Stop The Thief, Level 4

>The one unit of reports that you are sent to recover is not a specific item, mission can be completed using any old unit of reports.

I haven't gone and shot things yet, but I can't complete the mission with some random reports yet. After re-reading, I assume you need to kill the Overlord then Shadow first.

On a sidenote... I wonder if this should be attempted in a Drake...

This mission may have been revised. You have the usual selection to warp within so many kilometers to start off. Once there the Groups appear as previously described, but at your selected distance. Group 2 spawn was 70-80 km from my ship. The next time I had this mission the distances were close to the above description.

You can use a drake in this mission,.. I had to only warp out onces,.. and that was after the second wave came in (they do hit hard). i just warped in at 70kms out and took them out. I recomend taking out the cruiser first as they are the ones with heavy damage in my opinion. I had only 4 tech 2 mods in my drake when i did this and i am sure i woulnd't have had to warp out at all had i all tech 2s in it.

if anyone wants a setup for that drake mission eve-mail me. Jupacha is the name as well.

This mission is not really problematic as long as you remember to tank the trigger ship whilst destroying that first spawn. After that you can decide to gain distance from the beacon by whatever means, even a new warp in.

I played the mission with a Drake, pretty low skills, most stuff is t1 best named. 282 defense and 245 offense were enough to get rid of all, shield never went below 75%. I agree with JupachA about the cruisers, they seem to do most damage.

My fitting: 3 BCS II, 1 Beta SPR (best named t1) ; 2 therm, 1 kin, 1 invul (all t1 named), 2 LSE (also t1 meta4); 7 arbalest heavies, i used scourges.

Completed in Passive Phoon shield tank setup.

Completed in T2 armor tanked Dominix. Group 2 hits hard and fast. I had to turn on my second LAR to tank it.

Blitzed the mission in an Astarte. 1st I went for the BS, then killed the Shadow. Left the field before getting scramed killed. I bought the reports from market.

32 x Veldspar Roids - 279,115 Units

Did this today, Therm not a recommended damage dealing type. Could not break the BS tank using Cataclysm Cruise Missiles, although T2 Hammerheads chewed him up.

Group 2 Has a very high dps, made it pretty hard for me as an armor tank.
I got great Results using 2xTherm 1xkin 1xEANM 1xLAR on a megathron

Completed in a CNR (1 therm, 2 invul active), took out frigates first with lights, sniped the cruisers in the distance, finally took the overlord. In second spawn, launched hammerheads, took out BS's, then cruisers. Was pretty quick and easy, killed everything in 10 minutes, loot took longer because that first set of cruisers started so far away.

Confirmed that thermal damage is best as well.

In my mission, had 1250 m^3 of loot, 70 salvage parts (none over 100k), 2 valuable mods, 5 okay ones, and the rest melted into 376k of trit at top end for 4.2 mil in minerals and 2.17 mil in bounties.

BTW, 34 metal scraps and 280 m^3 of boosters as well.

Passive shield tanked this in an Ishtar. Things got a bit iffy at one point from the cruisers in the second spawn, but my T1 hammerheads cleared them out before they could punch all the way through my shields. Pretty decent loot, too.

------warning the -friggs in pocket 2 warp scramble so be sure you can do this or stay away

Shot the battleship first. Got agro from the second spawn. Tanked the lot. Everything will come within 15km of you. Easy to loot and salvage too.

Wouldn't recommend this approach if you're not confident of your tanking skill.

Completed with an active shield-tanked mael, (XLSB, amp, 2 inv, 1 EM) but it was a little hairy until the battleships died. Should've plugged the therm hole.

Very short mission with good salvage, but a good one to lose a ship in if you're not careful. Lots of web/scram, so a bad fit (READ: Low Therm, EM or kin resist) will result in death.

If you're concerned about your tank, kill everything at long range. Most of the DPS is <15km. Again, watch out for the web/scram!

