Drake

 

Ship Database

Drake

Ship Database▸Standard Battlecruisers▸Drake

Caldari State Standard Battlecruisers Drake Class Can use Command Burst module HIGHLIGHTS High Amount of High Slots HIGHLIGHTS RELATED UNI-WIKI REFERENCES EVE Online Ships Overview EXTERNAL LINKS Drake on zKillboard Drake on EVE Workbench Drake on Janice Drake on EVE Ref

It has been brought. – Unknown Caldari Pilot Of the meticulous craftsmanship the Caldari are renowned for, the Drake was born. It was found beneath such a ship to rely on anything other than the time-honored combat tradition of missile fire, while the inclusion of sufficient CPU capabilities for decent electronic warfare goes without saying. SHIP BONUSES Caldari Battlecruiser bonuses (per skill level): 4% bonus to all shield resistances 10% bonus to kinetic Heavy Missile and Heavy Assault Missile damage Role Bonus: • Can use one Command Burst module 25% bonus to Missile velocity 50% bonus to Command Burst area of effect range Required Skills Caldari Battlecruiser I50m Spaceship Command III4h 26m Caldari Cruiser III22h 13m Spaceship Command II47m Caldari Destroyer III8h 53m Caldari Frigate III8h 53m Spaceship Command I8m Training Time what's this? 1d 21h 16m 40s Estimated training time only for the listed skills based on zero implants and without neural remaps. Grouping ▪ Variations Nighthawk Nighthawk Command Ships Drake Class Can Use Command Burst modules High Amount of High Slots 7 (5/2) 6 4 1,000 MW 560 tf 150 m/sec 700 m³ , Drake Navy Issue Drake Navy Issue Faction Battlecruisers Drake Class Command Bursts High Amount of High Slots 8 (7/0) 6 4 950 MW 550 tf 180 m/s 450 m³ , Alligator Alligator Pirate faction Battlecruisers Drake Class Command Bursts High Amount of High Slots 7 (6/0) 6 4 830 MW 500tf 160 m/s 450  m3 Ship Attributes Fittings Powergrid 830 MW CPU 500 tf Capacitor 2,500 GJ High 7 Launchers 6 Turrets 0 Medium 6 Low 4 Rig 3   medium Calibration 400 Navigation Max Velocity 150 m/sec Inertia Modifier 0.65 Warp Speed 3.5 AU/s Base Time to Warp 12.16 s what's this? Base Time to Warp is essentially the time needed for this ship to align and accelerate until it reaches 75% of its top speed and goes to warp. The time displayed here is the base calculated time with no account for any warp related skills, modules or any other effects. Drones Drone Capacity 25 m³ Drone Bandwidth 25 Mbit/sec Targeting Max Tgt. Range 65.00 km Max Locked Targets 8 Gravimetric Sensor 19 points Sig. Radius 295 m Scan Res. 195 mm Structure Structure Hitpoints 3,750 HP Mass 13,500,000 kg Volume 252,000 m³ Cargo Capacity 450 m³ Armor Armor Hitpoints 3,250 HP Armor Resistances EM 50 THR 45 KIN 25 EXP 10 Shields Shield Capacity 5,500 HP Shield Resistances EM 0 THR 20 KIN 40 EXP 50

Summary

The Drake, well-known for its excellent tanking abilities, is a very popular PvE ship. In PvE, the Drake can be passively shield-tanked for a stronger tank than a battleship, making L3 missions easy and L4 missions a possibility. However, without very good missile skills L4's will take a long time.

The Drake has fluctuated in popularity for PvP. Currently its damage bonuses are focused on kinetic missiles, making it less versatile overall. However, its low cost, good missile range, and potential to mount an extremely tough buffer tank makes it attractive despite its damage limitations. And its skill training aligns with high damage missile hulls such as the Cerberus and Tengu.

The Drake is quite easy to skill for and pilot competently. Its tank bonus makes it forgiving of mistakes, and missiles are an easy to use weapon system that doesn't require the pilot to worry much about angular velocity and range. While it's easy to make it a good L3 mission boat, it's hard to make it fantastic: it is quite slow, without T2 launchers and ammo it only does okay DPS, and clever piloting can't be used to increase missile damage like it can with turrets.

