Friday, September 19, 2008

Ooh, a shiny battlecruiser!

Due to the focus on missions since my last post, I've been training some mission-related skills. After almost losing 2 tanked Vexor cruisers on the first stage of a 3-stage Recon mission, I decided that it was a mission requiring a bigger tank than what I could have on the cruiser. When the pirate rats take your tanked cruiser into structure before you've even gotten halfway to the acceleration gate, then you need to change ships.

Advice on the pilot message boards said to use a shuttle. I did - it got destroyed before it even travelled a single km.

So battlecruiser it was....

After training up, I went to the shipyard. Oooh, look at that - a Myrmidon! Damn that's a hot looking ship. Here's my card, transfer it to my hangar - thank you!

I fit it as a tank, and it sure did work a treat. Those damn pirate rats got it down to 2% armour, but I reached that acceleration gate and moved on to the next stage of the Recon mission.

A bit annoying I had to spend a 40m on the ship and fittings to complete a mission that made me only 250k.... but that's ok. It's an investment into my future. With a battlecruiser at my disposal, it'll last me for quite a few missions.

The Myrmidon has definitely been a good investment. It has drone and armour repairing bonuses, and considering I'm pretty much a drone specialist, it works really well. There have been very few missions at this stage (apart from Recon) that have actually gotten through the shields before my Hammerhead II drones rip them all apart.

It's funny... I still can't avoid seeking to fight other pilots. I think it's in my blood, even if I am a dismal failure at it.

After refitting it for real combat against other pilots, I've taken it on patrols through a few lowsec systems, looking for someone to fight. But strangely enough, where they've been out hunting me in my cruisers and frigates, they don't seem to want to deal with the battlecruiser...

In the same time that I would have lost 3 cruisers, I couldn't find anyone while in my battlecruiser.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

So anyway, it's nice to be on a path to making decent money. My agents recently upgraded from a low quality level II, to a high quality level II. I'm looking forward to moving on to level III missions soon. Once that happens I'll start training up for a battleship, so I can take on those level IV missions. Bring on the money!

To help with that, I've ventured into salvaging. My ship is fitted with a single railgun to gather agro where necessary, and has a drone link augmentor to extend my drone range, and the rest of the turret slots are fitted with tractor beams and salvagers. It was pretty frustrating crawling around to all the wrecks to loot them, but now I can pull them to me AND salvage them! Much faster, and lots more money to be made. I... like it!

I want a Force Recon ship. That's my long term goal right now. If anyone has any suggestions on which one I should be going for, please tell me now, so that I can start training appropriately.

4 comments:

  1. It seems like I flew my pair of Myrmidons forever. Ive only ever lost one in PVP combat, and that was mostly due to a disconnect. They tank great and the drone bonuses give fantastic damage even with the bandwith nerf. I used them to solo level 4s with near impunity. Once I went solo into low sec, and just as you, few wanted anything to do with me. You can get the resists up into the 70% range pretty easily, and the 3 rig slots will come in handy for extra power or additional tank. Look into a dual armor rep setup and you will be unstoppable.

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  2. I'd love you to tell me how you get the resists up to 70%, so I can do the same!

    I'm also training up for T2 medium armour reps, so that I can run 2 of them at the same time.

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  3. Force Recons:

    Falcon: Great ECM, but DPS is total pants, and paper thin armour.

    Pilgrim: Not great EW, but ok DPS with drones and NOS/Neut offense.

    Rapier: Awesome webbing abilities, but upcoming nano-nerf might make it hard to keep alive.

    Arazu: Good DPS, but Damps are not awesome and bonus to warp disruption is not great either.

    None of them are super-great solo, but the Falcon and Rapier are very good gang ships, Arazu and Pilgrim are not too bad for flying alone.

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  4. thanks Kirith, I think I might work towards the Pilgrim...

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