Starting Out
First and foremost we need to cover the different types of missions offered. The first type are security missions which is the most popular of all missions. Security missions are simply missions where you will mostly encounter hostiles, and a lot of time have to destroy them to progress. Next we have distribution missions, where you have to deliver goods to different destinations each time. After that we have mining missions, where you spend your time mining in order to complete your mission. For people in factional warfare, there are factional warfare missions, consisting of going to the opposing force's territory in order to gain LP. Last we have storyline missions, which are various missions that revolve around the corporation's "story", and you must help that corporation with whatever task they give you. These missions consist of different security, distribution, and mining missions as their task.
Distribution and Mining
While this article will cover security for the most part, I want to at least cover these other two quickly to give an idea of what happens with them.
With distribution missions as the level goes up, so does the cargo space needed for the goods to be delivered. Distribution missions are great if you need an easy way to increase standing with little to no effort. A lot of the time you can simply auto-pilot to the location, while doing something else. This makes for some easy standing increases, but I want to point out that the increase on these missions is much lower than any other mission.
Mining missions are in between security and courier when talking about amount of effort needed to complete. While they are not as easy as courier, they require less effort than security missions, and give more standing than courier. Once you get to level 3 missions, you can easily run into a lot of hostiles, and spend a good amount of time getting rid of those before mining. Level 1s and 2s, you can usually set your drones to aggressive and simply let them do their job without having to worry too much at all. Once you get to level 4 missions you will run across gas sites, which use to be the only place to get gas in high-sec, but since the Odyssey expansion you can find gas sites in high-sec.
Both of these mission types are almost mandatory for increasing standing for a large amount of Research and Development agents. The reason being is that a lot of agents come from NPC corporations that deal mostly in manufacturing.
Storyline Agents
After you've completed 16 missions, you will get a message from a storyline agent offering a storyline mission. These missions give a large corporation standing boost, as well as a small faction standing boost. This is one of the few ways to actually get faction standing. Keep in mind that they missions are only given out per level, in other words if you do 9 level 1 missions, and 7 level 2 missions, you will not get a storyline mission. If you do another 7 level 1s, you will get one, and after another 9 level 2s you will also receive one.
Preparing for Security Missions
So now it's time to finally cover security missions. There is so much needed for security missions, that it could be overwhelming at times, but luckily there will be information here that will help you overcome that very easily.
Choosing Where to Run Missions
Before you start, decide where you want to run missions. Simply choosing the closest place to you usually isn't the best idea since you want to make sure these missions benefit you in the long run as well. You will be gaining standing from these missions, as well as losing standing from the opposing faction you are up against. If you are not sure what standings do for you, check out the Managing Standings and Security Status article to learn what standings do for you.
Once you've decided what you want you missions to help with in terms of standings, decide what corporation you want to work for. Once you have decided that, you want to find an agent that is also close to a storyline agent. After you finish your 16 missions, you will get a storyline mission from the closest storyline agent. So if you want to get a mission from the same corporation, you need to make sure it is the closest one to you. Keep in mind you can do 15 missions anywhere in the universe, and then do the 16th in a system close to your desired storyline agent in order to get a storyline mission from an agent you prefer.
Preparing for the Mission
When accepting a mission, there are a few things to do before going to the encounter to pursue the mission. First take a look at the faction your are up against, and find out what type of damage they do, and what type of damage they are weakest to. Doing so allows you to make sure you take the least amount of damage, while giving the most. Let's take a look at the chart below to see exactly what each faction's weaknesses are.
Enemy Damage Chart
| Guristas/EoM | 75% Kinetic | 25% Thermal | ||
| Angel | 70% Explosive | 20% Kinetic | 10% EM | |
| Sansha/Blood raider/Amarr empire | 50% EM | 50% Thermal | ||
| Serpentis/Caldari state | 50% Kinetic | 50% Thermal | ||
| Gallente federation | 50% Kinetic | 40% Thermal | 10% EM | |
| Minmatar republic | 50% Explosive | 20% EM | 20% Kinetic | 10% Thermal |
| Mercenaries | 50% Thermal | 30% Kinetic | 10% Explosive | 10% EM |
| Rogue drones | 70% Explosive | 20% Kinetic | 10% Thermal |
As you can see above, the chart shows the damage done by each faction, and how much of each type they do. With this chart, you can prepare yourself for a mission by making sure your take includes damage resists for the damage you will be taking. Eventually you will have a ship that will be able to resist all damages close to equally, but until then I would suggest fitting your tank for the top two damage types. Doing more than that could ruin your fit, and just make it more of an issue overall.
So now that we are prepared for taking damage, we now need to prepare for giving damage. In the chart below you can see the weaknesses of each faction.
Angel: Explosive/Kinetic
Sansha/Blood/Amarr: EM/Thermal
Caldary Navy/Guristas: Kinetic/Thermal
CONCORD/EoM/Mercenaries: Kinetic/Thermal
Mordu's: Kinetic/EM
Serpentis: Thermal/Kinetic
Rogue Drones: All Types*
*Rogue Drones have different resists depending on the ship type. Generally smaller ships are vulnerable to EM/Thermal, while larger ships react more to Explosive/Kinetic.
