Originally by: The Fates

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I'm currently using a Raven for Level 3 mission running with Spacelane Patrol. I used a ferox for level 3's for quite a while before moving up to the Raven. I have less than 2 million skill points as of now and when I was running in the ferox had less than 1.5 million.

I moved up to the Raven not becuase its a better tank, but for the extra launcher hardpoint, plain and simple more damage. This lets me do the missions faster and make more isk. The Raven is by no means a better tank, in fact its worse and requires some adjustment in thinking and setup from the ferox to run the same missions. In fact, when I first got in the raven I had a *harder* time running the level 3 missions than I did in the ferox becuase I had lost the resistances on the shields I was used to having.

After changing the setup around and working on shield skills its a whole lot faster to run these missions now, and massive attack no longer makes me warp out on stage 3, which was to me, the hardest of all level 3's not to warp out on, so I never have to warp out anymore.

This is my personal experience with the game and these ships and you may not agree.

Also I gained cruise missiles, which contrary to what someone else here was saying I do more damage to frigates with cruise than I did with heavy missiles. This is even more of a help. Cruise missiles are far superior to heavy's in every way for level 3's and I use far less missiles now than I did with heavy missiles. It probably costs a little more, but I run the missions faster and it makes more money than before even with that additional cost so that is not a problem for me.

If I were you, I would upgrade. Before you get a raven get missile launcher operation 5 and cruise missiles, you can use the MLO skill while you are in the ferox. Don't bother training cruise up very high before you get your battleship skill to level 2. Then bring your cruise skill up a bit and make sure you train guided missile precision to help hit frigates. Make sure you can use at least 3 and preferably 4 or 5 drones.

Biggest problem you are going to have going from the ferox to a raven is in the shields, your resists suck compared to the ferox. I can almost guarantee you will have trouble with this at first but just experiment with a few things. To give you some idea of what you might need here is a sample layout for a low skill level three fitting with a raven.

I'm going to give vanilla descriptions but get the best you can afford and T2 as skills allow you to, as your fittings and skills improve you are well on your way to level four.

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