Missions & Complexes

so after a long break from eve i kicked in again.
first thing a do is some mission runing, then i noticed my drones bieng targeted.
no big deal i pull them back wait to regain aggro then pull them out aggain.
now same thing hapen again everytime..

now if we cant use them , at least remove the horde of friggate in lvl 4.

maybe im wrong lvl 4 a ment to be done in elite cruiser ? or ibis ?

Elite rats, like scram frigs for instance, will switch targets consistently. One thing you can do is use EWAR (tp or web for instance), as rats hate EWAR with a passion. Also, the larger the rat, the larger the drone has to be before that rat switches to that drone. A rat BS won't target a scout drone (save for EWAR drones, again them hating EWAR with a passion). Don't send your scout drones on a run to a rat 50km away, as they will likely get chewed up in route. Even if you can watch your drones closely, using sentries over heavies is advisable.

Once you get use to it, the rat-to-drone aggro becomes so much more manageable than you think, it just takes some practice. And, it even becomes somewhat useful in a pinch. Need to GTFO but are under elite frig rat scrams? Drop a group of sacrificial ec-300s to pull scram frigs off you for a brief moment.

This. I recently swapped out T2 Scouts completely, either I shoot it, the Sentries shoot it or I send 5 damn cheap Scouts after everything else is dead and go for lunch in the meantime.

You can still use drones like before you just have to look for specialy named NPC like Arch Gistii Impaler.

These Frigates are designed to combat your drones. No matter what you do, they will switch to you drones as soon as you throw them out and even if you pull them in and out you only get a 10s window before they switch over to your drones, again. (Oh, and did I mention that even maxxed out hobgoblins will not kill these guys in less than 10s?)

Some missions are designed with that mechanic in mind and throw NPC squads at you that will kill your drones in a matter of seconds, wich is the reason why navy drones got implemented. (bad drones in terms of DPS but with 4 times the health)


Always focus down frigates first.

Train drone durability. Watch the drones window, pull one in / remote rep it if it is taking fire. Use a sentry boat with DDAs and kill everything before it gets in range to cause problems. Targetting frigates first helps.

Elite rats kill drones. Once they are off the field, the drones are much safer.

However, for a little while recently I tried to use medium scout t2 drones and they were getting more agro than light scouts. My conclusion is that I only use light scouts.

Bottom line. Drones are mostly useless.

Yes, I knew that. But I did not know how bad it would get. That is why I tried it in the first place. Now that I had my own practical experience, I no longer plan to ever use medium scouts in my mission fits.

Use Sentries, bro.

Look for NPC Destroyers. They target drones immediately. Kill them with primary weapons first.

Try it. See how many of your hammerheads die.

I use LMJD. Rats don't scram. They disrupt. LMJD let me jump 100 km every 3 minutes. I also use my cruise missiles to kill the elite rats (that normally web/disrupt you). Once the elite rats are dead, I launch my hobs and they clean out the rest.