Ships & Modules

This.

Legion will synergize with an Archon much better for drone hordes. My nephew runs anoms and drones using either a Legion or a Paladin depending on his mood for the synergy (he uses Archon, does not have skills for a Thanny), and swears by them for it.

I would have to assume if you have a shield repping carrier the Nightmare would be the better option.

What hasnt been mentioned yet probably is that the Nightmare gets totally screwed by tracking disruption. Too bad that it happens to be the rats that you fly mostly against. I stopped using my Paladin because I got sick of being tracking disrupted in several missions, it takes so friggin long to kill the disrupting rats with drones so you could have as well fly a lvl 4 in a Drake or something.

The projectile boats don't have that problem, they can take down all rats (except Guristas) with best damage types and are entirely unaffected by tracking disruption because they fight nearly always in falloff (if you use autocannons).

The mach works fine vs guristas....though I'd argue that a rail vindi would be a bit better. The battleships tend to orbit very far out, compared to most mission battleships, meaning the mach either has to deal with heavy dps losses or spend time burning toward everything.



IMO, nightmares work best in pairs. You can set them up to be cap buddies, meaning capacitor isn't as big of an issue and you can fit for maximum dps application, which is where they start to get a little ridiculous.

As somewhat of a noob I'd like someone to explain something to me.

Tach:
Sick range

Pulse:
Much better cap stability (leaving more room for running your shield booster, leaving more cap boosters in your cargo)
Better damage
64 km Scorch
2 to 3x better tracking
Much more room in powergrid and CPU
Cap stability and powergrid means you can use rigs other than CCC (I kinda like large elutriation II

You look at damage projection, Tach's range with Navy Ultra and Navy Gamma is similar to scorch. The damage of these types is also similar to scorch.

Does basically the entire argument come down to the fact that the nightmare can also burn to death anything within 80 km? How often do you really need that ability? Because scorch is already pretty impressive in both range and damage. And the rats are already going to be heading in your direction if you target one and so much as throw a rock at it, so its not like you need to slowboat for very long in that rare circumstance they spawn too far away from you.
It seems like any mission where things spawn on you, you'll want pulse.
Any mission where the gate drops you in the middle of the action, you want pulse.
And finally, any situation where something is within range to TD you, I think pulse should do a better job of resisting that TD and successfully killing the perp than tachs would (due to superior tracking resisting that TD).

So if someone has had experience with both, and can tell me exactly why you would favor a beam fit in most circumstances, instead of favoring a pulse fit in both circumstances, I'd be very happy.

That's one important component, yes. The Nightmare just doesn't like to, you know, move.



This is the other thing. NPC TDs are... special. They absolutely murder optimal range and hurt tracking speed -- but they don't do anything at all to falloff. Pulses rely almost entirely on optimal and so get hit much harder than beams, which actually have decent falloff.

Edit: the third thing is that given equal DPS, you'll want to choose the higher alpha option under almost all circumstances. Tachs provide this over megabeam/scorch.

Projectile boats with a falloff bonus (Mach, Vargur) can easily reach falloff distances of 70km. And the damage doesn't drop linearily with distance while in falloff. Also, they track better than the NM.

And the formula for tracking is just as bad as for falloff - angular velocity (modified by sig resolution vs. target sig) equals 1x tracking cuts damage to 50%, angular velocity at 2x tracking cuts damage to negligible.

The nightmare is an awesome ship, if you got the skills. t2 lasers (both if possible for more flexibility) are a must. The capacitor is ok, I would recommend ccc rigs or cap boosters. cap rechargers are cool if like having less tank. The lows should be dc 2 te and 3 heatsinks. mids are actually ptretty flexible. I would recommend finding room for a tracking computer and a cap booster (800). A propmod is nice for when you are JUST out of range of something. (Get a faction/deadspace MWD if you are going to use one due to cap capacity issues)

The more money you dump into this, the better and more ridiculous it gets. Be carefull and invest in things that will provide the best bang for your buck. I would recommend a deadspace shield xl booster and faction lows. That will make it a decent nightmare. The two spare highs, maybe salvager and tractor beam for when u get a officer or faction spawn?

Have only been in a NM around 4 days and ran about 20 missions including blockade i believe that blockade is the only missions that has really caused me to warp out and back in due to the tracking disrupting. I love the nightmare i have no regrets buying it. Although i'm not sure how true the killing before they kill you think works because most missions i have come against most ships are around 40km or closer to you.

When my cap skills get a bit better i will be switching out my cap rigs for something better maybe more resistances. No regrets buying the ship.