Maugrim McFiriba's Eve Online Journal

It's been a few days since I christened the hull of the Nemesis Prime, my new Caldari Drake Battlecruiser. In that period I've pretty much shaken down how to effectively employ it on Level 3 missions, paying particular attention to it's benefits in extended ranged combat using Heavy Missiles, and sharpening up its backup against Frigate sized ships, i.e. the capability of deploying 5 Light Scout Drones, or 2 Medium Scout Drones and 1 Light.

After some deliberation I selected a fairly balanced approach to obtaining my next objective:
Fitting a Drake with only Tech II modules!

The problem with outfitting Tech II is of course my continued struggle with Powergrid capacity. I intend training Energy Management V once and for all just to get over at least part of that bump (presently the Drake in Tech I/Named configuration can only fit 6 Heavy Launcher Is). On the plus side, the reduced DPS is not a huge problem in Level 3 missions since I finished training sufficient skills to fit Tech II Shield Amplifiers to provide an even more powerful boost to shield resistances.

Given the Drake's tank is barely bothered by a few lowly Cruisers, I've elected to pump in more DPS instead of hitting more levels of tanking skills. The main ones being targeting are training Drones V and the whole assembly of Drone skills for durability, etc. up to at least level III. Possible IV for a few. End game on that path would be to finalise training for Tech II Drones. You see it's not the Cruisers in missions I'm worried about, it's the waiting for 6 Heavy Launcher Is to pop support Frigates which can take a while using Heavy Missiles with their garbage damage levels against Frigates.

Once I can pull off some serious trouble against support Frigates, I'll detour into Energy Management before the next phase - Tech II Heavy Launchers. This will come close to a fairly decent set of fittings for DPS:

7 x Heavy Launcher II
2 x NPC-Specific Shield Amps II
2 x NPC-Specific Medium Scout Drone II
1 x NPC-Specific Light Scout Drone II

That should add some signicant damage output - after a month and a half of dedicated training! Yes, I've finally hit the time to start pulling the long-haul skill levels.

Once these are done I have two more objectives for Tech II fittings:

Shield Power Relay II
Invulnerability Field II

After that long hard slog (quite a few weeks in there wouldn't you know!) I'll drop back to one of two skill routes.

The first option is to go full bore at improving the passive tank on the Drake by focusing on the Shield Amps - there are a set of damage specific skills that will help increase the resistance rates I get from the amps by a respectable amount. The second possible path is Gunnery + Minmatar Frigate/Cruiser.

After some thinking, I've started a few tenuous runs into training Minmatar Frigate III so I can least run around in a Rifter for some suicidal antics in the Frigate Tournament that CIDEV is running. The problem obviously, is that up to this point I have put a lot of training into missiles, and effectively nothing into Gunnery. To narrow the training window a little, I've set my shortest term ultimate goal on the Minmatar trail to being capable of flying a Hurricane Battlecruiser which has a solid reputation in PvP (unless I'm totally wrong). Obviously, I need more skills outside of Gunnery for this such as training up skills on the Armour tanking and resistances side. Given the 7 week training stint to get into a Drake, I'd judge I could climb into a Hurricane for some random ratting in highsec within a few short weeks of obtaining Tech II Heavy Missiles.

Thereafter the race will commence for sufficient skills to roll out a full rack of 425mm AutoCannon IIs with possibly a Tech II Heavy Launcher for some additional DPS, or an Energy Neutraliser for some variety, followed up the inevitable visit to Tech II armour tanking ability.

By the year 2167 I should be a reasonably skilled pilot specialised heavily for Caldari Drake and Minmatar Hurricane piloting. Maybe sooner if Evemon will allow it and suggest Learning skills while I run off and buy a few 10mil a pop implants next week .

During this training regimen, and depending on synergistic skill training, I will try to divert into Cruise Missiles primarily for the time I can afford to purchase a Caldari Raven. Though to be honest, I'm not really attracted to poop-a-like Raven's design. The space-turd is however a impressive ship for running missions in and I'm not a million miles away from being able to find a few low quality Level 4 agents in the Caldari Navy.