While I have some favorite ships in Eve Online, the Paladin is quite the classic for me. While it had been a while since I had one, since they can get a bit pricy, it was only a matter of time. It was time to rock some level four missions.

While you can go quite high-end on modules and “bling” out something like a paladin. As many mission runners do. I prefer not to do that until I have built up quite a sizeable wallet stack. So, I first started in a more modest fit.

The hardest and risky part is just getting it out of Jita and on down to where I'll be running missions. If a bunch of people just want to gank that day, it could happen. However, since I was not going full-blown, it reduced my chances by a decent amount.

Like many, I feel that if you can keep something under 2 billion ISK. The gankers rather wait and pick on something else. A big chunk of the cost if I get killed is in the actual ship itself. The modules are not that many, so it tends not to be worth their time taking you out, trying to get out of Jita and the surrounding areas in high-security space.

I did fit some warp stabs and a core. Reducing the amount of time it takes for me to get into the jump. While also requiring them to drop a stronger warp scrambler or multiple on me if someone wants to do something.

Mostly, the travel fit I have on this thing is to get me to my destination. A Paladin is a marauder-class ship, and they are not exactly fast.

I also lucked out a bit. I had some spare remaining parts from long ago when I used to have a Paladin. So, in a way that helped cut down my risk and saved me a bit in the wallet, as I did not have to go out and buy those modules.

As far as what happened to my former Paladin, I sold it long ago. The ISK was needed elsewhere at the time, and I knew I would not be flying the Paladin anymore for quite some time. It might have been like five years ago or longer since I've last flown one. Kind of crazy to think about.

Once I got my Paladin to its new home. I went back and collected the remaining modules I had for it. Thankfully, I did not have to go back to Jita for them. For that, I used a quicker ship and did not have any troubles.

It was then time to test the waters with the Paladin. Like I said, it has been a long time since I've used one. So, for the first few missions, I took things a bit easy. I only took on the easy missions at first. I was even willing to skip the more rewarding ones until I got my bearings again flying a Marauder.

The biggest thing with a Marauder is its ability to have a bastion module, putting you into a siege mode. Using these things has a massive bonus but a huge negative for doing so. I always feel the bonuses are worth the risk.

When it is active, you can’t move or warp out. That leaves you a sitting duck if, for some reason, you need to do so. After it’s been used, you have a short weapons timer that prevents you from doing things like docking or using gates. While all these sound like huge negatives, it’s worth it.

A huge thing is that while in siege mode, you have an increased falloff and optimal range bonus. This means in most missions, I can just use my better damage-dealing short-range crystals for my laser weapons, and they are nailing things far off into the distance. I also don’t need to swap out for a shorter range unless things are getting way too close and are of the smaller size.

While something like a frigate at close range, the Paladin will miss until the end of the universe. If I were not able to snipe off those smaller ships before that happens. I do have a small bay of drones to finish the job.

It also increases your rate of fire. While this can put a bit of a drain on power. Between the lasers and a repair is going on. You also are not using things like an afterburner. Since I've flown one of these before, I did not need to make any adjustments to my build to account for it.

There's nothing like getting a wrecking blow of 4k damage. Seeing whatever ship you were hitting just explode out of terror of being hit so hard. Shockingly, there is even a shipwreck left after an event like that. While I don’t always get those kinds of hits, they are amazing to see.

Then you have the insane defense abilities. You get a massive boost to resistances and repair ability. This thing is an immovable tank, and once I got comfortable again running this ship. I would more than put it to the test, and it hardly broke a sweat.

Out of the hundreds of missions I've since run after getting a Paladin again. There was only one time I had to overheat my armor repair a bit. The situation was also quite avoidable, and I do my best to ensure it never happens again.

Outside of possible gankers. The only real threat is my internet or power going out. If that happens when I have siege mode going, and I did not pulse it. Well then, I'm stuck in space long after I've finished off whatever target I was hitting. The ship won’t warp out as a safety feature from losing connections, since it can't. That rather sucks, but it is what it is.

Once I finish running a few missions. I then swap over to my salvaging ship. I kind of know which missions are worth salvaging and which ones are not. For the most part, it would be better ISK per hour if I just skipped salvaging for loot at all. I, however, rather enjoy the process and sometimes find some phat loot that makes it almost worth the time spent.

Then there are missions like drone missions where I don’t even waste my time saving a bookmark for so I can go back and salvage them. They are mostly scrap, and at some, rather bad loot, not even worth thinking about.

Final Thoughts

At some point, I might put more faction modulus onto this thing to get even more damage and resistance. For the small increases and the massive costs. I just don’t care for doing that for now. Yes, I'd run missions even faster, but it feels like not a good enough rate of return.

While I don’t run level 4 missions daily anymore. Sometimes when I get that itch, I'll take the Paladin out and rock some missions. I just love seeing the red and gold paint. I even have a skin for it from back in the day, but I don’t want to use it. I like the default-looking Paladin as it is.

The good news is I've also made more than enough to cover replacing this thing for whenever I lose it. Naturally, I'd love for that to never happen. It is, however, Eve Online after all. I’d also love one day to take this thing into wormhole space and run some sites, but that is not in the near future, at least not for now.

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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Eve Online.