Warfare & Tactics

Hi,

I would like to discuss the Medium Drones damage application on smaller targets, especially frigates.
Earlier today I tackled a Rail Vexor (which has NO bonuses to the tracking of drones).
This is some of the damage he did to me ; I was not webbed and had no MWD fitted so I was basically on the perfect position to avoid a larger weapon system damage. However, since it's drones, they were having almost no issues to track me.

http://i.imgur.com/8BRUnge.png

Even 180s autocannons (which I believe have the best tracking of all med sized turrets) would have trouble hitting an ABing frigate orbiting close. Now why, on top of having somewhat selectable damage, excellent projection, capless usage, why are drones being able to hit a small target like that so efficiently ?

Just to make it clear ; I don't mind the loss of my ship, it was a cheap tackle frigate, it's meant to die anyways (and we killed the Vexor, yay!). This is not me ranting cause I lost a ship. This is a legitimate question about game balance.

The way the weapon systems works in this game, as a small frigate you can avoid most of the damage from a bigger hull by outspeed his tracking, or in the case of heavy missiles by just keeping your speed up and your signature radius low.

I don't get why, on an unwebbed, ABing fast frigate, medium drones coming from an unbonused (in terms of tracking) hull, should hit that well their target. You already have light scout drones to do this job. Why would med drones can do the same job as light drones ? Imagine i wasn't fighting a Vexor but a VNI which has bonuses to drones tracking ? AND if I was webbed on top of that ? Then I would assume med drones would just hit me almost perfectly.
For any other weapon system, to hit a frigate orbiting close, you'd have to have the target dual webbed and/or having target painters for missiles, but why would you bother if you can just launch drones ?

What are you thoughts about this ?

His fit was this :

Highs :
4x 200mm Railguns II

Mids :
1x Experimental 10mn MWD
2x Large F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
1x Warp Disruptor II

Lows :
1x Pseudoelectron Containment Field
3x Drone Damage Amplifier II
1x Overdrive Injector System II


So he had no module improving the tracking of his drones. I was actually very surprised when I saw the killmail.
The screenshot I have posted was just part of the Logs though, overall his medium drones (the hammerheads) were pretty much almost hitting me everytime (grazes and hits, a few penetrates) ; the Heavy drones though, did struggle a bit to track me but they were still hitting grazes and glances off at times.

So even if the lucky wrecks hit obviously did play a huge role there, the med drones were still hitting me correctly, and again, i was NOT webbed, and my AB was on.

It is an alt. Because reasons.

I was in a comet. Orbiting at 5km (hard to not move when you're using the "orbit" button). Had AB heated for half of the fight. . Fit was standard railgun comet with hull tank rigs, overdrive 1magstab dcu saar. So no big sig radius from shield tank.

Just test it out for yourself. Hop in a Vexor and ask for a corpie to get in any Frigate with an AB and see if your Hammerheads will hit him. They will most of the time. Hell, even his Preators were getting "glances off" and "grazes" at times.

But the point of the thread isn't really that much wether or not he got lucky to get those wrecks, it's to point out the fact that, in my opinion, medium (and to some extent, other heavier types of drones) have too much damage application on small targets. This is just an example but i'm sure as hell I'm not the only one who had that happened to him. And I do believe this is partly why drones are such in a good spot (I would dare say OP) right now.

Drones were altered to also shoot while approaching. SO earlier, drones around you would trail to far behind and then miss you constantly even though they had low transversal against you. THese days, drones got 4+km optimal and falloff, meaning that if you're in a tight 500m orbit, you're always in rage for drones, and they easily can track you.

It's not just the meds, heavies - esp. praetors/zerkers - hit AB frigs quite easily for massive damage.

Drones have the disadvantage of being destroyable, and also have to mwd to target and have travel time, etc. if med drones were statisticaly similar to 180mm ACs what would be the point in taking the disadvantages of the weapon system?

"Drones are fine" - said every drone user ever.

Meanwhile missile plebs have to use powergrid and CPU, have reload time, and never heard of neutralisers and NOSs.

Turret users were lost to history unless they were the legendary FN Comets.

And thats the end of the story. The moral is that drones are destructible. You just choose not to destroy them because you are way too smart for this game.

Being able to switch weapon sizes in the middle of a fight, immune to every variety of EWAR, tracking independent of your hull's motion, no fitting requirements or cap use...

Yeah, there are a couple reasons.

Don't get welped by drones.

Stand still and get welped by medium gun alpha instead!

Shhhhh..... The drone fanboy zombies might hear you......

mmm, these are very tasty tears that remind me so much of a time when Hurricanes and Rifters were found everywhere.

I don't think drone are OP. If you look at my Killboard it is clear I do use them, but I also use every other weapon system too because they are all good. Maybe not at every role, but they are all good.