Warfare & Tactics

For a month in 2009 I used to only fly my Rapier in C2/C3 fights. This was back when people either used Drakes or BS's for such things. We would also often fight Domis. I would double-web them and orbit, while my gang mates would bump them out of jump range (and this being the days of bumpable wormholes, often they'd be well outside jump range anyway). Naturally, the Domi would launch Ogres IIs to attack me.

It was not very hard to outrun the ogres. In fact, as I would orbit the ogres would either be too slow, or if they began catching I'd cycle a web off the Domi and web down an ogre when it got close to me and shoot it. He'd then begin pulling the ogre back, but it wouldn't get home, or i'd web up a second and a third and string them out behind me.

End result: no damage from Ogres.

I think the OP's problem is that he thinks that a ceptor should be,
a) within scram range of a Domi (hello, smartbombs)
b) within neut range of a Domi (pack a Nos!)
c) ABíng to maintain low sig (uh, sig is only 67-74m with MWD on at Ceptor 5)
d) Immune to heavy drones due to allegedly poor tracking of the heavy drones (drone weapon sig res is probably very small)

Points a) through c) should be addressed by, eg, getting a Stilleto and orbiting at 28km @ 5,000m/s or 11km @ 5,000m/s with scram (depends if you're worried about nixing MJD). If you go for scram, and get neuted, you can go in close and nos up, but keep MWDing. I mean....who puts a scram on a Domi? Ever?

Doing this will then eliminate point d) in that your enemy will assign heavies to you and you will outrun them. Then he will pull them in and flick out lights, which you can shoot, and which will have trouble keeping up with you without rubber-banding and sucking.

By then, in the real world, you have held the Domi long enough that your gang can come in and begin pink socking him. Your job is done, you peel off and escape.

Actually yeah him and another guy answered my question. It's a messed up mechanic but it makes sense. I suppose at this point I am responding to trolls / tards (not you though, lol).

Then my next question is: why hasn't this been addressed by CCP? It is clearly a flawed mechanic.

Not sure I agree it is flawed, now that you understand why, can't you come up with a counter?

I admit I am no expert but it seems after reading this thread you should be using a MWD in this situation as the sig penalty will not be as great as the speed difference in the tracking equation.

It seems to me that it is a bug. If the drones MWD over to you, but your speed is faster than their orbit, they match your speed and follow you? That doesn't make sense, does it?

Because that's not what's actually happening from what I have gathered in this post. It seems that drones will MWD towards you, reach orbit range and attempt to orbit at their "orbit velocity" listed under show info.

What is actually happening is that if your speed is higher than their orbit velocity listed under show info, they will match your speed (whatever it is) and follow you at the same speed you're traveling at, Not at their MWD speed, or orbit velocity. These should be their only two options as far as velocity, but it appears they do something funky, and take the third option of following you by matching your speed, thus negating any tracking requirements.

That's what I've gathered from the previous posts on pg 2.

Drone ai needs work.

It appears the best way to make heavy and medium drones miss would be to completely stop your interceptor. They will then orbit you as fast and as close as they can, and miss more often then if you move.

Here is some more reading:

http://www.evealtruist.com/2012/02/drones-vs-frigates.html

In practice it was interesting to me that putting a second web on my vexor seemed to actually decrease the damage done by drones.

Here is the start of some posts about how the domi tracking/range bonus effects things. It is still far from clear how much it helps heavies and scout drones. It also refers to some other testing done on sisi with the new tracking bonused domi.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3076677#post3076677

We need more testing and ccp needs to adjust the ai.

Don't forget its not just speed, ship sig, transversal and tracking but also the size of the guns.

If he's going against a spaceyacht that has a bonus to drone tracking, heavy drones will have better tracking than neutron blasters on frigates. So yeah, they're currently OP.

You have now sped up enough in your understanding of the mechanic behind this that you are tracking the problem perfectly fine.

As an aside, the other day just after writing my first post, I found my way into a C5 black hole. With a Vigil. At OH top speed, going in a straight line, I launched my sole drone....and I was 34km away by the time it spawned. It was then out of drone control range before I could tell it what to do. Like a celebrity baby or a shark baby, it was abandoned before it really began it's life.

I thought to myself, "Yep, that's why I love the drone interface!"

CCP needs to improve the drone UI significantly, adding a radial menu with buttons, or a less click, sift, select style of delivering orders. You should also be able to and drag-and-drop of drones into flights so you can launch a flight, click one button to get them to attack a target or orbit, return, abandon. It would also be nice if your drones didn't appear in a gigantic list, all expanded, when you recalled them. Carrier pilots know what I'm talking about. (also Gila and Rattler pilots)

Not my idea, just repeating it here.

Please, learn to read and comprehend.

Having read this thread leads me to a surprising conclusion, to negate the damage of the heavy drones you should actually lower your velocity to like 400 m/s, that's when they orbit you and are going to have them tracking issues.

Would be interesting to test that theory.