NSC Mission Running Fits
Who are these fits for?
These fits are targeted at pilots without much experience in creating fits and who are new to the requirements of mission running. These fits will provide a common starting point for pilots and as their personal playstyle and tastes progress, they will be able to make ship selection and fitting choices more fitting to their personal wants and needs. There are a multitude of ships and fits that can be used to successfully run missions; these are just a focused selection. Some selections have been made to work best with character progression and to keep with a common weapon system throughout the flow of moving up to bigger ships. Feel free to move around between different progression paths and ships and weapon systems as your skill training time permits until you find something you like.
A Note on the Mission Running End Game in High vs Low/NullSec
This article includes fits for Marauder-class Tech 2 battleships for the sake of completion. For pilots running L4 missions near the NSC, using a marauder is not advised. While you are in bastion mode, you cannot warp off. In that minute that your bastion module is cycling, you can easily be combat-probed down and tackled by other players. More mobile, but still extremely potent, pirate battleships will be your end goal for running L4 missions down near the NSC. The same goes for high sec mission runners and war targets. If you are going fly a Marauder, keep in mind the implications of going into bastion mode and the risk you will be taking by doing so.
What makes a good mission fit?
A ship hull like the Vexor that is fit for PvP is not going to perform as well as a Vexor that is specifically fit for the rigors of running missions. While PvP encounters are typically short periods of intense damage and resource expenditure (cap, repairing, ammo clips), PvE encounters found in mission sites are of a different animal entirely. Mission running is an endurance activity and you will want to use a fit that reflects this fundamental difference. While creating a PvE mission fit, there are several key concepts to keep in mind that are important for mission runners.
Damage Selection
While running missions, you will fight a variety of enemies. Different factions' ships will deal different types of damage to your ship and they will be more vulnerable to different types of damage. In terms of offensive modules, this means we want to be able to pick the kind of damage we are sending towards hostile ships. Weapon systems and ship bonuses that provide the most flexibility in this regard will be the most optimal. Ship bonuses or weapon systems that lock you into only being able to deal one or two type of damage will not be able to adapt as well to different opponents and may find some missions more difficult. Most drone and missile ships will excel at being able to select the type of damage to apply, while laser boats will have the most difficulty adapting. Vessels using projectile weapons are fairly good and being able to choose the type of damage they want to shoot, but are weakest when wanting to apply kinetic damage. For ships with bonuses locking them into a specific damage type or those using lasers, drones can be a good stopgap to allow some adaptability.
