Cut-Throat Competition, Level 3

Pretty good loot for a lvl 3 mission, I found 2 XR-3200 launchers both times I did the mission.

For me it was completely different:

First wave: 10 x Blackbird, but only 2 aggroed, killing the second triggered second wave, I could ignore the other 8, but they aggroed drones
Second wave: 5 x Caracal
Thrid wave: 5 x Ferox
Fourth wave: 2 x Cerberus (named as Rival Security Heavy), 5 x Ferox

Damage in the fourt wave is quite heavy, my perma active tank is around 300dps on my Ferox and it was very slowly braking until I killed 2 BCs. HACs go down much slower, start with BCs.

All the damage is kinetic missiles, didn't get any thermal.

Loot and salvage is nothing special, but you get around 40 Caldari Navy Insignias which sell for a considerable price.

Had it for the second time. First pocket is always the same 5 x Caracal.

Second pocket was different:

First wave: 9 x Blackbird, 1 x Moa.
The Moa and one Blackbird fly separately, still they are the only who aggro you on warp-in. They are the trigger group, shooting Scourge heavy missiles, other 8 Blacbirds shoot Bloodclaws. This time I killed them all before triggering second wave.
Second wave: 4 x Caracal (3 shooting Scourge heavies, 1 Bloodclaw lights + all shooting with railguns)
Third wave: 2 x Rook, 2 x Cerberus, 5 x Ferox (trigger).
One of the Rooks shoots Flameburst lights, others a mix of Bloodclaws and Scourges. Rooks jam very heavily. Last Ferox triggers fourth wave.
Fourth wave: 5 x Ferox
They are shooting Scourge heavies + railguns. Damage is impressive. Together with the left 2 Cerberuses they were very slowly breaking my 591 dps Kinetic tank on the Ferox.

I would NOT say that this mission is doable in a T1 cruiser, or at least can be very hard. And it is different every time you do it.

Did this in a Tank Drake.
Started at the first gate with 5 caracels

When I warped through got hit by 10 Blackbird class and a Moa (had to warp out after killing 2 even with my 15k worth of shields). I made the mistake of flying at the main group and aggroed all of them. When I warped back only the 2 right in front of the gate aggroed. When I killed the 2nd of these two (Left the Moa alone) it triggered 2nd wave. Was jammed so bad I couldnt lock even when they werent jamming (had to warp out again) and they killed my drones.

When I warped back in I was able to take out the majority of the 2nd wave (4 caracel and 2 blackbird) however the other 2 blackbird stayed alive with their constant jamming. In comes the third wave of 10 Ferox. These guys tore me apart when I warped back in, I was only able to kill 1 and badly damage another before I had to warp out (With half my armor gone). Changed one of my shield extenders for Kinetic Deflection Amplifier II (duh). Shields held up better this time although I was still only able to kill 2 and badly damage a third before warping out and Im using heavy Caldari scourge missiles. After 5 times warping in and out I finally killed 2 of the security specialists (Main Jammers). Also noticed that they jam you even when their jammers arent on? Does that make sense to anyone else?

Finished off that wave, Now 5 Destroyers warped in, Think this is the 4th wave. They are all firing Scourge missiles, thank God. Able to destroy last wave with no problem. Still have to finish the last group of 5 from the initial wave but gonna take my time as they are not aggroed. Finally finished off the last group and repair station easily.

After looking at the loot, I gotta say this mish isnt worth the effort. Took way to long to tear apart the enemy for minimal gain although the agent payout and loyalty points were the real motivator. 1.5 mil isk and 1k loyalty points + were nice.

Did this in an active fitted Drake with AB fitted. No drones.

Never had to warp out, shields down to 50% though.

Total loot worth below 2mil (jita market price) but takes a while to collect.

Recommend Blitz if possible

Did it in a Myrm: (2nd time I had this mission)
1x MAR II, 1xCentii Small AR, 1x Kin, 1x Therm Hardener, 1x Centii Magnetic Plating, DCII - (Repair Systems Lvl 5) - Meta 4 250mm Guns & Vespa II Drones

1st time my skills were significantly lower. I could tank the dmg with 2x MARII but could not break the tank of the enemy HACs, so I called a corp mate for help.

For a low skill char, this mission is very hard to do it solo.

Just found 100 Caldari Navy Terror Assault Missiles in this mission .. so there seems to be a chance to get at least faction ammo.

