Mission alt update

Drones.  Very useful… takes forever to train.  I’ve been working on drones for my missioner for almost 2 weeks now.  Drones 1-5, Scouting Drones 1-5 and then the drone support skills to lvl 3 or 4.  (pondering whether I even want logistic and/or heavy drones.)

I am now flying a Harbinger.  With T2 drones now a reality, it has become quite nice.  I am still lacking in firepower, but I am planning on training Medium Energy Turret 5 while working in London next week.

My Harbinger can handle lvl3 missions consistently, and I haven’t needed to refer to the web for reference.  My current set up is to send the harbinger with armor mods activated into the fray, and eventually send a salvaging Rokh in afterwards.  (I know there’s better ships, but the Rokh looks kewl, and I didn’t need extra training for my Caldari pilot.)

My Rokh has armor repair drones, which I have needed on a couple missions, like Recon where I didn’t notice that I just had to warp in.. not kill everything, or on a couple other missions where killing was, um… optional.  (I’m here to pew pew with this guy, after all.)

Now I’m beginning to approach a decision… should I A) go for a T3 cruiser, or B) go for a BS.  I am tempted to cruiser since I could afford it, but the BS may be more practical .  Regardless, I have swapped missioning people so I need to work back up to lvl3 missions before deciding.  I found a nice combat mission agent to help me along for the pew pew.  I should hopefully be done with drones before too long (need EWAR drones still), and then it’s back to pew pew skills.  Cruiser V may be worth it for T2 ships and a T3, I need the lvl5 core skills anyway.  Although the BS may just make more sense from a cost perspective.  Hopefully, I can have time tonight to read up on Legion T3 PvE feasibility.

Next day- having looked.. Legions stink for PvE.  So, while there may be a lot of utility for a Legion, my goal for this character is to have him only mission.  Looks like BS route for me!  My current plan (with tons of travel coming up) is to train Medium Lasers 5, grab the specialty skills and more gunnery, then dive right into BS training.  During this time, I should hopefully have lvl4 skills open in Amarr space for the new corp I’m working on.  (Searched for a corporation’s final lvl4 agent that is near my industry base, so my salvager doesn’t have far to travel.)

Eve Missioning

I have been messing around with my missioner alt for the past few nights. He’s lvl1, has almost all the needed skills to satisfy the basic certificates that matter (Core Proficiency – shield skills, armor tanking, frigate laser turrets), and I now have Amarr Frigate 4 in queue to start the cruiser training regimen; which is basically medium turrets and a few more ‘core’ skills like EWAR and electronics / engineering / mechanic / navigation to levels 4 or 5; and maybe mwd training is in order. (‘Running’ / non-warp flying is the most frustrating waste of time for me.)




A few comments on my missioning ‘break’:

=The pew pew of lvl1 missions is pretty boring. A few intense points, but the travel time is painful. 80km away? At least I’m in a frigate that can Afterburner I at 600m/s. BC travel times are going to hurt… mwd training time, I think.

=The number of foes requires you to pretty much skill in tanking, which decreases your pew pew training potential. I like things going boom, but taking on 12 frigs at once (happened a couple times) seems a bit much. I didn’t have a problem completing it, and the worst ‘damage’ I took was 60% armor gone. I now have the passive armor resist skills; and the worst damage I have taken since has been 10% structure. Lvl2 missions may be in order, but I want a proper cruiser first.

=I have been sending my indy/orca character along in a catalyst to salvage / loot the missions. This probably saves at least 20m / mission, as I can tractor in up to 5 wrecks at a time. I did need to spend 1 day of supplemental training for my indy/orca pilot, but it’ll be worth it. The main drawback: I now need to travel this toon to the missioning area… more time traveling. In the Viator this only takes 5-10m, but still. Another drawback of trying not to make any faction mad: I don’t have jump clones for most of my characters. Even then, a 24hr cooldown is quite a bit. I should start sending my providence (different account) up to Jita for trading instead of my indy/orca pilot.

=The salvage has been great, and I have noticed how much salvage prices have increased since my last major rig construction project. I was sitting on 200-300m of salvage 3 months ago. That’s up probably 20-30% now. May be time to start making more rigs in between my various T2 items.

