Missions & Complexes

Light scouts still make sense, as they are "only" targeted by elite cruisers and frigs (which is still enough for shaBLAMs if you fly solo in a crowded L4), and some battleships desperately need them to get rid of scramblers (or just plainly to get rid of frig rats).

Heavies... Are awesome - or so I've heard - for PvP at point blank range against a webbed+scrammed battleship, and maybe against in-your-face serpentis/angel rats as well.

Mediums... well, they cost twice the bay/bandwidth than lights, are slower, track worse, their resolution is cruiser-sized, but their damage ain't twice of the lights, sooo... they are better against battleships if you don't have a 125 bay?

Wow, that's a tall order.

Plus it's off-topic, as Caldari Citizen 20M+ already pointed it out to me once.

On a sidenote: I don't say my ships should field sentries or lights for PvE, I'm saying they DO (with the added ECM drones for PvP emergencies).

First Heavies: The problem is that they are basically Neutron Blasters with battleship speed.
Ogres cannot catch even a shield-tanked MWDing BS, not to mention anything below, which is a problem for the Vexor/Prophecy/Myrm and should rather be looked at on the hull's level (since their whole build is with Heavies in mind).
But I think unless some radical drone overhaul makes changes needed, besides maybe a bit of speed/tracking boost having only a niche role is sortof fine-ish for them.

Now mediums...
Once more, working best against scrammed targets, and hit hardest maybe by the AI change.
What would fix them? All rats going after them but battleships is fair truth be told, even if their survivability is lacking.
If they were to get a damage boost, unless Ogres get the same, it would lead to issues, not to mention drone balance going awry with or without Ogres in the picture.
If Hobgoblins get a damage nerf, they'll have even more trouble cracking elite frigs, not to mention the effect on PvP.

I guess I am.
Or rather, as far as PvE goes, our way of thinking about them is somewhat flawed, or outdated by the changes perhaps

We used to think of them as stuff that can go out to 60km range if need be, but...
They are kindof like a support vessel helping in a mission?
Each combat drone performs somewhat like a blaster of the appropriate size, so a full flight = a full ship.
Ogres do more than a T2 antimatter blaster, but without the 13km falloff (*wink wink nudge nudge*). Though battleships have more guns (6-8) than heavy drones (2-5).
Hammerheads do only two-third of a Heavy Neutron blaster (which is the medium sized one ), however cruisers have less hardpoints than battleships. BCs mess things up, drone BCs even more with the odd bandwidths.
Hobgoblins do less than tho-third of a Light Blaster, and apart from dessies 3 guns are at the top, and besides it's larger ships we focus on from PvE perspective mostly, so 5 of them is a LOT.

I know I wanted to get somewhere with this, but it's an offtopic rant now proving that yes, medium/heavy drones have only a use of window while light/sentries are fine, without offering much help due to various restraining reasons that would turn any easy "fix" I could offer into a nightmare.

Drones being immune to NPC scramble and web (or just make that full EWAR), and not getting any MWD sigbloom would help the larger combat drones, but I'm not sure if that would be only a start, or a solution.

Another thing worth noting is how I always used the Gallente drones as example, if we are at the drones need fixing topic, my favorite "What is a Praetor?" question pops up, fixing needs to be done in that direction as well. Someone mentioned making the differences more like that of fighters, on which I'm not quite sure, but it sounds interesting at least, and a start for a discussion.

Afraid I can add little to what you said, due to it being correct, except to nitpick one little thing that I am sure you thought of but went ahead and said anyway.

Making the heavies immune to webbing would be a major boost and give them a shadow of a hope of getting back to you after snagging agro, but it would also make them viable/dangerous in pvp (not terribly so due to the reasons already covered but still something to consider)

The most logical fix I could come up with I posted about decreasing the prices of the drones horrendously and using them like missiles.

But now you have brought up other points that make me think another solution that might need to be tackled as well is in each drone catagory scale their damage accordingly, while you are fixing them anyway.

