EVE General Discussion

How can you lose drones fast enough for it to matter? And are you forgetting that the other ships are mostly carrying drones too? Drone ships automatically have 1 less slot so that is one less mod you are paying for as well. So for rupture vs vexor you have 5 extra drones/1 less mod/less ammo in initial outlay, then your drones are much harder to kill thanks to hp bonus and you use less ammo. I don't see how its going to be more expensive unless you are really bad at keeping drones alive. And if thats the case just use t1 while you learn.

OP you stated that you havent played in a while and just sub your account for skill training.

As such you are blissfully unaware of the easy isk that everyone has been making since your back was turned. FW / Nullsec / Incursions / botting, the list is rather long.

In your absence, everyone has become space rich and can easily afford a drone bay to be filled.

Log back in peasant and take a look around before making your blind assumptions.

Why do Gallente need a 3rd flight? They already have all the drone buffs.

Your 2 flights of drones have enough augmented bonuses to outlive the 3 flights the amarr ships will launch.

It has nothing to do with the bonuses, it has to do with the logistics.

Let me give you an example. I'm in a FW gang, roaming in a drone boat. We're 20 jumps away from the nearest friendly station where I can dock. No guarantee there's drones for sale there, but let's assume. So, say my ship only holds 1 flight, and I need to warp off because there's a fleet coming down on top of us, I can't wait for my drones to come back. Tada! I am now completely combat-ineffective! Half or more of my overall DPS is gone. To "reload" I need to go 40 jumps through hostile space, while still being combat-ineffective. Awesome, huh?

OK. Now consider I'm in a drone boat, same scenario as above. But it holds 2 flights. All that has to happen is me being forced to warp off twice. Entirely possible in a 2 hr roam. In fact, it's likely. Same problem as above. Or, if you don't like the warp off thing, I could have lost all my drones to smartbombs, or some other reason. After the patch AI change, I could be losing drones to NPCs as well.

See the problem? It's a lot easier to "run out of ammo" when you're a drone user, if you have to do emergency warps and leave your drones behind. And getting a new set is never easy. I could be in FW away from stations where I can dock (since hostile stations lock out the enemy militia), or I could be in FW space, etc., etc.

These are just few of the reasons why so few people use drone boats these days. They're just inefficient and ineffective, with a few rare exceptions. And even then, there's better ships out there.

See... you bring up some good points... but here is my counter...

Most "real" drone boats like the Vexor and Myrmidon are geared for "brawling" and will usually be in a situation where they will not be able to escape... as brawlers typically engage at sub 10km ranges. Lost drones are hardly a concern when you are fighting for your life. It is this "brawler" aspect that makes these ships unpopular... not the drones themselves.

And I speak as someone use uses drone boats every chance he gets. And I have RARELY ever left a drone behind.

Fake edit: and for those situations where you are waiting for an engagement to come to you... and you are given the call to bail... and you drones are already deployed and at range... don't do that. Wait until you are sure that the engagement is going to happen in the first place BEFORE deploying drones.
Yes... you may miss out on the odd quick gank... but that's not what drone boats are good for. It's long term slugouts where they shine.

Well, I'd personally compare Faction ammo at 1200 ISK per unit, which results in a ~2.9 million ISK investment in ammo. The larger the ship, the less important that is, but on a smaller ship it is more and more significant.

So, Drones on an expensive, large ship should be looked at in the same way maybe, versus drones on a small, inexpensive ship. Either way, investing 9 million on deployable ammo for a Cruiser is sort of extreme. If it was a Tech 2, then maybe.

The answer seems obvious if you look at Tech 1 vs. Tech 2 ships. Use Tech 1 drones, like they do tech 1 ships. The downside is the loss of dps and durability, but good drone skills account for some of that I imagine. Actually, with the Medium Valkyries for example, your biggest hit is on tracking, with a drop from 1.44x to 1.08x

Damage actually only drops from a 1.56x multiplier to 1.3x multiplier, with base damage and RoF being the same. I'm guessing something similar applies to the rest of the Medium Drones, and apparently the others. Other losses include of course, a drop in speed and armor.

That's more of a hit than you'd see dropping from a T2 to a T1 gun for example, which a lot of people do on combat ships to cut costs. I know personally, that the dps loss on some of my fits, (provided I'm not looking a T2 ammo), is insignificant, and besides, T2 ammo has its own penalties.

