Rokh, the shiny expensive hybrid toy.

Amazing, yet you don’t see it in service as much as some of the other battleships, like the Raven. Why? Well, there are several reasons:

1. It’s shear expensiveness. The ship itself sells for about 110 million on market, about 20-30 million more than the Raven. Plus insurance and buying good fittings for it, that will in all put a 180-200 million ISK hole in your wallet. And since some people don’t know how to save ships from death, they don’t want to risk loosing their money.

2. It’s a very skill intensive ship. To pilot this beast it effectively, a lot of skills are needed. They include many gunnery skills trained up to at least level 4, along with some shielding skills, engineering skills, and electronic skills up to at the lowest 3.

3. It’s rails turn a lot of people away since most Caldarians like the traditional style of combat, which is hurling missiles. A majority of players trained up for heavy missiles, then cruise launchers because all we fly are Drakes, Ravens, Caracals, and the Kestrel frigate. These would be considered to be some of the more powerful ships to fly and easier to use. Velocity times flight time equals distance. With guns there are tracking speed, radial velocity, transversal velocity, radial velocity, velocity, signature radius, and finally you can figure out the gun’s optimal range.

But through this all, why do some people still purchase this ship? Let me tell you. The ship itself is very strong once the battleship skill reaches 4 or 5. Then the built-in tank works very well at 20-25 plus percent; its like a free invulnerability field built in! The range bonus help the massive guns reach ranges of 150 to 200 kilometers where you can pick ships off.

With this in mind, it takes the enemy a while before they can actually come close enough and hit you. A good word of warning though, when some ships get very close (less than 10km), it is nearly impossible to hit them. That’s when drones are essential, especially tech 2 drones because they do a lot more damage. Maybe fitting a nos on one of the high slots will dry off that pesky interceptor or frigate.

The tactic that I suggest with this ship is to first pick of and thin out the frigate fleet before they come too close and are orbiting too fast for your turrets to track or their transversal are too high to hit them for full damage with your guns. If you don’t take them out fast enough and they scrambled then that’s when things will go to hell. Make sure you focus fire on ships because each ship with 1 hitpoint does the same amount of damage and can still be as dangerous as a ship with 1000 hitpoints. Not only this but then it’s easier to kill them as they are recieving more DPS and can not tank, boost, or repair as if you split the damage two or three ways.

Then after the frigates are taken out and come too close, throw your drones on them and start hitting the battleships with the target painters on them to do full damage. By the time that the battleships are taken down, your tank should be able to hold much better and then the drones are taken out too! Remember that whenever you can warp at 100km, do it, because put some iron charges in and this way you don’t have to worry about getting hit, at least for a little while.

This ship definitely gives awe simply by its presence, especially in the some of the beginner systems, since it’s rarely spotted. It you are the pilot of this ship, join a fleet with some corp members and just go blasting the enemy away. One thing, I wouldn’t take this exotic ship through unfamiliar territories though, it’s far too expensive for most people to throw away. Well, unless you are a multi-billionaire.

[expand title=Technical Information:]

• 10% large hybrid optimal range per level
• 5% shield resistance per level
• Default targeting range is 90 km with 7 locked targets
• Velocity is 110 m/sec with 50 m3 of drone capacity
• Shield hit points is 8500 and recharges in 2500 seconds
• Power grid is at 15000MW, 780ft of CPU, and 400 calibration points
• There are 8 high slots, 6 medium slots, 5 low slots, and 3 rig slots
• 4 slots for launchers and 8 for turrets[/expand]

Suggested Role: Level 4 missions, solo or in a fleet

[ratings]

Ah, weeks of training do pay off in the end.

As I wake up to another morning in New Eden, I felt ready for what was to come today. This morning I quickly finished all my necessary tasks, filling out contracts and orders so I can have more time to spend with my new beauty.

Once lunch was taken in, I strolled down to my new station hanger. It took a week for me and the crew to move everything into it. I pause at the control panel and select ship storage 8. The floor in front opens and cycles through my other ships; the Rokh, Caracal, Raven, an empty slot where I used to put my Drake, 2 shuttles, and a Cormorant destroyer; until finally the gleaming black frigate rose into view.

Only four or five members of the crew was around at the time since this ship was meant to be piloted by a single person. They looked with interest and when the door hissed open, I stepped in to get to know the cockpit better. Sitting back with the manuals in my hands, I thought to myself that anyone who doesn’t read up the instructions on these things must be real idiots.

This time since the ship was so small, I personally fitted the ship up myself in about an hour and when all of that wad done, then ignited the propulsion systems. Wow this thing has power. Crisp voices flowed through to the tower controls as I asked for undock permission.

Once out in space, everything seemed much bigger to me than before. I sent out into Corp com a message about the Crow and took her on a test flight. The nearest Gurista filled asteroid belt is in Umokka; just 2 jumps away. Plugging that coordinate into autopilot I noticed the ship had an overpowered warp drive that slung you into warp at 3x the speed of most other ships.

