Missions & Complexes

I thought I'd share a quick and dirty cheap Rattlesnake L4 mission fit. This is designed for quickly clearing missions where you need or want to shoot everything. There are a myriad of reasons behind this fit and why it will outperform any other battleship (including Marauders and Machariels), but the keys are EW immunity, drone tanking and not being limited by scan resolution or the number of targets.

First and foremost - you don't need to target anything. Ever. As soon as you're aggro'd you can automatically engage both drones and auto-targeting missiles. More often than not they will select the closest threat, but they often diverge and go after different targets as well. This also has the added benefit of making the Rattlesnake completely immune to EW without the drawback of a combat timer or rooting you in place.

Second, since missions vary between active movement towards an objective or remaining in place - simply switching between Heavy and Sentry drones can allow you to maximize mission potential.

Last but not least - the Rattlesnake is literally a brick. In addition to a massive passive tank (which will be boosted even more with the hull resist changes), it has a high passive shield recharge. But most importantly - you can utilize your drones to tank to great effect (especially Geckos). There are only a handful of missions where you'll actively need to use your shield booster, and even then it's often overkill.

The only drawback with the Rattlesnake is the lack of utility highs, so you won't be able to fit a tractor beam for cargo objectives. However, more often than not you'll be moving towards these objectives anyway - so it's not going to add a significant amount to mission times. Since you don't need to carry a lot of missiles or variants, you typically have 400m3 or more cargo space (more than enough to loot valuable salvage when applicable).

In addition to Ascendancies, I run this with +5 missile implants. DPS ranges from a low of 1154 with V skills to a high of 1908 with some Faction bling. As requested, I've now started EFT/Pyfa-compatible fits (apologies for this completely escaping me previously).

[Rattlesnake, Rattlesnake Cheap]

Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

500MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier
Drone Navigation Computer II
Pithum C-Type Thermal Dissipation Amplifier
Drone Navigation Computer II
Pithum C-Type Kinetic Deflection Amplifier
Pith C-Type Large Shield Booster

Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Drone Link Augmentor II

Large Hydraulic Bay Thrusters II
Large Hydraulic Bay Thrusters II
Large Drone Scope Chip I

Curator II x2
Warden II x2
Gecko x1

Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I x2500
Inferno Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I x2500
Scourge Fury Heavy Missile x1250
Inferno Fury Heavy Missile x1250

One final note: this fit was designed for minimal micromanagement, hence the passive modules. You can and will get better performance with active or scripted modules, so please feel free to modify or adjust this fit to your own personal preference.

How does it compare with a navy scorp? there isn't alot of tank on that if you go get full room aggro somewhere nasty and I don't see any passive tank modules for your " massive passive tank" I would be tempted to throw on a purger rig or swap out the track enhancer for at least a power diagnostic system. thoughts?

1908 DPS when you bling it, which is about double what you can get with a Navy Scorpion. Shield extenders bloat your signature radius resulting in higher missile damage, which is why I've gone with passive shield amplifiers. Your drones will tank a good chunk of enemy fire, so the tank looks a tad light - but really isn't. The other aspect of the Navy Scorpion is that it has a rate of fire bonus instead of a damage bonus and is not well-suited to rapid heavy launchers (you do less actual damage and lose way more volleys to overkill).

I use a pair of ballistic control systems because the third only gives you around 5% more DPS and you almost always lose that with the coresponding rate of fire increase. Ditto for the fourth drone damage amplifier (it only adds about 50 DPS). So you can certainly run a purger in the low, and if you're not inclined to run Geckos you can swap out the two drone navigation modules for omnidirectional tracking links instead or substitute adaptive invulnerabilities for the passive shield amplifiers and still run the drone navigation modules.

As indicated, I designed this as a plug-and-play fit with the express intent of grinding through missions. There is next to no micromanagement and no need to map various active damage application modules. There are several good active cruise fit Rattlesnakes, but these need rigors, flares, target painters and missile guidance computers. And even then they're still horrible at applying damage to frigates and cruisers. Rapid heavies will consistently wipe a good half dozen or more small targets before needing to be reloaded, and this is often all you need in most missions. After that you can switch to Fury ammunition and pummel the heck out of the larger ships (1100 applied DPS out to 93km is nothing to casually ignore).

Please refer to all previous posts and threads on this topic to see why that's not true.

Ahh but your not posting a "hey heres my abstract idea what do you think lets debate" your posting a "babies first snake fit for a beginner". As such your fit has to stand upto scrutinty. I'll grant you though Big puns post doesn't give you alot to work with. "its terrible" is only helpful if you say why...

oh right yeah you did. apologies.

Yup thanks. I might try a cruise rattle at some point. Probably not though. I would go for a golem if I trained into missiles I think.

There's nothing on there to loot or salvage, so I really fail to see how it's going to beat a marauder?

This assessment is pretty much bang on. Damsel and Beserk for salvage, Zazz and Damsel for the chance of an implant drop, Scarlet and Guristas for a guranteed implant drop, Angels for the chance of a Faction drop in the bonus room (not sure if this is really worth it) and the Enemies series for the tag drops. Plus any of the combat Storyline missions that drop tags or salvage. I'm mainly referencing Caldari missions, but this applies for the most part to the other factions as well.

Loot tables and reprocessing have been nerfed to the point where bltzing for LP or clearing for bounties are almost always more profitable these days (particularly with the SoE Faction).