Maugrim McFiriba's Eve Online Journal

A while back I posted about the Narcissus Prime, my new Caldari Caracal. This time the Nemesis Prime is about to hit the drawing board as my first baby step into the Battlecruiser class of Caldari vessels.

The Nemesis will be my first Drake Battlecruiser primarily designed for PvE (i.e. missions and hunting NPC pirates in asteroid belts). I've been checking the prices recently and they ranged from 32 million to 35 million ISK depending on the regional market and of course time. I've seen prices as low as 30 million previously. Obviously it's quite a chunk of ISK to spend, and even more obviously it only gets worse when you go looking to purchase fittings! There are folk in Evolution Alliance who manufacture ships so I have a possible lead on an available Drake for sale within the Alliance.

Since it's a PvE designated ship for Level 2 and 3 missions and some NPC ratting, I won't be going overboard. While I'd love to outfit a new Drake with Tech 2 fittings, I neither have the skills nor the ISK (I have a lot of ISK - but could you fit a Tech 2 Drake for less than 50 million?). So I'm going with Named Modules for now.

Being a Drake, it's shield tanking is incredible. I'm likely to go with a passive tank since it leverages my skills better. I am really close to training Shield Operation 4 which will in turn let me train specific skills to increase Shield Amplifier resistances. I don't use active hardeners yet, and I prefer to train one particular tanking ability only. So a passive tank is inevitable. Energy Grid Upgrades will need another level here too to fit Shield Rechargers.

Besides the highs which will be filled with Heavy Missile Launchers, I may start looking into Rigs. I honestly haven't the foggiest idea about rigs since it hardly seemed worthwhile fitting them on a Cruiser which has laughed at every Level 2 mission (and even a few Level 3's) thrown at it. My Caracal with it's active shield tank is not a force to trifle with.

This whole turning point of entering Battlecruisers of course also means I will certainly be moving into Level 3 missions soon. Hopefully the additional ISK and salvage from these missions will let me enter the realm of viewing Cruisers as disposable items. I want to finish off a few longer running skills before making a few visits to lowsec with my +3 implants (which will obviously get lost when podkilled so long skills first before I lose them for a week or two of persistance and stubborn lowsec invading ).

I'm thinking I will make the journey down to the Alliance 0.0 space to start with just to get familiar with the route and see what trouble I can get into. I've never experienced a gatecamp, get ambushed by Pirates when lowsec ratting, see what happens to an Osprey sitting in a belt of Omber, and figure out what I can learn from those experiences that written guides can't quite convey.