Ships & Modules

One of my characters will be getting into a Vargur in a week and I have interested in some of the fitting decisions ahead of me. I have looked at the fittings posted in various forums and websites and they are all over the place. By the way these questions are for the Vargur. I know there are other ships which others would consider better. I love my Mach for example. But I have been training for this for a while and have been looking forward to bastion mode, larger cargohold, strong tank and reduced ammo costs.

Question 1: How light a tank and how much should Bastion mode be relied on for the tank? I have seen fits with one Adapt Invuln and one shield booster and no DCII. This yields a low resist profile 52% normal and 70 percent(ish) in b-mode. With a non bling Shield Booster II this is 4-5 minutes of a 230 dps tank or 616 in b-mode. My issue with this is that you will really need to be in b-mode to tank anything much and if you are in b-mode but your tank can't hold you are going to die. I am thinking for example of the gurista side of the worlds collide which is 1200 kin dps. Deadspace boosters can push this up (816 dps for 3-4 min with pith b-type large booster) . Every additional slot you add to the tank will drop your applied dps, so its an important decision.

Question 2: Movement. Fighting in falloff is a pain IMHO but thats life for a projectile ship. With one TCII (optimal script) and one TEII you can apply 90 percent of your dps at 30 km with Phased Plasma or 50km using Barrage. As you know, many missions have rats far away so either you get to them fast or you do less damage from farther away. You can get increased range in b-mode but then you can't move. If you want to apply more DPS you need to get closer to the ships. So my question is whether it is better to pump up gun application distance with 2-3 TCII with range scripts and just have a prop mod for gate travel, or have less TC's with more prop options? MWD for example. If you are going with one prop should it be MWD or afterburner? MWD is nice because it can help you get to warp faster with one pulse, but it reduces your cap.

Question 3: Tracking. I can never figure out where the diminishing returns for tracking is. How much is enough? 0.07, 0.09, 0.12? I don't like flipping scripts mid fight as rats get closer, especially since they made that really slow. Is one TEII at 9.5% tracking and Maurader 4 for another 30% sufficient for autocannons using non-t2 ammo?

Question 4: Bling. The age old question of bling versus gank value. I tend to not use bling except for the 85 mil pithum c-type medium booster because it is just that awesome for many ships. I think I will have to get Republic Fleet Gyros for this because it is a significant boost to DPS, but even that bothers me. Any advice on this subject would be appreciated.

Thanks!

imo the vargur gained next to nothing with bastion mode. you already had 5 damage mods, and 3 projection mods with adequate tank. And the Varg is probably the marauder that benefits most from being able to move around.

honestly for most missions it probably doesn't even need to hit bastion, gank is your tank. EFT gives this fit a 230 dps tank, and when you hit bastion it jumps up to 591. I've been running missions for years with an omnitank around 300 and honestly that is over doing it (bit closer to 400 since the active tank buff). Can't say much about the Gurista side of WC as I don't run that version, other than using a varg vs guristas just doesn't sound fun.

a decent (faction/deadspace) MWD is usually a good idea (lower cap penalty), although for the most part if I'm going to be using that a lot I'd rather just fly the mach. and for the most part you probably don't even need to use bastion.

as for tracking I almost always find the Varg has enough, if it doesn't I have light drones for that.

Bling, 3 RF gyros and a pithum c-type med booster feels like a pretty safe limit to me. Especially if you fit a DC, which I like to do on marauders as they have low base HP, plus you can get stuck in one place easily with bastion. if you run in a slower system probably better to swap the DCII for a Tracking enhancer.

[Vargur, Varg copy 2]
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Damage Control II

Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script

800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
Small Tractor Beam II
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II
Bastion Module I

Large Projectile Burst Aerator II
[empty rig slot]

Warrior II x5

Carry an MTU and use the salvage drones to salvage. Warp speed is important if you're blitzing or otherwise don't want to die of old age while warping. There are a couple of missions where can pop too many triggers at once and overwhelm the tank, but meh. Generally speaking, the Vargur is easy mode.



