Missions & Complexes

I was using 250mm T2 rails with Caldari Antimatter. They have a 3.1 cycle time. As I said targets were dropping very fast. Going to any type of missile system will be slower.
With the Mach, he was able to split is guns up, and that's why he was a little faster in that part of the BLITZ. Even though is optimal was at 3km, reaching out farther there was plenty of gank to clear the field quickly.

I agree, that the Mach isn't "the best ship in the game for everything". That's the whole reason why I tried fitting other ships to beat the Mach. The Mach was called the "King of L3s", and just about everyone was agreeing with that. Now maybe not so much, as my little Tengu dethroned it.

I'll have my alt BLITZ a few more L3s, to refresh my memory on the number of volleys for each type of NPC. Most were one shots, some others two. Maybe some elite cruisers took 3, but now I'm only guessing.

-Kirst

Now, the numbers

Proteus / Tengu / Mach
DPS: 731 / 609 / 1086 ( +hobs: 99, +curators: 205 )

Now, mach wins this hands down, but there is rarely good opportunity to drop sentries, so mostly you would be using hobs if you use drones at all. Still Mach has most dps. More about this later in damage application.

Proteus / Tengu / Mach
Speed: 202 (1383) / 231 (1392) / 191 (1455)

Now here, sublight speed is pretty much similar on paper. In reality it is a bit more complicated. First of all you rarely need that speed, maybe to pick up mission objective. Even though Mach is fastest, it can't track and hit stuff unless flying directly to them and they flying directly to you or from you (0 transversal). Howerer that didn't pose any issues after 20 minutes of adjusting how to use the ship. Proteus on other hand has way more margin on what he can hit. Still you won't be able to hit frigates / faster cruisers that are orbiting you (but with that speed you force them out of orbit really really fast and then they die). Tengu does not have issues with tracking due to it's own speed, so it wins this round I guess. But in reality not that much of a win.

Proteus / Tengu / Mach
Warp: 4.9 / 4.9 / 4.6
Align: 5.6s / 5.1s / 8.5s

Now, in warp T3's are faster then Mach. But Mach is not far behind and you can mostly ignore final align time from inside mission because once you see your trigger which completes the mission, you can just start aligning while shooting it. Also if you use ascendancy you can get warp speed 7.7 / 7.7 / 7.2 which while having bigger gap does not play to much role, even Mach on that 7.2 is extremely fast in warp acceleration and deceleration.


Now other things where experience beats the numbers

Machariel can one shot some frigates with 2 guns, would say about 70% of times if they are more then 20km from you. If they come below 18km, you will most likely have to either use drones to finish it or you will have to use mwd to burn out and then blap it as it is trying to approach you (you are way faster then any NPC ship). When it comes to bigger targets DPS application is great. Shooting at cruiser size targets still gives you about 750 - 850 dps at 50km range (depending on your skills and if they suck you can still burn with MWD pretty fast to lover the distance). Also I've noticed not so many missions have that range.

Proteus is also great to run 2/2/2 or 3/3 gun configuration, great damage application, but after 30km it starts dropping. So you either have to change ammo in that case or burn for targets. At 50km you can expect about 450 dps. Howevever it's tracking is great and also beacuse being locked to one damage type it is easier to keep your ammo in check and also it is limiting when it comes to shooting at Amarr / Matarr based ships. Overall though nice little ship.

Tengu... ah... I don't know, I've spent overall about 20-25 hours in this ship hull in general. I've tried L3, L4 and what not, and each time I was dissapointed. People are always elavating this ship and in reality there is always other ships which do multiple things better then tengu. The only real usage here I could see is maybe lowsec / 0.0 exploration, because it is smaller ship which can get crazy tank numbers and apply dps while under ewar. However for highsec, this ship is terrible. While for Machariel takes 10-20 minutes adjusting once you start to see what you can hit at what range, same goes for Protues, with Tengu you should count you missile shots so you don't waste DPS. In about 20% of cases it would fire on stuff which was already dead. That gives you 20% less dps. Also in situations where Mach would drop 4 frigates in volley, my tengu was taking it's time and doing one frigate per volley. This really isn't fast blitzing that you want. There are some missions where you have to clear an room for objective to unlock / appear / etc and tengu is taking it's time.

I could give out more information, but this is already getting long, so for any other things feel free to ask or check in EFT.

Overall, I would stick to either Mach / Protues depending on which you can fly/use better. For me, I prefer to take Protues because slighty faster, better tracking and easier to get ammo (with mach you need EMP, PP and Fussion, where with Protues load Antimatter and forget about it for few days). Also not so many missions need Machariels range. Good thing that Mach can do though is lock 7 frigates in 6.9s while Proteus does 5 frigates in 6.2 seconds. In most cases I found that I need to lock 6 ships, which is fine for Mach, but for Proteus you need to kill one ship to lock the last one. Also Mach has tractor beam so you can start pulling wreck from 24km towards yourself and start aligning out at the same time which gives you few extra seconds to spare.

I did not test rail tengu in L3, but looking at pure numbers, all of then were either worse or similiar to Proteus (with tracking being way worse), so I didn't bother.

Disclaimer:
Machariel is my favorite ship in this game, but in last year and half it didn't see much usage.
If I do l3 missions I will most likely opt for Proteus, if I do l4 missions I will most likely opt for Vargur due to ewar immunity while in bastion.

So, while yea, blitzing l3 in tengu as missile boat is efficient and doable, sticking to guns beats in PVE. Overall I would say if Mach and Proteus can make 50 mill per hour, Tengu can do 43-45 mill per hour (arbitrary numbers).

They don't because they have warp speed in subsystem. You need them on Mach to get it up to reasonable +6AU (anything less then that takes to long to accelerate/decelerate)


Regarding the ranges, there is 2-3 missions where I am considering swapping ammo or have to use MWD for 10 seconds to get in better range for optimal.

So if blitzing, how does lvl 3 compare to lvl 4 missions in terms of isk/hr?

^ That figure's pretty reasonable. Thanks.

The only thing I will add is that most of these ISK/hour numbers are running SoE missions in ideal systems. Run-of-the-mill Empire agents are going to yield probably 1/3-1/2 less ISK/hour because the LP/ISK conversion rate is nowhere near as lucrative. If you're going to blitz, combine it with Burner missions and you can potentially make upwards of 200m ISK/hour.

I've done extensive testing and the answer to your original question is.. it depends :)

But yes, currently I user a RHML Barghest to blitz most lv4 blitzable missions. It's on average just as effective as a blitzing Machariel (but easier to use). That said I use an arty Mach for Scarlet and I use a Polarised AC Vargur for Angels Pirate Assault.

In fact I have 3 BS, 3 Cruisers and 7 Frigates that I use to blitz with depending on the mission.

Been testing a HAM tengu as well, it's solid but lacks in range so it loses out on a bit of damage it could be doing while closing. That said if that's what you've got skills for and lacks skills for Mach/Barghest then by all means.

Are the fittings in your guide still up to date?
You've inspired me to try and blitz missions.