Ships & Modules

The strengths of the marauder, namely the increased tank, is two parts. Resists and doubling of rep amount. The doubling of rep amount is not effected by polarized weapons. Additionally the tank on a marauder is already far and above what any lv4 mission will ever need. Heck, even with Polarized it still out tanks any other ship with the same number of modules.

Though your continued aggressive opposition is amusing, please continue.

all it shows is people can yell at each other without hearing what the other says. I don't think "debate" is the right word.

After long cogitation I've decided to stay with maxed-out Rattlesnake instead.

I think with maxed-out sniping Rattlesnake (cruise missiles + sentry drones) I also can safely run missions against all pirate factions. No need to train three months to run one-purpose ship.

After abandoning Marauders training I have one jump clone left with good gunnery implants, because now I am setting up my new main missioner jump clone with missile implants set to fly maxed-out Rattlesnake. Yet I have decided to use this spare "gunnery clone" in some way by placing it in another Empire to run level 4 missions there for some diversity. So I have simple question: Where to place him? I have two potential options: against Sanshas/Bloods flying Nightmare or against Angels flying Machariel. Maybe someday I will train my char for Golem and Paladin or Vargur, but training weapon and support skills has a higher priority now...

I've honestly found the Golem to be boring as sin to fly in PvE. I'm not sure if the other Marauders are more exciting, but the Golem feels like flying an armed transport. The lack of low slots means there's not much you can do to remedy the poor speed and inertia, and you have to devote a minimum of four mid slots and/or rigs just to apply moderate levels of damage. It has a massive signature which is only made worse by augmenting it with Hyperspacial rigs - so it tends to attract a lot more damage. Torpedoes are simply not a viable option because you have to sacrifice what little performance improvements you can make - and it leads to a lot of time counting volleys. Cruise missiles are king, but the 8-second+ cycle time and delay to target feels like you're watching paint dry.

I just wish you got the missile bonus as the role bonus and had to train into drones.

I'm not sure how it ranks next to 1400mm artillery, but between the cycle and time to impact it feels like an eternity. Maybe it's not in actuality - but it feels like it. I'm screwing around with a Polarized torpedo fit and it's having a bit more promise.

My ventures into Polarized weapons typically lasts about an hour (until I regain some sanity and switch back to cruise missiles). If torpedoes had better damage application and superior velocity to cruise missiles I think we'd have a winner (even with shorter range). While you can make a Polarized fit work, trying to apply the massive DPS to anything but Battleships and Battlecruisers over ranges of 20km becomes an effort in futility.

Even in Bastion torpedoes are just too slow - particularly if you attempt to use Rage (these are the slowest of the three variants). The other problem with Rage torpedoes is that while the DPS looks great on paper, applying it to anything other than battlecruisers and battleships is next to impossible. You can solve the range/velocity issue to some extent by utilizing Javelin torpedoes, but these do almost a third less damage than Faction torpedoes and actually have slightly worse damage application than Faction (higher DRF). And last but not least, the use of torpedoes generally requires some degree of maneuverability to keep targets within range, so it's not conducive to Bastion or slower speeds.

I've actually come up with a Barghest torpedo fit that does over 1300 DPS out to almost 50km using Faction torpedoes and missile implants. It has excellent damage application against everything (including frigates). Missile velocity is over 12000m/s, so you never lose volleys during cycles. It also gives you the option to swap out to Javelin to extend range by about 20km and missile velocity by 2000m/s. Rate of fire is just under 7 seconds, but it feels a lot faster. Fast (1400m/s), cap stable and able to achieve 4.0AU/s warp speed with Ascendancy implants. About 65k EHP with a 325 DPS omni tank. This will pop all NPC battleships in 2-3 volleys (except for Drone Parasites), cruisers and elite cruisers in 1-2 volleys, battlecruisers and destroyers in a single volley and frigates in 2-3 volleys (depending on range and whether or not they're orbiting).

With respect to the new meta for Golems, it's two target painters followed by two precision-scripted T2 missile guidance computers. A pair of T2 rigors further augments this