It took no time to find a small gang of Gurista frigates and I initiated the test you the ship’s systems and capabilities. Optimal orbit range is 25km; 19.5km for warp scramble. As Bloodclaw missiles fired off in succession, it did not take long for those frigates to become scrap metal. I noticed my shields remain at 99% and checked the log. Amazing! The gang of 3 had only hit me for a total of 13.7 damage.

As I got a bit restless from a day of playing with my new toy, a fellow Corp mate hits me up for some friendly PvP in a nearby system. I’m always one for those and next thing I know, we were at a isolated planet with a few ships. They were in wonder when my T2 frigate glided into their visuals.

In that gang of ships, there was a Ferox, Kestrel, and a Caracal. As soon as we took out of each others’ cans, we engaged in some 1 versus 1 battles. It was obvious I could take the Caracal and Ferox’s shields down, but I did not want to use a lot of missiles, so I stopped after a full load was unleashed. They, however, did not scratch my shields more than 3%.

Through that little combat training exercise in the new ship, I think I may have convinced some people to train up for an interceptor now!

It was getting late, so I payed a station owner in that system a small fee and docked up for a night, and slept in my Crow.

Make sure to submit to the screenshot contest! It ends soon!

So training to level 5 in Caldari frigate took 10 days with some implants in. Now I must train for electronic upgrades to level 5. Yesh, how long will it take to get a stealth bomber?

Anyways, sorry for the afk-ness. I was on vacation for the past week. A little journey into the Canadian Rockies.

Before I left, I set 17 orders of large quantities that could be considered to be fairly expensive in the marketplace. Now that I have returned, the wallet got a boost from 30 million to 110 million. How the heck did that happen? I estimated I wouldn’t have had a profit of 40 million. But 80 million, 2x, that’s cool!

Now with that money I will be able to afford a stealth bomber, maybe go do some level 3 missions. I haven’t done those since I lost my Drake a few weeks back. Oh that Drake will be missed.

After getting a Manitcore, my plans are to start the training for an interceptor. It’ll be another long training session, ugh.

On 23:13:00 EVE time, a fleet of about 60 State Protectorate pilots engaged an enemy fleet of about 50 pilots, or so we had thought. Once we got there, about another 30 to 50 ships jumped in through and lagged us up.

This is what the fleet started out like, about 90 people.

Our plan was to go around back door from the Caldari high security space into Tama. There was hostiles in the only Tama station and we wanted to trap them inside and snipe/kill them off. 10 minutes later and we arrive. Things didn’t go so well because there was a neutral spy following us and another spy in our fleet. Most of the people inside that station escaped. We started to chased them down and was able to pick off one or two.

Later, we reach Heydieles and our recon says a fleet is parked on the Old Man Star to Villore. We decide to go after these guys and got the fleet ready. By that time when we got to the destination, we only had a little above half of the people remaining.

The battle was not the best I have ever had. It lagged like hell! I did not appreciate it because you would always target the wrong thing or shoot at something that wasn’t there anymore. Everyone zoomed out to try to reduce the lag, but more reinforcement ships just keep jumping in from the Gallente side. Now we were just trying to get those that we could.

Our fleet commander was still calling the primary targets, and we were able to successfully take some ships down. In the end, I helped to kill these guys:

• Victim: Kadean
• Location: Old Man Star
• Corp: Elite Underworld Special Forces
• Alliance: None
• Ship: Dominix [Fitting]

• Victim:Parmenides Elea
• Location: Old Man Star
• Corp: Wrath of Fenris
• Alliance: None
• Ship: Dominix [Fitting]

• Victim:Lucas Avignon
• Location: Old Man Star
• Corp: Avignon Associates Inc.
• Alliance: None
• Ship: Dominix [Fitting]

If you want to see my full kill board, please visit here.

Here is to the cool people that stuck it to the end, I salute you!

Corewin, CRUSH BOSS, Cuthbert Drake, Ecky Ptang, Kazabet, Lord Erebos, Marcuz Griffin, Ray Rosny, sakura okami, Splunk jamma, Tzu Wu, and Xanath Fireheart

Gallery, enjoy!

I have just been grinding away at missions forever. My standing is so close yet so far away from 8.00. And The thing that makes me the most mad is that if you fail one level 4 mission, it drags your standings down a lot. At first, I was at a 7.66, but after failing, it brought it dipped down to 7.23.

It’s basically starting over. Currently, I’m going back and doing level 3 missions and enjoying its many benefits, such as being able to kill everything ten times faster and easier. In my Drake, nothing stands in my way. Another thing is, one of my missions dropped a faction module and I was able to sell it for a nice 20 million!

I have been too lazy to loot and salvage everything so who knows what other goodies I might have missed.

As time passes, I will be writing more reviews for these ships. They include the:

• Ferox; hybrid eh? [In progress]
• Caracal; the Drake’s little brother. [In progress]
• Merlin; it’ll provide the pew pew.
• Kestrel; free missiles for everyone! [In progress]

Sorry if they are all Caldari ships, but those are the ones that I have piloted.

