Ships & Modules

But which one is best for running level 4s?

Answers should contain blitzing and/or full-clear completion times.

Big mistake, there is currently no good reason to fly a Rattlesnake unless you want to passive shield tank level 5s. Sure, its on-paper DPS makes EFT warriors have a bukake party all over each other but the reality is that it has a low ability to apply its damage. As other players have noted, refitting and managing this ship DPS is a huge pain in the ass. Golem takes less training time, tanks better, far superior damage application, much easier to play and has better mission completion and looting times.

They really ****** the Rattlesnake with the loss of bonuses on all drones and the 400m3 drone bay, imo. This was a ship that does passive tanking best and doesn't have room to fit the omnis that are now required if one wants fast and small frigates to die in an acceptable time frame. Dealing with fast and small frigates was much more efficiently accomplished with bonuses to light drones and enough drone bay space to fit multiple flights of the proper drone type.

Drones apply damage so easily and really, your main complaint is that you cant get omnis on a passive tank?

Active tank it, geez. Now your application problem is gone.

Yeah, no. I only have one Enhancer fitted and my gecko kills frigates just fine... most of the time in one shot. Sometimes it takes slightly longer, but you can always put out light drones for frigates if it bothers you so much.

I had no trouble at all with Spider Drones either.

I didn't say light drones weren't better. I said the gecko was just fine at doing it without help. My tank isn't suffering from it either. As I said I only have one Omnidirectional Enhancer fit, which does absolutely nothing to harm my tank or dmg.

Finding it difficult to believe that heavies sometimes or even often miss doesn't change the fact that they do.

Similar to other peops here my mission character has all three ships. They all have their applications.
I must admit I usually do /lazymode and fly a MJD RNI with extended lock range, max gank and minimal tank. I find it best to MJD away when landing in a room, blap everything, then MJD straight down to the next gate. I will generally use a Rattler for Guristas missions though, as with drones no f***ks are given about ECM.
On the whole I would say my completion times for any given mission (without ECM involved) are generally lower in the Rattler compared to the RNI, mainly because I'm either waiting for drones to travel (especially in rooms with groups far apart) or sat stationary with sentries and not approaching the next gate.
I have the Golem set up for torps and tank as it plays to the strength of the ship (uber tank) for those nice close/mid range high incoming dps missions like Damsel. It murders them in no time.

In short I don't think you can say 'fastest to do missions' unless you stipulate the region you mission in and the missions you do. In Amarr space for instance, where the majority of missions are BS heavySansha/Blood the laser boats (paladin, nightmare etc) are arguably the 'best' ships.
I think the RNI just edges it for me, especially as I don't like micro management as my missioning is usually done on a second account.

I have been flying a rattlesnake since 2009. I used to do sentries and missiles. Now its all about the Gecko. The gecko was specially made for the RS, imo, to compensate for losing the bonus to med and light drones.

If I land on grid, and there are frigs 30km or beyond from me, i use bouncers or warden to clear them while i rain scourge furies on BS and BC rats. As soon as the frigs are gone, I recall the bouncers, launch the geckko and start pulsing my MWD to the next gate. However, there are missions where the frigs are really in your face (5km to 15km away), I just launch the gecko, let him do his job and I kill BS and BC. Works out fine for me.

Personally, I dont really blitz or count my completion time. I dont like playing in a hurry state all the time. What I do is count my ISK. So far, I am happy with my RS and the way she brings me ISK consistently.

This strategy is like a drug.

I even throw on an AB.