How can I kill frigates in a Caracal?

eve-online

I've encountered a level 2 security mission that's giving me some problems. I fly a Caracal for it, and one of the first things that happens to you is you get stasis webbed as soon as the mobs spawn. The ones doing the webbing are a couple of really fast frigates that my heavy missiles just can't seem to hit. Is there any way to deal with this in my Caracal or should I fly something smaller to handle this, like a Kestrel? I've tried drones, but they don't hit hard enough or fast enough (Hobgoblin I).

High Slots: Heavy Missile Launcher I x 5 (I switch between Scourge Heavy and Inferno Heavy Missiles)

Medium Slots: Medium Shield Extender x 4, Small Shield Extender x 1

Low Slots: Ballistic Control x 2

Solution 1:

I'd try a light missile caracal in level 2 missions, if I remember correctly there are mostly smaller enemies in those missions that you'll hit better with smaller weapons. You'll be slower to kill the big ships, but a lot faster for all the small stuff.

You should also change your tank, usually you'd use something like two large shield extenders and 1-2 Adaptive Invulnerability fields, all depending on your fitting skills of course. Small shield extenders are a waste of a slot, you'll always want to oversize them: Medium Shield extender on frigates, large ones on anything bigger.

Warrior drones are the fastest ones, you might want to train Drones to V, so that you can learn Drone interfacing (+20% per level). That makes a huge difference for your drone damage, and you'll need it for the higher level missions in any case.

The Target Navigation Prediction skill also helps with hitting the small ships with missiles, and also the more expensive Guided Missile Precision skill.

Here's an example fit for a missioning Caracal, you can of course downgrade all the T2 modules if you don't have the skills to use them. You can also change the invuls to rat-specific hardeners, that should further improve your tank. Though that should not be really necessary in level 2 missions if you have halfway reasonable skills.

[Caracal, Caracal fit]

Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
10MN Afterburner II

Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Scourge Light Missile

Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I
Medium Core Defense Field Purger I


Warrior II x2

Solution 2:

Ok, looking back on my question several months later, now that I can run LV 4s with no problem, I can see where I went wrong. I know some of this has been mentioned in previous answers, but I felt it best to summarize and add a few things of my own.

Heavy missiles are NOT ideal for LV 2s, for the following reason: Using missiles on enemies whose signature radius is smaller than the missile's explosion radius will result in decreased damage, sometimes drastically. That being said, I was able to mitigate that effect by using a Drake fitted with two target painters, a full rack of meta Heavy Missile launchers, and some light tank (two adaptive invuln IIs, anti-EM rig, anti-Therm rig, Core Defense Field Extender).
The mission I was running when I wrote this was the first of the "Recon" chain, which doesn't require you to fight anything at all, since the ships in this mission put out an unnaturally high amount of DPS. In fact, you can finish the mission in an untanked frig with a microwarpdrive. Simply burn straight down as fast as you can towards the acceleration gate, and once you land in the second room the mission will be marked complete. Using a guide like http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage Eve Survival will help mitigate that.
The fit I posted in my original question is utter crap, disregard it. Fit something like this instead:

[Caracal, Missioning]
Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Field II
Thermic Dissipation Field II
Medium Shield Extender II

Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

Meta it down when appropriate, this should see you through most LV 2s if you can't fit into a Drake, barring the aforementioned "Recon" missions. Swap the Invulns for mission specific-hardeners, and the missiles for mission-specific damage types where appropriate.

Solution 3:

I haven't played Eve for a while, so if any of this has drastically changed in the last 18 months this answer is out of date.

The way I see it you have two options, if you want to stick with the Caracal (which is a fine ship, so you should):

Take a couple of light drones. These should be able to take out the smallest rats in the second tier of missions. (This will mean you'll need to train some skills in the drones section, which for a Caldari pilot will probably be wasted later on, but the ones you'll need shouldn't be expensive.) I see you've tried this, so it probably isn't enough, unless you want to invest in skills to beef up the drones you can use.
Switch one or two of your launchers to Assualt or Rocket launchers (Just one Assault really should be OK, IIRC). You'll lose that little bit of firepower on the bigger rats, but it probably won't be that noticeable; and you'll also have more power/cpu to work with on your other slots for shield boosting (possibly get a fifth medium extender?).

Solution 4:

Possibly you may wish to try out switching out one or two extenders for stasis webifiers. You may need to switch out the bcs's from the lows to Shield power relays instead to keep the same tank (or use some rigs)

Solution 5:

For PvE play, you need a certain amount of tank but beyond a tank that allows you to survive the mission, tank serves no purpose. With this in mind, you should know that dps > tank. Also I highly recommend every mission runner have some sort of prop mod (AB or MWD) or a MJD. These give the player the ability to move away from rat brawler ships and snipe properly.

Per my comments on the earlier thread, I'm providing a better Caracal fit for mission running:

[Caracal, PvE Improved]

366 dps
42,293 EHP
94 dps tank
670 m/s with AB running
sig = 202 m
Cap stable with AB running

[Caracal, PvE Improved] Damage Control II Ballistic Control System II Ballistic Control System II Ballistic Control System II

10MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender Large F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender Adaptive Invulnerability Field II Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Heavy Missile Heavy Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Heavy Missile Heavy Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Heavy Missile Heavy Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Heavy Missile Heavy Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Heavy Missile

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I Medium Core Defense Field Extender I Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

Warrior II x2

I'd love to replace one of the MCDFEs with a Rigor catalyst to improve damage application to small targets, however this increases the weapon's CPU requirements and forces me to downgrade many other components to make it fit.

I put Warrior II in for increased drone survivability, however, the hobgoblin puts out more damage.

You may replace the Invulnerability Fields with rat specific hardeners to improve your survivability even more - as long as you are willing to change them for every mission.

Caracals do NOT get a bonus for using kinetic (scourge) missiles. In general, most factions have a secondary resist hole for thermal (inferno) damage. So if you want to load just a single type of ammo, inferno is usually the best to load. Otherwise swap out the missiles for every mission using the missile best matched to the rat resist hole. Fury missiles do ~40% more damage than t1 missiles and ~25% more damage than faction missiles. However, they suffer from not being able to apply full damage to small signature ships. This is another reason for trying to squeeze on a rigor catalyst or a target painter.

My philosophy with rigs is you put the same tech level as the ship they're installed in. Since Caracals are t1 cruisers, this means t1 rigs. If you're flush with cash, bumping these up to t2 gives much better results and the t2 rigs suffer exactly the same drawbacks as the t1 rigs do.

The alt I used for this fitting has nearly perfect skills for shields, missiles, fittings, etc. You may have to do some more downgrading or replace t2 modules with meta ones to make it work.