Ships & Modules

As far as my experience goes, if going for cheap, at least invest in faction gyros/BCU and T2 Dmg Rigs. The DPS increase is worth it and significant enough. Higher DPS = higher isk/hour and ability to remove threats from grid FAST is part of your tank.

Shield boosters are your next priority but, if you play smart, you can finish any mission with standard T2's. Most people tend to overtank their ships anyway.

I agree, first mods to pimp are damage mods, then booster/rep, they make the largest difference to any fit.

It's obvious why you'd invest in faction damage mods.

A decent shield booster/armor rep means you can often use less slots on tank/cap and more on increasing damage.

While a CNR, Mach, Vargur or tengu will work perfectly well without any faction and be better than a cheap hull, spending a few hundred mil on some mods that will dramatically increase performance is certainly worth it.

Tengu:
* T2 fit: Must keep moving at all times. Can pull most of a room, but have to be careful, and nuke webbers ASAP.
* Faction / deadspace: Can pull the entire room and "safely" (beware ganks) go for a bathroom break or answer the phone.

Raven / Raven Navy Issue:
* Not a lot of difference. Primarily for fitting. Somewhat faster mission completion.

My t 2 tengu is fine for lvl4s I priced the bling and decided it wasn't worth the extra dough to shave a few mins off each mission. I found that money was better spent on implants.

Its all about knowing what is worth getting and what isn't. The right tool for the job.
I learned a lot about faction mods by using the comparison tool that you find under Variations in the info windows on mods, you should try it.

I very rarely run with anything but T2 on my ships as it tends to attract unwanted attention from gankers. You do get better results from the nicer parts, but in my opinion T2 is good enough for missioning. For example: My Macharial is nothing special, but I can still clear L4s a LOT faster than I could hope for in a Maelstrom. Because I prefer to be cap stable I only have 3 Gyros and 2 Tracking enhancers and they are all the T2 versions, not the big buck items.

The common argument with something like a Machariel is that you should be able to kill everything before you need to worry about your tank. This is then followed by a lot of posturing, EFTing with 'all Vs' and faction ammo, rectally deployed DPS numbers, and a lot of 'you suck at Eve' commentary. True, if you want to dump 3 billion in parts in to your 1 billion ship you can. I try to have a more causal and non-grinding view of Eve, I drop a couple hundred million in to my billion isk hull and just enjoy it. Having lost a couple Machariels from game related issues I can tell you that the sting is a hell of a lot less in a cheap fit.

I think the only named thing I use on my Loki is a Sisters Probe Launcher and Probes.

The hulls alone give you a huge bonus and that bonus is not lost on using non-faction hardware. However if you can afford it you can get that hull bonus to be a lot nicer with faction/officer stuff.

I'm fully aware of the compare tool; the difference in stats around specific modules isn't the focus of my question. Rather I was more curious about trying to fit one of the better mission ships while remaining entirely withing the exception to the rule of "linear increases in performance cause exponential increases in price" that is created by tech 2 mods. I've looked at a number of fits that seem easily workable, but looking at those compared to most of the highly recommended fits either here or in BC I wonder if it allows the hull to really perform to it's worth. Judging from the other on topic responses it seems the answer leans more toward "no with a but", rather than "yes with an if" for the most part.

That being the case, any recommendations on a specific hull that does well with a cheap fit?

Sorry, should have been more specific. The hull itself doesn't need to be cheap, but something that could run lvl 4's efficiently with a tech 2 only fit. looking for something to take time to train into so being skill intensive is fine. Mostly going against Serpentis.

Well said Wack.

What will you spend all your isk on if you don't eventually go to faction/deadspace mods? I normally fit T2 at first on a ship to see how I like it then go to faction if I think I'll keep using it for a while.