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EVE New Citizens Q&A

 
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Are mission site rats different from anom rats? (drones keep dying)
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Aaron Deets
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#1 - 2014-10-04 10:38:53 UTC
I'm running a VNI with a 100mn afterburner and I had great success in nullsec with it- but I decided to move out of nullsec back to highsec until I had interceptors trained. Any ways, I was clearing some top end sites with my VNI, orbiting at high speed (and avoiding almost all damage) while my drones made work of the site rats, my drone skills aren't TERRIBLE, but they're definitely not great, only about 500k SP in drones right now and I'm getting around 525dps from them. So I go to highsec and I try some level 4 and 3 missions and wow, it seems like the AI is completely different, my drones get hammered almost as soon as I drop them- are there any tips and tricks for droneboating in missions? I've done plenty of google seaches for "drones keep dying" and I haven't really turned up any solutions that are relevant to my situation here.
Xercodo
Cruor Angelicus
#2 - 2014-10-04 10:49:02 UTC
It's the elite pirates. They have a smarter AI. You wouldn't have encountered this much because you'd only see it on faction rats usually. Sometimes a site might have an elite rat, but that depends greatly on the site. Anoms tend not to have them, the complexes do.

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Forest Archer
State War Academy
Caldari State
#3 - 2014-10-04 10:49:19 UTC
They have the same ai rats shoot the drones of same size. Null sec rats are most often large so they will often prefer a cruiser over a scout drone.

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Aaron Deets
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#4 - 2014-10-04 10:58:34 UTC
I'm using faction heavies for the record. - should I switch down to lights when not engaging battleships then?
Archibald Thistlewaite III
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Miners
#5 - 2014-10-04 22:27:10 UTC
Yes.

Lights for frigs
Mediums for cruisers/battlecruisers
Heavies for battleships
(Sentries for anything thats at range)

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Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#6 - 2014-10-05 00:02:16 UTC
Angel Cartel frigates in particular seem to have a fascination with shooting light drones. Using EWAR such as a target painter can help.

I have used the "deploy drones to get that scramming frigate off me" trick many times.

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Jonah Gravenstein
Machiavellian Space Bastards
#7 - 2014-10-05 00:16:57 UTC
Using webs against elite frigates can sometimes draw them off your drones, most NPCs seem to hate any form of ewar

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Austrene Kanenald
Doomheim
#8 - 2014-10-05 01:23:12 UTC
Archibald Thistlewaite III wrote:
Yes.

Lights for frigs
Mediums for cruisers/battlecruisers
Heavies for battleships
(Sentries for anything thats at range)

Unless you're using a VNI against npc that don't target swap. And then pure heavies.
@OP: I run some DED in my VNI and anoms, but they get targeted by the rats. I've found that locking a few rats up, recalling heavies and then waiting for aggro to swap back to me works 9/10 times. Unless you're really far out of range (Sanshas frigates seem to be about 90k for me) and then they'll shoot whatever they can. Also, if it doesn't work, just follow above and drop lights. Or mediums, not sure how elite frigate AI works.