Shereza
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Posted - 2011.02.06 22:13:00 -
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 Originally by: NoNah
Frigates and destroyers should be handled with drones.
This really only holds true if the frigates are inside your ability to destroy them in 1-2 (obviously if you ungroup your guns the exact number of gunshots will change) full volleys. If they're outside of that range, and more especially if they're the webbing/scrambling sort, it makes much more sense to blow them to dust bunnies before they even close to drone range.
Likewise when the frigates are significantly out of your drone range and the NPC battleships and battlecruisers are significantly outside of your optimal DPS range it really doesn't make sense to not potshot the smaller ships while you wait for the larger ships to get close. Sitting there pelting battleships at 80km with thorium is, in my opinion, a bigger waste of time and money than pelting the frigates at 50km with anti-matter.
If you're flying missions with multiple ships the idea of taking out frigates, and destroyers, with your drones goes completely out the window. I run three battleships in missions these days and I usually have my machariel, and often enough my navy apoc., dedicated to anti-frigate work while my nightmare starts belting out those lovely tachyons at battleships and battlecruisers.
I'm not stating that you shouldn't use drones against smaller ships, not by a long shot. My point is simply that a bald statement like yours implies that you should never, ever, use guns against frigates and destroyers despite that there are many instances where it makes much more sense to use your guns and take them out early than it does to let them close in, start damaging you, and become a nuisance.
Originally by: Cataca
Mission rats dont blow up because you out-tank them, you need damage for that.
You're right, ships don't blow up because you "out-tank" them, they blow up because the DPS you put out exceeds their ability to repair damage. Unfortunately, many of the people in this topic (not the thread) seem to vastly over-estimate the amount of damage that that actually is. A drake can take out the worst battleships in the game, albeit very slowly, doing only 220-250 rDPS. Hell, I went AFK once with a nighthawk in a mission to take a 30m or so bath, and when I got back its light drones had cleared out all but two battleships while there had been about 30 ships, including 6 or so battleships, when I left.
I'm not saying that more firepower isn't better or that you shouldn't try to pack as big a punch as (realistically) possible, but the amount of rDPS you need to eventually blow stuff up is much lower than many people here seem to think.
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The fact is that the rokh will be slow in completing missions if you use it solo. Its best performance is in missions like Damsel in Distress, Stop the Thief, Blockade, Gone Berserk, Worlds Collide (for the first room), and similar missions where you can isolate rats at ranges of 120km or more from your ship and pound them with impunity. Barring that missions where you aren't the focus and can manuever more freely with a blaster setup are also good, but that requires two ships to pull off.
Even in those roles the megathron can do better. In point of fact with 3 Fed. Navy Omni Links, T2 wardens, and 425mm T2 railguns a navy megathron can toss out 414 rDPS at 130km optimal, 30km falloff, without damage mods (550 w/4 T2 mods) while a rokh does 307 at 146km with 350mm and 3 faction damage mods.
Regardless, the rokh is viable. Slow and inefficient, but viable. As such it should only be flown by people who know ahead of time that there are faster alternatives and don't care or by pilots operating strictly in a fire support role in missions where the rokh's normally detrimental properties are an asset.
My personal recommendation is to keep flying the raven to make money, but feel free to fly the rokh when you want to have fun so long as you recognize that a megathron would generally be superior.
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