(Or of course the other thing people are asking for don't let the NPC mission or exploration ships turn on them.)

Additionally:
I have used Gallente drones, and Warrior IIs, and the Occasional Bouncer Sentries. Oh oh and ECM drones, and a wide assortment of shield and armor repair drones. And at one time I used to use 4 heavies and a webber drone trying to make the heavies useful :-(
But the other drones (not counting the other sentries from time to time) the other lights and mediums suffer from the wrong damage types or damage projection issues to be useful... in my opinion.

Unfortunately if a Gallente Light drone can't do it then you have a problem.... but that is a sad state since many ships obviously are designed to have a much better compliment of drone damage. But right now they are in a bad place.

I am pretty sure CCP has a reasonably strict policy against making a mechanic work differently on an NPC vs a player. They are actively working right now to simplify down their code as evidenced by the large work unifying and redoing the crime watch systems. It is unlikely they would add in a if then, else in the code to cover mission and exploration NPCs. More likely they will either do it across the board or search for a different solution.

I think there are a few things they could do to help out drones:

Increase their base speed/tracking so they don't move using MWD. That's what really hurts them when they get aggro.

If a drone has aggro from a rat, other rats pick a different drone, or stick to the ship. The main problem comes when 5 or 6 rats all switch to one drone. If you're not paying attention, you'll eventually lose them all.

A more substantial increase in HP and resists for T2/faction drones wouldn't hurt.

n/m

Allow me to clarify, they don't have any trouble allowing the NPCs do do horrible horrible (stasis tower) things to us from 100km...
but they seem to shy away from introducing mechanics that allow our skills to operate differently on the NPCs. (by design)

The reason the cap drains and energy neuts etc. do not work properly on them is because they were designed very differently than player ships. I don't want to name any other games but in some games NPC characters can cast spells without having a mana pool, because they were set up in their data objects to be able to do that, I theorize thats how the eve NPCs are, they can use their attacks but don't have any capacitor to drain.

When they change something they try to do it across the board and when they see its going to create a problem say... in an exploration site with a certain ship they may make a change as simple as adding your ship type on a restriction list for a gate to go in.

I know this wasn't the best description, as I can't think of a specific case off the top of my head if anyone here can volunteer a specific case I would appreciate it, but it got us a bit off topic already anyway...

So drones... need.... help... discuss.

Okay you are STATING: "NPC Frigate 1: "I can shoot his drone if I want to, but I am going to keep my web/target painter on that big Dominix"

I didn't understand that was what you were going for... yes that does seem like that would HELP the situation, but it won't fix the problems. I do like it as a start though.

Please forgive me if this sounds like a stupid question, but why does CCP feel the need to constantly change aspects of the game anyway?

If something works, why tinker with it and risk damaging it? From what I can gather, the changes discussed in this thread have upset quite a few players and if a lot of those players choose to leave, then it seems kind of counter productive to change things constantly.

Could I preface the following by saying that I don't intend any offence... but, are all these changes just a means for staff at CCP to justify their jobs?

I have no idea how many people are employed by CCP but I should think that most of them are passionate about their own areas of expertise and enjoy their jobs. I suppose it's understandable then, that they want to contribute and bring positive influences to the game.
But... if these changes actually have what players deem to be detrimental effects on the game, isn't CCP in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg?

I'm no computer programmer, so I'm not qualified to comment on the difficulties/intricacies of adding/altering code other than to say that it appears to sometimes have unforseen consequences.

Perhaps taking a foot off the gas pedal when it comes to changes might be a healthier approach?

Because certain groups of players have more clout than others and if something they don't like stops them from doing a certain thing they hog the forums and complain until CCP change basically because they prefer the quiet life.

Then there are the lackies on the CSM who tell CCP this is damaging gameplay and it need changing.
What you need to do is to make CCP believe that the change in drone aggro from the NPC's will cause 0.0 players grief or will enable 0.0 to gank miners even quicker. Then will get changed within 2 weeks.