Missions & Complexes

Well. It kind of depends on what you mean when you say "alternative to tengu". It will run missions -- sort of -- but it won't replace a Tengu in them in that it's a god-awful blitzer.

It's also a less than ideal fit. Dedicating all four mids and three rigs to cap is bad. SMCs are usually worse than CCCs. You have not a single tracking mod in lows or mids, meaning those 425s aren't going to hit a whole lot. You have no prop mod and so no way to talk about -- let alone dictate -- range.

If you really want to use a NMega, maybe try it more like this?

[Megathron Navy Issue, pve]
Imperial Navy Large Armor Repairer
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Co-Processor II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Experimental 100MN Afterburner I
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script

425mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
425mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
425mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
425mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
425mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
425mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
425mm Railgun II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Auto Targeting System II

Large Hybrid Collision Accelerator II
Large Ionic Field Projector I
[empty rig slot]

maybe the navy raven is a good mission boat for you. aside from looking like a failed lab experiment, it's a good mission runner and you will only have to train up cruise misiles and caldari BS.

Raven and CNR should be even better after the changes. I'm not expecting the Tengu to be unuseable after the changes either, so I wouldn't mothball it just yet.

Being able to fly turret based ships is always a good idea, you have much wider array of options once all the gunnery support skills are out of the way.

in that case i would use the navy raven as a temp solution while training gunnery skills. when you have ~10mil SP in gunnery, you can switch to mach, nightmare, vindicator or whatever tickles your fancy.

the nightmare and mach are pretty straightforward to fit. here are some solid baselines:
http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/40407-Nightmare-Mission-blazer-with-tachs.html
http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/60338-Machariel-PVE-L4-Missioneer.html

as for the vindi, i never flew it myself because i despise armor tanking, but it should be pretty easy to come up with a solid fit. just keep in mind that the vindi has only 50k base targeting range, so you may want to put a sebo on it.

Its always nice to try different ships, I use NM, Mach and tengu/CNR, each in their regions they thrive in, but am also looking to try something new in gallente space.. I enjoy being able to JC around without having to move all my ships when I rotate through the factions. I will try the mega next.. although it will be with meta 2 guns.

Can it be shield tanked? have the skills for armor tanking, but prefer to use lows for dps

No offense, but good level 4 mission runner and cap stable DO NOT belong in thew same sentence.

Any ship that is fitted to be cap stable will have significantly SLOWER mission completion times. With enough DPS you will be done before you run out of cap. If not fit a cap booster. The lost DPS is NEVER worth fitting to be cap stable.

An active tank is a must for running level 4 missions, but you do not have to perma run it cap stable. X-large boosters can be run at the beginning when incoming DPS is high for around a minute while you get the spawns under control. After that just pulse it to top up your shield as needed. Even ships normally armor tanked are often shield tanked for level 4 missions as the abundant low slots make for heavy DPS. DPS is tank when running missions. A dead NPC does no damage.

The trick is to get the right balance of DPS vs Tank so that you clear the field before they break your tank. The best way to learn this is run a cap booster. It basically gives you unlimited cap and only needs one slot.

Resists are also very important. More so than any other part of your tank. But do not omni tank. mission specific resists are always better. Omni tank is only needed when fighting Mercenaries and Minmatar. A 300 DPS tank with 80% resists will serve you better than a 600 DPS tank with 60% resists.

For example; with 80% resists a room that does 2000 DPS damage you will only take 400 damage. you can further mitigate this by moving and controlling range causing more shots to miss. Your tank should be no where near broke before you get the damage down below what you can repair. While at 60% resists you will take 800 damage of the 2000 DPS which could very quickly break your tank. High resists with an active tank will keep you alive much longer than an active tank with a big buffer. Buffer tanks are for PVP.

I used to run missions with a Raven. I started with a cap stable tank as a noob. I had mid 60's resists and could perma run a large shield booster. But my DPS sucked. I could run level 4 missions but they took 2-3 hours. When I got one of the harder missions I often had to warp out as my large booster was not near enough.

As I got better at level 4 missions I moved to a fit with 80% resists a X-large faction booster which I pulsed, and as much DPS as I could get. I got mission completion times down to about 20 minutes average , and never had to warp out. This fit was no where near cap stable. in fact with everything running I was good for 1 minute 24 seconds before I ran out of cap. Most of that went to the X-large booster which I only pulsed as needed and rarely ran it more than 2-3 cycles at a time. I usually finished a mission with about 50% cap left.

Even a tengu will get faster completion times if you drop some cap stability in exchange for more DPS. Just make sure you can perma run the AB and hardeners.

A maelstrom w/ AC's is a good lvl4 mission runner as well. I use the XL booster pulse method as well. I have a heavy cap booster just in case, but I rarely need it. I only really run out of cap if I am lazy and just start shooting, not caring about spawns/triggers (i have 900-1200 dps tank depending on the npc type)

Please do.