Ships & Modules

At this point I have pretty high caldari skills, shield skills, capacitor-related skills, missile skills, target painting skills, and missile rigging skills. I usually fly a HML tengu but just for fun was considering a HAM tengu. I'd even be happy to devote one jump clone to the HML tengu and one jump clone to the HAM tengu to optimize implants.

Here's what I've got, give me your feedback:

[Tengu, Tengu HAM]

Tengu Defensive - Amplification Node
Tengu Electronics - Dissolution Sequencer
Tengu Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Tengu Offensive - Accelerated Ejection Bay
Tengu Propulsion - Fuel Catalyst

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Trauma Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Trauma Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Trauma Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Trauma Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Trauma Rage Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Trauma Rage Assault Missile

Corelum B-Type 10MN Afterburner
Pith X-Type Ballistic Deflection Field
Pithi A-Type Small Shield Booster
Gist X-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Domination Target Painter
Domination Target Painter

Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System
Caldari Navy Ballistic Control System

Medium Hydraulic Bay Thrusters II
Medium Hydraulic Bay Thrusters II
Medium Rocket Fuel Cache Partition I

Implants would be:

1-6 Crystal
7 - ZME2000
8 - CC8
9 - ZMS1000
10 - ZMM1000

This would be a Guristas setup obviously. With my current skills and the above implants I show theoretical max DPS of 946 (most of which could hopefully be achieved because of the target painters), sustained defense of 676 (more than enough for level 4's), and 621 m/s. There are still a few more skills I ought to train but this is where it puts me. Oh yeah, the rage missiles would have a 42km effective range and the javelin would do 70.5km.

I've already got most of the modules listed above and most of the implants.

This is for L4 missions (overkill, I know but I'm bored). What would you do different?

Yes, but how it be better? It can always be better! I'm obsessed with making it better :)

Without making this into a very long post, the HML tengu is better.

HAM's don't make sense for missioning because of limited range and the explosion radius. Obviously they do very nice dps, but ultimately the issue is that if any of your targets are even 10km out of your range, you'll be better served by heavy missiles. The second issue is largely explosion radius and while with 2 target painters that will probably only be an issue with frigates, if you run rigors + HM's + target painters, you probably will be doing close to full damage to frigates and ultimately they are better.

Everybody else will likely tell you these and I've seen a couple very good posts by people like Liang where they detail the math, so I won't bother.

Secondly, there is no reason to have that much tank. You don't need to tank vs any resist except em (because you have 0 base resist). Just run with an em hardener, a T2 or republic fleet AB, the a-type (or c-type honestly), and either an invul or a T2 boost amp. If you're running HM's with two T2 rigors (and I would say put an anti-exp or anti-em rig in the 3rd slot), you don't need the target painters for anything except frigates and even then they're not really needed that much. Drop at least one and put an invul or another boost amp.

Outside of it being an isk issue (which it seems it is not), it's a gank risk and there is no point to have it fit that way when it's unneeded.

Especially if you're running crystals, the AB provides all the tank you'll ever need provided you aren't a moron in missions. I've done missions in in a tengu where 3 of my mids are taken up by ECCM's, and 1 is my AB, and the other two slots were a pithi c-type small shield booster and a t1 boost amp (to my shame I couldn't and still can't use T2 shield boost amps). I ran this both with and without crystals, and both times I could do any mission without problem as long as I made sure I didn't get webbed.