I found it very difficult to kill the Moa Class ships in the second wave of the second pocket. Scourge Heavy missiles seem to have little effect and the jamming was long and seemingly constant. Killing these before the third wave is imperative.

When launching my drones they did aggro the main group of ships in the second pocket (the non-wave), but when returning them the ships did not engage me. caution using drones here.

On the third wave I noticed a significant damage increase from the HACs. I destroyed all but one of the Ferox's and left one remaining to hold off the fourth wave while I whittled down the heavies. Shields dropped to 50% at the peak of this engagement.

I completed the mission with an actively fitted Drake and only 2.2mil SP. So I think this mission is feasible as a lower SP character but it really requires you to behave yourself on the kill order and pick a ship that is well designed to tank some serious damage. I might suggest changing the suggested ship type from Caracal to Drake or similar BC.

Definitively Drake. I ended up with aggro from more than 15 missileboats for if you try to stay away from one group you automatically draw them towards the other or vice versa. Needed a second player to help me. Extreme enemy range, hellish damage in spite of high res (kinetic and thermal)... no way to finish it. Blowing up repair station and 1. wave did not finish mission.

Blitz:
- Shoot the 8 ships surrounding the repair outpost
- Shoot the repair outpost
- mission finished

Had a slightly different composition and spawn order in the single room. However, as it amounted to much the same thing overall and I'm not sure what exactly were the triggers, I have left the rat description unchanged for the time being.

Unengaged groups will target your drones.

Piece of cake in a Dominix, although drone aggro is a bit of a bother.

This is a good mission - it made me learn more about armor fitting than I'd previously had to in my myrm (made me realise I had been using a pretty bad fit). While it took an hour - with a kin-hardener and therm-hardeners onboard with dual MARII's it was fairly "easy". In the second room I left the repair outpost and their 8 ships and kited away the other spawn groups to about 100km away. There I was able to unload my VespaII drones onto them without the drones being targetted. I didn't want to have to warp out as if I had to come back I'd be in the middle of all the ships and be pounded.

This mission was awful. Blew up the nearest two, used my drones on them which agroed the main group. After those two are blown up another whole group pops right on top of me (within 2k). The drones have drawn the main group of 8 on me and I warp out. Every time I warp in now, I'm getting hit by about 15 things and jammed for a solid minute before I can return fire. I only get to take about 8 shots before I have to get out of there. I'm unable to kite them away from the warp in spot or get anything significant damage done. The specialists are consistently the furthest from where I warp in.

I'm playing a low skill character, but this is considerably harder than any of the other missions I've run into, if for no other reason that there are no options after warping in. In hindsight I guess I shouldn't have sent the drones out as they've now agroed the group of 8 to the point where I can't warp in without engaging them. That or clean them out before killing the trigger, but the trigger for me was *not* a different ship type, it was identical to the rest of the wave, but it was one of two grouped together away from everything else.

Very Easy Mission for a 2.5 m SP Char in a Drake. I had 3 Ballistic Hardeners and 1 Thermal Hardener. Tank never dropped below 85%.

Just completed this mission first time. Ran it in a passive Drake, 2 LSE I's, 2 Ballistic hardners, and one Invuln field, 6x Heavy Missile Launchers and Caldari Navy Scourge Missiles, never saw my tank go below 70% First group at the gate was 5x Caracals, after accel gate wip, didn't aggro anything, targeted the two security specialists to my right, THEY JAMMED HEAVILY!. They were the first ones to go, had a bit of a tank on them. I left the 8 blackbirds alone, and concentrated on the waves as they came. Ended up vs 7 Ferox's, a random scattering of blackbirds and carcals. Had to warp out to get more ammo, came back and finished them up with about 6-7 salvos a piece. Hardest part was the two HAC's "Rival Security Heavy", while they didn't dish out much DPS, they have a wicked tank. Eventually wore them down. Mostly Kinetic damage, a little bit of thermal. Beware of jammers, take out the security specialists first unless you want to stay permajammed. Also, not much in the way of loot.

In a normal beginner Drake this mission is rather hard. Incoming DPS is extreme as soon as the elite cruisers spawn. Also they targetdisrupt you very often. You may have to warp out several times.

Easy mission for a fully T2 fitted Drake(but rigs and missile launchers)

Took around 30min. Shield never went below 80% and i'm a 2.2mil sp Character.

No bounty's.

