Ships & Modules

Ive read a couple of articles on the new AI changes being released with this next expansion.
I'm curious as how they will react to passive targets, i.e..... mining barges, mining drones, salvaging drones. When there are fighters and battleships on the field, will they shoot at non aggressive targets?

Basically it currently looks like this: NPC will be not completely stupid any more. To be more precise:

In the past there was a very simply way to run missions: Warp into the mission, make sure all NPC are spawned. Turn on your epic active tank and let loose your drones... go and get a coffee and come back to see that drones have killed all NPC and you have completed the mission.

In the future NPC will occasionally attack your drones, especially if they are the only damage dealing entities on field. Therefore farmers already started their big "whine" threads to explain CCP that they can't do their farming job well when this is implemented etc. and that this will be the end of eve.

For those who are playing this game for the fun factor (and not only for the ISK per hour ratio) this change will be very entertaining since doing missions will get spiced up and missions will desire your attention if you want to complete them without losses. Therefore I am really looking forward to this change.

Nobody who is not totally ******** will ever have fun by killing npc on eve. but the new ai will affect greatly the game.

1--> Its a HUGE nerf to drone ships. Which happens to be the main gallente npc ships, so its a nerf to gallente.

2--> HUGE NERF to Solo/small gang roaming. Because you will now need enough dps to kill an uber tanked npc ship while tanking the max-dps npc-ship AND the rats, AND have the ability to move long distance through 0.0/low to find the target. Which is almost imposible.

So, lets see what CCP does...

P.D.--> Isk/hour its important because every hour you spend ratting its an hour you are not doing pvp=having fun

This is complete non-sense. The Sleeper AI in wormholes already have this implemented to are much more aggressive than it will be ever implemented for missions. And you know what:

1. Drones are useful in wormholes, however you will lose them fast if you do it in AFK mode. There is nothing to complain about this, if you fight you should not go AFK.

2. There are still many plex runners get ganked in wormholes. NPC sometimes attack the ganker, however they do this only if you provide significantly more dps then your victim or your are using lots of e-war. Which is fine, this gives the victim at least some chance if you come completely overshipped.

Actualy I currently live on a worm so i know that:

1--> You dont fly a droneboat on a worm (C3+) unless you cant fly anything else. (For NPC)

2--> Sleepers will **** the ganker as soon it appears because they HATE ewar, and points are ewar. That is not a problem on a worm because when you engage you have almost perfect intel and you can wait until he finished the sleepers. Also defender will stop agro on Sleepers and shoot you so sleepers always will target you.

You obiously didnt live on worms.

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Pulling in drones its not trivial. If you use heavys they may be 50+ km away, and if you call them back they will come dirently to you with 0 transversal and get killed before you can scoop them. Not to mention if they are webbed. Also the time spent comming and going affects you damage output a lot. With sentrys you have similar problems because you have to get where they are.

It's not a huge nerf to drone ships — be they Gallente or otherwise (and no, the main gallente rat killing ships all use guns) — since it's easy to keep the aggro off the drones.

…if they are incompetent and don't come equipped with something as common as remote support. The rats will not attack the ganker just because he's using a point because, while they hate ewar, they only hate it if it's directed at them. They also hate remote support, but only if it's directed at the wrong target (viz. not them). If anything it's those remote reps that will annoy the rats, not the points the attackers bring.

No. It may be slight incovenience but not a nerf (and definitely not when CCP is planning to further boost Drone Damage Augmentors).

I'm flying Gallente ships since day one and I'm quite proficient with drones. And tell you what? For some time I found myself using drones as baits: I let them take aggro because I know how much they can stand. Which is handy e.g. when you're dealing with NPC EWAR.

So no, I'm not afraid of rats switching to drones. I'm more afraid of them switching back to me. (no, I'm not, it's just a figure of speech)

Well, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling what I do. And I don't loose drones that often. Using heavies may be actual cause of your problems and fears. For missions it's better to stick with sentries or medium/light scouts.

I dont have problems now, I may have them with the new AI, thats the point. After new AI I may get other ship instead of a drone boat

I'd assume you could just pull the drones back when you lose aggro, same as you would in WH space.


I believe they'll switch to an appropriate target for their hull size. Frigates will target Frigates first, then Cruisers. There may be a proximity or some other kind of threat factor involved too. I'm not sure.

Maybe using ewar on rats may keep the aggro off your drones.