Ships & Modules

I don't personally fly a Machariel at the moment, but from all I've read, incursion fits are a wildly different beast from mission fits. For missions, I think the Mach generally relies on speed and an active shield tank - there are very few ships that can passive-tank a Level 4 mission, and they're generally Caldari-based (you need heavy shield resists to pull off a passive tank). The Mach's slot arrangement may be heavy on lows, but since it depends on speed, that argues against armor tanking, which generally slows a ship down. Autocannons will give you better DPS at close range than artillery, and the Mach's speed generally means you can dictate the range. (Plus which, even if you've only got the Minmatar and Gallente battleships skills up to III, your autocannons' 50% falloff can still be 60 km away even with short-range ammo; even Guristas don't kite far beyond that.)

For incursions, the general fit is rather different; an incursion fleet generally won't roll out without logistic ship support, so defenses are largely shield buffer and resists, with active tanking coming via the logis. Again, autocannons provide much more raw DPS than artillery, and the Mach's bonuses give additional falloff range to the autocannons, which is further magnified when you use Tech-II Barrage ammunition. Mobility isn't as big a deal in incursions, at least not for the battleships.

You can't really use the same fit for L4's and incursions, unfortunately. L4's are generally solo fits, while incursion fits are utterly dependent on fleet support.

hes got it right. with t2 800mm autos i hit over 1355 dps with guns and drones. you can fit 1400's but i dont know why for a mission fit mach given the 800's can fire as far as you can lock.

Machariel is autocannons all the way and usually people fit 800's.

Possibly the most awesome ship in game, most certainly the most beautiful one.

Due to the bonuses the Mach gets for falloff, AC is always the best choice.

I've used a Mach in missions for a few years now and even though I bought Arties to fit, I've never used them on TQ, only Sisi.

The ship is built for speed tank, which negates any advantage Arty would have since you can always close with and destroy the rats quicker than Arty could in most cases. The tracking issues of Arty far outweigh any range benefits, especially since the best tank for it is a speed tank.

All valid points. Thank you. Looking forward to getting my Mach out of the Hanger.

I used to tote around a 1400mm fitted Mach for Lv4's, but mainly because there was a contest to see who could Alpha the most targets out of existence. Losing range was always an issue if you could not let someone else nab aggro and open the gap between you and them. Still, it was fun as hell. And the numbers it pumped out were outright impressive.

I used an arty fit in two missions: Smash the Supplier (blitz; you just want to take down the station from long range anyhow) and Dread Pirate Scarlet (gate key in cargo, alpha Scarlet in room 2 and room 3 for 10mil bounty and an implant in almost no time). That annoying one with all the drone bombs also seemed to work better with split groups of arties but I had to stop accepting it or lose access to my Amarr agents.

Otherwise, ACs win in missions.

If you've got good shield skills and good mobility skills, you can probably slip past a decent amount of hostile battleship gunfire by keeping your transverse velocity up against them, and tank most anything battlecruiser and below - the Mach won't tank like a Maelstrom, but you only need to hold up the tank long enough to wipe the heavy DPS throwers off the field, and that is where a ship like the Mach excels. (The colloquial term for it is "DPS tank".) You'll be able to get under a battleship's guns fairly easily, and believe it or not, your signature won't be much worse than a battlecruiser's.

Actually, thinking about it, if you've flown a shield-tanked autocannon Hurricane, that might (correct me if I'm wrong, forumites) give you a good feel for how to fly the Machariel.