Ships & Modules

Currently i am flying a gila, doing lvl 4 missions. since the damage is a bit lacking on the gila i want to start skilling for a battleship.

in both cases i will have to skill more for the weapons, and i am in the process of getting tech 2 sentry drones.

since i am coming from gallente and am now flying caldari pirate ship i do have skills for both shield and armor tanking, both not super, but they work well.

now i was looking for ships and the navy armageddon seems nice, but the rattlesnake is supposed to be the direct upgrade from the gila, so i am wondering if someone has experience in both and can tell me what would work better along with the sentry drones. for example, will the navy geddon get a problem tanking some stuff? due to the reputation of the rattlesnake as sick tank, it may be a weird comparison, but that is one of the issues i can think of.

so once more: Armageddon navy issue or a Rattlesnake. both will take about as long skilling for me as far as i can tell

As usual with most things in Eve, there's a significant difference between T1 & T2. Wait until you can put T2 Sentries in your Gila, then see how you feel.

I used a Rattlesnake recently - they are not worth the effort IMHO.

Stick to a hull with decent applied DPS rather than relying on drones.

For once I agree with Sabre. L4s are gank and Rattler is a tank.....Geddon. And yes, T2 sentries are mandatory!

Then don't fit a massive tank. Benefit of the Rattlesnake is free slots for modules to help with damage application. Such as Omnidirectionals. The Rattlesnake can fit 3 of them without sacrificing tank needed for any lvl4 mission. TPs are nice as well to help with additional missile DPS (Fury Cruises). No weapon dmg bonus? Rattler has drone damage bonus.

A Rattlesnake with 3 Omnis, 3 Drone Damage Amplifiers and (maybe) 2 Ballistics deals ~1000 DPS @52+12km with Gardes and Cruises (180km range). I'd call this 'applied dps'. Ewar proof and cap independent. Nice against Gurista, Serpentis and Bloodraider for instance. Use other sentries for more range and light drones against small stuff if needed. Flexibility! 247 DPS with Hobgobs II due to the drone damage bonus. It is awesome.

well i also like running complexes, but i think doing that in high sec with a battleship is not going to work well since you won't go up against stuff bigger then battlecruisers (what i encountered so far)

and i think if you use a rattler with 3 omni, 3 dda and 2 ballistics you will only have some buffer left? or am i thinking the wrong way with any tank.

I love both of these ships, but they're both pretty hard to fit and misunderstood. People's opinions on the rattlesnake in particular irk me, "it's just a fat tank, low dps BS" and then their fit is always 90% tank modules with nothing on it to help the damage. Personally I really couldn't choose one over the other, assuming you're fighting em/thermal weak rats.

Also, your damage in a gila probably shouldn't be that lacking if your drone skills are up, it packs a lot of punch in that little package!

The thing about these two ships is that they both use split weapon systems (don't you dare neglect that huge navygeddon drone bay). So the fitting is really skill intensive, and really hard to design, but extremely satisfying. The typhoon is like this as well, and the domi.

As far as which to choose, the rattlesnake isn't locked to em/thermal damage like the navygeddon is, and it's a bit easier to fit up and fly too since you can fat tank it and get away with just drones if you're lazy. The geddon on the other hand will crush it in damage if you're up against sanshas or blood raiders and have perfect laser, drone and fitting skills, it can push a downright ludicrous amount of dps out. It pretty much comes down to personal preference and situational use at the end of the day, you probably couldn't force me to pick between the two.

@EFT theorycrafting: I did missions in that Rattlesnake. It worked very well for me. I never stated other ships are bad. The NM or the Mach are known as very good mission runners. But since we have drone damage mods now the Rattlesnake is an equivalent option as well. With pros (ewar proof) and cons (immobility). Also fun: I just like the auto-aggro nature of drones. It was kinda refreshing to see my sentries doing the work for me.

@Fury exp radius: t1 cruises or even torps are ofc an option. Furies are for damage support against BSs only. Unbonused or not - it makes a difference. Sentries deal with smaller stuff very well. I preferred cruises because of their damage projection. Torp launchers are hard to fit also. Range is another issue in some missions. See torp Golem: a lot of micro management, ammo switches between t1 and javelin torps. As I said, this fit is a bit overtanked maybe. So the option to fit Rigors is there. Works like a charm on a cruise CNR - a very solid mission boat.

@Tracking: Apoc using 2x TC with tracking scripts...Tachyons with Multi: 0.028 rad/sec. Mega Pulse with Scorch: 0.051 rad/sec. Garde: 0.059 rad/sec. Gardes win. I was able to blap frigs on approach. Never needed to switch to small drones until said frig was below 10km.

@T1 DC: best named. Barely a difference compared to a T2 DC. Yip, CPU was the issue here. A faction or deadspace shield booster helps here maybe. Or Genolution implants. I just wanted to offer a more or less cheap option.

@Cap booster + cargo: not a problem on a CNR - so why here? Pick your missiles according to the mission rats and don't waste cargo that way. Idea is to pulse the shield booster. Perma running means wrong aggro management.

The split weapon systems will give you some trouble. Word is, CCP's going to revamp it into single weapon. Hopefully it'll be projectile and not cruise/torp...