Ships & Modules

As the title says: Which of the three turret based marauders would be best for missions in Caldari space?

I'm thinking a rail or mjd/blaster fit Kronos seems best but an AC Vargur might be good too. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Yeah, I would vote Rail Kronos then an Arty Vargur as a close second for sure.

Why the Arties over the AC? on the Vargur. i've been messing with one using AutoCannons and once in bastion mode they seem to work well.

(Yes i am a complete noob in most things relating to minmatar.)

Vargur with Arties: Low ammo usage, can volley non-BS rats before they even react to you (which is quicker than waiting for drones to break the tank of a Dire-Guris frigate).

Faction ammo costs are significantly higher than T2/T1 - so using less of it = Higher Isk efficiency!

That's kinda funny. I fly Both those ships, and the ability to solo 10/10's with an Arty Vargur with less than 150m worth of tanking modules seems like a no brainer. Especially in the Gist space regions, where therm/kin damage is trash and the modules sell for more than DG modules by a large margin. The Vargur is 100% effective in every region.

But sure, if you want to slow-grind with the Kronos, go for it.

1 Arty kills 1 frig. There are never more than 4 frigs in pack of rats that are present in the hardest deadspace pockets. And btw Guris like to orbit >40k, so Arty is better DPS in every way for Cruiser + rats. Plus, 4 damage mods is really nice with a 2k+ Tank. Chasing rats all over a pocket with AC's is manual and tedious.

OH - i just realised you where talking about missions. Massive waist of Time for a 1-billion isk ship. Join a pet alliance and do Sanctums or plex's. I'd use and Ishtar to run missions, better than the Kronos by a long shot.

and as a final point: MTU's and salvage drones are your friend.

Here's a Graph of what AC's are worse than Arty.

Arty Varg vs AC Mach vs Rail Kronos

Heres the same with damage mods applied. 2x on Kronos (a realistic Number given the slots needed for tank/projection) and the Mach/Varg have 4x Damage mods, again a realistic number given the slots and tank they have.

^ With damage mods.

= AC Vargur v Arty Vargur =


if the pocket was complete after those frigs die,and they were the only things you needed to shoot, you would be correct. You aren't correct because you have more stuff to shoot.
Ex:
Say it takes an AC vargur 7 volleys to kill a BS. @ 3sec cycle we might say 7cycles * 3duration = 21 seconds to kill the ship. Note that we are also counting the cd after the ship is wrecked because we have more stuff to shoot.

You are/would be saying: it takes 2 cycles to kill the ship with arty. you fire 1 shot and kill it half way, then kill it 15 seconds later in shot 2. so Arty is better cause it only took you 15 seconds while the ACs took 21... You're neglecting ur 15 sec cooldown for the 2nd shot. For all intents and purposes, it took you 30seconds to kill the BS, not 15.



I noticed you did not include the AC vargur... I wonder why? lol xD
why arnt you using a Burst Aerator II? without it ur going to have slightly greater than 16sec cycles.

At any rate, AC Vargur has no trouble staying in ranges where it's dps is better than arty. Your graph also doesnt have any indication of DPS loss due to overkill which aside from the poor paper dps, makes arty even more terrible on the vargur. An arty Mach has a bit of room b/c the volley per gun is lower. Arty vargur is a terrible overkill offender.



You must not loot very often. Tractors are much better for looting your missions. MTUs take much longer than 3 tractors in ur highs. Not only do they pull stuff slower, but they dont necessarily pull the wrecks you want. If MTU's are keeping up with the rate you kill things.... that should be a sign

^

Basically, PP shoots straight into the second weakest resistance, and while it may be true that a Kronos will shoot more Kinetic, it still has 50%-60% thermal damage in it's ammo.
The difference in effective damage applied from hybrid ammo compared to PP is somewhere in the range of 5-10%.

As you mentioned, Guristas like getting out far. An Arty Varg, setup for Missions, can easily achieve some ranges in 70+120.
Where a Kronos might consider changing Ammo from AM to ~whatever floats your boat~ just to hit the furthest ships, the Varg can basically keep PP loaded at all times.

Ammo cost is also a significant factor here, if you were to use Faction ammo on a Kronos, you'd be going through it at a 3-4 times higher rate. Which means a drop in your appraised ISK efficiency or whatever you call your min-maxing on it, while the Varg can basically get 10% damage out of nowhere for cheap.

Oh yeah, keep in mind, with Bastion, and the Varg's hull bonus, you're easily looking at a 2 slot tank that can - and will - hold through any L4. Which, after Propmod, means you have 4 free midslots. On some fit i don't have anymore i managed to get this beast to a scanres of 600mm.
Talking about poppin' frigates, you know.

