Tuesday, April 12, 2005

My Blasterix And I

A good week and a half into level three missions and I'm rolling along nicely now. I still avoid rogue drones, but I don't see that lasting much longer. With the exception of Silence The Informant (what I hear of the second stage leads me to believe my Brutix will be totally overwhelmed) I think it's time to delve into that danger pool. The level three Angel Surprise, destructor of my original Brutix, reared its head at last and I confidently tore it apart. It wasn't a walkover (I had to warp out once to be safe) but I've finally put that demon to rest! That and Mordu's Headhunters are the only two missions I need to warp out from, so that's not bad going. My Brutix setup for all level three missions, for those drifting here by Google, is as follows:

High Slots:
3x named Medium Ion Blasters (with Antimatter ammo)
4x named Small Neutron Blasters (with Antimatter ammo most of the time)

Medium Slots:
Named 10mn Afterburner
Named (X5) Webber
2x Cap Recharger Is

Low Slots:
1600mm Nanofiber plate
Tech II Medium Armour Repairer
Named Energised Thermal Plating
Named Energised Kinetic Plating
Named Energised Explosive Plating

Drone Bay:
5x Hammerheads (Mediums)
4x Infiltrators (Mediums)

The weaponry is working very well, with the three medium blasters doing plenty of damage for punching cruisers, and the small blasters also chewing through quite nicely, whilst having the benefit of hitting frigates more often. I don't think I'd want a fourth medium blaster, but I would love to be able to replace one or more of the Ions with medium Neutrons.

The named afterburner is essential as you need all the speed you can get to make this work as a blaster boat. Navigation trained to level five and Acceleration Control trained to level four is also pretty essential. I'd like to replace one or both of those Cap Rechargers with Cap Recharger IIs, but the pricing is prohibitive.

The Tech II repairer is essential if you want to make the best use of the Brutix bonus (you should have the Battlecruiser skill trained to level four, which yields 384 armour repaired each cycle). You're never going to be fast moving, so the more armour you can repair in a short period of time, the better. Equally handy is having as much armour as possible, which is wear the 1600mm plate comes in. You could gain even more armour by going for a different type of plating, but I don't fancy sacrificing more than 5% of my speed for it, hence the Nanofiber.

Dropping like a (not particularly fast) hammer onto my targets is tremendous fun, and is working out very well so far.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Extravagant

Settling in the end for just upgrading to a Tech II Medium Armour Repairer I took the plunge last night and continued to do level 3 agent missions. I had an easy start to the night when I was dispatched to take down three frigates and one cruiser, followed by a courier run that was no problem for my speedy Atron. Skipping a request to "Silence The Informant" (the longest, hardest level 3 rogue drone mission? I think not) I was offered the deadspace glory of Serpentis Extravaganza. As I dropped out of warp amidst a sea of cruisers I rather regretted accepting it.

An hour and a half later I was several million Isk richer, down three medium drones and a whack of Antimatter ammo and rather pleased with myself indeed. The first level required careful approach of the enemy group by group, which proved challenging enough for me at the time. I soon got the hang of it though, getting more and more confident as my blasters and drones tore through the varied selection of cruisers (high, medium and low bounty versions) and frigates. I was warned about the second level, so arriving in the middle of half a dozen turrets and a cruiser rat wasn't as shocking as it could have been. As all the turrets were in range, I had to fight a risky battle of capacitor energy versus DOT (damage over time). Thankfully my blasters and drones did the job fast enough to allow me triumph. Without my 4800+ units of armour though, I'd have been a bit screwed! The final stage was nice and quiet by comparison, despite the large number of enemy ships to dispatch.


A particle accelerator and shield sphere in level 3 deadspace.


The entire task took over an hour and a half, putting the forty five minute bonus time (for a lot of cigarettes) laughably out of reach. However, it was good fun and much more rewarding than level 2 missions. The next step will be to succeed in more of the properly tough missions whilst I begin training up for my lovely little Ares interceptor.