Missions & Complexes

Currently this is the only part I don't understand (as I haven't gotten further than lvl 3s). Why aren't elite frigates in the same category as normal frigates?

Normally they are in the same category, but when they flash yellow it means your drones are toast

Whatever CCP had in mind with this change, it totally brought the demise of good ol' drone boats and their viability in PvE. Anyone saying "HTFU, L2P" has obviously never used drones since the change was implemented or just uses sentries with marginal success.

Also comparing drones with ammo is silly from many points of view and shows an utter lack of knowledge of this weapon system.

Which is pretty much the "never used drones since the change", ain't it now?

Well, I also hear good things about AC Mach running away from the rats, as long as you keep webs off of you, and that one has a drone bay you can load with T1/lights for dire need.

I concur. Eve is in a really good place right now, I haven't enjoyed it this much probably ever. The direction of the game (aside from the incremental dumbing down that seems to be happening) has been fantastic but there still seems to be some devs at CCP who have no idea what they are doing.

Imagine if they released a new change with the last expansion that meant everytime you fired your lasers 1m isk was removed from your wallet. Would people like that I wonder? No, it would be irritating, counterproductive and ludicrous - well, that's what happens every time I use my drones - several of them die. Sentries are 2m a piece in null sec - thanks very much for that one CCP!

Man, this Drone change reminds me of GW2 Ranger Pets. Theoretically usable, but they die in any intensive encounter, are a large chunk of your DPS and you have little to no ability to save them even if you try. Actually, Ranger Pets are better since you don't have a replacement fee, but drones can cost you millions. Per mission. And only if there are even drones to buy as replacements in the first place.

If there was a reasonable way for me to bail out my drones that are 65km out, I'd do so even if I end up sacrificing tons of damage for it. I want to be able to make that choice. Instead, I end up trying to tank the entire pocket aggro, only to blink and have my drones get picked off before I have a chance to react.

In small scale PvP, the counterplay is honestly better. My opponent can opt to train some of their DPS on the drones, in return for me not taking as much damage. They can fit a Smartbomb, which is inherently kinda bad against anything other than drones. Additionally, in PvP I'm already expecting losses no matter what the situation is. By contrast, in PvE the death of your drones is basically a forgone conclusion and there's no reasonable way to prevent that outcome, nor does the death of your drones come at a price to your opponent(s).

Hi All,

I've posted in this massive thread before - so you know I'd like drones to become viable again, (as a primary weapon), and for missions to be more fun solo, (against E War). This stuff needs fixed up so that it is good.

I wanted to make the point though - that LvL 4s are now more fun than ever before for fleets, (IMO). We've had massive fun recently doing some of the ~8500LP LvL 4s. We're using missiles almost exclusivly - the RF Typhoons have dropped the non-missile part of their armament for reppers, (Cruise Missiles - the other weapon systems kinda suck in comparison now), and we are operating spider tanks, all armour - and using lots of utility Mids. Even our CNR is now armour tanked - but the utility Mids make it a lot of fun. Oddly enough we are only now using medium drones with much painters and webifiers - and the medium drones are used to mop up NPC battleships. Constant aggro shifting makes multiplayer PvE a lot of fun.

BUT. Solo play is yuk. Esspecially vs EWar enemies. And I still have no idea what a Drone boat will do solo - or even in a fleet?

When this all gets fixed - it would be nice if the new co-operative PvE could remain as good as it is now. But even if things were to revert back - we might still play this new way. We don't actually fit counter-measures to the NPC E-War. It is pointless. But force of numbers alows us to simply aknowledge one of our number is down for a bit whilst we take out the enemy EWar. Solo - I just don't see how this can be fun.

We've not tried micro-jump drive yet. We haven't tried non-missiles with tracking links / tracking computers. We are thinking of trying the Armour CNR with remote ECCM and sensor links . . .etc. At the moment - we are using masses of CAP boosters, Painters and Webs. The E-WAR countermeasures will not help us deal with close in NPCs. So we don't want to sacrifice that to counter E-War when simply having force of numbers already counters E-War - but simple force of numbers makes killing little close n fast ships still hard to deal with, (if we want to use medium drones - which we all like - so we use webs and painters - and the painters help the cruise missiles too).

Cheers

So I guess what I was saying is that NPC EWar is so OP that even if all the fleet was equipped with remote EWar counter measures - that would still only be enough to negate the ewar aplied against one of our fleet mates. Which is a waste of our Mids as they can be used for other stuff - and force of numbers would already negate NPC EWar anyway. A solo player wouldn't have enough Mids to counter EWar by themselves - (not sure about ECCM) - but tracking and dampening defo - and who cares about being painted.

How will they fix this? Diminishing returns on EWar applied - so that a single ship can counter the EWar of the NPCs they will fight??? sounds yuk - and would make countermeasures just whayyy too strong. . .i don't know.

Maybe a CAP Booster charge using Mid that acts as an electronic warfare countermeasure for a specific type of ewar? Crap idea - probably is - but. . ? Any thoughts,

At the moement - there doesn't sem much point to the countermeasures available [EDIT: in the context of PvE]. Please tell me I've missed something and that it's fixed already! But I don't think it is?

This is so fu*** true except it's the same for every kind of activity you may want to start.
"I'm here in 5 minutes" he said. "Just a few jump" he said.

This.