Ships & Modules

Pulses for sure.

With Standard crystals it should give you enough range to kill any rat in a L4, and MFs make short work of most rats anyway. Best thing about pulses? A lot less cap usage.

Confirming T2 Mega Pulses for level 4's.

^This

Tachs don't fit though, too much grid. So settle with megabeams. Pulse without Scorch is not viable. Also not viable for anything other than Amar rats, since Scorch is almost entirely EM dmg and not much thermal.

Use pulses for missions where the rats orbit close-in, and beams where rats orbit/spawn at a distance. If you don't want to swap fittings, then Mega Beams are probably best for your purposes, although they will not have sufficient tracking to hit the rats in some missions without the use of stasis webifiers. Tachyons require much more powergrid and CPU than Mega Beams, and consequently I would not advise using them without more experience. Fitting Tachyons on an Apocalypse hull requires compromising tank and/or cap stability, which may not be a good idea for a relatively new player.

That said, it takes about a month to train for T2 lasers, including both beams and pulses, once you get the core gunnery support skills. T2 pulses are well worth the training time, since Scorch offers good damage at excellent range for short-range guns. It only takes a few days to get large T2 beams afterward.

Use Beams until you can use T2 Pulse. Train T2 pulse up as a priority.

Longer term, look at getting a Nightmare, for which you will want Tachyon Beams (and of course some shield skills)

Pulse

Train T2 pulse ASAP, but use meta 4 until then.

Then go Navy Apoc when you can

It may be due to lacking skills and just being able to fly the Apocalypse, but if you can't break the 700 DPS mark in a battleship, then you're better off in a Heavy Assault Ship, Command Ship or T3 Cruiser. They provide at least comparable tank, and at least the same paper-DPS, which ends up doing more actual damage due to the smaller turret size (meaning better tracking and smaller signature resolution).

Anything below 500 DPS in a battleship and you're Doing It Wrong™

As for your question, I'm going to jump in with the others saying T1 Beams for now, and then switch to T2 Pulses once you're able. I will add, that for T1 Beams I'd definitely pick the Abaddon over the Apocalypse, unless you really love cap stability. With the range of Beams, the Abaddon simply dishes out more damage in most cases. The range bonus of the Apocalypse is mostly noticable when using T2 Pulses. Besides, the Abaddon looks so much cooler

Here is my fitting:

8x Mega Modulated Energy Pulse I

3x Cap Recharger II
1x Tracking Computer

3x Mission Specific Hardener II
1x Large Armor Repairer II
3x Heat Sink II

2x Capacitor Control Circuit
1x Auxiliary Nano Pump

5x Hogbolin II
5x Hammerhead II




Anyone got any feedback?

Counting Rigs you're using 5 spots to charge your cap. Sub optimal IMO but doable. If it was me I'd ditch the Heat Sinks for a DC II and 2 target enhancers and I'd see what I could do about all the Cap Modules moving to a booster might be the right answer dunno. I tend to fit conservatively. Also as far as Mission Spec Hardeners, I'm lazy I like three EANM II becuase they are passive (need no Cap) and they give you solid rainbow coverage added in with the DC II and it starts looking pretty good. Sure you might be leaving percents on the table, but if you're skilled moderately well it shouldn't matter.

I have an Abbadon I use in WH work and its fit like this

8X Mega Pulse II (Navy Multi 20k or Standard 50k, or Radio 75k) (I don't use Scorch or Conflag becuase its WH work and one less thing to worry about having to replace.)

2X Web II
1X Recharger II
1X Target Painter II

3X EANMS II
1X DC II
1X Heavy Repper II
2X Target Enhancer II

3X CCC (Four is still too many mods/rigs for Cap but Amarr boats don't give you lots of choices unless you boost which in the WH without easy more batteries it doesn't make a lot of sense to me to rely on them.)

The Webs, Enahancers, and TP let me engage Sleeper Frigates with the big guns. So you won't need all that but overall you have the right idea IMO. I agree with everyone though, get T2 weaps as soon as possible the change is noticeable. But make sure to train the specialization skill to at least 4 to maximize the benefits.

Almost that laughable than T2 rails ;o

Gunnery support skills at least at 4 is not an option, also, at that range that dmg you're using meta 1 pulse's?