Ran this in a passive tanked Hurricane, 350dps omnitank, and the jamming was really bad. Easy mission to run, but the blitz didn't work for me.

This is a cheet mission ,, after the 2nd wave they start jamming heavly from 70k out , sometimes 3 or more hit at the same time ,, the cycle is just enough for the ship you were shooting to repair ,, after their cycle ends and you are able to target again 1-3 more ships jam you ,, missile damage is heavy and the mission is all around difficult , was using eccm and multi spectrum ecm and still was not able to finish the mission ,, so be ready for a fight

Completed in a t2 passive tanked Draked. Because of the above mission reports (Thank You) I sacrificed some tank to fit two Conjunctive Gravimetric ECCM Scanning Array I. That took my sensor strength to 68.3 and I only got jammed twice from the Elite Frigates. No real issue there. Interestingly, even without the Elite Frigates to jam you, the "Jamming" indicator still appears on the screen throughout the entire mission, constantly counting down from 20 seconds and then re-starting. The overview showed no ship doing anything to me, and no apparent effect of any jamming going on. A bug? Anyway, without doing any aggro management, and without moving my ship after warp in, my shields never went below 52%.

around 4-6 mil isk for insignia, if u kill all

If you get jammed select another target from the overview. That helped me end the jamming quicker

I used two ECCM modules and a Kinetic Hardener II + Inv. Field II on my drake. This gave me eneough tank and also enough sensor strength to reduce the jamming to a minimum.

The trick is to wait and see which ships aggro and only attack those, this way you can avoid a large group, which can safely be disposed after the jammers are finished.

My corpmate started this mission with a Drake and an Arbiter on 2 accounts. He proceeded smoothly to last wave amd then the Rooks showed up with six Ferox sidekicks and a leftover Cerberus. He lost the arb and shouted for help, but reset time interfered.

Back after reset, he asked again for help and I fitted a Ferox with two nodules against jamming and joined his Drake and a Caracal Nine blackbirds at first pocket, 8 more inside, five caracals and a heavy, followed by five Feroxes and another heavy When the Feroxes were gone, all hell broke loose. Ywo Rooks and at least six Feroxes, and the damage was so heavy, all three of us had to warp out repeatedly without doing any permanent damage to any of the ships.

I fitted an Afterburner and faction Iridium charges and we sailed in together and broke apart like a bomb burst each drawing some attention. I was pretty far from the rooks and the others were reporting jamming while I picked one of the rooks apart. After that, the collapse was quick. Two of us got the second rook and I picked apart the Feroxes following me after switching to lead, finishing them off more than 120 km away from the Cerberus where my corpmates had done in their Feroxes and were putting the finishing touches on the Cerberus.

Loot was about 3M, and I am not sure this mix can be done by a singe ship except maybe a NightHaawk. Damage done by that last wave was impressive, particularly since I had to trade tank for targeting. Repair bills exceeded 1,250,000 ISK for my Ferox alone.

I did this mission just a few days before, where the Rooks showed up with the Blackbirds, and I had to ask for help because my Drake was not doing enough damage to the Rooks to keep up with their repair and jamming cycles. The changes in Retribution seem to have made this mission really difficult.

Also echo what many have stated already:
Fit 1-2 ECCM modules, it does help.
Becareful of drones as they like to aggro the "passive" group near the repair outpost and subsequently die.
Only attack those that aggro you and try to save the "Heavies" for last since they can take awhile to bring down.

First time I have ever run this mission. For a level 3 im amazed. I used a t2 fitted HAM cerb with an active tank, the Jamming from those 2 cruisers at 1 boint had me jammed out for 3 minutes and 40 seconds. This is possibly the hardest level 3 mission I have seen except perhaps the blockade.

I'd say the hardest L3 mission even over Blockade, though it depends on RNG God's jam chances. Even in a Loki with with ECCM (34ish LADAR strength) I'd get jammed constantly by the second wave's jam cruisers. Recommend heavy alpha or drone DPS to get them off the field ASAP.

The jams on the Caldari epic arc final battle have nothing on this. Have tried with ships with 50+ sensor strength and still get jammed ~75% of the time.

This mission is way harder than any other L3 I've done. Each wave starts hitting you straight away with a lot of damage. T1.5 Myrmidon. Heavy Drones are a must. In the last wave I had 5+ battlecruisers and a few cruisers on me. Jamming is very frequent. Loot and salvage worth 6m ISK

The loot was about 13.5 mil.