Skills

	Skill & Level	Effect	Explanation
Base Skills	Caldari Battlecruiser IV	4% bonus to all shield resistances 10% bonus to Kinetic Heavy Missile Heavy Assault Missile damage	While you can start missioning with this skill at III, skilling to at least IV will provide a foundation of decent tank and decent DPS.
	Heavy Missiles IV	5% bonus to heavy missile damage per skill level.	Heavy Missiles, due to their long range, are often used in Level 3 mission fits. Train to IV to maximise your time/benefit ratio.
	Heavy Assault Missiles IV	5% bonus to heavy assault missile damage per skill level.	Drakes are used in Factional Warfare PvP, often fit with Heavy Assault Missiles. Heavy Assault Missiles have a shorter range than Heavy Missiles.
Missile Skills	Missile Launcher Operation IV	2% Bonus to missile launcher rate of fire per skill level.	This skill is required to operate any rocket or missile launcher. Training it also increases your rate of fire, which means more damage dealt per second.
	Rapid Launch IV	3% bonus to missile launcher rate of fire per level.	Rapid Launch increases your rate of fire, increasing damage dealt per second.
	Warhead Upgrades IV	2% bonus to all missile damage per skill level.	Simply deals a direct increase to damage dealt.
	Missile Projection IV	10% bonus to all missiles' maximum velocity per level.	While this skill decreases the time it takes for missiles to actually deal their damage, it also increases their range. A missile that travels faster is a missile that travels further.
	Target Navigation Prediction IV	10% decrease per level in factor of target's velocity for all missiles.	Even though this skill doesn't increase on-paper DPS, it does increase your actual in-game damage application. As a target's speed becomes less of a factor, more damage is applied. This is especially helpful against smaller, faster ships. If you're more familiar with turrets, this is analogous to better tracking speed.
	Missile Bombardment IV	10% bonus to all missiles' maximum flight time per level.	Like Missile Projection, this skill increases range, just in a different way. Instead of making your missiles faster, it makes them fly longer.
Support Skills	Weapon Upgrades IV	5% reduction per skill level in the CPU needs of weapon turrets, launchers, and smartbombs.	Helps with fitting a ship by decreasing the (often large) CPU requirements of weapons.
	Skills:Engineering	Various effects.	Engineering skills as needed to fit your ship properly.
Shield Skills	Shield Operation IV	5% reduction in shield recharge time per skill level.	This basic shield skill allows you to fit shields but also helps with passive buffer tanks that rely on shield regeneration to tank incoming DPS.
	Shield Management IV	5% bonus to shield capacity per skill level.	This skill gives a bonus to shield capacity. Larger shield capacity allows for more shield regeneration, again helping passive buffer tanks.
	Tactical Shield Manipulation IV	Reduces the chance of damage penetrating the shield when it falls below 25% by 5% per skill level, with 0% chance at level 5. IMPORTANT: This skill is part of the T2 Shield Tank skill set.	This skill reduces the change of damage "leakage" between shields and armor. Training it to IV allows for the use of T2 active shield hardeners, one of the building blocks of a good T2 shield tank.
	Shield Upgrades IV	5% reduction in shield upgrade powergrid needs. IMPORTANT: This skill is part of the T2 Shield Tank skill set.	This skill helps with fitting shields to your ship by reducing how much power they need. Training it to IV allows for the use of T2 shield extenders, T2 passive shield hardeners, T2 shield rechargers
	EM Shield Compensation IV,  Thermal Shield Compensation IV,  Kinetic Shield Compensation IV,  Explosive Shield Compensation IV	5% bonus to resistance per level for Shield Amplifiers	Improves the effectiveness of passive shield hardeners.
Drone Skills	Drones V	Can operate 1 drone per skill level.	Train Drones to V to operate 5 drones. It's important to have a full set of Drones to maximize the effectiveness of your Drake, especially against smaller targets that your Heavy Missiles might have a harder time killing. The Drake only has enough drone bandwidth and dronebay to support 5 light drones, but skilling up those 5 drones can help increase your effectiveness greatly.
	Light Drone Operation III	5% Bonus to damage of light drones per level.	Increase the effectiveness of your drones by making their pew pew more powerful.
	Drone Avionics III	Drone control range increased by 5,000 meters per skill level.	Useful if you want to attack things that are far away.
	Drone Navigation III	5% increase in drone MicroWarpdrive speed per level.	Helps your drones get to their targets faster.
	Drone Durability III	5% bonus to drone shield, armor and hull hit points per level.	Drones are pretty fragile. This skill will make them a little less fragile, but only a little less.
	Drone Sharpshooting III	Increases drone optimal range.	This skill is important for sentry drones (due to their immobility) in particular, but can provide a little boost for combat drones as well, despite combat drones having MWDs.
Advanced Skills	Heavy Missiles V,  Heavy Missile Specialization IV,  Missile Launcher Operation V	Allows use of Heavy Missile Launcher II and T2 Heavy Missiles	This train may not be worth it if you're just leveling up to Level 4 missions. However, if you've got a Tengu in your future, or if you're grinding Level 3 missions for standings, you'll want to train this sooner rather than later.
	Heavy Assault Missiles V,  Heavy Assault Missile Specialization IV,  Missile Launcher Operation V	Allows use of Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II and T2 Heavy Assault Missiles	Same as above.
	Guided Missile Precision IV	5% decrease per level in factor of signature radius for all missile explosions.	Like Target Navigation Prediction, this skill helps take the edge off smaller targets. This is in the advanced skill category as it requires Missile Launcher Operation V as a prerequisite.
	Weapon Upgrades V,  Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV	Reduces CPU and Powergrid requirements, respectively, for weapons.	If you're going to try to fit T2 launchers on a Drake, you're probably going to want this. These skills will also make fitting many other ships much easier.
	Light Drone Operation V, Gallente Drone Specialization IV	Allows T2 Gallente light drones.	Substitute any other racial variant for the Drone Specialization skill. If you want to squeeze the most DPS out of the Drake's tiny drone bay, T2 drones are the way to go. They're expensive but worth it. They're superior to T1 drones in almost every way.
	Hull Upgrades IV	Allows for the use of the Damage Control II module.	Although many Drake fits do not use a DCII module, it can be useful in some cases.