I have to state for fairness, i haven't flown Marauders yet.
But just from the raw paper, i'd say i could make a Vargur, that's nearly - or more - efficient that a Kronos for Missioning, even against Guristas.


And, while we're at it, keep in mind your Caldari Agents won't give you Guristas Only missions, where the Varg with selectable Damage types will have the upper hand.

@Trinkets friend

I think you are arguing against points I havent made... or arguing at the wrong person.
My points are:
* Kronos is better than the Vargur for what the OP is asking, because it has higher dps, a better dmg profile, a better long range option, and some additional QoL stuff.
* AC vargur is better than Arty vargur for PvE in general:
this is true because Arty vargur has lower DPS than an AC vargur, AC vargur has no problems staying in ranges where it's paper DPS is better than Arty, and Arty Vargur loses additional DPS due to overkill. example: an Arty Maelstrom can kill a frigate with 1 gun and potentially kills 8 frigs with a full volley. In a full volley on the vargur, it can only kill 4 frigs. The paper dps could be the same in this scenario, but the Maestrom is killing faster than the vargur who is loosing DPS due to overkill. AC vargur is much much better than arty vargur.


This is part of why AC vargur is better than arty vargur.


Kronos has a much better offensive profile than the vargur in this situation. here is a breakdown, assume a rail Kronos, Arty Vargur, and AC vargur are bastioned, have 1 TE II, 2 TC IIs and bastion is active. Comparing anti matter to phased plasma to a rat 40km away:
Kronos has a little more than a 10% paper dps advantage over the Arty and AC vargur before drones, has better tracking than the arty vargur and less overkill.
Comparing dmg profiles, Antimatter does about 58% kinetic dmg, compared to phased plasma's ~16-17%.

Im confused about ur other point... if a ship is 40-50KM away, and you jump 100KM via MJD, how are u any closer than you were before? kronos will outdamage you before and after you jump.

Also 2mins later ur back on ur tractor VS locking and tractoring the wreck almost as soon as it appears


lol. ur doing it wrong.
If ur running a vargur and using the MJD to add to ur tank...
If u see no value in ever tanking w/o bastion active...




lol you are a part of this discussion. If it was beneath you, you would have never posted.


^ lol, ur bad at missions and fittings.
If you dont care to understand what makes a fit good or bad, at least do a search to find a fit someone else has made and understands. Ur kicking urself in the teeth.

The OP is asking about caldari space.

Maybe hack and slash games are a better outlet for you.

Honestly, they all work. Marauders are missions on easy mode anyway.

Guristas are weak against kinetic w/ secondary thermal.
Phased plasma breakdown:
~16.67% Kinetic, ~83.33%
Antimatter breakdown
58% Kinetic, 42% Thermal

Projectiles deal less damage and on top of that the damage dealt is mostly the secondary type


Ships have jump drives. If you want to stay in optimal range, only a minimum of 50km optimal is needed. My rail fit uses 2 TC IIs and one TE II, while bastion is active + optimal range scripts, my optimal is ~57km with antimatter.
If you're getting 70+120 on 1400s, ur not doing it with fusion/emp/phased which means you are falling behind even more in DPS.


When you use faction ammo, the increase to DPS is given via volley damage, and the arty varg already overkills like mad... The AC vargur gains a better effective dps increase through faction ammo because of this.

ACs offer more isk/time even considering the cost of faction ammo. The AC vargur also completes missions faster via higher base dps, which increases the rate of lp gain. To add to this, Kronos in this situation will be able to get faction ammo at cost, while vargur will need to buy from the market and/or import

AC is generally always in tractor range, meaning it will loot more or loot faster. If you plan on using salvage drones, they will also be more efficient in AC range and/or tractored wreck range.



For level 4s mid/low fittings, the Kronos and Vargur are very similar.
Its easy to use a 2 slot mid tank on the vargur, leaving 4 mids and 5 lows.
Its easy to use a 2 slot low tank on the kronos, leaving 4 mids and 5 lows.
(I use a RAH and LAR II on my Kronos, the only trouble I've ever run into is in the Angel Extravaganza bonus room. It can be ranged tanked after you down the cruise bats, but anymore I add an additional slot for tank via mobile depot toward the end of room 5)

Dont worry about scan res on marauders, save maybe very specific circumstances. Marauders can lock 10 targets, so if you plan for it, you're usually only down the initial lock time in a pocket.

On paper and in practice, the vargur is a nice ship and certainly worth the cost and SP (except Arty Vargur in practice its bad, Mach is a better choice for arty); however, that isnt to say the vargur is the king of missions everywhere. While it's true that ull get missions against other factions, there are more factions weak against kinetic than any other damage type, and there is no faction that exists whose primary weakness is thermal, which is the majority of phased plasma's damage.

The vargur will work for the OP, but the Kronos will do it better.