Ships & Modules

So I've been out in null for a few days and popped back to do some missions, however i have done 3 missions now and i have noticed the same thing happen in every single one....

I pop out my drones, aggro with the guns, the NPC as they always did targeted me, then about 3-5 secs later then switch to multiple drones, not just a single drone like they used to either. Before (only a few days ago) most of the time they would stay on my Domi, now they will not attack me if there is a drone out, i can't help wondering if they changed something more with NPC aggro in the last few small patches and this is intended.

With the drone mod nerf and the NPC changes making Heavy drones Useless (especially with the shield rep changes) is this now the death of the drone?

oh funny thing is i didn't see this behavior in the NPCS while ratting in belts in Null which i thought a bit odd. Has anyone else noticed this problem?

Yes i understood that and was fine with them sometimes switching to my drones, but now they simply will not shoot at me at all if a drone is out, its insane.

Heavy drones really haven't been useful in missions for a long time. and sentry drones take a surprising amount of punishment. Drones aren't dead or dying, they just need a greater level of micro management now. . and even still i have no problems when i go missioning.

At the very least, try and get aggro on your ship before you drop out drones. and if you're using heavy drones. . . stop and start using sentries. If you're still having trouble consider a remote repper to repair the drones. You shouldn't need it. but it's another option.

I haven't found myself needing to do any of these things. I simply warp to the site, start locking up targets and set my sentries on the npcs. Occasionally i'll pull a sentry back into my drone bay if it starts taking to much damage, wait a few seconds and drop it into space again.

Missions have a tendency to slaughter drones. Anomolies and complexes tend to ignore them.

Elite frigates = death of light drones.

In all honesty I feel punished for a balance fix that had nothing to do with how I play the game. Drones are my primary source of damage and drone aggro is the same in my opinion as allowing npcs to target turrets and launchers that are firing on them.

If drone aggressive setting was being abused, then remove drone aggressive setting. How drone aggro works right now, it is easier to kill a BC or even a BS compared to fighting elite frigates at close range. The BC/BS ignore my drones while the elite frigates will wreck my drones in 3 volleys.

No aggressive setting would make it impossible to afk drones just like all other methods of dealing damage with the exceptions of smart bombs I think, which don't have the range to be effective to afk with.

If drone aggro stays then allow remote reps to work on turrets/launchers and let npcs be able attack them and see how much everyone else enjoys their source of damage repeatedly being hammered into the ground and unable to do anything about it.

Disable drone aggressive mode.
Change drone aggro so that they will only be attacked if the commanding ship is not within the npcs attack range.

Drone ships actually have to be piloted with active tank and selecting targets and drones won't die if the ship is the one drawing fire. What is the issue with this simple solution?

Or could give all drone ships the Nestor remote rep range/amount bonus and that would help ever so slightly.

So essentially you use drones exactly the same way you did before. Sentries for everything past point blank range, and lights for frigates that make it in close. The only thing that has changed is you have to pay attention now.

If people are actually losing drones to NPCs, that's just sad. Even sleepers don't do enough damage to kill a sentry before you can react.

Here are observations about drone aggro.

(a) When you go to an encounter the encounter appears to roll a random number for how frequent drone aggro is going to be. Somewhere between none and automatically swapping every 45 seconds for the whole pocket of aggressed NPCs. The same encounter type can roll it differently on subsequent encounters. ie I can do 2 gurista ded 7s in a day, one with drone aggro every 45 seconds, and one with no drone aggro for the entire 5 pockets and more than 80 minutes of shooting.

(b) NPCs can also make individual decisions about swapping. It is generally easier to get the individual to swap out to a sentry drone on a dominix (400 sig vs 125 sig), than it is to have same occur for an ishtar. In this case you'll see the classes that hate the particular size of drone swap first. Amusingly, anomolies have both a default, aggro on the first object rule, which causes them to shoot my ship first even if I have aggressive drones, but they may subsequently switch, or one class (particularly elite cruisers may override the first object rule) and that happens more often to the domi, than it does to the ishtar.

(c) things that the are external to the ship affect drone aggro. In my experience the combination of gunnery + web is entirely reliable at sticking NPCs to my ships, -even if the gunnery is missing the target 100% of the time-

I tested this 2 times in the last week. I entered the gurista ded 10 - the maze, got to the last pocket, fielded 5 light drones, and 1 was destroyed before it could even get back to the bay, and before they had destroyed a single frigate. I then completed the entire pockets 20+ elite frigates with the 4 remaining light drones, by webbing and shooting each target, even though I rarely or never hit the target with gunnery. So long as guns shoot + web, drones are ignored.

I also tried a similar thing with pockets of the highsec sansha ded 4, using a fleet stabber (which is a far less drone oriented ship). I killed 1 frigate before drone aggro put a hammerhead into armor. I retracted them, and then ensured that I kept the webifier in action - I just webbed 1 frigate and orbited whilst I killed other stuff, and no further drone aggro occurred.

If I was silly enough to MJD a dominix, I'd consider 2 omnis + target painter + mjd + cap booster as my standard middle rack (and put an ionic rig on. (or whatever combo of sebo, and drone optimal rig you prefer).

Gardes aren't going to reach to 100 anymore anyway, so there is no pressing overwhelming reason for absolutely must have 3 omnis anymore.

Price you pay for having no ammo costs and also being able to apply DPS while being jammed when set to agressive.

I am in total agreement with IIshira. After the latest patch, I'm ready to ask for my 58M Skill Points in drones back. I don't know if there is supposed to be timers for NPC drone aggro, but if there are, they are NOT working. Every single time I have dropped drones since the patch, they are INSTANTLY attacked, and I mean ZERO lockup time - half the time I look up from clicking "engage", and they are already taking heavy damage.
A drone can never survive against heavy weapons. Their advantages are long lockup times and being hard to hit. If the new drone aggro is the new normal, I am advising everyone I know NOT to train any drone skills, because they are useless as it now stands.
I can understand if an enemy starts locking them up right away. I can understand if they shift aggro randomly. But after 2 seconds? There is a bug, I guarantee it.

It's not whining if it hasn't happened to you.

Drones are simply unusable now. I coundn't get them to kill one lousy frigate without losing two or three medium drones out of five. The range? 12 kilometers. This is ufkced up.

It's not that I want to do missions afk. I'd just like not to lose several tech 2 drones each L4 mission. It's just not interesting.

Some of the answers in the thread are "oooh, you have to pay attention". Yeah, right. You could hardly pay more attention watching as your medium drone is eliminated in 10 seconds after launch.