You don’t have to use a battleship in L4 missions. It’s the most common choice, but not the only choice.
Heavy Assault Cruisers. These are cruisers that have an emphasis in firepower. They can complete L4 missions but your skills do need to be very solid because it’s a smaller ship with a smaller tank and fewer fitting slots. On the other hand because they are cruisers, they are faster and more maneuverable than any battleship. The Gallente Ishtar is the only Heavy Assault Cruiser I know of that has drone bonuses. It has enough bandwidth to control a full set of heavy or sentry drones, it has a drone speed bonus on the ship (all light, medium and heavy drones will fly faster) and is has a 50% reduction to your microwarp signature.
I think I should explain that last detail. All ships have a “signature”. Think of it as an invisible bubble surrounding the ship. Any rat (or hostile player) who is shooting at you needs to hit that bubble to damage your ship. When you use a microwarp drive, your signature (the invisible bubble) automatically gets bigger. In effect, your ship is an easier target to hit and damage because the bubble that decides if you take damage or not is bigger, so it’s easier to hit. On the other hand, the extra speed you are flying at because of the microwarp drive may let you avoid damage because the tracking of the weapons shooting at you may mot be able to stay locked onto you.
Heavy Assault Cruisers have a special bonus that limits how much larger your signature gets when you are using a microwarp drive. On a HAC, your signature does not expand as much compared to a similar ship that does not have that bonus. This is part of “speed tanking”, using speed to make whoever is shooting at you to miss more often. The down side of speed tanking is that your own speed has the potential to make your own weapons miss more often because they have problems staying locked onto the rats. Missiles don’t have the same tracking problems that turrets do (although missiles do have their own weaknesses), so missiles can work quite well on a ship set up for speed tanking, assuming that ship can fit missile launchers.
T3 Cruisers. These ships require a lot of skill training just to fly them, let alone fly them well. They are “modular”, meaning they can be reconfigured to emphasise certain features, but you have to dock to change their configuration. They are also the most expensive cruisers in the game. Depending on the configuration you want, they can cost more than most battleships. Each main empire has their own T3 cruiser. The exact stats of a T3 cruiser change depending on the exact configuration you are using, and there are too many combinations to cover in a forum post. A speed tanking T3 cruiser with drones and missiles is possible, but I don’t know which exact configuration would be optimal for that.
I have one more suggestion, a drone and missile combination on a T1 battleship. It’s a bit of an oddball fit that some players use, but most players just don’t “get it”. A T1 Amarr Armageddon with heavy missiles.
Advantages: Not super expensive. Battleship class tank (but not enough mid slots for a strong shield tank). Missiles will give you any damage type you want. With good missile and drone skills 1000+ dps is not hard to reach.
Disadvantages. Shield tanking this setup really isn’t viable. dps is lower when missile launchers are reloading. No missile bonuses at all on this ship. The Navy Armageddon does not have any drone bonuses and cannot fit missiles so this only works with the basic T1 Armageddon. Missile launchers need CPU and the Geddon does not have a lot of CPU so at least one rig will be needed for improved CPU to make a viable missile fit (or use Meta grade launchers that need less CPU). Even with a microwarp drive this isn’t a super-fast ship and there is no reduction in microwarp signature size.
Still, here’s a suggested T1 Geddon missile fit.
[Armageddon, *Simulated Armageddon]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Large Armor Repairer II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Damage Control II
Large Cap Battery II
500MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Missile Guidance Computer II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II
Drone Link Augmentor II
Large Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Large Processor Overclocking Unit I
Large Warhead Rigor Catalyst II
Ogre II x5
Berserker II x5
Inferno Heavy Missile x125
Missile range is 69km.
With no missiles (launchers are reloading) and Ogre heavy drones, 740 dps
With Berserkers instead of Ogres (faster than Ogres but less dps) 600 dps.
With two Geckos and no missiles 585 dps.
With T1 missiles and Ogres. 1000 dps.
With faction missiles and Ogres. 1047 dps.
With T2 Fury missiles and Ogres. 1100 dps.
With T1 missiles and Berserkers. 870 dps
With faction missiles and Berserkers. 910 dps
With T2 Fury missiles and Berserkers. 960 dps.
A Rattlesnake will do more raw dps due to it’s missile bonuses but can’t operate a full set of drones, this can.
Like I said, it’s an oddball fit that only a few players actually use. Assuming you know how to logon to the test server, try this fit there, see if it works for the way you want to play. This fit might surprise you.