Been a while since I’ve made a ‘what I’m doing in EVE’ post with any depth to it, and since the last one, a few interesting things have happened. My miner alt has hit his stride in terms of production and ore gathering. Currently he has made a decent amount of ISK selling cargo expanders and the four types of light missiles, with Sabertooth providing the greatest volume of sales and profit. Not level four mission money, but easy millions that continue to roll in with minimal effort. The next big goal for him is to finish training and purchase a Hulk. The training should be completed soon, but gathering the ISK for the Hulk itself might be a little tougher. How quickly I purchase it simply depends on how much time I actually play EVE, and due to outside factors that’s currently fairly low. At a slow pace I could easily make the money for it off light missiles, but if I want to increase the pace I’ll need my combat pilot to chip in, or go on some high profit mining Ops. However for the simple stuff he does now, his Covetor mines plenty fast.
As for my combat pilot, he continues to breeze through level 3 missions in his Rohk, which is slowly being fully fitted with tech 2 gear. The next big steps for that ship will be to purchase rigs (no clue on which ones however) and get the skills to use tech 2 large hybrid guns. Hopefully with a little more skill I will also be able to tackle level 4 missions in the Rohk as well. Currently I have to rely on outside help to get the tougher missions done without excessive warping in/out.
However I have also recently trained up to use tech 2 Caldari frigates, and purchase a Harpy. Fitted with 4 tech 2 125 rails, and a salvager, the ship is a blast to take into level 2 missions and destroy them. The major bonus comes from the ships speed, being able to fly in quickly on enemy ships, blast them, collect the wreck and salvage it. This is all accomplished very quickly and with little risk, making running those missions very enjoyable. The extra money from salvaging everything seems to balance out the overall bounty difference between level 2 and 3 missions. The Rohk is far too slow to bother with salvaging, and I’m simply too lazy to fly back in the Harpy just to collect wrecks, although once I start running level 4s, I’ll be sure to salvage all those nice battleship wrecks.
I’m somewhat regretting training guns instead of missiles, especially since my combat pilot is Caldari. I’m sure I would be well on my way to running level 4 missions had I gone with missiles and a Raven. I’m considering picking up missiles skills even now, as the recent tech 2 battleship for Caldari is a modified Raven. I’m sure with enough skills and tech 2 fittings the Rohk would do well enough in level 4 missions, but it seems a Raven and especially the Golem would have a much easier time. I’ll have to lay out a plan in EVEMon to see exactly how long it would take to get decent enough missile skills to try out a Raven. I have a feeling it’s a lot less time than I suspect, especially with 26 perception and 23 willpower to help speed things along. The fact that the Golem is designed as the ultimate mission ship, with bonuses to tractor beams and the fact that it uses half the ammo of a standard Raven, it seems foolish not to train up to fly it.
Anyone reading this have any experience with a Golem? I’m curious to hear exactly how big a difference it makes. Or if anyone has any Rohk mission setup suggestions, feel free to share those as well.
Hardcore Casual 
Level 4 missions will be extremely difficult with a Rohk, no matter what setup you use. Train up for cruise missiles and get a Raven. It’s like hitting the “easy button” for level 4 missions.
Some people will be tempted to use torpedoes on the Raven, but they fly too slow to hit small ships and most of the level 4 battleships will destroy torps in mid-flight with Defender Missiles. For each torp that gets blown up, it’s like losing two cruise missiles before they hit. You’ll never kill the named battleship badguys with torps.
Since you can already use the salvage module, you should also get the tractor beam skill if you don’t already have it. Once you have both of those, train up for a destroyer (easy ship to skill up for). Destroyers can be set up with 4xTractor Beam and 4xSalvager, plus cargo expanders in the low slots and an afterburner in mid to create the ultimate loot/salvage ship for missions. Use the combat ship to do the killing, then bring the slavager(destroyer) back to clean up. Once you start doing it that way, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. On larger missions it’s possible to collect far more loot and salvage than a salvager can hold so I store it in a jet-can (which I drag behind my salvage ship with a tractor beam) and return with my hauler to make the final pickup.
As for the Golem: See above comment about badguys that spew Defender Missiles at your missiles. If the Golem fires half the number of rounds which each do double damage, then each one that is taken out by a defender missile will have double the effect on your DPS. By lowering your rate of fire, you are increasing the effectiveness of the blasted Defender Missiles. (I hate Defenders, if you didn’t notice)
Yea I have a Cormorant sitting at a station, I should set it up for trash collecting I guess. I figured the ‘no lvl 4’ thing was the answer for the Rohk, too bad. Interesting info about defenders and the golem. I wonder exactly how big a factor they are, and whether that makes the golem not worthwhile at all over the Raven?
Rokh and Golem are great for PvP, but Raven is still the “King of level 4 missions” according to popular opinion. The NPC battleships in level 4 missions will take down at least one cruise missile per volley and many times will take down two torpedoes per volley, so Defender missiles are a huge factor for the Golem. Furthermore, when you compare prices between a Navy Raven and a Golem, there’s really no doubt that a Navy Raven is a better buy for missions.
Well thats good to know, saves me a lot of time training for the Golem. I’ll stick with the Rohk for when I get into PvP, since I’ve been told it performs really well in certain situations. In others I can just fly a tackling frigate anyway, can’t afford (or fly atm) HACs or other small group ships.
What’s a good price for a Navy Raven now, with the release of the Golem?
I run lvl 4 missions with two accts. My main is in a golem with most skills at lvl 5 that pertain to it, and my alt is in a drake with all skill for it at lvl 5. ATM I am loving the golem because the drake handles the defender spam. As to the OP’s question……and follow up opinions….the golem does suffer badly from defender missles when solo. I can do a lvl 4 faster in a drake solo then when in a golem solo, just because of BS defender fire. The golem is nice for killing the smaller ships as compared to the raven, but is way too slow when going solo against BS mobs.
With running two toons on missions, at the most it takes me 45 minutes to fininsh then come back and loot/salvage any lvl 4 mission.