But if you are able to provide reviews, send me an email at tonglil@hotmail.com!

Stay tuned for moar!

The Drake, what could I say? It’s simply a marvel in engineering by the Caldari mega-corps.

The battlecruiser is designed for level 3 missions and it could blow them out of the water no problem. After mastering those, I took it to do level 4 missions and simply, it was amazing. My first thoughts were, oh crap, what have I gotten myself into? Amazingly, I lasted and had won the battle; I was so proud!

This ship is designed for maximum killing and damage absorption. Throw on a few purgers and shield extenders, the effective hit points on this ship skyrockets into the 20k range or more. If for some reason, your capacitor gets sucked dry, it’s not that big of a problem. This baby can be setup to use cap with efficiency or, just don’t use cap at all.

Passive tanking is a skill you must master though. Even though the ship has the potential of being great, you the pilot, must still train for shield skills.

Active setups are different, and usually aren’t preferred as much as a passive build. They include the shield booster and cap boosters along with capacitor relays or flux coils. I won’t go into much details on it, since I don’t run active setups. But you can look around on the net and find some right?

Still, there are still some, just some, disadvantages to the Drake.

The tanking power sometimes will fail you. Since the shield works the strongest at about 33 to 35%, most people don’t worry until it gets to about 25%. Now the problem is, if something appears and shoots your shield down to 30%, then it starts failing. That’s the time to haul ass.

The Drake just doesn’t carry a shield booster because that’s just cap inefficient.

Since that is the only concern anyone has about the passive Drake, you don’t need to worry. I’m sure you’ll be just fine.

[expand title=Technical Specs:]

• 5% shield resistance
• 5% bonus kinetic damage of heavy missiles and heavy assault missiles
• 99% reduction in the CPU need of warfare link modules
• Default targeting range is 60 km with 9 locked targets
• Velocity is 140 m/sec with 25 m3 of drone capacity
• Shield hit points is 5469 and recharges in 1400 seconds
• Power grid is at 850MW, 525ft of CPU, and 400 calibration points
• There are 8 high slots, 6 medium slots, 4 low slots, and 3 rig slots
• 7 slots for launchers and none for turrets[/expand]

[expand title=Passive Setup:]

• 7 Heavy Missile Launcher
• 1 Small Nosferatu -or- Drone Link Augmentor

• 2 Shield Hardener
• 1 Shield Recharger
• 3 Large Shield Extender II

• 1 Ballistic Control System
• 3 Shield Power Relay

• 3 Core Defence Field Purger

• 5 Hobgoblin[/expand]

[ratings]

Maybe I had under estimated the power of the Raven. When it comes to damage wise, it kicks the Drake’s butt, but when there is a large group that I need to tank, it is a bit harder to deal with.

My current setup is:

6x Cruise Missile Launchers
1x Heavy Nosferatu
1x Drone Link Augmentor
1x X-Large Shield Booster
2x Hardeners
1x Cap Recharger
2x Shield Boost Amplifier
1x Ballistic Control System
4x Capacitor Flux Coil

It’s not doing all that bad. I just need to watch the shield boosting every once in a while. This Friday, I have conquered 6 level 4 missions in about 3 hours. That’s decent by my standards =D

Also, as you probably noticed, I have a new website up and running. It is no longer hosted by Blogspot, but rather by a very generous friend.

He shall remain anonymous…for now.

The Raven isn’t really living up to my expectations so far.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s the ship, but whatever, I’m not getting a whole lot done with it.

I’m still training some skills to improve the ship, but ya, I’m sorta fed up.
My current fitting isn’t the best in the world, but hey, it’s gotta be better than the Drake, right?
Well I think I am wrong.

With 6 mercenary battleships on me, my shield sinks like a sand sinkhole and a 1 ton anvil.
Oh, I think I just might take a break from it today, and continue tomorrow, where more skills shall be trained.

I have been able to control my urge of spending my hard earned ISK. Just his past weekend, I bid on an auction for a rigged Raven that was only 95 million.

At first, I had asked the owner is I could buy it straight up, but he had disagreed saying that, “I bought this for 95 mil, not really making much money on this deal.” Though in the end, I still got the ship. Take that haha :P

My skills were still in training by the time the auction finished so I had to wait for a day. That day I tried to do another level 4 mission and when I had asked my agent, he offered me Guristas Extravaganza.

Whoa, what? Guristas Extravaganza? Are you serious?

Kk, I can do this, with my rigged Drake haha. So I looked on the websites to get some hints. A bit later, I found out that it can be done pretty easily, if you watch the triggers. About an hour and half later, I had finished this mission, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I got some nice returns, but didn’t get any named faction stuff, though I’m cool with that.

As I wait for my skill training to finish, I look around my messy hanger floor and pick out the stuff I had salvaged and picked up from the wrecks of my unfortunate victims and moved them into the cargo hold of my Indy.

It’s been a long day as I prepare to undock from the Navy station in Kakakela.