Ships & Modules

My main is a fairly new character (~7 months) at just over 8mil SP and is currently flying a T2 fit Maelstrom with AC's for level 4's. The majority of my SP is in gunnery, with all support skills at a minimum of 4, some at 5. Minmatar BS is 4.

My question is this:

Am I ready for a Machariel? I don't have any Gallente ship skills trained, but that shouldn't take too long. What's the approximate breakpoint (skill-wise) for a Mach outperforming a Mael, taking into account the risk associated with flying a much more expensive ship? I hear a lot of talk about the Mach being very skill intensive and I'd rather not risk the ship when I could be performing comparably in a Maelstrom. I have 2 bil ISK to throw at this ship.

I hate to add another thread about the Machariel, but I haven't seen any threads that address this topic, please let me know your thoughts, any input is much appreciated!

I don't find the tank on the mach to be anywhere close to being low enough to make lvl 4s challenging.

Kill all in sight, take very little damage.

My mach is shield rigged for incursions, 2x field extenders, 1x thermal II rig.
For missions I throw on 2x mission specific hardeners, an invuln field (CN navy sometimes), and a booster or a burner (perhaps I should have both and drop the invuln. If therm is one of the mission specific damage types, I may drop 1 therm hardener since i already have the rig


3xTEII 3x gyroII DCII
Heavy Nos, 7x 800mm autos

Granted, I don't use it for every mission. For missions with a lot of enemies and Ewar (like the blockade) that would test its tank and shut down the guns, I break out the Rattlesnake which tanks like a beast, and with FoF and drones, the Ewar is irrelevant.


If you have T2 guns, T2 shield hardeners, and T2 gyros&TEs, then I'd say you are ready for a mach (my main that pilots a mach has about the same SP as you, and its more disbursed, I use meta 4 guns and not T2s on the mach)