Pocket 1: Fly away from warp in. Leave the trigger for last. watch out for web/scram. Normal difficulty

Bounty: 1,9 mill
Mission: 0,9 mill
Loot and salvage: 6,2 mill
Total: 9 mill

Had a brain-fart in this mission and warped in at 0 with a sniping CNR and then stupidly killed trigger... Not a good move, managed to escape, and came back in a shuttle, made a sniping BM by warping in at 100 and aligning to a celestial, BM'd when i reached snipe range... warped back in using CNR and was then easy from that point...

in addition, warping in at 100 put me 10km from the cruiser group... not sure if this is because of how the system was spread with stations and celestials relative to the mission...

Warping to 70km put put ~130km from both the frigates and cruisers, and ~50km from the BS. It really just depends on the angle at which you warp in.

dps is VERY high at close range in the second group, be careful.

Completed in a drake, warped once when they got too close.

Blitzed in a passive shield t2 ishtar. Just kill the two triggers and warp out. Buy the reports at market. They got me to 40% shield before I warped out.

Completed in T2 fitted CNR with 1xTherm, 1xEM, 1xKinetic, 1xExp, Boost Amp and Large Booster. I think it is more suited to 2xEM, 1xTherm and 1xInvul, at least for Caldari ships.

Expect very heavy laser DPS. If you go after the cruisers first they go down pretty fast but the 3 BS's in the second wave do a lot of DPS.

warped out by accident in the second pocket while my donre shere still out, t2 hammerheads. when i came back they were all popped >.>

al because when you right click to select the base to warp to theres no align option....

Shot trigger first with a half-assed domi tank and needed to warp out a couple times. Was a bit surprised at the DPS since I've never had to warp out before -- that said be careful in this mission with killing the trigger ship first.

Completed on an Hurricane with this fitting:

[Hurricane, PvE Passivecane More recharge]
Gyrostabilizer II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon II, EMP M
'Malkuth' Standard Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile
'Malkuth' Standard Missile Launcher I, Sabretooth Light Missile

Medium Core Defence Field Purger II
Medium Core Defence Field Purger II
Medium Core Defence Field Purger II

Drones

As for today, the second Group spawns as soon as you ATTACK the Battleship from Group 1. Do NOT Attack the BS before all other ships of Group one are destroyed.

Done with CNR and Nightmare, both had to warp out because the DPS was too high for both of us.

Also there was no scrambling but a lot of webbing

I had no jamming though there was heavy webbifying, battleships seemed to do slightly more damage than the cruisers, but not by much.
Also i noticed that the missiles being used were Scourge Heavy (Kinetic) dealing upto 300 damage. (Since i was tanked for Thermal)

Warped in directly on top of the trigger and killed it first. I set my hobgoblins to kill the frigates and mowed down everything else with autocannons (Phased Plasma L) starting with the cruisers. Very quick finish with no need to warp out.

Pulsing my booster and cap injector, shields never went below half. 10 cap booster 800s consumed. Without BS V (Maelstrom bonus) and a Complex shield booster this probably wouldn't work so well.


8x 800mm repeating artillery II

1x Pith B-Type X-Large Shield Booster
1x 100MN Afterburner II
1x Ballistic Deflection Field II
1x Heat Dissipation Field II
1x Photon Scattering Field II
1x Heavy Capacitor Booster II (Cap Booster 800)

2x Gyrostabilizer II
3x Tracking Enhancer II

1x Large Core Defense Operational Solidifier I
2x Large Projectile Ambit Extension I

10x Hobgoblin II
5x Hammerhead II

Second group is no joke if you go straight for the trigger ship and don't kill the other ships first. 6-8 ships will web, so no speed tank! Had to fit full tank on Gila to complete.

Almost lost a Tengu there. 4 volleyed the trigger, and then 4 webbers, and a LOT of damage.

With no speed tank, 350 omni tank and 150m signature is not enough.

Completed in my Raven - mostly tech I fitted. Had to warp out in the second wave since once I got webbed they all bundled on top of me and I ran out of cap trying to maintain my shields. Warped back in and mopped them up. The hardest part about it is the variety of damage they deal.

