Missions & Complexes

See, thats the point here. The Op has 3 accounts, one of them is a salvager. Now mach own tengu 1vs1 in mission running. But when you have to control 2 mission boats and one salvager, mach is too much micromanagement imo. With tengu's, orbit a can and keep firing. Its far simpler..

Except, like I said, for any rat further away than 18km, you waste at least one volley unless you count vollies on both accounts. Where 2 Mach would do 2-3 times the dps, but much less micromanagement.

2 kinds of people : People that have flown Mach and that have not.

The ones with the mach go in every mission like they own it, they smack everything down , they are like freaking berserkers that you can't face and live, every shot a kill, every movement a sprint, every enemy a wreck.

If you carry heavy drones you pick em up because you're much faster than them, if you carry light drones they don't get to reach the frigate because you've already shot it and are already moving on to cruisers. If you carry sentries you drop em off , like kids at school, clean the field and while shooting at the last ship you head to the sentries and pick em up, not that shooting up a BS takes that long but with 1500m/s speed you can afford to move around more than gila and ishtar together.

The people that fly other BS's and T3's, stay there and stay in 1 place and spend a ton of energy on tanking or dance around and slowly wear down their enemies, every mission a struggle, every ship kill an achievement. And drone ship , well they're just pathetic.

Mach is the one and only - the alpha and the omega, it's like all 4 raiders of the apocalypse in 1 deadly package.

Mach has become Death.

I don't even bother with drones on my Machariel the majority of the time, it's more work to use them a lot of the time. I can pop elite frigs within 20km in one volley so I don't typically need hobs / warriors and I don't really notice my hammers / valks increasing my cruiser+ kill time so I don't even bother. Sentries are a pain, they're good for ships that do not move but a Machariel is supposed to constantly be approaching to maximize that dps and minimize the amount of falloff you fight in.

However, if I had the choice between a Machariel and something else like a Vargur, Nightmare in Amarr space, or Kronos in Gallente space I would so go for those instead. I'll probably end up going for a Vargur once I finish training AWU5.

The Vindi can use drones far more effectivly than the Machariel. Considering it's a stationary tank it can deploy sentries and recover them instantly should you get trigger spawns, the Machariel needs to return to them. As far as Hammers/Ogres go, half the time their target is destroyed before they reach.

Out of curiosity, have you recalculated that since the rail buff?

Also use a 3 Stab + 1 Gunrig Vindi.

I didn't use a gun rig but yes this was actually just done now with the rail buff and EFT 2.14 the updated one for crucible, that would make the gaps closer or larger depending on the scenario. Overall I think against kin and therm rats the Vindicator is the clear winner over the Machariel.

I agree with you on all points for drones, much of the time my hammers are travelling. (I also don't have very good drone skills, just enough to get by ).

If I had to choose one to aim for this would be my choice for flexibility. However the train to marauders is long while a pirate faction ship is much shorter. Due to the progression path up to the Vargur I would fly an arty Maelstrom first, then once you hit T2 autocannons you can fly either Seriously Bored's Baby Varg: http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/29238-AC-Maelstrom-L4-Baby-Varg-Dominion-Ready.html or you can fly one of the standard Machariel fits until you get to that point.

I will warn new(er) players though the tank on a Machariel is an order of a magnitude lower than what you will be used to, a T2 tank is an absolute bare minimum with solid supporting skills. Just starting out with low skills on a Machariel I would recommend: http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/47652-Mission-T2-Machariel-lvl4.html

but downgrade the rigs to T1s. The cap boosters are not optional with low skills. Once you get some better items and skills you can use a variation of: http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/39676-Machariel-PvE-1100-dps-with-72km-Fall-off.html

with some slight modifications. I recommend not using any of those rigs, but rather T1 semiconductor memory cells. With decent skills and a domination 100mn AB you can run stable at ~60-67% with your tank off but your AB on. This is how you should be flying, AB on nonstop and pulse your tank flying around and obliterating everything. If you can squeeze it on, use a gist b-type+ XL shield booster instead, less pulsing and more powerful burst tank but it's the same cap to shield HP efficiency, slightly better if I recall.

Even with a falloff bonus as large as the Machariel's, with 3 TEs the ambit I believe only supplies 3km's of falloff but I have not checked this value in quite some time. I also recommend SMCs over CCCs because while CCCs give a SLIGHTLY higher sustained tank and cap regen rate the SMCs give you a much bigger cap buffer allowing your burst tank to run longer so you can explode everything dangerous with your dps and bring the incoming damage to a more manageable level.

You clearly failed at reading. The Mach wins up to the 35km point, the Vindicator beyond that "Up to" the 75km mark.

However in realism, the Machariel will not make the full benefit of it's drones, the Vindicator does. Which puts it at an advantage before the 35km point. As for the short targeting range sure the Vindicator won't achieve lock beyond 62.5k but with a 5 midslot, you can stick two webs on there to slow down frigates and still have enough room for a SeBo.

Spider drones and short range spawns. It's the only reason I carry webs on a stationairy ship.

Why not? Your Vindi has "4 sentries" plus 5 lights, filling the 125m hold, for EFT purposes. Yet, Mach can't have the same "4 sentries plus 5 lights setup (not that ppl will use it instead of 5 meds) for the same EFT purposes. And your math is wrong. Mach with 4 gyros pump out 1083 gun only dps. Falloff curve is such that it produces ~85% dps at 50% falloff. With 5 km optimal and 69 km falloff, it will outdps your rail Vindi at much further than just the 35km point.