Ships & Modules

So I am slowly moving into a battlecruiser. It is my first one, so I will stick to my original race.
When I first compared Drake and Drake NI, I was like "hell yeah, 50% more shield/armor/hull HP, 33% more launchers", but then I looked at traits and it got me thinking:
1) Drake has 10% more kinetic damage for heavy missiles per level. At level 4 it will be 40% and more than 2 additional launchers DPS-wise.
2) This also has a nice advantage of almost never worrying about switching ammo for different NPC rats.
3) It also gives shield bonuses which offset the HP difference to a degree.
4) Since drones deal with small ships, and HAMs with big ships, explosion radius bonus on NI doesnt really help, or does it?
5) Having more DPS on Drake, I can fit shield rigs to get better tank, while having more shield on NI I can fit damage rigs for more DPS.
6) Additional missile range on Drake NI is good, but I never really fight at the max range anyway. This missioning after all.

Price is not an issue. If they were the same price, what would you pick and why?

If both cost exactly the same, it would still depend. Assuming same price, I would choose a DNI because I bounce across all four factions doing L3s and storylines, so I need good applied DPS from all four dmg types. Additionally, doing L3 missions as the sole purpose of my BC, I see a lot of frigates, and the DNI applies dmg to frigates better. No heavy missile platform applies across the board dmg to frigates better than a DNI actually.

But they don't cost the same, DNI's are much more expensive and totally not worth the cost considering they only seriously excel over a plain jane Drake at L3, non-kinetic vulnerable frigate zapping, so I fly a regular Drake and I keep the makers of hobgoblin IIs in business.

But for BC, heavy missile dps applied to frigates...the DNI is a really, really good ship. With the right skills, and dropping Rigors into your rigging slots, you can get Faction Heavies to have smaller explosion radius than the target frigate. Faction heavies with ~35m explosion radius? That's ruin a frigate's day, just not all that cost effectively.

For Kinetic specific targets, that are larger than frigates, plain jane Drake is better, and that's the other half of most L3 missions, especially in Caldari space.

navy bc if you like to be primary. if this is a pve question then jump right into CNR. It's another 3 days of training and you are much better off. Faction fit it to counter low skills until you get caught up.