This is what I was using
Hi Slots
6 x XT Cruise launchers with cataclysm cruise missiles.
1 x Drone link aug
Low Slots
2 x Ballistic control system II
3 x Capacitor Flux Coil II

Mid Slots
2 x Ditrigonal thermal barrier crystalization - shield hardners
1x 'anointed' EM ward - shield hardner
1 x non-intertial ballistic deflection field - shield hardner
1 x Caldari Navy X-Large Shield booster
1 x Caldari Navy Shield Boost Amplifier

Rigs
3 x Large Cap Control Circuit

I`m always blitz this mission

Warped in and killed the trigger. I do not recommend doing this unless you know what you doing. In a minute I was scrumbled by 6 frigates and tank was not holding (Abaddon, 1x Faction LAR + repair implant, 2xTherm II, 1xKin II, 1x EANM II, skills - Repair Systems V, Hull Upgrades V level).
I killed shadow, 2 BCs and several frigates and armor stabilized at ~25%, but it was very close :)

Completed it with an Apocalypse and it was a piece of cake, so I thought i'd share my fit and procedure. (10-15 minutes max, no warping out, armor never got to 80%)

Rigs:
3x large capacitor control circuit i

High:
8x Mega Afocal Pulse Maser I (Ultraviolet for targets further than 15 km, Multifreq for closer)

Med:
4x Cap Recharger II

Low:
2x Armor Thermic Hardener II
1x Armor Kinetic Hardener II
1x Armor EM Hardener II
2x Large Armor Repairer II
1x Damage Control II

Drones:
3x Hammerhead II
8x Hobgoblin II

Warped in at 20km, targeted frigates and set group of goblins to kill one by one, then retrieved 3 and launched 3 hammerheads ii to get the group of cruisers, and the bs at last.

Even the frigates could be hit by the large guns while they weren't close enough to orbit

Only 1 LAR necessary for group 1, but both activated for group 2

On group 2 i set goblins on frigates while i shot cruisers with guns. after frigs died, recover 3 goblins and set 3 hammerheads, finish the cruisers and move on to the battleships at last

Never lost more than 20% of armor

Compeleted in standard abaddon with 3 ccc
It's a bit annoying mission when all firgate web/scramble you
T1 Hobgoblin works good but i would recommand get T2 to do this mission
will be MUCH EASY to kill frigates to avoid web/scramble
Cruiser is not big problem if you warp in right place.

lost my 1st mael to 2nd spawn (was not aligned when they spawned at 15km and I wasn't expecting that much dps)
Heavy dps indeed :) watch out.

T1 meta4 Beam fit Abaddon warped in at 100 and sniped em all to death. They move fast so easy to stay put and pick em off as they get in range. DPS is low at long range, had 2 KIN, 1 TH, 1 Nano, and a LAR.

Completed in a Kronos. Make sure to have at least 2 LAR on the Kronos and all the appropriate hardeners, wave 2 hits hard and fast. Usually I fit a lot of mag stabs, but not this mission.

A fully hardened Dominix also can tank wave 2.

Highly recommended to just blitz the mission. I had to warp out twice in a CNR, the second spawn has a huge initial DPS. Only got heavy webbifying no scramming.

i completed this mission pretty easy in my nightmare, the cruisers scratched my tank a little but i eliminated them fast enough it never went below 75%, however i am using deadspace/faction and with an overkill tank for most lvl 4s:

[Nightmare, missions]

4x Ammatar Navy Tachyon Beam Laser (Imperial Navy Multifrequency L)
Small Tractor Beam I
Salvager I

Gist X-Type X-Large Shield Booster
Pith X-Type Photon Scattering Field
Pith X-Type Heat Dissipation Field
Pith X-Type Ballistic Deflection Field
2x Pith X-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Ammatar Navy Cap Recharger

2x Ammatar Navy Capacitor Power Relay
3x Ammatar Navy Heat Sink

3x Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

5x Hammerhead II
5x Hobgoblin II

I had a weird experience--rather than the BS being the trigger, one of the cruisers was.

