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Sentry Drones and Control Range
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Tacitus Valerius
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2013-10-10 04:22:28 UTC
Recently got sentry drones and i was a little disappointed in their mechanics. When ever i order a sentry drone to attack something past my control range (40km), i get an error message stating that the target is not within my conrol range. To me this seems like a roll-over glitch from the other drones that have to move to the target, and away from my ship, to attack the target.

Is this a glitch or is this correct?

To me it seems that the control range is just that, the distance that i can control my drones from. The targeting and shooting capabilities are separate from that, and i feel that i should be able to have a sentry drone that can fire past my control range.

If this is the correct mechanic for them, I would appreciate the reasoning behind it.

Finally, i would like to some feedback from other pilots on this issue.

Thank you,
Tac
Zhilia Mann
Tide Way Out Productions
#2 - 2013-10-10 04:29:40 UTC
It's the correct mechanic. Drone control range is the range from you to the target you want the drones to interact with and always has been.

Max skills get you up to 60km on an unbonused ship. To get further fit Drone Link Augmentors in your highs.
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#3 - 2013-10-10 04:34:43 UTC
it is correct. with skills (scout drone op 5km/lv and electronic warfare drone interfacing (3km/lv) you can get drone control range out to 60km. to get past that you need either rigs or drone link augmentors.

I'm not all that sure it is a meaningful element of game play, although with the drone assist fleets running around I think it may have some use.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
Tauranon
Weeesearch
CAStabouts
#4 - 2013-10-10 04:35:24 UTC
Control range is the distance from your hull to the target.

If you need to reach further and you have the appropriate drone in space with the appropriate optimal you can move up, and it also means you can move about in the midfield using higher damage hybrid ammo from an ishtar and generating higher angular velocity to reduce incoming damage for your tanking without having to put the drones so close as to affect their accuracy, and without having to bring a DLA (and thus reduce your hybrid damage through lack of a barrel)

ie the feature overall is pretty good for optional play variations, which have various utility depending on what you are fighting.

Bear in mind sentries have serious raw dps these days, and they do require the drawbacks they have. (ie their performance has been rebalanced by the DDA and hull changes in light of their drawbacks).
Iyokus Patrouette
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2013-10-10 04:58:36 UTC
I am pretty sure that if you have the drones set to aggressive and you get fired on, they will automatically shoot further then your control range. However you will have no real idea where that dps is going or if it is even remotely focused.

I had also noticed that the second i control them to attack something, they won't return to shooting past control range. It seems odd to me, but i don't really question it. I just fit to hit out far enough with drone links.

Also it is worth mentioning that if the sentries had no control range you could theoretically shoot out to 300km with them (as long as you could lock that far) That would seem overpowered. . if they ever actually managed to hit at that range.

/shrug either way. only being able to control sentry drones firing to your control range is a mechanic i am fine with and isn't broken.

---- Advocate for the initiation of purple coloured wormholes----

Shpenat
Ironman Inc.
#6 - 2013-10-10 07:29:06 UTC
It is partially due to legacy code. The normal combat drones were in EvE from the beginning. Then control range was calculated from your target rather than from each separate drone. It saves quite a bit of computation time on the server.

The sentry drones were included in Red Moon Rising expansion. Changing the underlying mechanics was probably seen as too much of effort for to little gain. Also it would make sentry drones behave quite separately from other drones. Hence the current state.
Batelle
Federal Navy Academy
#7 - 2013-10-10 15:11:54 UTC
*he only has 40km drone control range* LolLolLol

"**CCP is changing policy, and has asked that we discontinue the bonus credit program after November 7th. So until then, enjoy a super-bonus of 1B Blink Credit for each 60-day GTC you buy!"**

Never forget.
Kosetzu
The Black Crow Bandits
Northern Coalition.
#8 - 2013-10-10 16:20:12 UTC
Chainsaw Plankton wrote:
it is correct. with skills (scout drone op 5km/lv and electronic warfare drone interfacing (3km/lv) you can get drone control range out to 60km. to get past that you need either rigs or drone link augmentors.

Certain ships also has bonus to drone control range as well.
Verity Sovereign
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2013-10-10 18:32:36 UTC
I agree thats how it seems that it *should* work.

It also means that if yo uwant to snipe with drones, you need to use up a lot of slots... Sebos to get your targetting range up, and then at least 2 drone link augmentors to get your control range over 100km.

If in a mission, surrounded by rats ~40km away, and you MJD, some will be 140 km away... requiring at least 4 drone link augmentors to engage some of them (With Warden IIs, this range is easy for them).

IMO, this negates the drone bay= worth one module logic for giving drone boats 1 less mid slot - at least drone boats that might use sentries.
I would either buff the drone link augmentors standard range boost, or redesign them - how about a version that increases bandwidth by X% and control range by Y%, and you can script for pure bandwidth (might be useful on a ship like a myrm).

Or if that is too much, replace them with a 33%boost to drone control range, no stacking penalty...


In the meantime, note you can do the gallente epic arc, and get a black eagle drone augmentor as the reward, giving you 6km more drone control range as compared to the base t1 drone link augmentor
Kitty Bear
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#10 - 2013-10-10 19:41:42 UTC
Sentry Drones like all other turret based weapons have optimal & falloff
there's a smaller range of modifiers for them though, and you can only see those effects when they are deployed in space
a lock & control range of around 110km is normally more than sufficient for your ship

regular combat drones have optimal & falloffs that total less than 10km, because they orbit their targets quite closely, and so don't need the comparatively larger range of sentries.


Drone Link Augmenters
Omnidirectional Tracking Links
are 2 vital bits of kit for your ship if your using both long and short range sentries
if your only going to use guards, you can get away with just using tracking links.