4 missions.

 

[Chick]

Shields regen a % of their total every second, so adding extenders and [misc]recharge units gives you a decent passive tank. Armour doesn't naturally regenerate, once it's gone it's gone, makign it only useful for buffer tanks where you and your gang mates either have logistics support / RR gangs or are going "full gank" fits.

 

[Gottaa]

The actual fit I am running with is:

[Rupture, Testing]
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Damage Control II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Gyrostabilizer I

Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
[empty high slot]
[empty high slot]

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I - Sorry Zed, I did warn you

Which has 93 CPU spare, and 3 energy grid and cap lasts for 6m 19s

I've only done three L2 missions but didn't have an issue, anything that got in closer than the artillery could do the drones shredded (using 5 T1 drones which I looted, I think 2 warrior, 1 acoltye and 2 others), and that in range for artillery would usually die after one barrage, larger stuff lasted longer but didn't do enough damage to me to scare me.

will 4x220's just mean I shred close stuff and can leave the drones to do whatever they want ?

 

[Zed]

Id stick with that setup to be honest your fine with it.

 

[Gottaa]

Auto Targetting systems worth it ? I'm seeing if there is anything useful, but cheap I could put into those high slots

And is it worth having 4 hobgoblins drones, and one hammerhead (for example) ? for 4 light and one medium

 

[Chick]

Nope. they suck. Utterly.
You may be able to drop a EANM for a Reactor control unit to free up some Power Grid to add some missile launchers, or drop the AB since you have 20-30km range on the artillery. The AB on my setups is just to get you into gun range faster.

As zed says, if you are happy with artillery, stick with them as you will be able to transfer the weapons up to your L3 boat.

 

[Gottaa]

[Rupture, Testing]
Reactor Control Unit I
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I
Damage Control II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Gyrostabilizer I

Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
650mm Medium 'Scout' Artillery I, EMP M
Assault Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile
Assault Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I


Hobgoblin I x1
Hobgoblin I x1
Hobgoblin I x1
Hobgoblin I x1
Hammerhead I x1

That ? And last one, what ammo do I use with the missile launcher ?

Assuming I can afford the new bits

 

[Zed]

Not the assualt missile launcher. they should be pared with your short range blasters. Need missile launchers for the longer range.

Of course you could use your assault missiles for short range but then id suggest fitting rocket launchers since they will hurt frigates more.

 

[Chick]

Assaults and standards have the same Range. You're thinking of heavy assaults zed that only have 15-25km range depending on skills. Assaults just cost more, and have a higher RoF, and are harder to fit. Both do fine against frigate / cruiser sized ships.

Use a full flight of Hobgoblins, and whatever ammo you think sounds coolest. In theory, each rat/npc type has specific, pre-programmed armour and shield resistances which you can match against a specific ammo type. There is a sticky around somewhere with this listed.

 

[Gottaa]

		Light  	 	Medium  	Heavy  		Sentry  	Fighter
Amarr (EM) 	Acolyte 	Infiltrator 	Praetor 	Curator 	Templar
Caldari (kin) 	Hornet 		Vespa 		Wasp 		Garde 		Dragonfly
Gallente (therm)Hobgoblin 	Hammerhead 	Ogre 		Warden 		Firbolg
Minmatar (exp) 	Warrior 	Valkyrie 	Berserker 	Bouncer 	Einherji
Size 		5 m3 		10 m3 		25 m3 		25 m3 		5000 m3
Base Damage 	7.5 		12 		24 		50 		50/25

That being the case for Drones as well, how come the Hobgoblin is always the best bet ?

 

[Chick]

Because they do the most dps, and you sually send them against smaller targets where it's less important:
60% resist on 500 hp is a lot less relevant than a 60% resist on 3.5mil hp.

 

[Gottaa]

Bought hobgoblins this morning and went to collect them, I'm gonna be online all evening so will have a good thrash around and see how I get on

Lastly onto the missiles, I'm guessing as I'm gonna use EMP M, I should use sabretooth missiles as well ? And how many should I be buying to have a large enough stock for a few days play ? Didn't really use missile much in my Rifter so not sure how quickly missile ammo is used up.

Sabretooth	Flameburst	Bloodclaw	Piranha
EM 75HP		Therm 75HP	Kin 75HP	Expl 75HP

 

[Aciiid]

Don't wave those things near me, or i'll RLASG you.

 

[Chick]

The average rate of fire of an assault missile is 19.3 seconds.
A Level 2 mission should last between 8 and 27 minutes, with teh mean in the upper third of that. During that time you will usually have acceptable targets within missile range 68% of the time.
So you would fire 42.2 missiles per mission per launcher.

 

[Zed]

Then buy some more. Buy 2,500 of them that should do you for an hour or two of play

 

[Zed]

More NPC rats are suseptable to Therm damage. So just run with those and you will be fine. Zedanya flies exlclusivel with Gallente drones for missioning and whilst occasionaly it takes a bit of a while to break the bad guys tank i never have problems.

 

[Gottaa]

I'll look in the list I have in game, but I thought EMP ammo was the right stuff when I looked last. Home soon to try and make more sense of things

 

[Cullhaven]

I buy missiles im batches of 5000, found that level 1-2 missions mostly called for Bloodclaw so ended up dropping all the others and just getting a lot of those.