After a little testing in sisi, i came up with the insane idea that Edencom BS could be a good choice for missioning.
Anyone has a field expertise to share and to change my mind
Why do you think it would be a good ship?
i’ve tested it in belts and bs rats went down very quick, and you hit up to 5 targets with 543 dps, that are more than 2.5k dps straight damage, but prior to commit real sp to this i just wanted to hear other bells ringing
Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA] here. For over 11 years we’ve been hiring mission runners to service our clients, so we have a lot of experience in this field and are fairly adept at fitting ships and damage modeling in pyfa using custom target profiles for fit comparisons (sigs/speeds/ranges/angles etc), etc.
My verdict: ■■■■no. Keeping in mind the explosion radius is astronomically high - you would inflict laughably low damage on the majority of ships due to having a very low “hard” damage limit per damage mechanics since its explosion radius exceeds sig size of most targets, and you’d also have a very low “soft” damage limit against larger craft due to having a low explosion velocity in addition to a large explosion radius. Furthermore, your rate-of-fire sucks, meaning it would take you a while to dispatch a horde craft (the fact that you could strike 5x at once doesn’t change much, especially since this doesn’t always happen in practice). The precision is worse than unbonused T1/Faction cruise missiles, which is pretty sad. You don’t exactly have many options for improving precision with Vorton Projectors, and while you could employ paints (best) and webs, you may find yourself light on tank and maneuverability given the limited availability of slots.
So while it is true that the small rats have such low EHP that the low precision might not be -too- much of an issue (you may still need multiple volleys to kill them, so that’s a lot of time wasted if you have to expend a second or third volley), it’s against the larger ships and the ones that are spaced out (ie. no arcing) that you’re going to take forever and a half to kill. If you’re up against ships that self-rep, you’re going to be there for a loooooong time with the ■■■■damage you’re inflicting.
These are not the only disadvantages with the Thunderchild. The other Edencom ships would not fare better. Even some of the T1M0 BSes, and possibly smaller T1M0 craft, would outperform the Edencom ships. Don’t be surprised if you lose out to a Myrmidon, or, better yet, a Prophecy in this particular use case.
No, you are not inflicting 543dps. You’re not even inflicting one fifth of that. If a frigate rat has a sig of 35m and the Vorton Projector has an explosion radius of 250m, then you have a hard damage limit of 14%, and your actual damage may be even lower than that depending on the ship’s speed (soft damage limit). Using T2 short range ammo (not recommended - because of precision mechanics, you’d inflict less damage than regular short range ammo), this translates to at most 34.44dps / 393.82 alpha before resists (assuming the target is sufficiently slow as to inflict maximum damage). That’s not a lot, and the target’s resist profile may absorb that quite well. (That’s another problem with these ships: they’re damage type locked, which is a problem other ships don’t have, or have to a far lesser extent.)
543dps is assuming the target is sufficiently large and slow enough for you to inflict that much damage. The only reason the belt rats go down that fast is because belt rats have anus EHP such that even Corvettes and Ventures can dispatch them with ease. Also, saying that “BS rats” go down fast doesn’t say much because rat hull size is zero indication of how tough they are. There are NPC frigs that would solo decimate player BSes that aren’t prepared for them, and there are NPC capital ships that would fall to a low-skill crap-fitted player frigate (see NPE starter tutorial - last time I ran it, anyway). It is important to indicate specifically which rats you’re talking about (by name or from the specific site, ie. saying “a combat site” is not sufficient), not merely mention the hull size.
Lastly, I want to emphasize that “good” and “sufficient” are not the same thing. You may very well find that you can run L4s in Edencom ships - that doesn’t make them “good” compared to the alternatives when measuring throughput in relation to cost and required skill levels, it only makes them “sufficient” in that they can get the job done, just with grossly inferior performance compared to other ships.
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In fairness I find killing battleship rats with a destroyer isn’t a hard task…
Just saying.
There was a guy running L4s in an Imicus.
Defintely the most complete reply i’ve ever had in my life, ty sir.
Archer is running for CSM next year, that is why.
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Hey now, I was this helpful before I decided to run 
But yes, my platform currently has 226 points and counting 
I had the same question today in my mind so decided to ask it somewhere and found your explanation. Honestly thank you very very much for this detailed answer, providing examples and math of the whole question, you saved me a ton of isk a lot of time and headache! 
Thank you again, more posts like this would make the world better 
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