Missions & Complexes

Apologies for being blunt but if Kronos performed for you at half the level of what similarly fitted Vindicator could do then the problem was with your competence, not with the Kronos.

Edit: on second thought I retract my remark about competence because numbers actually hold. If Vindi performs at, let's say, 90% of Mach and Kronny performs at 80% of Mach then yes, Kronny is twice as worse.

IMO out of those three mach/vargur makes the best choice.

Vargur >= mach, unless you are blitzing.
Nightmare can be fun if you mission in the right area.

Since you are looking for something different:
Golem is a good choice, if you have the missile skills. At least for a few months. The TP cycling and volley counting keep you from being bored....until you get fed up with it.

Though the golem lost a lot of curb appeal when torp animations were nerfed into the ground.

Look, I know that Mach is today's king of the hill, I also understand people who swear by Nightmares, CNRs, Golems and so on. And since I have this fetish for pissing against the wind, I have also deep and sincere respect for people doing L4s in assault frigates. Point is, whatever you like to fly, fly it and you have my best wishes.

But when you go to comparison which ship is better or worse, there comes time to separate bullshit from facts and to me the bottom line is actual peformance, be it in ticks, ISK/hr or time to mission finish. So if you say Vindi performs worse than 80% of Mach, I'd love to hear your story, preferrably with some actual numbers in it (no, not paper stats).

Mind you that I haven't questioned Mach's supremacy (though I don't agree that the gap is so big). I only retorted your assertion that Kronos is much worse than Vindicator and both of them are much worse than Mach. At least when we're talking about L4 missions. Nullsec anoms may be quite another story.

Funny you said that because my attitude is precisely because I have flown those ships and in fact I've kept my eye on performance metrics. Sadly no one except me seems to be willing to bring the numbers which actually count.

Point in case: Angel Extravaganza plus bonus. Gun specs at IV, the rest of gunnery and supporting at max, Marauders at IV:
- Kronos: typically mission took 42 to 43 minutes, once or twice I came close to 40 (second tick while I was finishing the last or but last ship)
- Vindicator: consistently just below 40 minutes, typically 38-39
- Machariel: consistently in 36-37 range

OK, this is just one mission but please also note that this case is quite unfavorable to Gallente ships.

And contrary to what you suggested I do not have this competitive mentality. If you're purely after ISK grinding, go for Mach, period. I defend Kronos because despite its lower performance it's damn fine ship, e.g. for casual missioning or for person who has already invested in hybrid guns, for which Mach may not be immediately viable option.

No offence, but you might be doing something wrong.
It takes ~19 mins to complete AE in a Mach, minus bonus.
Bonus takes around 5-7 mins.

Vindi usually lags behind with 5-6 mins difference and Kronos lags behind Vindi with like 4-5 mins difference.
Those stats are for AE.

I mean if you fit Mach wrong and have no idea how to handle it this ship will perform just as any other.
Haven't you seen dozens of threads about Marauders saying how sucky they are? It's all because there is a huge gap between Faction BS and them.

PS Speaking of ships, have you ever flew Mach/Vindi/Kronos? I mean it takes ~30 mins max to complete AE +bonus if your ship is T2 fitted. Usually it takes 45 mins to complete AE using Maelstrom.

i use shield rail kronos atm close to 1000dps but 6000 alpha every few sec. and i must admit my mind was not blown at how bad it is it run smooth angel missions and own gurista ones it cant be dumped frigging thing have 250k locking range when fitted right.

Capacitor is powerful as well as recharge.tracking on rails on tracking boosted ship is not enough only for noobs tbh or to put it simply it is above 0.03 rad sec..enough to say if i had that kinda tracking with arty boats i would be happy monkey.

Vargur is worth it if you loot and salvage as you shoot rats. Its quite a spectacular mission ship if flown well and can make you good ISK.
Also the Megathron hulls have 125 bandwidth. Unbonused sentries still put some damage out. Blasters with null can take care of what gets close.

I'm kinda leaning towards the Mach, however, I don't have much experience with shield fits. But looking at battleclinic it appears most of the fits are shield with a ton of Gyro's in the low slots. With 7 low slots I thought there would be more armor fits. Can some of you provide your Mach fits? It would be greatly appreciated!

I use a deadspace X-Large Gisti B Type and three deadspace rat specific hardners with 3x Republic Fleet Gyros and an a faction AB with AC 800 IIs. Sometimes I fit a Lg Cap Booster.

It has served me pretty well in Minnie space missions.