I'm leaning towards either a Mach, Vindi, or Kronos. Which would be best?

MAch is undisputed king of mission ships.

while it's a very good mission ship it's hardly undisputed.

Rattle, golem and domi navy issue all give it a run for it's money.

You forgot to include the drake.

Of those ships I would definitely go Vindicator. They're pretty awesome.

while it's a very good mission ship it's hardly undisputed.

golem

Vindicator = paper dps for paper warriors.

We all know blasters have no range and rails suck, but it's the things that aren't apparent on paper that'll make you regret spending big isk on it.

Make sure you don't find out about the following things for the first time while in mission site:
-Locking range is horrible. It turns out 50km isn't enough for many missions. You'll have to refit sebos.
-Rail tracking is abysmal. It's not AC. Start moving? Turn on prop? Can't hit. Target far rats, oh right, gotta refit sebos.
-Why is this thing not moving? Oh right, speed of a Tempest.
-Fit webs to take advantage of web bonus? That's TC slots being taken up.
-Armor tank? 7 lows, that's 3 instead of 4 dmg mods.
-Shield tank? 5 mids, take away prop and cap booster, 3 mids for tank, no webs for you. Oh wait, sebos... good luck with that tank.

Vindicator = paper dps for paper warriors.

We all know blasters have no range and rails suck, but it's the things that aren't apparent on paper that'll make you regret spending big isk on it.

Make sure you don't find out about the following things for the first time while in mission site:
-Locking range is horrible. It turns out 50km isn't enough for many missions. You'll have to refit sebos.
-Rail tracking is abysmal. It's not AC. Start moving? Turn on prop? Can't hit. Target far rats, oh right, gotta refit sebos.
-Why is this thing not moving? Oh right, speed of a Tempest.
-Fit webs to take advantage of web bonus? That's TC slots being taken up.
-Armor tank? 7 lows, that's 3 instead of 4 dmg mods.
-Shield tank? 5 mids, take away prop and cap booster, 3 mids for tank, no webs for you. Oh wait, sebos... good luck with that tank.

All in all, Vindi is not even close to the Mach and I haven't started talking about Kronos, which is just the same as Vindi only 2x times worse.

All in all, Vindi is not even close to the Mach and I haven't started talking about Kronos, which is just the same as Vindi only 2x times worse.

I have been using a Navy Domi for the past 4 months for lvl 4 missions. It's staring to get monotonous and would like trying a different ship. I'm leaning towards either a Mach, Vindi, or Kronos. Which would be best? I'd like to not have to depend on drones as with the Domi just for change.

Apologies for being blunt but if Kronos performed for you at half the level of what similarly fitted Vindicator could do then the problem was with your competence, not with the Kronos.

Edit: on second thought I retract my remark about competence because numbers actually hold. If Vindi performs at, let's say, 90% of Mach and Kronny performs at 80% of Mach then yes, Kronny is twice as worse.

I compare both Vindi and Kronos to Mach.

Sadly Vindi can't even perform at 80% of Mach.
The thing about Mach is it has almost 2 times longer range on guns.
Almost the same dps, but you also can change the damage type, which makes Mach superior.

Look, I know that Mach is today's king of the hill, I also understand people who swear by Nightmares, CNRs, Golems and so on. And since I have this fetish for pissing against the wind, I have also deep and sincere respect for people doing L4s in assault frigates. Point is, whatever you like to fly, fly it and you have my best wishes.

But when you go to comparison which ship is better or worse, there comes time to separate bullshit from facts and to me the bottom line is actual peformance, be it in ticks, ISK/hr or time to mission finish. So if you say Vindi performs worse than 80% of Mach, I'd love to hear your story, preferrably with some actual numbers in it (no, not paper stats).

Ppl with the misguided competitive mentality "this is my boat, so I must defend it against the obvious" don't get convinced by words, you should try both yourself instead. Go out the door and witness the sky is blue with your own eyes.

Vindicator = paper dps for paper warriors.

We all know blasters have no range and rails suck, but it's the things that aren't apparent on paper that'll make you regret spending big isk on it.

Make sure you don't find out about the following things for the first time while in mission site:
-Locking range is horrible. It turns out 50km isn't enough for many missions. You'll have to refit sebos.
-Rail tracking is abysmal. It's not AC. Start moving? Turn on prop? Can't hit. Target far rats, oh right, gotta refit sebos.
-Why is this thing not moving? Oh right, speed of a Tempest.
-Fit webs to take advantage of web bonus? That's TC slots being taken up.
-Armor tank? 7 lows, that's 3 instead of 4 dmg mods.
-Shield tank? 5 mids, take away prop and cap booster, 3 mids for tank, no webs for you. Oh wait, sebos... good luck with that tank.

- Kronos: typically mission took 42 to 43 minutes, once or twice I came close to 40 (second tick while I was finishing the last or but last ship)
- Vindicator: consistently just below 40 minutes, typically 38-39
- Machariel: consistently in 36-37 range

No offence, but you might be doing something wrong.
It takes ~19 mins to complete AE in a Mach, minus bonus.
Bonus takes around 5-7 mins.

Vindi usually lags behind with 5-6 mins difference and Kronos lags behind Vindi with like 4-5 mins difference.
Those stats are for AE.

I mean if you fit Mach wrong and have no idea how to handle it this ship will perform just as any other.
Haven't you seen dozens of threads about Marauders saying how sucky they are? It's all because there is a huge gap between Faction BS and them.

Sounds like it is time to nerf the Mach.

I'm kinda leaning towards the Mach, however, I don't have much experience with shield fits. But looking at battleclinic it appears most of the fits are shield with a ton of Gyro's in the low slots. With 7 low slots I thought there would be more armor fits. Can some of you provide your Mach fits? It would be greatly appreciated!

if you are coming from a navy domi vindy/kronos have really similar skill requirements, and be similar to fly.

I have purchased a Mach and need to fit it. So far the only thing I have fitted it with is 800mm Scout Repeating Artillery 1's(which will be changed to tech II when I have it trained in 16 days). I have also decided to go with TC's instead of TE's because of the change. My final decision is to go with armor or shield? I would like to know which defense to go with. Any fittings either way would be much appreciated. I don't trust what I see on battleclinic. Thx so far with everyone's input!

Going from a DNI to a Rattlesnake can mix things up well. Got Drone skills already and just train some missile skills and you're good

Sorry but I have horrible missile skills. I have purchased and fitted a Mach. But going from a Navy Domi to this was quite a transition. I made a compromise for now by not making it a shield boat but I will go with cap boosters as opposed to being cap stable. This alone will be something I'm not accustomed with. Here is my fittings I have decided to go with(probably will get a lot of critique for this fit but it is a beginning}.

High: 7 Heavy "scout " repeating Artillery I 1 Drone link Aug II
Mid: 3 TC II's 1 Reb Fleet AB ! Dark Blood Heavy Cap
Low: 4 Rep Fleet Gyro's 1 Corpus B Lrg Armor Rep. 1 Kin Hard II 1 Therm Hard II
Rig: 2 Lrg Aux Nano Pumps, 1 Lrg Ambit Projectile. Ext.
Drones: 5 Hammer II's, 5 Hob II's

This gives me a DPS of 1070 and a tank of 415 against Serpentis.