Faction ammo is more expensive than Tech 2 iirc though, but the guns still cheaper by far, and that can make a lot more difference in the cost of a fit than drones or no drones.

Overall, it is not cheap to fit and fly anything if it has Tech 2, so maybe that's part of the problem. Tech 2 isn't always expensive, but often the benefit is outweighed by that increase in price if there is no real arguable difference between T1 and T2 combined with a massive decrease in cost.

Exceptions:

~ Damage Control II
~ Large Shield Extender II
~ Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
~ Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

That's all I can or care to think of atm.

The primary reason those are exceptions is the factor of cost or effectiveness of meta modules. They are ridiculously expensive with regard to the Damage Controls, and the others just don't see much benefit for the price difference if they happen to be cheaper. Obviously, another primary reason is they are defensive resist and buffer modules, with a fair significant change in defense when you drop to a lesser module.

The Large Shield Extender II can easily be swapped for a Meta module too, with only a small loss in buffer and a corresponding gain of a reduced Signature radius. Also, less PG and CPU iirc. Technically, the FS9 may be viewed as a better module in some cases.

The same applies to Tech 2 Armor Plates and Rolled Tungsten Plates since the Tech 2 buff now, with the changes to Tech 2 HP additions awhile back. Used to be the Tungsten was better across the board.

So, it's a measure of effectiveness vs. cost that determines the value of a module or ammunition, or ship, as always. Cost increases, and suddenly something becomes impractical to use for some purpose. Move to a cheaper model, and hopefully the loss in effectiveness is either balanced by benefit somewhere or isn't severe enough to make it impractical to bother.

I'm not sure if Tech 1 Drones are worth bothering with in place of Tech 2, unless it happens to be on a ship that just happens to have them, rather than a ship intended to use them almost explicitly. Drones need help anyhow.

I'm not sure where people are getting Frigate level DPS out of a single Medium Drone, but I'm pretty sure I've never seen any indication of it. More like one unbonused, Meta 1 gun with regular ammo dps, and very little applied bonus. Every time I look at Drone Boat fits I shake my head and sigh in exasperation. Usually I curse too.

This is exactly the reason my friend. Everyone is space rich and so due to the affluance, prices have risen sharply. Think back to the late 1980's. Everyone was flush, so everyone paid through the nose for their goods. The same thing has happened here. And whilst I agree with you whole heartedly on the PvE stance, those that don't have at the moment are going to have to grind if they do want.

I really don't mind paying more for drones than my guns because you can apply drone damage to everything while the guns and missiles are less effective if bad guy's ship is smaller.

I'm not buying the brawler argument for one reason: CCP keeps insisting (and I can find you quotes if you want to support this) that drones have excellent damage projection at all ranges. Which is why drone boats are always one slot short, compared to other similar ships. Hybrid bonus also supports rails, which are a long range system. Coupled with drone range augmentation via utility highs, you can have a "sniping" drone boat that usually can warp out when attacked, AND its drones are far away, AND due to size it will not be fielding sentries due to bandwidth, drone bay or preferred target size.

So, either CCP is full of hooey, in which case I want a slot back on all drone boats, because drones have no damage projection. Or drones do have projection, and thus are expected to be up to 60km away from the ship, and thus absolutely can be left behind in an emergency warp.



See, let me give you an example of my last drone loss. I'm in a small destroyer gang (Catalyst, just 1 drone, but the example still holds). Our tackler managed to catch and hold a Loki, BUT that was in a plex and we warped in roughly 50km away. As soon as I got into range to send in the drones, I sent them. They reached the target fine, and the others joined in, and Loki started to break up. And then local spiked, and in a little while ships were on short scan, so we hauled ass. Luckily Loki went pop by then, but enemy was already in and burning to us, so I didn't want to trade my Catalyst for a single drone, and warped. But I'd have done the same with a full flight of mediums on a Vexor or Myrm.

And anyway, warping off is just a part of it. There's so many other things. Direct fire, just out of spite, from someone who knows they will die and wants to take a couple of mil off of me. Smartbombs. Etc.

That's my main objection to small drone bays on Gallente. Drones (even with max durability) and HP bonus, are still way too easy to lose. In fact, lately I've been thinking they should not be destructible at all, except by specific anti-drone modules (similar to defender missiles, but against drones, and smartbombs and similar stuff). But that's just wishful thinking, I guess.

Why is this topic still unlocked?