I spent some time last night looking at Rosewalker's skill sheet because he is about to finish training all the Tengu skills (Caldari Strategic Cruiser and the sub-system skills) up to 4 and today I start training for a Proteus. I can fly a Loki, but I tried flying one on the Singularity test server and didn't like the ship. I think a Tengu is more my speed, but I also hear a Proteus is pretty good also. After the Proteus, I'll move onto the Legion.
For those new to the blog, I should mention I've played EVE for over five years now and am just now learning the skills to fly tech 3 strategic cruisers, some of the sexiest ships in the game. Surprised? If so, let me knock your socks off. The only battleships I can even sit in, much less fly well, are the Minmatar battleships. Yes, that includes the tech 2 class ships the Vargur and the Panther, but those are the only ones.
In my opinion, bigger isn't necessarily better. I learned the Minmatar battleships because I set myself a goal of flying all of the Minmatar sub-capital class ships, but I never really fell in love with battleships. A battleship was just something I needed to fly in order to complete level 4 security missions. The Maelstrom was okay, but apart from undocking a Typhoon I bought in order to move it from Rens to my old high sec home, I haven't flown any other battleship. I even have the blueprints to build a Tempest Fleet Issue, but haven't bothered.
Now, moving to low sec may have something to do with my attitude. Battleships are slow, and the warp speed changes introduced in Rubicon just made the ships less attractive. One of the reasons for choosing to fly Minmatar as my first ships back in 2009 was that the ships are fast. I've flown battlecruisers in low sec, but I don't think I'd ever fly a battleship. Well, maybe a Marchariel, but those things get a 50% bonus to warp speed and warp acceleration. Getting a Marchariel might tempt me to drop Gallente Battleship into the skill queue.
That brings me back to Rosewalker's skill queue. Does he now start training the other races' battleships and the gunnery skills required to fly those ships? Or does he go ahead and train the specialized gunnery and missile skills from 4 to 5? When I set up the training plan a year ago, I planned on training for battleships. Now? I think I'm going to max out the skills first. I really enjoy flying the smaller ships. Also, since I'm going to start flying tech 3 cruisers, I might as well try to squeeze every ounce of performance out of them.
Of course, I do have one other thought on my mind. I need to have a ship stand watch over Wandering Rose while she mines and I've become too predictable in my Hound. Time to shake things up a bit. Besides, who ever heard of babysitting a Procurer in a battleship?
What NPC space do you play out in primarily? If it is Amarr space, you might want to reconsider the Loki. It is a fine ship against EM / Therm and the ability to switch ammo like a Tengu is of real value. Whatever T3 you choose to fly, I would get the subsystems to V, especially Electronics if you plan on exploring in one. But you do have to counter that against the massive nerf T3's are going to face very soon, when fozzie gets his way.
ReplyDeleteAlso consider if you are living in low sec, a battleship will be more a detriment than a help in many case, if you play solo or with 2 accounts.
I'm usually in Angel Cartel space.
ReplyDeleteAlways with the negative waves...
ReplyDeleteYou actually started off positive there, just to end up smackin' Fozzie's face... always with the negative waves. =\
Woof, woof!
ReplyDeleteIn the past, it made more sense to crosstrain races, in order to avoid the nerfbat to the current FOTM ships and weapons. Since Fozzie joined CCP and his fine work on ship tiericide, crosstraining has been much less of an issue.
ReplyDeleteSo, rather than crosstrain to fly every ship, I'd recommend training up all of your support skills to level 5, incl. any secondary weapon systems such as drones (assuming you haven't done so already), then knock off those level 5 specialization skills, one by one.
Consider, too... even if you *could* fly all the ships, would you? I can fly every subcap, and use every subcap weapon, in the game - but, I regularly fly only a small handful of ships.
Final note: regarding babysitting a Proc in a battleship. I've actually seen it done to great effectiveness, using a Domi.
gotta second the notion to train subsystems to V, gonna make a world of difference when you try to squeeze on a tight fit:)
ReplyDeleteI sat myself a goal when I started Eve way way back when of flying every Frigate in the game with 100% skills. After about 80ish million skill points I'm still another year, year and a half away. I'll be over 100 by the time it's done. There's some other stuff in there. I can fly a couple battleships and battle cruisers competently, not well. The bulk all comes back to that initial goal. Right now I'm chugging through 3 months of taking all rigging skills to 5. So trust me, I get it. But even though all my friends have long since gone onto larger specialized role ships well down the line for where I'm at with my training list.. I've never found it a waste. Even when clone costs became prohibitive to me actually flying the bulk of where all my SP sit. I created the ultimate utility character. I can do, everything. All ewar, all logistics, all.. well.. everything.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, making it to a battleship is nice I guess. But there's always something to be said for the little ships. With minimal training time they can hit about 80% of where I am on any of the ships I fly, and they'd actually get to figure out what they love. Play around with the little ships, learn what you like, and do that. I always try to tell newbies when I encounter one in the wild asking about things like this that there's no guarantee they'll even like battleships. I don't like mine. Especially after the speed nerf.