Ships & Modules

I would also consider the Armageddon a partial drone boat. At least being able to field T2 Heavies is a serious nice-to-have, if not a requirement, to properly fly the Armageddon. About 30% of the damage comes from drones, even in the case of using no drone damage mods and three heat sinks.

Drone boats where change to have 'bandwidth' in the past, the reasoning being it mean ships could have larger drone bays for space drones without being able to field 5x heavy drones on every drone boat.

The reality: All drone boat either lots the ability to field larger drones or simply kept the same drone fielding ability and gained almost NO drone space.

Look at the Myrmidon, arbitrator and vexor. the have room for 1 extra a set of lights... god forbid someone SHOOTS your drones.

Realistically drone boats need to receive a 15%-20% drone HP bonus per level instead of 10%. Heavy drones should move around 10%-20% faster and have about 10%-20% less tracking.Also drone baots need much larger drone bays, at least double their bandwidth.

I fly an ishtar and find it thoroughly unusable in real fights due to how slow drones are and how poor it's tanking ability is (outside of PVE plex tanking).

Back in the hay-day of drone boats you would generally fit Nos in the high slots, ECM in the mid slots (with tackle) and then some armor tank in the lows then just abuse people with drones.

Since then, this things have changed:

Nos is crap
ECM is crap without bonuses
Tackle is better against cruisers (and larger) and worse against frigates
EHP has gone up (BIG CHANGE, now people can tank drones long enough to EASILY kill them... where was the drone EHP buff?)

So drone boats haven't changed much... but everything else has so they have slowly become less and less useful.

You keep losing in fights to your corp mate because your fits suck, not because drones suck.

Having the possibility of launching 10 drones would be enormously overpowered. Frigates would suck even more than they currently do against larger ships, melting against Warrior II blobs, and a Dominix with 10 Ogre IIs, and not a single damage mod could do 950 DPS. That alone is ridiculous.

Solution: leave drones alone, attend to your fittings.

5 yr old player with sub-par fitting skills (RCU in lows..)?

If you're not fake, you're woefully ignorant of what's important to skill up for PvP.

You've fitted 2 x T2 rigs for around 600m, which add a pathetic 2k ehp and 30dps to your omnitank.

Nobody uses large T2 rigs on a pvp BS.

And stop using volley damage to compare ship performance. It's a silly figure that means absolutely nothing in-game.

The Domi is a superb, multi-role, well-balanced pvp boat that excells in small gangs with rr, neuts and hefty close-up damage. It needs no loving at all, except that which it already gets from being so good and versatile.

Plated Vex and Vex NI are great for lowsec gangs.

Ishtar sniper is fiddly but massive fun for picking off frig hulls at 150km. It cld do with some CPU though.

Triple-rep Myrm is an awesome solo pvp fit.

Proteus does indeed need something done to its drone subsystem.

Right after the changes I was flying a old Arbirator setup I use a very long time ago. Has 1 td, shield extend, warp d, and mwd. Against a Vagabond. The ship reduces the damage @ range to something silly small, with a td. A Vagabond has to be point blank to produce the damage needed to take down the ship. Same with a Cynabal.

The problem in the past was one of damage. My arb now does 450d per second. 200d with warriors. So, it out damages a Vagabond @ 28k, with warriors alone. Hobs do alot more.

Arbitrator
Damage Control II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Experimental 10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Large Shield Extender II
Tracking Disruptor II, Optimal Range Disruption Script
Warp Disruptor II

Focused Medium Pulse Laser II, Scorch M
Focused Medium Pulse Laser II, Scorch M
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I


Hammerhead II x5
Valkyrie II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Warrior II x5

The second ship I flew was a old shield tanked ishtar setup I use to use. Dual prop. That does 800d per second now and it a mofooking beast. eats Drakes in balls deep range and is hella fast.

My old school gila setup now does 700d per second and looks sexy. (all these new setups had me so busy that I didn't even pay attention to the new tw frigs for a bit)

The Rattlesnake is the best close range pirate battleship in game. It now does 950d per second with heavy missiles. I have yet to try it in the real sh!t with these new changes yet. I'm busy using Vagabonds with the new shield boosters and sh!t.

Lets just say. Minmatar and Drone boats made out like bandits in this expansion.

ALso check out the Curse. Does 450 easy. That is a big BOOST! I also have been using a shield pilgrim that is a copy of my shield arby setup. 500 dps cloak, td and kites like a king. I also use the pilgrim and curse with my alt when I engage 4 - 7 ships in a battleship. My alt is mwding off and my drones asigned to my main.

Drone ships are the best ship for close range pvp and that won't change. It's a niche they excel @.

You say Drone boats need a boost and then ask this? wtf

Also, Typhoon

Crappy OP aside, drone boats do need some love and drone mods are a bit unbalanced.

Ishtar for example, needs a cpu boost.

One issue I found is that drone rigs, decrease CPU.
Drone modules, are all CPU intensive.

This would be like armor rigs reducing your ability to fit more armor. (instead of speed).

Weapon rigs, decrease powergrid, something ships have a great deal more of.

a 10% reduction of 235 (base CPU) hurts a lot more when trying to fit modules that all use at least 30 CPU each.

In short, many drone fits work against themselves. fit drone durability rig, and cpu overclock rig just to cancel the drawback penalties.

The EFT warriors utterly fail to consider applicable DPS. Sure 1000 DPS orgre IIs sounds nice, but they will always be kited to death without tackle on anything. Rendering them useless unless you are also within tackle range. And we all know how good those Dominixes are at dictating range and holding tackle.

Fitting 2 nav computers actually makes the ogres pretty quick, but due to the math they use, they are easily kited. (mwd to target, then orbit, then re mwd to target, etc). It isn't like missile dps which is more or less constant once the travel time is reached (depending on speed etc etc)

I have to disagree about the love need. Just yesterday I dusted off a Domi, shield tanked it with three Drone Damage mods and was face melting level 4s.

These mods are very powerful. I actually MOVED my Domi!


And you never have to reload drones.

Weird OP, most talk in the game that I'veheard about this subject is about how cool the new drone damage mods are.

Finally, drone boats have the gank/tank choice that other ships have always had.

And certainly PvE-wise, boy are they ganky when they're ganky.

jesus **** that is terrible