[Tirinal]

Originally Posted by Vorph

I can either get a Myrmidon or a Hurricane. Either one will let me stick with projectiles, which I like because it's a minor time savings, I'm used to them, and they cover all the damage types. The difference in training time is negligible (~12 hours). Looking at the two ships in EVEMon though, it seems like the Hurricane is the better ship in nearly every category except for the size of the drone bay, and it has one less mid slot.

Not quite. In fact, the myrm is considered by pretty much everyone as both OP and the pre-eminent BC. To give you an idea of what you're working with, and assuming maxed skills for both, 5 heavies on the myrm should outdamage 6 turrets on the 'cane despire its dual damage bonus. This is without taking into account the dumbfire nature of drones (fire&forget, transversal is for chumps) or the 6 turret slots the myrm has (which can and should be used for projectiles, as there is no racial turret bonus stopping you). The hurricane is by contrast seen as somewhat lacking, though still pretty solid. It's also in no way a pve ship.

So if I'm using the BC for PvE ~90% of the time, is the drone bay going to make all the difference? I'm not even sure what sort of PVP I'm going to get into, since I don't have a corp at the moment. I like the idea of fighting over territory and shit like that, but I have zero interest in fucking with people just for the hell of it (i.e. gate camping, killing miners, etc.).

Yup. Once you get drone navigation V, the little buggers really do eclipse a lot of things. For pvp, both ships are fine.

Also, having spent another hour reading about BCs while writing this post, it seems that even a Cyclone is more than sufficient to handle any L3 mission. Will a Myrmidon be much more efficient (or able to do L4 at some point), and more importantly is it needed for 0.0 ratting or clearing out exploration sites so that a Cheetah can get in there?

The myrm can probably do L4s without much difficulty. Whether it can do them efficiently is up for debate.

A cyclone is fine for most all exploration sites in npc nullsec, though this assumes decent-ish skills. Though I'm unsure why you'd need to clear the site first so the Cheetah can get in there; you can hack containers in your BC. In fact, you'll need its cargobay.

I'm really starting to wish I'd started as an Achura Monk with Mining spec so my combat stuff was a clean slate and I could just mine for however long it takes to train everything else to decent levels while deciding what to do in the long term. :/

Mining is retarded and if you ever talk like this again I'll find out where you live.

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Finally, keep in mind that for the ships you listed once you train small projectile turret V (5-10 days) you're effectively "done" in the dps department. Everything else you have in gunnery carries over. So don't stress about which turret type you grab in the meantime.

P.S. Is this true:

Sounds about right. The social skills are essential if you interact with npcs.

I may be wrong though, I've yet to run a single mission in 1.2 years of playing EvE.