Ships & Modules

You read my post, right? You can get a $50m+ ISK implant in Damsel or Zazz. And Damsel and Beserk will net $15m-$20m in loot and salvage. And yes, Pirate battleships are cheaper and less skill intensive, but you're paying for that accessibility with other tradeoffs.

I think most of the insane L4 mission ISK in "blitzing" is actually made from Burner missions, so I believe whatever battleship you use to complete various L4s is somewhat a moot point.

rattle does a lot of dps when you can sit still and wait for it to hit targets. also it is really damn slow and takes forever to get anywhere. imo not a good ship, unless you are semi-afking missions.

Marauders are not really that much more skill intensive.
Marauders require a racial BS skills plu Marauders, Rattle needs Cal and Gal BS. Everything else is relatively equal so there really is no skill based advantage to the Rattle.

Drones ships a s whole are a poor choice for the blitz style of mission running so I say stay away from them.

OP consider blitzing level 3's for SOE in a speed fit Mach if you want to sustain max ISK / LP with as little effort as possible.
The actual ISK / LP per hour might be slightly lower than cherry picking level 4 missions but it is significantly easier and there are those who report that blitzing level 3's is the very best way to make ISK / LP in missions.


And yet there is still considerable room for debate or discussion on this topic.
I have 3 corp mates that all blitz missions, 1 flys a Kronos, 1 flys a Vargur and the other a Paladin. They have all tried other ships / fits that were recommended or stated to be the best and because of personal preferences and play styles they had worse results. So even if you might think their ships are less than optimal, they were in fact the optimal way for them to maximize ISK / LP per hour.

They're doing it wrong. Majority of time spent blitzing missions is in travel time, fact, and I have the numbers to prove it. The Mach is the only BS with a warp speed bonus. I've flown the Vargur for over a year. They are suited to clearing missions, not blitzing. There is no room for debate.

No, it's not. The Nestor has a 2.5 AU/s warp speed and Marauders have a 2.2 AU/s warp speed. Marauders also get fairly nice bonuses to damage application so rigs slots can be used to augment warp speed considerably.


The Rattlesnake has great DPS - on paper. It needs to be significantly augmented with damage application modules and rigs to actually realize this.

You missed the point. Because of player preferences once you move out of the clinical world of numbers on paper there is no such thing as a single best ship. See below about Mach pilots.


Ah but there is significant room for debate and your numbers prove nothing other than what is best for you.
Again once you move a discussion of this type out of the clinical realm of paper comparisons then player preferences enter into the equation and all manor of things go haywire.

Mach pilots.
Even if we accept your theory that the Mach is THE best what is the best fit?
I know many players that blitz lvl 4's using the Mach and even they cannot agree on the best fit. Some of them prefer to suffer some warp speed loss in exchange for more tank or DPS. Others go for full on max speed fit suffering a loss in tank AND DPS.
And yet these players can post up what for all practical purposes are identical ISK / LP per hour numbers.

In the end a question was asked and based on my personal experiences I answered that question in the best way I can.
I simply put the best information I have available out on the table and I will trust that the OP has sufficient experience to work through it all and determine what is likely to be best for him / her.

first things, there is such thing as optimal, making excuses like "for preferences" doesn't change that. learn to play and all that. Feel free to use a ship because you like it and/or find it more relaxing to fly. I have a non-optimal paladin that I love because it is super easy to fly.

secondly of course there is no one best ship, I can't run burner missions in a mach

as for best fit, there isn't one single best fit. I have 2 machs, one with a reasonably standard AC brawl fit, and one with artillery. I think it's easier to have separate ships than swap mods, as the fitting screen lags sometimes. Plus there is the question of usage. I only use mine for the most blitzable of missions. If you are using a BS to run every non burner mission, things might change. Also might be some small changes depending on what region you run in. However since the mach has the best speed, and near the best dps, with some great projection, and reasonably selectable damage, I doubt you will find something better overall.

pretty much every set up has 3-4 gyros, 2-3 te/tc, 3-4 slot tank (For me it usually includes a cap injector), armor or shield doesn't really matter, MWD and/or MJD, possibly some missions would be suited to an AB fit. 7 guns in the highs. tractor beam or auto targeter in the utility high, then warp speed rigs. For drones I usually use sentries, For brawl I like being able to immediately scoop my drones if needed as heavies are slow, plus npcs usually don't make it much past 15km, so I'm applying nearly all my damage. Arty I also like to use sentries, as they match the range better.

Gosh, how long do you have to wait for those missiles to hit targets at that range?

Meh, I prefer the instant 813 dps out to 130km damage applications I get from my Paladins.

Sorry, that was a typo - it should have read 119km. In Bastion it takes about 8 seconds (basically when your launchers are ready to cycle the next volley). If you only need to apply EM/thermal damage the Paladin is definitely the ticket.

Yes, it really is, I have kept detailed numbers for every mission worth blitzing.

Attack of the drones for example, 1 jump away:
Mission time (from landing in site to warping out of site: 2min. Travel time from undocking to docking (minus 2min mission time) is 2:30sec. That's with a 3x T2 Warp speed rigged, full mid-grade ascendency set Machariel. I put out 1200 dps (get to use sentries in that mission) with 0 flight time in mission. Anything going slower than the mach (aka anything else) will increase the travel time (already the longest part of the mission) while only seeing a few seconds decrease in mission time. Remember 30sec of the mission time in that specific mission is waiting for the spawn so you only get to improve on 1:30 worth of shooting.

Also regarding tanking, I run a 200 dps tank (3 modules). I have a mid slot that I don't even know what to do with (put a sensor booster in there)

I have a pool of 11 missions I blitz, not including currently 9 burner missions. THis means I can cherry pick and blitz indefinitely. As I said in another thread, people are free to continue to hold their fingers in their ears going 'lalalala' all they want, there is *currently* only one best ship for optimal isk/h. You are free to pay me 500mill and I'll teach you how to do it.

And regarding real world numbers, ALL of my isk/h values I give is measured by running missions for 3h straight and taking the starting and ending isk and LP values, converting the LP into isk and calculating income from that. Real world numbers, not on paper BS.

Best part is I am FAR from blitzing optimally. I'm 100% sure I can break 200mill eventually.