EVE General Discussion

As a counterpoint to all the apologists in here: Sure, you can technically still use drones in missions these days. About the same way you can still go fight a war with a sword and a shield (hint: the answer is "not very effectively.").

My recommendation? Bite the bullet, take the downtime, and train into a missile boat. Problem solved. No, really, it is. All the drone downsides just evaporate. Greater range, selectable damage, benefits from EWar (target painting), all just like drones, only without the constant bullshit micromanagery that stands in for "mad leet skillz" when using drones. And as far as costs go, one lost light T2 drone (~300k) will buy enough cruise missiles to complete a ton of missions. On the rarest occasions rats will have Defender missiles, but these hardly ever do more than slow things down for a second or so, and if they jam you there's always FoF missiles. Craptastic damage, but damage nonetheless.

Drones aren't off the table but they're definitely a massive pain in the ass to use, particularly when they offer little to no advantage over a set of launchers.

obvious troll is obvious

You clearly never tried Sentries on new Dominix, isn't it?

• Greater range? 800 instant dps on 99 km optimal of Garde II. More than enough for pretty everything on lvl 4. And everything below BS size will die long before your missiles fly on that range.
• Selectable damage? Any set of racial sentry drones is available. And unlike smaller drones, all of them are usable.
• Benefits from EWar? Yes! But with sentries you don't need TP because there is more effective modules (omnidirectional tracking links) that dont require manual activation and 90 days of additional Electronics skills training to be effective (Long Distance Jamming, Frequency modulation, Signature Focusing).
• "Constant bullshit micromanagery". With sentries you don't need to activate multiple Target Painters to increase your dps (unlike missiles) and don't need to count shots before target dies (cruise missiles, I'm looking at you). You don't even need to buy ammo and reload. So where exactly sentry drones require more micromanagement than missiles?

Rofl.. This guy trolled you guys good..

And there his problem is exposed, Ogres are too slow to deal with frigs, especially frigs with webs. Either take out the small ships first with light drones (the bigger ships dont target light drones) and then launch your ogres or use sentries, which you can deploy/recall quickly to manage aggro. That and know your mission, if there is a webbing frig, and you are deploying non-sentries, kill it first. It will mess up your drones.
Its not really that hard. I just came back to the game after a 2 year hiatus. I knew nothing about the new mission AI (or the new DDAs), took my old Dominix out right away to do some 4s. I noticed the aggro changes can deal just fine. Stop insisting that you be allowed to use whatever drones (Ogres) you want, and start using the right drones for the situation (Sentries).

I routinely use the drones on my CNR. I don't undestand what people are doing... they get shot at sometimes, but if I get aggro and have killed a few ships, the drones are largely ignored.

I just finished running half a dozen missions in my Ishkur... which is all about the drones. I can solo level 1-3 with the Ishkur, and can comfortably duo level 4s.

As others have noted - you will need to manage aggro. That means you will need to call back drones that are taking damage and replace them for a while with spares (you do carry spares, right?). If you are dealing with multiple groups of enemies, you probably need to recall all your drones between each pull, especially if they are a ways out from you.

Drone skills matter. I don't know what your skills look like - but having extra HP, damage, speed, range, etc. matters. It makes them harder to target in the first place, as well as harder to kill.

Unless you are just facerolling through some low-level missions for faction rep or something, don't let your drones auto-aggro. Manually select targets for them.

Know which drones are right for the job - both in terms of damage type and size. Don't deploy larger drones if there are still small targets on the field, or your drones will wind up covered in frigates.

Edit - if you are flying a drone boat, and relying on drones for your dps, take a good look at drone modules and rigs. They make a noticeable difference in drone survivability and damage output.

4 pages of replies to this. Nicely done OP.

Use the guns on the domi to take out the frigates/destroyers, then deploy the sentries or heavies, problem fixed

Some day, someone will figure out a way to kill that damned cloud!