hi low or null ?

small pvp gang =! battleships

It's for hi-sec wars mostly.

It's for hi-sec wars mostly.

Generally, a Mach and a Vindi are opposite ends of the spectrum.

Blaster Vindi is up close, fitted for DPS, kinda slow with limited range. Most small fast ships will be able to get away.
Machariel is known for speed and has better range. Also known for shield tanks.

small pvp gang =! battleships

id use cruisers. 2 logi for 4 ships is a bit too much. a 6 man kiting gang will get way more kills. you can engage larger groups and more people are willing to fight you as well.

I beg to differ. Kiting arty machs and even pests work wonders. Though that depends on your definition of small gang, since with the obligatory support (anti-tackle, points and webs) they need at least 8-10 people to work as intended.

RLML phoons/ravens can go smaller and add nice punch to a small 3-5 man cruiser gang, but you'd better get some hyperspatial rigs and possibly WS- implants.

Can't really talk about HS wars since they mostly look like gate/station camps and picking off stragglers which is not particulary interesting.

That being said, machs can very much armour tank, and with slaves (hisec) they can easily do 350K+ tank. And with ACs they can do neuts. Though 3 heavy neuts aren't that much.

Your real problem is you are looking at maybe 2500dps between your 6 ships. Which is, well, tankable by, say, your mach with a single 5-1 guardian. You'll never be able to scratch a T3 with logi support. Hell, you'll never be able to scratch the logi support itself. So once you are up against a similar fleet, you both are tanking till downtime.

You could probably mix the battleships, and maybe add nestor for refitting and/or RR, but it's still the same problem of "hug the gate and tank them all". Personally, at this point something like RRBS would at least look somewhat interesting.

vindis all the way, gonna need all that deepz to kill them before they dock up. Although if you are in a HS war that doesn't involve station games (do they exist?) maybe machs.


slot layout favors an armor tank on a mach imo. Often shield fit for nano ops though, people like to be able to disengage. Plus mach warp speed is nice to either burn to target or run from blob.


only because small gang meta favors running away rather than brawling. although I don't really blame small gangs too much as the other side has a tendency to blob beyond belief, and that doesn't even include the possibility of a hot drop. FC we out number them 4 to 1 what do we do!? Wait till we outnumber them 10 to 1 and drop the titans!

Would a vindi use caldari navy antimatter or void ammo for pvp? Void has higher paper dps but reduces tracking, falloff, and increase gun cap usage by 25%

For highsec wars, the Marauder class is utterly absurd. They are too soft to capitals to use in lowsec/null, but in highsec and in wormholes that do not permit moving capital ships in, they are ridiculously tanky.

If your opponents are not fielding a Bhaalgorn fleet, they will be basically unable to break your tank unless they can field utterly overwhelming numbers.

I figure that 3 machs with 2 heavy neuts each will be sufficient to shut down most targets, that's 6 heavy neuts.

How does slave mach get 350k ehp? I can't see how it's possible even with slaves and max gang boosts.

Plus for vindi is the nice dps and tracking, the web bonus isn't so useful because the Loki will be doing that job......

Any advice on which ship is better for a small pvp gang? Probably consist of 3 armor tanked autocannon Machariels OR 3 blaster Vindicators + dual web Loki + 2x Guardian logis. Could also switch the battleships for Domis but I suppose it's all situatonal.

I'm trying to give the gang good resistant to neuts, so that's a negative for Vindis who will require cap to fire their guns. Plus for vindi is the nice dps and tracking, the web bonus isn't so useful because the Loki will be doing that job. Machariel has a little less DPS but 3 times better range and better maneuverability. Machariel also doesn't have to worry about running out of cap. With targets duel webbed and probably tracking computers fitted on the machariels I doubt the difference in tracking will matter much.

web loki long point lach and arty machs whit a scimi, 6-8man gang will do fine warping in at web range to alpha

Plus for vindi is the nice dps and tracking, the web bonus isn't so useful because the Loki will be doing that job.

Yeah I like vindiator dps. Only thing is if our opponents know we use vindicators (they will know our setup) I think they'll just max tank kinetic/thermal. Good thing about mach is choosing damage type.

Will ECM be a problem? I'm guessing one ECCM is necessary. With links and 1 ECCM the machariel has a sensor strength of 80+

The Mach is almost universally better than the Vindi. It has fewer range limitations, cheats the warp limitation, cheats the speed and align limitations of battleships, and isn't even that expensive to fit out. A t2 fit Mach functions just fine in every fitting type, arty/AC, shield or armor. Anything the Vindi can do, a cruiser hull can do better except for apply DPS to a large, immobile target, so unless you're beating on POCOs all day, the Mach wins hands down. Just bring a Loki or Munin and walah, it's like a Vindi but not agonizingly slow.

You never flew a vindicator, did you? With 3 90% webs, you can use Void against an AB dramiel at 1km.

If he's stupid enough to let you catch him. The vindicator is wicked slow and if it's blaster fit it has an extremely short range. They're designed as armor tanks and based off Gallente hulls, so they have a huge mass and align like a pregnant cow. They don't accelerate particularly well, and don't forget battleship scan resolution, which means the Dramiel could have warped out, warped back in, gone for pizza, then back out again before you ever had a chance to lock. The Machariel suffers from only two battleship related symptoms, and that is scan resolution(of which it still has a 50% advantage on the Vindi) and signature radius. Every other battleship handicap it cheats and that is more than enough to propel it to the top of the food chain by a massive margin. Never mind that it uses capless guns and can fit a massive armor tank using nothing but T2 modules and T1 rigs, only unlike the Vindi it's based off Minmatar hulls so they align and move quickly, and that's still including a full rack of arties. With the way battleships are right now, there is simply no way the Vindicator could ever compete with the Machariel in PvP. The Mach clutches all the weaknesses that hold other battleships back. This is doubly true in small gangs, where speed and agility are key.