Ships & Modules

Since coming back to the game, I've seen a distinct trend in how players are fitting their Kronos, and I would appreciate alternate perspectives to understand why, or understand if a game mechanic has changed to cause the shift.

People are fitting blasters on their Kronos. - In my opinion, it should be rails.

Level IV missioning is about damage application at range. The larger your range, the faster you can switch and apply damage to the next ship in the next agro pocket. The raw DPS difference between a Blaster Kronos and a Rail Kronos with DPS fits is in the neighborhood of 150-200 dps at short range. Blasters with anti-mater push only 400-450 DPS at 45-60km (Fighting in falloff), and they are about even if you use the T2 ammo VS rail anti-matter (increasing ammunition costs dramatically).

Blasters have better tracking, but if a BS rat is within 20-30km of you, you drop out of bastion mode, fire up the AB and you can apply full DPS by flying manual to lower angular velocity.

So for level IV's the consistant average of rails is pegged at 800 dps, while the blasters range from 900-450 dps, and you have to motor in or do MJD shinanigans to apply your full dps.

That's what I understand it to be. Am I missing something here? Why are people insisting on blaster fitting their Kronos?

There are some missions where you can absolutely wreck havoc with blasters as the NPCs are all within 40km. There are also some missions where the NPCs spawn at extreme ranges and a MJD is preferable. Again, it really comes down to personal preference and you really can't go wrong with either.

With proper navigation and handling blasters perform better. Rails are easier to use though and said performance difference isn't that terrrible too.

The best way is to have both sets of guns on board and equip those which are better suited for given mission (e.g. don't even try Damsel in Distress with rails).

That doesn't make sense. Rails can blitz and full clear Damsel just fine (under 14 minutes). Full bounties in a single "Tick". Use an AB to get angular down and you mow through the cruisers that get to close.

THATS the paradigm shift I'm talking about that I don't understand. Are you bastioning the Kronos and not flying manual?

You know that you can just blow up Pleasure garden in like one minute with rails from safe distance, make bookmark on container/Zor wreck, warp out and complete mission with second Damsel, right?
That's how you blitz Damsel properly.

From the DPS figures you posted I'd say you missed Null ammo entirely and the fact that missions you seem to get are not the missions other people might be getting. NPCs keeping an orbit of 50+ kms is certainly not what I've been encountering in my missions in Gallente space. For the rare exceptions there is always a possibility to just swap to rails with ease.

My reasons for fitting blasters are usually following:

- I prefer killing frigates with guns instead of drones, blasters are better at this at short ranges, partly because of cycle times, partly because of tracking. You also can kill frigates as far as 80km in a very reasonable time.

- In certain missions you can place your ship on top of spawns and keep blasting at 1400-1600 dps. In most missions I rarely sit farther away than 40 kms from my targets.

- Faction AM ammo costs a lot more than Null or Void.

- Actively positioning my ship near enemy NPCs - and I mean by analyzing mission spawns once and planning ahead for the best spot to sit in, not just wildly MWDing around - allows for much better loot and salvage yield with very little effort during the mission.

- I ran both rail and blaster fits and usually blasters deliver faster completion times for me. Most extreme example was 16:30 mins(fastest, usually around 18-20 mins) with blasters vs 30+ minutes with rails in Seprentis Blockade, full clear.

My reasons to be annoyed by blaster Kronos:

- If you take a break and forget how to run the missions - ie proper spots to place your ship into, when to fit MJD or MWD etc - the efficiency drops quite dramatically. I really dislike doing Angel Extravaganza for that very reason.
- Can't be as lazy as a tachyon Paladin.

You can also shoot the Damsel. Sometimes it's just as satisfying as blitzing...

Blasters with full clear, damsel in cargo, Zor, his aunt and her dog dead, used to take me a little below 5 minutes from landing on grid. Recently I had it at 6 or 7 because I had long break from the game and forgot a bit or two about target priorities, esp. for drones.

And yes, this is this is balls-to-the-wall, shoot-em-in-the-face way of doing the mission. Start with Nulls and shoot little stuff, meanwhile crawl to the proper garden. When at 4km from it, bastion up. Faction Antimatter to kill battleships, destroy garden with Void.

When I fly mine I use rails with web a TC's they work just fine

Yes, if you can position yourself there (my personal best tick: 25mil after particular mission of Amarr Epic Arc when doing exactly that). On the other hand in certain missions you have quite spaced spawns forcing you either to fit propulsion or to perform double-MJD trick.


This argument is null and void, pun intended. First off, this cost is not that higher, if at all. And secondly it is quickly recouped esp. considering ammo conservation bonus of Marauders.


Nice time. I never been able to get it that low. Although with rails, since introducing bastion I have been consistently completing this mission under one tick.