Hi folks,

Just started playing recently. I've read TONS of guides and watched at least twice as many videos, and I've learned a lot. One thing I've learned is that you shouldn't rush into ships your not ready for. I think I MIGHT have done that, but I'm not sure, looking for some advice.

I recently trained for a Vexor. I was going to wait til I had Drones V, but my standing went up fast enough with the corp I'm working for to start doing lvl 2 missions. I found a fit online that looked pretty good, so I copied and trained whatever skills I needed to in order to fit it out. So I find a station with 2 lvl 2 agents, get a mission called Mission of Mercy, and end up warping away 8 drones down and 7% hull!!

This could have been disastrous because I spent all my money on the ship and fittings and didn't even have enough to insure it! Level 1 missions just melted away like nothing, they were super easy. Now level 2 missions are a whole new ballgame. I'm concerned that I am not ready for them skill/equipment wise, though it could be just my lack of actual playing skill that's the biggest factor.

If there's a way to link my skills and ship, please let me know, so you can see what I'm working with. I did read something about fitting long-range ammo and trying to beat them from a distance. Thus far I've only really used antimatter charges on my Dual 150mm railguns. I'll try Iron and see how it goes. In the meantime, any advice you can give me with respect to something I should train up asap, or some technique to fighting these tougher missions would be awesome.

Thanks in advance!
~Dade

If you have the proper skills, and a very good ship/fittings in theory you should be able to do lvl2s in a frigate even.

Mission of Mercy is one of the harder Level 2s as well.

I made a little bit of research, you started a week ago, you absolutely can't have the proper skills to fly a cruiser.

You should fly a destroyer. I would suggest the catalyst.
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Catalyst

I guess the fitting posted there is a good one. I have no clue about gallente ships. :-D

If you don't have the money to buy a catalyst, sell your vexor, a vexor should be around 10m, a catalyst is around 1m.

Once you have some skills to fly your catalyst, and have a decent fitting (the link has a suggestion for upgrades too), you should try the sisters epic arc, as already suggested above.

if you don't want to sell your vexor, I think by doing the tutorial missions in gallente space you get a catalyst as the reward for the advanced military quest arc.

This is wrong.

In a week's play you can definitely fly a cruiser with all supporting skills at or above level 3 and that is plenty to get started with.

This belief that you have to have your skills at 5 is silly.

Yes, level 5 skills definitely help and getting your core skills to 5 is definitely an asset but it isn't needed. Flying around with skills at level 3 is doable and works just fine.

To get a gallente character into a vexor with -all- support skills at 3 (including medium energy turrets) takes a total of just over 5 days without optimizing attributes or using the cerebral accelerator.

Adding a few choice skills to 4 and you'll be at a week played and have no difficulties.

You can even have tech 2 drones at a week's played if you wanted to with all the other skills at 3 or better.

This is wrong.

In a week's play you can definitely fly a cruiser with all supporting skills at or above level 3 and that is plenty to get started with.

This belief that you have to have your skills at 5 is silly.

Yes, level 5 skills definitely help and getting your core skills to 5 is definitely an asset but it isn't needed. Flying around with skills at level 3 is doable and works just fine.

To get a gallente character into a vexor with -all- support skills at 3 (including medium energy turrets) takes a total of just over 5 days without optimizing attributes or using the cerebral accelerator.

Adding a few choice skills to 4 and you'll be at a week played and have no difficulties.

You can even have tech 2 drones at a week's played if you wanted to with all the other skills at 3 or better.

From the looks...

Yes you likely rushed up to that cruiser way to fast (you were able to sit in it, but couldn't fly it properly due to lack of support skills).

Now some advice.

How can you POSSIBLY give advice without knowing what his goals are? Is he looking to PVP? PVE? Some of each?

How can you POSSIBLY give advice without knowing what his goals are? Is he looking to PVP? PVE? Some of each?

How can you POSSIBLY give advice without knowing what his goals are? Is he looking to PVP? PVE? Some of each?

Thank you all so much for such great advice. Here is a link to my evepages character info:

http://eveboard.com/pilot/Dade_Dromidus

I don't see where you can look at my current ship, so I'll list what I got here, hopefully that's somewhat helpful

HIGH
3x Dual 150mm Prototype Gause Gun
1x Drone Link Augmentor

MEDIUM
2x Cap Recharger II
1x Experemental 10mn Afterburner

LOW
1x Medium 'Acomodation' Vestment (armor repair)
1x Drone Damage Amplifier I
1x Magenetic Field Stabilizer I
2x Armor Hardener I (type depends on mission)

RIGS
3x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

DRONES
7x Hobgoblin I
8x Hammerhead I

(I can fire 4 drones at one time)

Some more info: I did finish the epic arc. I thought I could kill the last boss with the vexor but I wasn't doing enough damage. I could, however, tank him all day long, unfortunately he could tank me all day long too :D

I did end up finishing that mission. I realized if I took out the frigates first, then I wasn't taking nearly as much damage and could tank the rest of the cruisers. It was still kind of tough, and I probably spent as much, if not more, in repairs and drone replacement than I made off the rewards, but I did it and I was proud lol.

As for my goals, honestly I would like to do some PvP at some point, but I also want to do some deadspace dungeons (I forget what they're called, sorry) and some exploration. Basically all combat. I've tried to do some mining and it just bores me to pieces, so I will stick to combat.

Thank you all again for being so helpful, I really do appreciate it very much.

Take care,
~Dade

So after looking at your fit/skills I see one big and one minor issues first you Need armor resistance skills this will reduce the amount of damage taken second because of the limited gunnery skills I would replace the mag stabs in your lows with an energized adaptive nano and either a 400 plate later changeing to an 800 or a damage control. But that's my oppinion till your skills are better then switch to more gank.

why woud you need a plate on a pve ship? a damage control i can see instead of the hardeners because it gives you cheap resistances as well as buffer but a plate is a wasted slot at this point.