After that spawn came in, my tank couldn't hold it up.

Completed in overkill (1k omni tank) tengu, hit the trigger first then cleaned up the rest, precision missiles make short work of the frigates and fury missiles clean up the rest pretty fast. Shields never left 1 boost from full.

Easily completed in an Armor Tanked Megathron (2x n-type Kinetic Hardener, 2x n-type Thermic Hardener, 2x Large Armor Repairer II)...

The spawn is almost all kinetic damage, so it might pay to change you shield set-up for that.

Since I'm almost dead... I corrected the warning and highlighted it. It's called eve-survival for a reason. Highlight style is adapted in the IGB CSS, so I guess it's there for a reason.
I'm not sure about the dmg type, so I've left it. Plz if sby could verify it... Thanks!

I just completed this without a problem, not aligned and just used drones:-

Navy Issue Domi
[H] - 4 x 425mm Railgun II, 1 x Drone Link Aug
[M] - 6 x Cap Recharger II
[L] - 1 x Armor Hardner EM II, 1 x Armor Hardner Thermic II, 2 x Armor Hardner Kinetic II, 1 x Damage Control II, 1 x Med Armor Rep II & 1 x Large Armor Rep II


Tech II drones

Flying 800mm AC & 2 heavy launchers, Armour tanked Tempest (2x Thermic, 1 x Kinetic hardners, 2 LAR IIs) and an AB II for kicks.

Easily completed. Ignored initial Overlord, Got Agro from initail Merc Wingmen so kited them while heading for the Merc Cruisers. The ACs and drones easily took care of the frigs, then when in range took out the Cruisers.

Only then did I take out the Overlord trigger. Since I had kited with AB on, the Spawn occurred 60km away. This made the mission so much easier. The frigs melted under my ACs, with help from my drones once they were in range. Then I flew directly at the BSs, melting the cruisers on my way. The BS took seconds flat to go down.

Tank barely scratched, easy mission if you leave trigger til last. Took about 15 mins.

Easily done at range, warp in at 100km and go to town, takes about 5 mins.

Non-blitz/Full clear according to current Jita prices

Loot: 6.77M
LP: 2737 x 1000 = 2.74M
Bounty: 2.17M
Reward: 1.35M
Salvage: 1.23M
---
Sum (no salvage): 6.26M
Sum (excl. LP): 11.52M
Sum: 14.26M

Mission (undock - reward): 17 min
Salvage (undock - dock): 9.5 min
---
Sum: 26.5 min

Ship: Raven (T2 some faction)
Pilot: 17.35M skill points

ISK/h: 32.29M/h
ISK/h (no salvage): 22.09M/h
ISK/h (blitz): ?

Navy Geddon, 2x Therm Hardener, 1x Kin, 1x EANM like the guy earlier said, worked like a charm, didn't need to warp out. The cruisers are numerous and deadly buy die fast... 3-4 shots each. Ran out of scorch and used standard, on the easy side really.

I'm new to lvl 4 missions (no T2 hardeners yet) and feared doing this one in my Typhoon. If you are new, and want to give it a try, I recommend you to fit a good tank (I have 83/85/69/24 resists and cap stability), and do the kitting method.

In case anyone is interested, at about 300km from beacon the ships seem to stop and not go any further, it may be safe to shoot from anywhere beyond 300km. Beware that once you get beyond the 300km limit, since you will be out of the area, your drones will be torn to pieces since they will stay in with the enemy ships inside the 300km deadline. In my case I had to turn around and go back to the beacon kitting everything since I needed my drones to take down the frigs from spawn.

I find that if I bring in a logistics ship and orbit my mission ship, the 2nd wave always targets the logistics ship. I speed-tank the logistics ship so it isn't a problem, just seems odd.

I warped in at 70km; all targets were over 100km EXCEPT the BS. Like a moron I killed him and then had this massive zerg on me. Don't do what I did.

Cruisers die quickly to big guns, and drones on frigates.

