EVE Online mission multiboxing ships ?

[Stabface]

Do we still have anyone multiboxing EVE? I know Bradster was kicking ass there for a while. I'm going to pick back up EVE Online when the new xpack hits (March 10th). My goal is to have accounts that pay for themselves within 6 months, to become filthy rich -- 100B is my long term goal -- and then PVP for the lulz.

Last time I quit I got rid of all my high SP characters so I'll be starting over from scratch skill-wise, I do have my forum posting account alt who has around 500M ISK as a nest egg for when I wanted to come back. So I do have a rather good leg up on getting restarted since I can easily buy ships, skills and implants right off the bat.

I've done the whole industry & market thing before; T1/ship production is okay but the market-pvp is more cutthroat than any pirate, lol. Mining in 0.0 with multiple accounts is boring but easy ISK and would be a pretty fast skillup. But I don't have access to 0.0 and don't really have any contacts to get access anymore. And I think I'd rather like to stay in empire with some fat implants for at least a few months.
Exploration is interesting to me, especially with the wormhole stuff coming out. But it needs some high SP totals to scan down and then handle the sites, especially looking at how tough the Sleepers are from the test server videos.

My current plan is to set up 3-5 accounts and start by spamming the heck out of missions. I get standings this way for jump clones which I want anyhow, it's about as low-risk as you can get, I can login and play whenever without worrying about locals or wars. I can spend a few months this way training in empire with nice implants and , then move on to bigger and better things in 0.0 with some skills under my belt. I think I can get up to handle L3's within 2 weeks easily, which make pretty decent standings gain and ISK. Probably not enough to play for multiple accounts, but enough to buy skills and ships easily and build up a decent wallet balance.After that look into access for 0.0 space and either rat or mine on multiple accounts while training up a PVP alt.


I'm torn between what race/ship setup would be the best for boxing missions though. Thoughts:

Caldari - Caracal or Drake w/ FoF heavy missiles - I heard FoFs still kind of suck, shoot structures, won't target out past 80? km, sometimes won't shoot at hostiles, etc. But if you ran 5 Drakes with them, thats 35 launchers. Solving problems through overwhelming firepower? And the idea of a capless passive tank is very appealing since it's just one less bit of micromanagement to deal with. Warp in, F1->F7, and fly to the next gate while you watch the carnage. If it works...

Gallente - Vexor or Myrmidon (or a Dominix) w/ drones. I know with reasonable skills you can AFK many missions this way, warp in and grab aggro, launch drones, go afk... sounds like it would scale easily to multiple ships. Sentry drones are pretty kickass DPS and instant recall if they get aggro. It wouldn't be hard to do some remote rep spider tank either, which would get me into harder missions that much faster with lower skills. I'm strongly leaning towards this setup since drones are not as stupid as FoF missiles and you can set them to assist (or defend) someone, so I can link up and focus fire with one character. Drone skills would also help with mining if I got access to nice 0.0 mining. And beyond the ship skills, most drone and fitting skills I'd want right away would be int/mem same as learning, so I can focus stats and then do the attribute respec later on once I need guns and more ship skills... int mem learning to 3/4 and some +3 implants will be super fast training right out of the gate.

Amarr - ? some laser boat. Lasers melt face and are probably what I'd want for PVP anyhow... but it sounds like a lot of micro, with targeting and such since there's no way to assist and autotargeters have been broken / useless since the game came out. Bit more skill intensive too. But it would certainly be fun shooting things with 40 lasers, pewpewpew!

Minmatar I don't really like... split weapon ships, generally more skill-intensive. Open to suggestions though.

[Powerwar]

5 manticores firing bombs and heavy missiles is also nice.
They costed like 15 mil before I left EVE for last time and take about 3 days to train the skills.

Anyways, I didn't like eve much because I found the game a bit boring and an endless grind.

In any case... 5 riffters with cruiser afterburner and laser or normal guns would melt faces pretty nice.

[Zzyzxx71]

Not sure why you'd want 5 - from what I hear the lvl 5 missions are doable by 3 as long as you have 1 dedicated logistics ship and he was pretty deep into the tree.

When I was playing 3 accts I was chain running lvl 4's with a CNR (Caldari Pilot) completely loaded out - it was permaboost. Second acct was a megathron with remote reppers, tractor beams, salvagers and remote repair drones. There wasn't a lvl 4 out there that could even really dent my shield. Made for some really consistant cash.

