Ships & Modules

I have no idea why you would want to waste time and mjd all over the place when you can tank like no mans business.
also if you using a turret bs, fit a sensor booster so you can target and hit stuff faster as they come in, an auto targeter helps also as the npc frig will taget you first, and you will auto target them in return.
If you carry a mobile depo, you can switch between short and long range weapons.

Tachs work out pretty nicely, despite the relatively low tracking they tend to have. On mine I can push 61km optimal with IN Multi when in Bastion. Angels' missions will suck if the Paladin is all you have to throw at them, but still do-able and it's pretty smooth firepower-wise on virtually everything else. Tachs do struggle against cruisers that get too close or are already in their respective orbits by the time you open up on them, and pretty much cannot hit anything smaller than that in those conditions, so best to kill small and medium fast movers out at range, then go to town on the big stuff. You'll like the Bastion's ability to effectively kill all potential EWAR on the field as well, if not for the added layer of "pain tickles me" tank.

Then again, no one but you can really know which works best for you. Best thing to do, which fortunately isn't that hard to do on a Marauder to begin with, is to set up a fit for either weapon. Then, it's simply a matter of trial-and-error running each mission with the best of the two for that one mission, swapping between Pulse and Tachs as needed. Certain missions will obviously favor more range or short range. Personally, I found Pulse to be more frustrating when facing Blood Raiders, so I tend to lean more towards recommending and using Tachs way more.

I want to reiterate on the notion of you needing to field test and get a personal feel for the long and short range weapon options regardless of which ship you pick. Most, if not all of the weapons generally work well enough on Marauders to be more of a matter of personal taste rather than sheer meta, save for maybe torps since even the Golem makes them still kind of iffy most of the time.

I've flown all except Paladin, because I already loved my Nightmare and didn't feel I needed to switch to Paladin.

Missioning mostly in Gallente space though, so mostly Serpentis and quite a bit of Angels, I actually enjoyed Kronos. It is perfectly viable to use Blaster Kronos with Null ammo, tracking enhancer+optimal scripted tracking comps+ambit extension rig, you can apply reasonably ok up to 45~55km, and turrets being turrets you can often insta-pop frigates approaching from further away than that.

What can get annoying is if the rats are in range of 60km or so, because your damage application is pretty meh after 50km ish (including fall off), and it's just that awkward distance where neither MJD or MWD is really convenient.

Having said that, for most missions, if you run them for a while and know all the rat spawn areas and such, there are usually spots you can MJD to which will get you in good blaster range of the rats. You just have to find the right direction to MJD to in considering different axis/angles/etc.

Vargur is nice for Angels and I MWD fit it instead of MJD, but fit like that it's debatable while not use an MWD Mach instead in such a case.

Golem is just very nice for all things, and with max support skills, implants and ewar skills your damage application is not bad at all, although hitting frigs that are 7~80km away will always be painful especially with missile travel time. Personally for missile ships I had a Golem fitted with Torps (because there ARE missions where Torp Golem is perfectly viable) and CNR for Cruise (because TP range is vastly shorter than cruise range on CNR).

All the marauders are more than capable of chewing through L4s in high-sec. I have not missioned for long time but they all been good and missions didn't really change as far as I know so I assume they are still good.

I did some missions on an alt recently, and one surprisingly good ship I tried was pimped Gila. Pimped GIla (A-type this and that, all faction drone damage mods, etc) with max skills (both missiles/drones) + augmented drones just zip around the space and kill everything in no time from frigs to battleships. It doesn't need much attention at all and with AB fit it speed tanks very easily, and anything that can catch up to can be very quickly destroyed with missiles+drones. And the warp speed of a cruiser is a lot more bearable than warp speed of a Marauder (that's one of the reasons why many consider Mach as the king).

Anyways, although you've chosen one Marauder I've never flown (Paladin heh), I'm sure it will be more than good enough for what you want to do.

Have fun!

I agree with your observation about range vs tracking in battleships, but I disagree with the implications of that observation.