If for some twisted reason you need to bring logistics to a level 4 mission then you are doing it wrong. Get a proper ship (Machariel), 1100 dps and you melt that entire spawn before you get to 50% shields.

I'm pretty sure this mission was nerfed: the Shadow Grunts no longer seem to do EM damage. I've done this mission twice in the last month and haven't seen any EM missiles either time.

I just did this in a Mach with pretty good skills. It's easy enough to speed+shield tank in a good large AC fit despite the comments.

Fly at frigate group, when you can target them, do and open fire. By this point I was at about orbit range on trigger BS, cruisers still out of range, so orbited with AB, killed trigger. Started flying straight as reinforcements spawned - more than enough time with mix of drones and large AC to take out all the reinforcements that way, then original cruiser group before they got into light missile range.

Took 22 minutes from accepting to hopping 3 jumps, killing all, getting Noctis, salvaging and back home handing mission in.

For me the Veld was all local ~30km from warp-in location. If I'd had a miner nearby I might have gone for it.

Pretty easy mission for a Kronos. Kronos can target up to 108km without fitting any additional modules, so you can kill all frigs and cruisers in the first group while they approach you. Send your drones to the trigger while sniping the small ships. Switch to Javelin for second spawn and each shadow grunt cruiser will pop after 1-2 shots. Fitting a faction webber is recommended to slow down the shadow BS in low orbit. Total time: ~5 min

Just checked logs. There was no EM damage dealt in Cruicible version of mission. Shadow's Grunts fire Trauma Heavy Missiles.

Word of warning. I got out this mission with 3% structure in a CN Raven. Killed all first pocket. Spawned the next got scrambled and stasis and next thing you know a CN Large Booster with CN Amp's with 70% resits just wasnt cutting it and i was being melted. Just got out with 3% structure, repaired warped back in at 70km and i was fine :) Becareful on this mission.

As a counter to ExPOSED's experience, this one is laughably easy to blitz in a reasonably pimped CNR (about 1.2 bil). Warp in and align to sun, shoot BS and warp away. Warp back at 100km, align again and pop Shadow. Dock up w/ a Report purchased from the market. Simple ISK and acceptable LPs for about 10 mins of effort.

Super easy mission but doesn't seems so at beggining.
Blitz like SobrietyOKeeffe described above.
But if you want easy ISK do like that: when you jump back at 100km kill the frigates as they approach and you can easily kite the rest of rats. Takes 3 more minutes worth ~2,2 mil ISK in bounties. Do as you wish :)

Completed in a Nightmare with therm/kinetic resistance amps.
The cruisers in the spawn appeared 50Kish away and it was easy to kill them before they got in range. Had Hob IIs on the frigates at the same time and cut through the lot of them very quickly.

Mission Ship: Scorpion Navy Issue
Omni Tank: 1014 (cap stabble, lazy fittings.)
Cruise Missles: 400ps - 130km range.
Drones: 5*Hobgoblin II - 78Dps

(low damage lazy farm ship, aggro full rooms.)

Salvage Ship: Noctis
High slots: 4*Small Tractor Beam I
High slots: 4*Salvager I
Mid slots: Experimental 10MN Afterburner I
Mid slots: Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Low Slots: 3* Expanded Cargohold II
Rigs: 3* Medium Salvage Tackle I
Cargohold: 3.000m3 +-

Tractor Beam Range: 80km
-----------------------------------
Mission: Stop The Thief
Mission Time: 12 Minits
Mission LP/Bounty/Reward: 1702LP - 3.4M

Salvage Time: 8 Minits
Salvage Value: 13.5M

I hope my guide helps whomever http://youtu.be/fW6Qq7Ebrkc

Went in at 100, which in my case put them out about 140km: sensor booster a must, sniping guns (in my case Tachyons with Aurora), damage boosts (3 heatsinks for me), AB gave me a little more time and helped get reports, tracking computer wouldn't have been bad. Frigates were popping at max range with one shot, cruisers with 2 or 3. Only ship that got a little closer, or even hit me (with his missile) was the trigger ship. Spawn slightly closer but easily taken out before anything got in range. Didn't need to run my booster, was never nervous. Nightmare.

