Missions & Complexes

Here's what I think.

Make a high module that allows the capsuleer to extend their tank out to the drone. The drones now have survivability, but at a cost of losing some tank on your ship. The amount changes based on drone size.

Thoughts?

Considering how many of suggestions would break drones in PVP, while drones in total need a major rework, simplest solution would be to have mission, belt and exploration rats (only the ones with changed AI) target drones less and give up on them after couple scoop redeploy cycles.

Same experience here. Has completely killed game play for me. Really really disappointed

Haven't tried my hand just yet on this. I still like my idea. Drone Defense Augmentor: Provides additional HP to drones currently deployed at the cost of reducing HP on your ship.

I'm not saying remote reps don't have their uses, but that takes up a target slot. With BSes and the slow lock time on frigs anyways, it might become a minor issue.

Keep in mind I'm not at home yet to test out this new AI just yet.

I have drone durability maxed. It helps very little tbh.

Nothing wrong with the statement. Nothing at all. Not everyone plays the same way.

I know plenty of guys (those who usually hang out in Missions channel to chat) who really don't care about ISK/hr, their PvE fits are very inefficient cap-stable semi-AFK fits. And while running missions they chat, watch videos, do other stuff. Lots of people do that.

In fact, I myself spent some time doing more or less that too. I just needed some low/no-stress gameplay. EVE was actually superior to every other MMO out there, because it's the only one where you can farm semi-AFK, no other MMO I know of allows that. As such, my fit had just 2 requirements - cap stable and huge tank so I could at any point in any mission walk away for 20+ minutes and not come back to a capsule.

Don't forget to change how packaging them works!
Currently, ogres are 25m3 unpacked, 25m3 packed, 100m3 sig
Cruisers? 10.000m3 packed, over 100.000m3 unpacked, signature below 100m3.

Yupp, makes totally sense that the tiny drone has a larger sig, and cannot be packed well.

Solution no. 2 - This one admittedly only really works on proper drone boats.

Let frigs get to <5km, release Ogres.

With an omni or (preferably) two, they have the tracking to near enough instapop frigs, they're tough enough to survive a while and then you can scoop them back up since they're still right next to you.

Got in today, and ran my first mission (Unauthorized Military Presence: Blood Angels) in my Apocalypse, lost 5 light drones, and 2 mediums very very quickly, and ultimately had to warp out because the frigs got too close to shoot. When i warped back in, i just vaporized all the frigs at range in a few seconds.

That's all well and good for that ship, but i'm not going to be able to do that with my CNR's cruise missiles. I absolutely need drones in order to deal damage to frigates, but when drones die as quickly as they do now, it's useless. I won't be flying my CNR in any mission with scramblers until something is done about this terrible update...

CCP, did you even play this update before implementing it? It seriously puts a dampener on my play.

Instead of bitching about the changes, how about the mission runners read up on the sleeper AI a little bit?
Just one single web on your BS will create enough aggro, (if you activate it on something of course) that your drones will only be targeted very seldomly. For full drone boats, just use sentries and one rr mod in the highlot which will generate enough aggro.
For BS it just means that you have to keep your drones in and only launch them if you really need to kill off the frigs that are close; close enough for a web.