Having flown both the Kronos and the Paladin with both long and short range weapons, what I've found is that I personally have had the best luck using short range weapons. This plays to the strengths that you mentioned while still providing impressive range (even in a Null Kronos* I rarely had to "chase anything down"), great damage, and the ability to fully apply insane damage at close range. The tracking bonus on the Kronos mitigates the penalty from using Null (and help apply with AM) and the range bonus to the Paladin mitigates the shorter range of pulse lasers used with higher-damage crystals. (I think Scorch on a Paladin is optimal overkill, but I still carry it.)

I've tried the MJD/snipe combo before and, while I found it to be highly effective, I tended to finish missions faster with short range weapons. Better tracking and higher base DPS combined to produce higher applied DPS and things died faster. I was originally excited by the Tach Paladin because of its great range and damage potential, but I didn't like how limited the rest of my fit ended up being.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here, I'm just offering up a different perspective on a mutually perceived limitation of battleship weapons. I like Null Kronoses. You like Tach Paladins. They're both great ships when used properly.



* My Null Kronos (with Bastion active) had an "engagement range" (optimal + 1/2 falloff) of 40km, 862 paper DPS, excellent tracking, and more tank than I ever needed. Only a handful of times did I have to re-position to get into range of something, and that was generally because it was stuck.

Yes, long range Paladin does great things for me. Sometimes though, I can't shake the feeling, that long-range Paladin is just a bit Tachy.

Yours is a very interesting perspective. And it's one that I've heard often through the years, but I just can't replicate the sorts of results others get out of a Blaster Kronos. I just can't get past the severe limitations of blaster range. I've attempted it on several missions, and my time to clear the missions doubled. So yeah, I quickly abandoned that tactic. Ever since I made that initial post here though, I've been wondering about blaster kronos again. Maybe I'll try it again with new configurations. I'm still skeptical though that I can make it work better than rails. Maybe certain missions; I do have a few in mind that might benefit from it.

I have been flying all four Marauders for a half a year now. I gained experience in running missions with all possible weapon types: Paladin (pulses , tachyons), Kronos (blasters, rails), Vargur (AC, artillery). What can I say?

- Paladin - tachyons are better overall but against EM-weak rats pulses with Scorch are better IMO
- Kronos - I think blasters with Null ammo are better most of the time but rails are also viable choice in many situations
- Vargur - no doubts here: ACs are the best choice, period!

Additionally I fly Golem armed with T2 cruise missiles only because torpedoes are utter garbage.

All my Marauders' fits are cap stable with over 1000 DPS omni-tank. I also use MJD as a good option to dictate engagement range. However one needs to learn a bit how to navigate (triangulate) using MJD in mission rooms.

Just to clarify the blaster kronos vs rail kronos discussion since I'm (now!) sober and seeing people state "Put up a graph of the damage profile of a rail Kronos verses a blaster kronos, and the rail kronos has better DPS for anything over 16km." and knowing that it was a load of bollocks:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G3JkoTJALI2LZg4Lt8IZcDy8_DbpM_TaRqxq9mTMIQo/edit?usp=sharing

If all your targets are more than 50km away, you MJD towards them and annihilate them with void/AM swapping to null as required whilst using your drones on any close orbiting frigs. Remembering ofc that also the blasters have FAR superior tracking to the rails, even when using the 'bad' tracking of Null versus the 'good' tracking of Javelin (7.33 vs 2.17)


Fits used were Green Cobra's rail fit from earlier in the thread vs my T2 blaster fit as follows:

4x Neutron Blaster Cannon II
Heavy Energy Nosferatu II
Bastion Module I
Small Tractor Beam I

Large Micro Jump Drive
Cap Recharger II
Tracking Computer II
Tracking Computer II

Large Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II

Large Anti Explosive Pump II
Large Hybrid Burst Aerator II


With a little pimp you can free up another low slot for a 4th mag stab and use something like a sansha NOS for better cap stealing range. (bearing in mind Green Cobra's is already 200m more expensive)

Indeed please do not use a rail Kronos. Use blasters, and some solid tank (not too hard you are a Marauder)
a good web and two tracking comps +MWD/MJD (just an example)

With Null, as the other dude mentioned you can actually hit pretty far with still decent damage 60ish+ km. (optimum and single falloff)
Anything close you facemelt with Void/AM.

tl:dr
Rail Kronos is probably the worst Marauder out there, blaster Kronos is quite alright.