Syllar Stobar
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Posted - 2011.10.11 20:45:00 -
[1] - Quote
Having recently brought several players into Eve for PvE play I have to say that the people I've managed to keep playing Eve all followed the drake path.
The Drake Path:
Kestrel->Caracal->Drake
Train fitting skills, Standard Missiles up to 3, Missile Launcher Operation 5, and lots of Engineering skills. Toss in Jury Rigging 3, Shield Rigging, a couple levels of Electronics and Weapon Upgrades, Afterburner 4, and finally Hull Upgrades 4. Toss in Heavy Missiles at the end and you can have a mostly tech 2 fit tanking Drake in about 17 days.
It takes another 15 or so days to get Tech 2 missile launchers which you want only for their cost efficiency over Arbalests though you may need to add another 5 days to that for better fitting skills to handle their additional power grid/CPU cost.
That means they can get into a well fitted drake in about the time it takes for their "refer a friend" account pass to expire. Though, once they sub theyGÇÖll have about 4 hours of training to get into the drake. They should have plenty of money if they did the Tutorials and the Eve starter epic arc which I also highly stress to my new to eve friends.
A couple of reasons into why this recommendation:
I spent about an hour and a half trying to explain to a friend how Projectile Damage works. In contrast I spent about 5 minutes explaining the complexities of missiles.
In summary: Missiles: Your Targets speed, Sig Radius, and Distance matter. The Smaller the target the less damage you do, the faster the target the less damage you do, if itGÇÖs out of range you do no damage, use EFT to figure out your range. Train Missile skills to ignore most of that when you have time. Finally, new players should only worry about two ammo types for missioning, Kinetic against almost everything, and EM for everything else (because of the 15-25% Kinetic damage bonus based on training). Ignore assault missiles for PvE, their damage bonus is crap compared to the range loss.
Proper turrets are much MUCH worse to explain: for Projectile, Hybrid weapons, and Lasers you need to know about, speed, sig radius, distance of enemy, distance for falloff, distance for optimal, angular velocity, tracking speed, damage type, capacitor use, and ammo type (short range/medium range/long range) which all affect your damage. Then youGÇÖll want to use Eve survival to look up damage types to know what ammo you should bring as youGÇÖll want Medium range improved tracking for most targets, and low range High damage for harder to kill targets. Depending on the mission you may also want long range low damage ammo as youGÇÖll deal more damage at max targeting range if youGÇÖre using artillery. Compound this by the ridiculously short range of Autocannons and Blasters and the horrible tracking of artillery and Pulse Lasers and you now need mechanisms to fix their flaws which is either tracking enhancers and webs for Autocannons (so you can hit the fast moving swarming frigates which seems backwards but even with their better tracking speeds they are still too low) or Drones, Missiles, and Afterburners for artillery as anything that gets close and moves fast is pointless to try and kill with those gunsGǪ
Another hour later I have a confused friend.
Drones are actually easier to explain but their training time and ship availability make them less of an option. Few people want to fly lima beans through space, and even if they like the idea of drones getting into a drake is a good start as you then go into a Gila which is a solid level 4 mission runner in my experience. Alternatively you can fly some very nice Pirate ships (the ones I recommend to my drone friends) but they are incredibly expensive compared to their non-faction versions.
Of the five people I have helped bring into the game three are currently playing. They ALL went missiles and Drake. The other two tried to do something different. One went Hybrid Guns (as much as I tried to sway them from that route) and quit because it took them 2-3x as long to clear missions as the missile boats did. The other went drones and got bored before they really got into any of the interesting aspects of the game.
Of the people playing Drakes, one is heading towards a Caldari Navy Raven, one is currently flying a ridiculously over powered Tengu, and the other is heading towards Covert Ops/Stealth Bombers with a Tengu mission runner.
I would have loved to bring more players to Minmatar but my own experience with the race has been one of jealousy. While it will eventually pay off, the training time is extreme. What I have noticed is that my friend in the Tengu that started three months after me has a significantly easier time killing in level 4 missions with a similar tank. His Tengu can pull 400dps at maximum targeting range (80k), and a passive shield tank with an EFT value omni-tank of 400 on a good looking ship.
To get anywhere near those DPS numbers in my Loki I have to use drones and short range ammo meaning I have to be within 15k of my target. To get anywhere near that range I have to use long range ammo that hits for only half of what my short range ammo does. The ship is powerful and a really good place for new players to target for level 4 missioning. With the flexibility it offers they have several avenues they can start exploring to see if they enjoy that gameplay.
Thus, the drake is a great way to set up a player for mission based financing of their careers. ItGÇÖs pretty easy to bring a 3 week old player into level 4GÇÖs with an experienced pilot to help clean up. TheyGÇÖll only be pulling 150-200 dps but theyGÇÖll be able to survive long enough with a basic tank to at least leave the mission if they get too much aggro. Inside a week or two of moderate missioning (2-3 hours a night, or 10-12 hours a week) they should have enough money to fund whatever ship they want to get into next.
_WAter_ |