EVE General Discussion

I noticed that there has been a recent ruling on the (rather old) mechanic of drones continuing to perform outside a POS shield while the manned ship that launched them is inside the POS shield. This mechanic has existed for at least 3 years (probably longer) and I was curious why it is now considered an exploit rather than simply being deemed "emergent behavior".

Two points:

POS sentry batteries are worse than sentry drones and those are hard coded and specifically intended to function in a very similar manner to the newfound "exploit". They don't even need an actual player on grid controlling them in any way and they can do things that no deployable drone can, like warp scramble you at absurd distances. What is the difference between a bunch of POS guns shooting something and a bunch of dudes warping to a POS, deploying and assigning their sentries to someone who then has to target a ship and engage it while he himself can also be engaged? The only difference that I see is that the "exploit" requires more player interaction and coordination, and there are more counters to it.

Ships inside POS shields are not invincible. All that is required to get at them is to reinforce the POS and then come back and destroy it when the reinforcement timer is up. If that is too hard for some people to accomplish, maybe they should get more friends to help them. EVE isn't a single player game, after all.

You're moronic.

OP: Difference is there's gotta be some risk to those putting out the DPS. Whilst, yes, you can destroy drones, drones are cheap. A POS battery is more expensive and much harder to replace in combat - the pilots inside the POS shield can just warp out and bounce to another system to grab some more drones, whereas a gun will require a hauler and anchoring time to set up again.

Lets not forget that a POS can only have so many guns and ewar online at once.
There's nothing stopping you from stuffing 50 people inside that pos with 5 sentries out each, that's 250 sentry drones, which is a LOT more firepower than a couple of guns.

These also lock/attack faster than guns and can all be controlled by 1 player. The more limited amount of POS guns requires multiple people to take control of the weapons to make the decently effective, and it requires more coordination and teamwork.

Please learn to do your math and homework before you go griping about something.

Just curious? What kind of an idiot flies into all that?

There's the same risk to the POS gunner/owner using POS batteries as there is to the pilots inside the forcefield.
POS batteries are significantly more durable and powerful than sentries drones. They are singularly more expensive than 1 single sentry drone, but they're really not very expensive, probably no more than a couple of flights of Tech II sentries. And, again, they can do a lot more than a sentry drone can, like energy neutralize you at absurd ranges.
Once the pilots in the shield warp out, they and their drones are no longer a factor. That's not true for POS batteries.
And, I'm pretty sure you can pre-anchor more guns than your POS is able to control. I think you just can't online them.



"People in large numbers using clever tactics are hard to defeat. CCP, I NEED HALP! NURFZ!"



But what's stopping you from putting nothing but guns on your POS? In fact, what's to stop you from putting nothing but guns on your LARGE POS AND stuffing 50 people in it? This game is ruthless. If you don't like POSes, just say so.



As I said already, it wasn't an exploit for at least 3 YEARS. It's an exploit now? OK, cool. But, why? And to insinuate that the people using the "exploit" are some sort of cheaters EX POST FACTO is just rude. They were just using the game mechanics that were put in front of them to their advantage. Were they supposed to fight "honorably"?

Just like OGBs that cannot work while inside a shield, CCP has "refined" their current mechanics.

It's almost like that pos is keeping you from your objective.

Or something.

i love it when people call outright exploits "clever tactics"

Why can't I engage in fleet combat without putting my ships at risk? This is so unfair CCP I am a subscriber I DEMAND that you let me do these things

Yeah, POS batteries are worse than sentry drones. In the literal sense. Absent a POS gunner to control them, they choose targets at random, switch targets at random, have horrible tracking, and are generally very ineffective. This is why the most irritating and defensible POS setups include far more ECM/EWAR than they do guns. A POS with just POS guns to defend it isn't going to be defended for long.

This 'exploit' as it exists allows anyone who can pilot a ship to become a POS gunner. The POS can be built with absolutely dickish amounts of scram/point/web, and no guns, because it relies on the drone capacity of the ships inside it. Drop an SMA and a few cans of drones, and all you have to do is occasionally poke your nose out of the bubble and refresh your DPS. Build these ships in absurd fashion; highs and mids full of drone mods, and suddenly you have sentry range to rival large POS artillery, with the lock time and target selection of the boosted drone bunnies controlling them.