Mission progression
29th July 2008 – 7.26 amPenny Abramovic's Salvaging Enterprise is continuing quite nicely. The recent recovery of two alloyed tritanium bars and three melted capacitor consoles amongst all the wrecks, which just happened to be floating in space near my Caracal with the smoking launchers, made over two million ISK alone, and that was only part of the recoverable salvage.
Along with running the salvage operation, the two agents of Haatamo have been providing me with reliable missions for profit and reputation. Their relatively high levels of 17 and 18 provide the same level one missions I am familiar with but for good rewards. It was also quite refreshing to be contacted by a storyline agent asking me to meet with him in Haatamo, rather than having to jump half-way across the region only to deliver some veldspar.
With both salvaging and missions letting me rake in the money, with the added benefit of them being synergistic activities, my wallet has been looking quite nicely stuffed recently. At least, when compared to the pennies I had when I started being a capsuleer. I'm still a fair distance away from looking at the brochures for a shiny new battleship, but at least I can comfortably replace my cruiser should I need to.
Being able to replace my cruiser is not a particular concern when running missions at the moment. When all I am facing are the smaller ships that have turret-mounted weapons I have even stopped my ship's engines and let the rats come to me, because my missiles take them down quickly and it speeds up the travelling between wrecks for salvaging. The larger ships with missiles present a greater threat, but nothing particularly challenging with a shield recharger and a large capacitory.
However, another cursory glance through the Caldari Navy agent list revealed that there is a small number of low quality level two agents available to me. I have no idea what a level two mission will entail, in terms of danger and reward, but I am interested in finding out. This is why I am thinking about being able to replace my cruiser. I hope that I can be prepared enough to take on the new level of mission, but it's good to know that I can afford a mistake or two as well.
I have yet to select my first contact with a level two agent, because as well as investigating their locations for a suitably system it will also involve a bit of time to move a few bits of equipment around and get prepared. I'd rather not rush this process, and I'm sure I'll be running my first level two mission soon.
7 Responses to “Mission progression”
Move up levels as soon as you can get a ship that can run them efficiently. Even the lowest quality level 2 agent will give better rewards than the highest quality level 1 agent.
Your Caracal will be just fine for level 2's.
You can build a mean passive tank out of your Caracal for running L2 missions. I have one myself and it's got over 6200hp in shields - no mission has even come close to tapping out my shields, including some nasty L2s where you leap into face 1 BC and 2 Cruisers. The heavy missiles do take 100hp whacks out of the shields though. I completely agree with the previous comment, step up as quickly as possible. The rewards still don't out pace what you'll make salvaging, but the LP rewards and the standings increase make it all worth it!
Fly safe!
-Tolthis
Trader's Academy [Blue Sky Consortium]
Yeah, I think I have 2 medium shield extenders and 2 mission-specific resistance hardeners for my Caracal tank. I fit an afterburner for my 5th medium slot to speed things up a bit.
If you keep close to optimal (I think for me it's 49500km for Assault Missile Launchers) range on the NPC's, you will be just fine.
Just double-checked my setup. It's 2 large shield extenders not medium. And my optimal range is 34.7km not 49.5km. I was thinking of my Drake setup with Heavy Missiles.
Thanks for the tips.
How can I tell my optimal range? My light missiles strike the targets out to about 45 km, but as that seems to be their maximum range I'm supposing it isn't optimal.
If you're lazy like me, you just look at the number in EFT. But you can figure out the max (optimal) range of a missile by multiplying the max velocity (in meters/second) by the max flight time. There can be bonuses from skills, implants and ship bonuses so it's best to look at a missile's info in your launcher and not in cargo.
Also, it takes some time for a missile to get up to its max velocity so the true maximum range will always be a little less than that number.
My calculation gives me an optimal range of just over 50 km, which gives a decent amount of space to keep between my ship and my target.