This list of skills may seem daunting at first, but you don't need all of them to start doing things! Make it up as you go -- start doing what you want to do and figure out where you need to go from there. You may start with a weak shield and weak missile DPS, but you can have fun right away.

Remember as well that all of these skills are useful for fitting other ships. You're not going to somehow outgrow these skills, even if you outgrow your Drake.

Tactics

If you are coming to the Drake from L2 missions, you are probably used to flying into the middle of the NPCs and killing everything. That's a good way to get yourself killed in an L3 mission; many feature enough NPC firepower to overwhelm even a Drake's tank. Here are a few pointers to start L3 missioning in a Drake:

• If the mission is unfamiliar to you, read about it on EVE-Survival.
• Because the Drake is almost always passively tanked, you have no tools apart from running to mitigate excessive damage. If your shield drops to 50%, align to a celestial and start your afterburner. If it drops to the 25% alarm, warp out, dock, and then come back for more later. When you do come back, warp in at a long range (like 50 or 100km).
  • Remember that the Drake is big and slow. You won't be able to sig tank or speed tank incoming damage. Range can be one the most effective ways of mitigating incoming DPS while piloting a Drake.
• Shoot the biggest NPCs first (usually other Battlecruisers); they're the ones damaging you the most.
  • However if you're out of range of the Battlecruisers and you're being hit by something else, shoot that instead. Shooting at the "wrong target" is better than not shooting at all.
• Against Sansha and Blood Raiders, use Mjolnir Heavy Missiles unless you have Caldari Battlecruiser V. In all other cases, use Scourge Heavy Missiles.
• Orbiting the NPC blob at 30km works reasonably well.

Notes

The name of the Drake could have come from the legendary English explorer and pirate, but given the avian theme of the Caldari ships, it is more likely that the ship was named for the official name of a male duck.

Patch History

A long, long time ago...
October 2019 Release - 2019-10-15.1 Every Cruiser, Battlecruiser and Battleship now warps faster than before. Warp Speed increased from 2.7 AU/s to 3.5 AU/s (+0.8 AU/s)

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