Missions & Complexes

I lost an entire 3 Heavies in L4 mission since the new AI, and that was only because I was not paying attention for a second. Ya'll need to learn about Micro-managing. If you can't do that, I guess it's time for you to train back into Missiles, and play Brain Dead.

CCP. I request larger Tear Container, I can't sell fast enough. How about implenting that **** that make Rats shoot at Pods?

I'm going to assume you're using a Dominix.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au0Fcnjrgis

I'm having no problems in level 4 missions with a Rattlesnake. Haven't lost a drone yet (50+ missions)

0 km to 15 km: Ogre II (heavy)
15 km to 50 km: Garde II (sentry)
50 km or more: Bouncer II (sentry)

Typically I warp in and wait for agro, then deploy sentries and go to work. If sentry is attacked, I rep it until it stops getting attacked. If I don't get agro on warp-in, I deploy sentries and go to work. If sentry is attacked, I rep it until it stops getting attacked.

I generally leave frigates to last. Ogre II have no problems with them, though Hobgoblin II are faster. By the time I start attacking them, the frigates have plenty of threat on me from repping the drones.

I have a heavy NOS, large shield transporter, and large remote armor repair on my Rattlesnake.

Are you implying, that agro is an integer number they have attached to each entity in space, and does not decay, like in certain other mmo, and not a semi-random semi-planned target-swapping machine that checks for targets periodically and once a new entity appears?

Why would half the room (the other half already being dead) switch to a lone SB coming to gank me, even the battleships?
Surely my ship would have been having tens of thousands of damage/repair (fleet) on their agro table?

Heck, why does a lone frigate warping in get hate and heavy shots from everything including battleships even when it's not an SB, and doesn't use any offensive or helping modules?

Just think about it!
It's like having an invincible glitched WoW Boss monster barge in on your party, slaughter your friends, and then call in some kobolds to loot and teabag your deceased comrade's bodies!

Mhm, that's what salvage drones do.
Even if they die a hundred times, that is not enough Retribution!

So...
Drone boats should get a Hull-based range bonus to their reppers, or something?
Mediums need to go out some good 35 km to get some cruisers (15 second to get back after an order, without acceleration or human reaction speed taken into account), heavies (hah, who uses them) 55 for some battleships (do I even need to look up a max skilled Ogre IIs speed to make my point? ).
While they are MWDing to flee back, they are pretty much hit for near-perfect damage (assuming the npc rats are already positioned around you or moving towards and intercept them), and have T1 base resists.
~6k EHP on an Ogre at perfect skills (for a non-droneboat like the Mega) traveling for over half a min is sure death. Heck, even one or two of his buddies might die easily in a harder mission. ~3k EHP for a Hammerhead is still too low if it gets a frig web, 1.5k EHP for a hobgoblin sounds not too bad, but if the full room swaps, the goblin snaps.

Have lost only one drone so far, and I was being silly there somewhat.
Then again, I mainly use sentries.

Alpha:
Assuming rats hit every ~3 sec, a harder L4 can easily do up to 1k dps (so 3k volley, or even more in the more nasty ones), a hobgoblin or hammerhead with it's MWD on will die in one shot with a full room agro swap. An Ogre will survive the first shot, but if it wasn't at docking range, there will be a second, and a third one only if it got lucky (or due to droneboat hull bonus)...
And don't forget, not only are you dealing with the travel delay, but also with your own reflexes, and the interface (unless you have your fingers on the "recall drones" shortcut, and it doesn't have the silly glitch where it stops working until you click inside the drone window).

So since the expansion I've been far to busy to log in and put more than about an hour or two in, so I've spent that time mostly working on my new second account. Tonight I finally get the time to play. I grab my Rattlesnake head out to do the first mission. My Rattlesnake is rather typical, large and slow and loaded with T2 drones. I have 7.6 million points in drones alone and I've flown drone boats almost since day one. I knew from playing the alt account that somethings had changed, but when suddenly when the entirety of mission mobs suddenly goes from flashing red and shooting at me to flashing yellow and thrashing my drones I realized alot had changed. In less than 30 seconds I lost 2 T2 hammerheads and nearly lost another while they where only ~23km from my ship. I can see how this might become troublesome if it occurred in every mission.

I'm stuck using drones til my skills catch up, so sentries aren't an option yet. For the most part if I really pay attention I don't have too much of an issue with the changes, but it is glitchy sometimes... I've had a full room of cruisers swap to volleying my drones with missiles in a level 3 mission, while the overview squares were still flashing red at me... by the time the overview window showed they had switched off me, they were firing the 3rd volley.

On the flip side, sometimes NPCs can get so fixated on your drones that you can recall them and they won't switch back to you at all. I've killed 3-4 ships with my drone boat guns, without them firing back, or even targetting me. New NPC AI is just weird sometimes.