[Vargur, New Setup 1]
Gyrostabilizer II
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Damage Control II

Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Tracking Computer II, Optimal Range Script
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large Micro Jump Drive
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster

800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
800mm Repeating Cannon II, Republic Fleet EMP L
Small Tractor Beam II
Small Tractor Beam II
Small Tractor Beam II
Bastion Module I

Large Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Large Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I

Salvage Drone I x5
Salvage Drone I x3
Hobgoblin II x7

Vargur

Lows
4x faction Gyro
1x TE II

Mid
100MWD
2x Tracking comp II (range script)
2x shield hardener (mission specific)
1x Large Shield Pith Booster

High
4x 800 AC II
3x salvager
1x bastion

5x Hobs
5x Salvager drones

T1 Ammo

You dont need faction or T2 ammo.

Can handle ALL L4 mission.

This is my ISK farmer.

2 Mid slot + DCU is good enough for tank.
DCU is mandatory to make you a bit harder to gank.

Manners. Just because you dont agree with what I posted here doesn't give you the right to call it stupid advice. Let me explain, with the above fittings, faction ammo would give me an additional 136 dps on EFT. (T1 ammo = 908, Faction ammo = 1044), in my humble opinion, that does not justify the price difference between T1 and faction ammo. In the space where I operate, 50k republic plasma ammo = 68 million ISK, while the T1 counterpart would just net me 13 million isk. A difference of 55 million isk for a 136 boost in DPS.

Besides, I have made my own expirements with regards to time completion doing the same mission while using T1 and faction ammo. And I'm telling you, 136 dps boost in paper, does not justify the cost. Time difference was almost negligible.

That is the reason why the Vargur is so much practical and efficient than its other marauder counterparts. The other Marauders cannot live without faction or T2 ammo. The Vargur can.

I can fly all the Marauders with Max gunnery and semi Max missile skills (application skills all in V). I've tried all of them. I chose to roll with the Vargur.

I tend to think that the faction ammo question comes down entirely to volley, if it takes one less volley to kill stuff with faction ammo than T1 then it's likely to be worth the trade, not in long-term savings (80% ammo usage is never going to pay off against 1000% price (or whatever it is going to be on faction projectile ammo)) but in completion times and income per tick.
If damage is such that you aren't saving a volley then the faction bonus is simply overdamage.
There will be edge cases, particularly against Serpentis or Faction Warfare rats, where the rats have reasonably significant active tanks and, while the faction ammo doesn't usually save a volley, it can punch through the tanking layer quicker and therefore reduces the risk of the awkward hero-rep which will take an extra volley to blast through.

I'm not a Vargur pilot myself, I have a reasonable amount of time in the Tempest for what that's worth but I haven't flown a Marauder since CCP nerfed my BlasterKronos.

One thing I always end up wondering in these threads though is why 800s...
As I recall the difference in range is minimal from the dual 650s to the dual 800s, 650s have significantly better tracking and their (significantly) larger clip makes the DPS pretty similar too when you factor in reloads.
Not only that, but the changes to the Vargur included addressing artillery powergrid issues with the ship - with this and the switch from onboard tractors to MTUs I'm surprised that I've never seen 1400s suggested in this sort of thread...

It depends what you are shooting at. You won't always get perfect hits, so it still makes sense to have more DPS than less; dependent upon how your hits land, that extra DPS could be the difference between an extra salvo or not.

Arty Vargur would work, just use it in the same was as a Paladin and MJD 100KM. 1200s might be better though for the higher ROF.

1200 are better, 1400 is like 4.3 shots a minute and require lots of multi tasking with regrouped guns since its way over kill except battleships. Plus you cannot fit MWD as AB feels so slow when cruising to the next gate, MJD for getting range. Miss the 800 auto but the 1200 work fine, thinking of changing the old fall off rig for rate of fire or damage for the 1200 if not a tracking rig, other rig is single cap regeneration.

My Vargur fitting:


High slots

4x 800mm AC's
1x tractor beam t2
1x salvager t1
1x auto targeting system
1x bastion mode


Mid slots

1x MJD or afterburner t2
1x large shield booster t2
2x invul fields
2x tracking comps


Low slots

4x gyro's
1x Tracking enhancer

rigs
2x CCC t2


The only faction stuff used is ammo. it can dish out about 1020 dps with faction ammo with 79 km fall-off.
Auto targeting system allows for 12 max targets ( some thing i personaly find quite usefull)