Did this mission on my raven, mostly T2 fitted, warped in at 100km.

My setup:
High power
1x Drone Link Augmentor I
6x 'Arbalest' Cruise Launcher I
Medium power
1x Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
1x Large Micro Jump Drive
1x X-Large Shield Booster II
1x Kinetic Deflection Field II
1x Heavy Capacitor Booster II
2x Thermic Dissipation Field II
Low power
1x Co-Processor II
3x Ballistic Control System II
1x Type-E Discriminative Signal Augmentation
Rig Slot
3x Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst I
Charges
2x Cap Booster 800
1.282x Inferno Cruise Missile
Drones
5x Hobgoblin II
5x Hammerhead II

I found no need to use the jump drive.
1st wave is easy cakes, make sure to clear everything else before killing the BS.
2nd wave applies heavy damage on their optimal range, so you'd want to kill them before they get there.
target cruisers first, they have close to no tank, same with the BS
use drones to get rid of them frigs, they didn't switch aggro for me, there was no scrambling for me either
(my luck, as my internet decided to poop on me before i could kill the last frig)

fly save~

Ran this for the first time today. My experience was different than some of the suggestions in the description.... I opted to warp to 100km hoping to have range off the web/scram frigs. As it turns out, I dropped within 15km and was instantly webbed by all 6. Fortunately, it was only webs, and I was able to warp out (they were WAY under my guns even changing out to tracking scripts, and the 7 T1 medium drones were not going to be able to deal with the problem in a timely manner). I instead warped back into 0, and was about 80km from the frigs and, as advertised, 23 from the Overlord BS. At this point, the mission was easy. I got instant agro from the frigs, but they were 80 km away. So, I ABed directly away from the frigs and picked them off before they could even land any damage. The Overlord got me to about 75% shields, but once the frigs were gone, I turned and got him in short order.

Now, and this is why it was easy, the spawn that triggered came in at about 80km (from my location at the time, I didn't note where it was in relation to the beacon). I hit the cruisers first which were gone before they could land any damage at all. Shadow and one of his goons were coming at me faster than the frigs, so I hit them next and then just cleaned up. Due to the spacing of the spawns, I barely took any damage.

Loadout:

[Megathron, Megathron 425 thorium]

Dark Blood Armor Kinetic Hardener
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Centus C-Type Large Armor Repairer
Dark Blood Armor Thermic Hardener
Federation Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Damage Control II

Tracking Computer I, Optimal Range Script
Shadow Serpentis 100MN Afterburner
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Tracking Computer I, Optimal Range Script

425mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Federation Navy Thorium Charge L
425mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Federation Navy Thorium Charge L
425mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Federation Navy Thorium Charge L
425mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Federation Navy Thorium Charge L
425mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Federation Navy Thorium Charge L
425mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Federation Navy Thorium Charge L
425mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Federation Navy Thorium Charge L

Large Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Large Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

Hammerhead I x5

12-04-2014
Mission done in 10 minutes - Tengu - 2 reps. Heavy damage when webbed by 6 frigs.

Navy Domi,T2 Light, T1 Heavy, 4x350mm, therm/kin/em hardeners
Warped to 70km, took out group on the right.
Aligned and frigates never got to me to do anything.
Took out BS
Took out group on left.
Never used a rep. Quite easy.

Warp in was 100 plus so I just sat and picked em off with Imp Navy Ultraviolet.
Tachyon Beam Laser II
falloff = 115km
optimal = 90
Acolyte II drones
Warp in with a sniper ship. Kill the frigs ,then the cruisers, then the BS that is the trigger. Same deal on second wave. Frigs first,cruisers next, then the BS. Nice mission with decent rewards given the time involved to complete. Not a nut buster. LOL

Mission reward :1.4+ mil.
Bounty 2.1+ mil.
salvage 7.8+ mil

I would skip this mission, only got 7.2 million, salvage was not even 1M isk. Got jipped!