Ships & Modules

Tengu is the best mission runner for blitzing with multiple agents and general low/null mission running

Nighthawk is a better Drake, especially against Kin/Therm enemies.

Gila/(Ishtar) are also perfectly viable for L4s. but need really good drones skills (aka t2 Sentries) to work.

When you want to keep your income the same, you have to keep in mind that all the above ships deal a maximum of ~750 dps, when you run missions for bounties and salvage your income will drop compared to a good BS

You might also take a look at the Machariel. It's a BS, but it is fast (roughly as fast as a Cruiser), agile and can lay down some serious hurt (~1000dps with t1 ammo)

I posted some Tengu fits... yesterday? Something like that. Here:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1731554#post1731554

I actually prefer the NH for L4s, though that's based in the fact that it only gets pulled out for a few specific missions to supplement a Machariel. The other CSs all work -- to one extent or another -- as L4 ships, but other than the NH only the Sleipnir is vaguely comparable to its T1 BS alternative. A blaster Astarte is fun as a lark though.

The non-Tengu T3s are all pretty meh when it comes to missions. You can now get a Proteus to act as a drone boat comparable to an Ishtar/Gila (about which see below) despite its lack of bandwidth but it's not superlative. Legion... eh. You can either make it into a medium laser semi-sniper with meh DPS, a medium pulse brawler with meh range, or a gimped range HAM Tengu (and a HAM Tengu is already gimped by range). And the Loki comes out even worse.

The other viable sub-BS ships are the drone cruisers. Previously capped at 538 thermal DPS (for all intents and purposes), they are now pushing 700 DPS with Drone Damage Amplifiers. This is respectable. In particular, it seems to have been a boon to the Gila which was never ideal in a sentry configuration (lack of Ishtar's control range bonus, tank and damage being highly competitive in the rigs). Either ship will work though. Their "problem" remains that a Dominix will still do it better, provided "it" is clearing missions that don't require travel time efficiently.

And finally -- as already mentioned -- there's the Machariel. Technically it's not a cruiser! But it might as well be. It's quick, agile, and it throws down damage with the absolute best out there. It's actually fun to fly, except that it makes missions so absolutely, mechanistically fast that they actually get more boring than they already were. And that's saying something.

The problem with battleships is that they are sooooo slow, if you need to travel from one gate to another they will take forever. I don't blitz the missions, I just kill everything. I've tried the Dominix but sometimes you get new spawns and they target the drones, so you have to recover the drones and so you get without DPS.

Maybe instead of getting a sub-BS I should get another kind of BS, a Maels and than a Mach?

Use a Sentry dominix, no need to wait for the heavies to fly all the way back. Plus im pretty sure a sentry domi does more DPS if you put a sentry rig on it. Not to mention the fact that you dont have to wait for the drones to fly to the target before DPS is applied

These kinds of threads crack me up.

The OP says:



Yet almost have of the replies say "use a BS"

Sometimes it isn't what is the best, but something fun and different.

To the OP, I think given your skills you would enjoy trying a Tengu. Hits hard with great range. But zips around much faster. Good practice too for practicing speed tanking.

I am guessing you do not use an ab on your ship. if youve reached the point where you can run any mission with confidence, start to change your fitting. fit an ab, fit more bcu. bs with out an ab are stupidly slow. on this we agree, however fitting that ab will change everything.

use nighthawk for easy missioning, tengu, drake, your missile boat non bs options are limited,

This. While the CNR is a roundhouse kick against Battleships, it's also slooooooooooow. That's why I fell in love with Tengu, it'll make you go "WHEEEEEEEEEE!" while you circle around a battleship at 1000m and with +600 m/s speed. Or when you go afk for a few seconds, come back and realize you're 100km from the acceleration gate where the CNR would still be slowboating towards it. :p

I also hear good things about the Gila now with the drone amps. Not Ratllesnake level, but if drones float your boat, it might be an interesting ship to try.

That tends to happen when the best way to earn a battleship level of income out of L4s is to fly battleships, and the number of smaller ships that can compete is very small. Personally, I get a kick out of running the odd L4 in a curse or deimos, but they wouldn't earn the same sort of income that my machariel, rattlesnake, nightmare, or any other battleships would.

It never gets any love, but look into the Damnation. You have missile skills. HAMnation may not be the fastest killer, but RAGE HAMs do their job against BSs, and a webber and TP in the mids will have CN HAMs putting the hurt on the small stuff.

Heigh Ping

Loki and Proteus are quite fun to run L4s in, and brilliant for running the epic arcs if you want to give them a try. (Proteus for gal/cal, loki for amarr/minmatar)