=Higher level courier missions always seemed ‘worth’ it. Lvl1 couriers to move a 10m3 item 7 jumps for 0.01 standing is just… bleh. The reward+bonus was ~75k, which is ok, I guess. Takes 7-10m to do (down, dock/hand-in and back), and I’ve done it 4x..



A typical lvl1 combat mission, with 100% looting/salvaging in tandem with my catalyst pulls around 500-550k, and takes 20-30m. This is at a ‘casual’ pace where I’m not trying to ‘push’ for time or efficiency. About 60-70% of the take from lvl1 missions is from salvage, and 20% from reward +bonus. If you’re new to eve and want to make isk; see if you can get in a destroyer and run a tractor beam + salvager setup with an agree-able Lvl4 missioner. You should be able to pay for your lvl2-3 mission ship + mods within a week, easily.



I am now to the point of deciding whether to train for T2 lasers, or go for a cruiser. In plugging into EFT, the Omen would be a much bigger dps increase than going for T2 lasers, and I could jump in the ship in a shorter period of time. I also looked at the Maller, but I feel my resistance skills should be sufficient for Lvl2 missions; without needing to sacrifice that much potential dps for tank. With my main (who does lvl4 missions in a passive T2 mod Drake), I greatly overpowered missions when I actually did them, having BC skills by the time I did my first mission. This character I am playing more while I ‘build him up’; at least… for now. While I’ll need T2 lasers eventually, I’m thinking of hopping into a cruiser now. T2 missions aren’t that rough, and for 5m, I should be able to fully fit an Omen for mission running, which would triple my dps.

New missioner alt

Missioning is not generally my thing. I started eve as a miner, and have moved to industry / PI (with some mining when I feel like it). There are times, however, when I want to pew pew. The problem with my other operations is that I can’t really afford to reach a negative standing with anyone. I NEED to travel across Eve to make iskies on occasion. I don’t want to be tied to any one empire. So, when one of my alt miners finished up his hulk + support skills regimen (drones, capacitor, shield tanking, freighter, transport); I started an Amarr missioner alt where I don’t care if he’s -10 with Minnie or Gallente. I *just* finished his learning skills and cha skills (cha skills using first remap). So, my non-learning skills are currently:


Non-scanning PI skills @ 4 (ie: 5 planets with Adv CC) – not using now, but I was already specc’d Charisma.

Social 5

Negotiation 5

Connections 4



I didn’t want to buy other Connections skill books, because I have no clue where I’m going to end up missioning.



So now my toon is ready to start the ‘fun’ skills. First things up in queue (while I’m at work) are:

Amarr Frigate 3
Survey 3 (for salvaging)
Gunnery 3
Hull Upgrades 1+2
Energy Grid Upgrades 1+2
Rapid Firing 1+2
Sharpshooter 1+2
Motion Prediction 1+2
Controlled Burst 1+2
Energy System Management 1+2
Energy System Operation 1+2
Shield Management 1
Salvaging 1



Whew… now bad for 1 day of non-learing skills training. I should be able to finish the last 4-5 missions of the advanced military tutorial later tonight after this. Flying around with Meta4 guns and civilian mods got me through the tutorial missions for manufacturing, trading, and initial military; but I was quickly becoming outclassed on the advanced military missions. After several days of training, I can finally start getting pew pew skills. My initial plans is to get a Harbinger trained up for some ‘easy’ lvl 4 missions, starting with the punisher, moving to Omen / Maller then Harbinger. Eventually I will learn skills for the Abaddon, but that will take awhile. I won’t be able to stomach a pew pew every night thing, but when I get the urge to blow stuff up, at least I can do it with this toon without the need to worry about negative standings. Who knows, eventually I may get standings high enough to anchor POS in high sec… ya, right. I don’t mission nearly enough for that to be a reality. Although COSMOS missions/rewards may eventually be possible. Would definitely want the Abaddon for those… probably with a Domi rep / salvage partner (one of my alts has most of those skills already, but for Destoryers).

For now, I am planning on flushing out my Punisher and starting in on an Omen or Maller.  I should be cap stable on the Punisher here within a few days.

One of the really nice things about Eve, is that if you get bored with one thing (mining / scanning) you can easily do something else (T2 manufacturing / PI / Missions).
Although… I just noticed I can top 100m / night again mining… That’s 500m / week, easy. I do get bored after 2 Orca fills (~1hr). That would mean only 41m, but still.