Ships & Modules

have to extremely careful with webbing elite frigates but other than that you should be fine if you're careful. Sentry boats are largely unaffected

I'm seeing what appears to be a Rattlesnake using Hobgoblin I's.

That leads me to assume low Drone skills.

That leads me to assume that you really shouldn't be in anything bigger than cruiser, let alone a Pirate Battleship...

I second what both of these guys are saying.

The rats in that picture haven't targeted or aggressed the person taking the picture, which means they didn't "switch aggro"--this is a new wave that initially aggroed on the drones and never switched back to the player.

Yeah, don't do that. Pull in your drones before each new wave, and make sure all rats are targeting you before you launch drones, and you'll be fine.

After the drone changes it was more fun to fly a hybrid ship instead of a drone ship for level 4s.

Well, yes. However the changes rendered the "typical" mission [non-drone] boats 5x light(frigs) 5x medium (supplementary DPS) obsolete so in pursuit of efficiency sentries were a logical step, but without drone bonuses//mods they are...situational at best (see my remark about siccing them on BCs).

It's the great shame of the AI change: the near removal of use of mediums and the absolute (save EXTREMELY rare circumstance) removal of heavies as a viable weapon platform.

Caleidascope isn't wrong, it's less trouble to pop frigs (elite or otherwise) with missiles than it is to bother pissing about with drones. It's a shame, to be frank. It's not even a serious choice - there are elite on the field, do I a) spend 20 seconds across two reloads and kill them with impunity or c) risk (its only a risk at <10km range, beyond that it is a certainty) losing drones at over 400k per pop?


Edit: No need to take my word for it - look at the price of precision cruises over the last 6-12 months....they've not risen for fun.

Sentries are still awesome on dedicated drone ships. Easy to choose the good damage type, delicious resist on my rattle makes lvl 4 extremely easy. The only drones i've lost since the update where to pirates.

Drones are fine, you jsut need a good boat/the skill for it. And some awareness.

In my experience drones are most useful when you're in a bigger ship that can't hit frigs well, they're lifesavers for killing frigs when soloing 4's I can tell you that, and EW drones can give you jsut the extra boost you need in a pvp engagement.

All the drone I lost since the change are drone I sent so far they were in weapon range of the enemy ship while I still wasn't. Do you expect ship to just burn toward you till they are in range while a flight of drone shoot at them? I also hear sentries can do in. Maybe use the right drone for the right job?

Just got into the dominix navy MJD sentry beastin' L4s thing and I can confirm it works pretty damn well.

the new rat AI absolutely hates everything else though and you still have to keep an eye on the sentries but the navy potato has so many damn slots you can get your optimal well over 100km with the wardens and apply enough dps to mop them up pretty effectively.

i keep a flight of hobgoblins handy to deal with any close spawning scramming elite frigates but you can pretty much shoot off with the MJD and snipe them most of the time.

Why risk an expensive set of Fighters when you can use Drone Damage Amplifiers and Senties. They've given people who would otherwise leave the ships docked up or parked in a POS a reason to take them out and do stuff, thus putting them at risk.