EVE New Citizens Q&A

If you are a new player, stop training drones now.
Focus on gunnery skills, likely large autocannons and minnie BS's.

Drones are soon to be wiped out as an effective weapons platform for missions.

Is this real? or just a post to scare new players off of drones?

Currently training for drone boats now since i am gallente.

They are using the sleeper AI, but they are also going to change a few variables so the npc that are going to use it won't hate drones nearly as much as the sleepers do

Quick breakdown is that current NPC AI is about on a par with a rock, they're improving it so it's on a par with a sparrow.
NPC's will switch targets and attack your drones or fleetmates if they are seen as a threat. Currently NPCs only attack drones that get too close therefore some people run missions using a "tank" to take all the NPC aggro (1 ship tanks, drones or fleetmates are pretty much invulnerable) this will no longer be possible.

For what it is worth, I lived in unknown space or "w-space" (wormhole space) for over 2.5 years, and used drones. W-space has NPC called "Sleepers", which are notorious for being drone killers.

Yet using drones was still possible.

Sure, every once in a while the Sleepers would nuke the odd drone, but that typically only happened when it was also webbed so that it couldn't be recalled to the safety of the drone bay. [HINT: Webifiers are a priority target.] Thankfully there are far less webifiers in missions.

When the Sleepers were particularly drone hungry, switching to sentry drones worked as sentries can be instantly recalled to the safety of the drone bay. Some of my corpmates would just switch to a flight of cheap T1 combat drones instead, and not worry as much about them being destroyed.

The care and feeding of drones is important to ensure a long life (both their's and your's), so don't ignore them, use common sense, and you won't have any problem using drones.

Do not believe the people posting mis-information in this thread. I too have also lived in wh's for a long time, and have run Incursions. I am intimately aware of how the Sleeper/Incursion AI works. ANY introduction of this AI to missions will mean you will lose drones, a TON of drones.

The Vexor and Myrmidon, forget it them as viable mission boats. The Domi and Ishtar, if you only use Sentries, well, they will survive, but your DPS is so heavily hammered that there is no point in using the ship. Plus, when using sentries, you will have to stay within 2,000 metres of them. That means speed-tanking a site while letting your drones kill is no longer a viable option.

I encourage all of you to test this on the Duality server as soon as it is up and running again, then post your grievances on the GD forum, here, and of course in the new features testing forum.

Scream loud, scream long, scream everywhere.

Oh, and of course, it has been immensely convenient that apparently that the only person reporting how easy this AI is on drones is the person who built the AI. Supposedly Fox Four is running missions without any problems, but CCP just can't seem to get Duality up and running for everyone else to test this and prove her wrong.

I used a Myrm with arty and drones for a year or so in WH's & lost very few drones, it's all about keeping an eye on the buggers and recalling them when they get aggro, although it can be like herding cats to get the things to actually attack stuff together.

Honestly, let's just wait until Duality does come up, then we can test it for ourselves and put any preconceived notions to rest.

OP, if you can't stand CCP's change in your AFK ISK farming turf and can't handle the loss of the odd drone now and then, then you don't belong to EVE, go back to gold farming in WoW.

U can recall sentrys fast., but what about heavys? Did u ever tryed recover them from 50km+?