Highly subjective I know, particularly as they're all broadly similar, but starting from scratch and ignoring the other ships that you'll pick up the skills for along the way.
Which is the best Strategic Cruiser to train for, for
Missioning
Exploration
Wormholes
PvP ?
Basically I'd like to hear peoples views, those who pilot more that one particularly welcome :)
beanbagking
[ Editor ]
As long as you first understand that you will only get others views, i.e. their options. I truly don't believe one T3 is better than the others.
However, if I was strapped to a chair, had a car battery attached to my nipples and was forced to produce an answer, I'd say go for the Tengu. I don't personally fly it, but it seems to be the most widely used across the board. Much like the Drake (in a general sense, not that it really is like a Drake), it fills a variety of roles very well, has a solid tank, and missiles are easy to use with low SP (don't get me wrong, like all things, they require a lot to use effectively).
They have been used for level 4 missions, I see them all the time in my WH, and, prior to moving into said WH, they were a common feature in 0.0. They are a good all around T3. Look on youtube for the 4x Tengus running C6 sleeper sites.
I would also say the Loki and Proteus are well liked and used often, the Loki probably a bit more so than the Proteus, but both are solid PvP boats. The Legion I see used quite a bit less than others, I'm not sure why.
Again, this is all based on observations and opinions of my own and nothing substantial, but you wanted peoples views, so there you have it.
Also, what CanHasGank said
king
I'd say the proteus, it has incredible dps, can buffer tank pretty well as a bs could, and also can generate a really good active tank, personnaly i'd go for the proteus, the other T3's if they excell in tank their dps is poor, if they excell in dps then their tank is poor but the proteus can play gank and tank at the same time easily.
lee janssen
Tengu all the way, can tank the most, can dish out creepy damage with HAM's. and hey, it's caldari!
casparas
Best T3 for missions or solo Wormhole plexes is Tengu. Tengus do have great tank and great range with heavy missiles.
For higher end wormholes it would be best to use Legion as logistic ship. It can easily fit a full rack of medium armor repairers. 2 of those can sustain any fleet in any Class 5 site.
So your fleet would consist of 2 Legions and the rest would be damage armor tanked battleships.
As far as PVP goes all shops are great except maybe Legion is neglected somewhat.
Loki = great webber Proteus = great heavy tackler aka arazu Tengu = great Drake Legion = great command ship for armor fleets
As far as exploration goes people tend to use Tengu or Proteus as they can still dish out quite a lot of damage even when fitted with interdiction and scanning subsystems.
Broadly similar???? They could not be more different…
If you consider all the variations possible based on subs possible there is quite an overlap – of course if you have a fuller description of the differences I’m keen to hear it.
Well ok… I guess they are similar in the same way that different races BS are similar :P It’s the same ship class… but that’s about it.