The 3rd acct was for hauling hauling hauling...

[Stabface]

Well bombs are 0.0 only and I don't think the Manticore is great for missions. In PVP I'd be single-account or maybe some scouts/cyno alts of course if I got into cap ships. I like small gang more than big fleet engagements though.

Looking at 5 accounts because of fleet size for gang boosters, if I did get back to 0.0 mining an Orca + 4 miners is something around 250-300M+ an hour last time I played which is pretty sweet income. I can run 5-6 accounts comfortably on my hardware, 4 on main machine and 1-2 on laptop. So I'd just be out the initial cost, ~150 bucks for 60 days of game time or more with buddy system. Hopefully in 2 months I can afford game time with ISK so there'd be no more $ cost after that.

And yeah it really only takes 1 account to run any L4 or maybe 2-3 to run any L5. You gain speed from multiple accounts in the same mission but beyond 2-3 ships I think its diminishing returns as you spend a larger % of your time traveling, which isn't helped by having multiple ships. The idea though is to get into the tougher missions sooner, and to then get skills for a mostly AFK setup so I can do missions in parallel.
For example I could be in 5 Myrmidons running L3s in a matter of 2-3 days. Then skill up more and maybe do 2 missions with 2 ships each, and the 5th guy salvaging/looting. Then move to a Dominix and run 2-3 L4s in parallel. And with a good location with multiple agents nearby you can pick and choose your missions, avoid the ones that give the faction hits and farming multiple Extravaganzas or Worlds Collide or whatever gets the most ISK.

[Redbeard]

Theyre supposedly revamping rat AI so keep that in mind. I dont know how long (if ever) that will take to trickle down to missions. Apparently making them much smarter at targetting (instead of just targetting the first thing that hits them, etc).

[RobinGBrown]

Apparently making them much smarter at targetting

How will this make any difference to combat? EVE combat is stunningly dull - orbit target at optimal speed/range, switch weapons on, wait - I don't see how 'smarter' targeting will affect that. This is not a go at you Redbeard but at the EVE devs and their poor game design.

Stabface - my preference for EVE has always been to go with the prettiest ships and weapons - which is why my EVE 'main' is Amarr (not that I've played in a while...). Amarr also get a couple of 'mini' drone carriers and a decent logistics ship for support of your focus. Also one or two missile boats IIRC.

I'd certainly aim to be self paying for EVE by making ISK in-game - it's a very expensive game to play.

[Redbeard]

I didnt take it as a stab at me.

Currnetly in eve. you enter a belt / mission whatever. your "tank" hits the rats. They all attack the tank. Your other people are basically free to do whatever at that point without fear of them fighting back.

If they revamp the AI that might not be the case. If you come in with a ship set to tank the rats could just ignore you since theres no real taunt mechanic in the game. Just wanted to throw it out there so he would be aware.

[RobinGBrown]

Ah I see your point now and it's a good one.

However I would recommend having every ship capable of putting up as good a tank as possible - you never know when you might need it

After all you wouldn't have your followers with level 1 spells and gear while your main is tanking - far too much chance of a follower getting wiped (I know becasue I've had this happen a few times recently while I've been RAF-ing a new team to 60. So I've made sure that every 10 levels or so they get their spells and always kit up with quest rewards)

[RobinGBrown]

I read a dev blog for EVE and their new 'AI' is basically a threat system - just like every other MMO uses...

How comes EVE devs get all these 'awards' when it's taken them until now to implement a threat system for NPCs (and not all NPCs, only the new ones). What a bunch of *sshats.

For those considering trying out the new content - it's _ALL_ PVP - and you DO NOT want to PVP in EVE unless you've played it for a long time already.

[Redbeard]

Well if you think about it... a threat system is kind of stupid haha. I was explaining how WoW fights work to my friend (who plays eve and has never played another mmo) and he was like "Thats stupid, why does the player get to dictate who the mob attacks?" A truly smart mob probably isnt going for the tank, you know? And the whole "ive pissed off the mob so it attacks me" reasoning is, i hope youll agree, pretty L O L.

We allow the combat system to work and suspend disbelief because it creates a game for us with a set of rules but if you really think about it the whole thing is kind of silly.

Anyways.

As for why Eve gets rewards, that I dont know. The only reward they deserve I think is getting everyone on 1 game server (though dont show up to the same system or well crash haha).