Above we can see the type of damage we want to use against the factions we are up against. Check the Ammo Types article to see what ammo would best suit your ship for the mission. When using hybrid weapons, simply change the damage types of your drones for the best output. You can see the damage types of drones in the Drone Types article.
Finally Running a Mission
So now that we're all prepared for the mission, it's finally time to run it! A lot of the time it's more fun to learn the mission yourself, but when you want to start "blitzing" missions, or running through quickly, it's best to check out EVE Survival's Mission Reports. With this site, you can choose your mission's name, and it will tell you exactly what to do in order to finish the mission as quickly as possible. Not only that, they tell you what damage type to tank, and what damage to produce against the NPCs in that mission. This site is absolutely perfect for anyone running missions.
So now that you know all you need for a mission, it's time to understand the agent as well. Each agent as a select number of missions it offers, and randomly picks one from it's list to give you each time. Some times these missions are empire missions where you have to fight an opposing empire faction. If you don't want to kill your faction standing with other empire factions, you may want to decline such a mission. Usually this is a common practice among other players, as it's a real pain to recuperate from a faction loss. Just remember you can only decline a mission once every 4 hours without taking a standing loss from that agent, and it's corporation. If you have already declined such a mission, and another is offered before the 4 hours, simply wait until the 4 hours is up, and you can decline that one as well. You can check the timer by clicking "decline" and a pop-up will ask you if you are sure you want to decline it, with the time when you can decline again without a standing loss.
Standings from Missions
So now that you have an understanding of what standings you want from your missions, it's best to get the most you can. If you plan to do missions to get standings, you want to make sure you have Social skill leveled to at least 4, but leveled to V eventually. This will allow you to get the most standing out of each mission. This skill effects the amount of both corporation and faction standing you get from every mission.
While many people advise people on using the Connections skill to help with standing, I personally would not. The reason being is that it does help with getting your standing up quickly to do level 4s, but when it comes to getting standing for clones, lowering broker tax, and factional items, some require the base standing to be at a certain level, and when you get above a standing of 5.00, it slows down due to the formula that handles this skill. Overall you will still need to do the same amount of missions.
The Diplomacy skill is extremely valuable when dealing with missions. If you continue to do missions for one empire, you will notice your faction and corporation standing dropping for their rival empire faction. As your standings continue to drop, you may find yourself in a situation where you cannot enter their space anymore without getting shot at. The Diplomacy skill helps you alter your standing so that you can raise these standings back up above -2.0, allow you to traverse that space once again.
Last we have the Security Connections skill. If you plan to do missions to make ISK, this skill is extremely valuable to you. This skill allows you to make the most LP from each mission, which is extremely helpful to making ISK.
Other Missions
If you really want to work on raising your standings for entire factions, the COSMOS missions are by far the best missions to get these standings continuously. Another mission set is the Epic Arc missions. These are special sets of empire missions you can accept and complete once every 3 months. Each completion gives a generous amount of standing, and some great items as well. Keep in mind, these are almost like level 5 missions, and you would want to attempt these with a battleship.
You can find out about other ways to raise your standings in the Managing Standings and Security Status article.
Making ISK
Deciding to stick with missions usually depends on the amount of ISK you can make from them. Depending on what you do allows you to make more and more. To make the most out of missions, it's best to run level 4 missions, with at least one other person to help salvage. When you turn in the mission, the site disappears, but bookmarking a container in the site will allow anyone to warp to where all the wrecks are. This allows your salvager to work on the site while you work on another mission. You can find newer players that will offer to do the salvage for you, in lieu of a cut of the profit. Most of the time these players are pretty fair, since they want you to hire them again. This makes for a great ISK output when doing missions.
If you are really serious about doing missions for a great income, I would suggest training for a laser or projectile marauder. This allows you to clear the site quickly, so that you can move on to the next mission as quickly as possible. Using such a ship gives you the ability to keep at a safe range, and yet be able to destroy NPCs a long range. Not only that, these ships make for quick destruction of structures in missions that have a great chance of dropping items better than Tech 2.
Another option is to make a low-effort ship like a Rattlesnake. While they aren't as good as they use to be, they are still great long-ranged, shield tankers that allow you to almost AFK a level 4 mission. While you won't make as much ISK, you will put in a lot less effort.
Once you have a ship picked out, and setup to do missions, also check the LP Store for the corporation you are doing missions for. Here you want to find out exactly what you want to get with your LP in order to sell. Generally implants and ammunition make for a good LP to ISK ratio, but it all depends on where you sell it, and what you are getting for it. Sometimes you can sell these items near your mission station for an increased amount, allowing you to get a much bigger LP to ISK ratio. Such items like the ammo are perfect for this, since everyone needs ammo! When it comes to ships and implants, the price increase isn't great enough to justify trying to sell it away from a trade hub. Regardless, it's what you find to be the best option. Play around with different LP store items, or just check around different areas to see what they are selling for.
Enjoy mission running, and fly safe. o/
No comments:
Post a Comment