Ships & Modules

I am curious about proper Mach usage in PvE. Mainly I wonder if AB fit is better than MWD fit. Anyway what is basic autocannon Machariel's combat tactics? Is it just burning AB/MWD to reach rats as quickly as possible and then orbit targets at say 20 km with AB/MWD on and fire autocannons at them one after another? Of course webbing frigates and jammer boats must be destroyed first during approach.

manual pilot to reduce transversal and dps lost to falloff, or get close, ctrl+space, drop sentries and go for wrecking shots

my current AC mach is MJD+MWD fit with an armor tank, and I finish most missions before I hit armor (I also extensively cherry pick missions). I flew pretty much every mission with my old shield setup and that works fine too. If you MJD into a group you can usually blap them before they break 15km or w/e so you are doing nearly all your dps, especially since most npcs fly away in a straight line. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

I should probably try it in a worlds collide or something, but with aggro management I can't imagine it being too bad. And the right setup probably makes it too easy. A primary + secondary hardener with a RAH would probably be over tanking. Also could probably do a quick burn out and blap the spy frigs. In a shield fit I'd probably just stick with my xl sb and 2x invluns. Although then I'd lose the MJD and would have to do a burn out, or use a hacker key in the first area.

Most other missions are just full of low bounty don't really do any damage battleships. It just doesn't feel like something to worry too much about.

I used this fit:

Lows: 4 damage mods, 3 tracking enchancers
Mids: gist x type afterburner, gist large booster, 2 invuls, boost amplifier
High 800 autos t2
Rigs Ccc

Tactics is simple, warp in, shoot frigs from distance, kill cruisers, then Bs. In 10/10 angel plex tactics was to approach one Bs on AB, then next and etc. Basically you deal this way max damage and take damage just from 1 Bs. Main idea is that speed is your tank.

You should be fine against guristas, just don't full room aggro The Assault. The jams will be a bit of a PITA, use sentries (faction or T2 wardens) to help clear jam ships.

Use 3 tracking computers with range scripts if armor tank or 3 tracking enhancers if shield tanked for range. You want to try and get around 70km end of falloff with short range faction ammo. Use Hail against angels. Use barrage against EOM and either against guristas. TCs are better and make it easier to get good range.

Sorry I mean 400 DPS tank with AB on. With AB off this is 700 DPS tank sustained. Well 920 DPS is from autocannons only. I do not add drone damage because you know, this is a bit risky...

Of course now I do not own Machariel. This is only my EFT play to be able to judge if I could purchase it and run some level 4 missions successfully.

Anyway projectile autocannon ammunition is real mess! Let's assume I run missions in Machariel against Gurista rats. Those are most susceptible to kinetic and thermal damage. Thus the best ammo against them is Phased Plasma but:

- T1 ammo offers much less raw damage than T2 ammo
- T2 ammo comes in two types: Hail - very large raw DPS but deplorable damage selection against Guristas (78.5% EXP and 21.5% KIN) and greatly reduced falloff. I suppose Hail ammo does less real damage than T1 Phased Plasma against those pirate faction. Barrage - raw DPS worse than T1 ammo with also worse damage selection similarly to Hail.

All that means the best option is to field T1 faction short range ammo but this ammo is about 5 times more expensive than T1 ammo.

I rather considered autocannon Mach as regular L4 mission runner i.e. no blitzing but full clear.

BTW - what about arty Mach? Is it useful at all in missions?

arty is great for blapping a few targets at range. I mostly use it for dread pirate scarlet. In stop the thief it is nice to 2 volley the mission, and in gone berserk I'm not sure which is better, but arty is rather nice and lazy. Just warp in, drop sentries, and blap everything.

maybe a few more that it makes sense, but I decline those missions now.

Just out of curiosity, how much is that fit worth? Also, no warp speed rigs? Where do you mission?

Oh, and 8 turrets on a Mach? Impressive...

It's a gank magnet, and an easy one at that. at least a marauder can get away with it because it only needs T2. If you're not running warp speed rigs on a mach you're losing a LOT of mission time. Since the base warp speed is higher on the mach, warp speed rigs do a lot more for it than on other BS.

I probably wouldn't recommend that fit as a marauder does it better, safer and the fit isn't really working towards the Machs strengths. Just feels like it needs too many tank and cap modules to make it work. Eh, it's a timebomb but should be good for a bit of fun I guess.

Factually, no, I am not wrong as one of the Machs strengths(a role bonus in fact) is it's increased base warp speed. This means warp speed rigs increase its warp speed by more than what these rigs would increase on another BS hull. Additionally warp speed implants will also have a bigger effect.

Since your time in warp is in fact the majority of time you will spend blitzing lv4s, this has a far greater effect on how good the ship is for lv4s than DPS so it's probably one of the biggest strengths of the hull. Since the ship is using Polarized it (apparently?) needs the cap rigs to keep the repper running or else it dies due to no resists.

Thus the fit does not work towards the Mach's strengths.