Nemesis Prime: Bringing home the ISK

Over the weekend I finally spent some time, with a new set of Powergrid saving skills, outfitting my new Caldari Drake Battlecruiser. At a cost of roughly 33 million ISK for the ship, and probably half that again on the modules, it truly was an exercise in careful budgeting and trade offs. I'm taking it as a sign that I won't think about buying anything bigger for at least another month (honestly, probably two).

The current fitting is a mixture of Tech 1 and Named modules (and no rigs yet):

High Slots:
6 x 'Limos' Heavy Launcher

Mid Slots:
3 x Large F-S9 'Regolith' Extender
1 x V-M15 Braced Multispectral Shield Matrix
2 x NPC-Specific Shield Amplifier

Low Slots:
3 x Shield Power Relay I
1 x Ballistic Control I

Drones:
2 x Medium Scout Drones
1 x Small Scout Drone

Since we're talking about budgeting and tradeoffs, the experts in the audience will spot precisely two obvious ones. Firstly, I have 3 Shield Power Relay Is instead of 4. The simple fact is that cutting my capacitor recharge further would leave the named Invulnerability Field running out of cap after a while. I haven't had time to experiment whether losing the invuln field is worth the extra shield recharge rate. Secondly I have 6 Heavy Launchers fitted, and not 7. Simply put - I don't have the powergrid available (65 short of the mark) to fit a seventh. I have skills in training to try to open up another 65 grid to fit the seventh launcher. In the meantime I'll see whether a Standard Assault Launcher will do temporarily. The final 8th slot is not a launcher hardpoint - might go with a Salvager I if nothing else strikes my fancy.

Overall, my DPS is far lower against Frigates than if I were in a Cruiser! But the tanking is far more vital for the Level 3 missions I'll be running this week where Cruisers are more numerous. In those a Caracal would crack like an egg very quickly (as I found out in one Level 2 mission where I met 3 Cruisers head on and the dreaded Eve lag left my Caracal unresponsive to commands), whereas the Drake takes the damage and laughs in your face.

The first test of the new Nemesis Prime was in a level 3 Damsel In Distress mission (the one where Kruul's DNA is a looted item). Tanking damage using both the passive shield tank, and the advantage of my ranged missile envelope (up to 58km thus far with a 65km targeting window), I completed the mission without too much worry. The shields tightened up at roughly the 40% mark and refused to push lower (being a passive tank, if the tank looks like it will break it's time to pray you aligned on a warp target ).

The result is a solid investment towards a Level 3 Mission ship.

Now look at the return .

My first Level 3 mission offered 90,000+ ISK bounties on ships. The end reward was close to 800,000 ISK. I did not have time to salvage the mission wrecks. If I'm reserved I'll say a total of 2,600,000 ISK was at least feasible before salvage. Might not be consistent across all level 3 missions - I don't have that much experience with them yet.

That's perhaps 7-8% of the cost of a new Drake hull. Or it's enough to start converting those Tech 1/Named modules currently fitted into better Named or Tech 2 variants (depending on skills). Once I can meet the requirements of fitting Tech 2 modules on the Nemesis Prime, it will be a superior Level 3 mission runner. Possibly even capable of some careful Level 4 missions.

That's a staggering turnaround! Compared to Level 2 missions this is a suspiciously vast improvement. On one of my final Level 2 missions (at the highest available quality and a 5.8 Agent standing) I was getting up to 400k per mission maximum not including salvage or bounties.

The age old question of the biggest bang for my new bucks is a tricky one. I want Tech 2 modules to increase DPS (I can carry drones but I've not trained them extensively enough to make a huge difference) and tanking. At the same time I really want to go on a splurge and buy more skill books - I now also have an Alt seeking expensive 5mil a pop books . Specifically Guns for Maugrim since he is cross training a few racial skills to test drive a few new frigates (currently looking at the Rifter).