Missions & Complexes

I can be fine and have them all targeted on me, but the second I pop out my Ogre IIs, inevitably, a bunch will go yellow and start targeting the drones instead. So what do they look for to target?

Is there a mechanic for it? Is there a way to fit for it or did they just make it random or not tell anyone what it is?

And ya, been gone a few years.

My observation has been that the AI is different in different anomalies/complexes/missions.

In some anomalies, the rats always go for my drones. In others, they go for my light drones, but not my sentries, or vice versa. In others, they ignore my drones all the time.

In some situations, having e-war on your ship (e.g. a target painter) keeps the AI focused on my ship. In others, it makes no difference.

Some will maintain that having e-war on a rat and an active remote repair module will keep the rats 100% focused on you. Others will tell you that makes no difference.

And finally, some will maintain that if you sacrifice a black goat to the powers of darkness on the night of a new moon, then the NPC AI will always ignore your drones, some of the time.

NPCs (at least in missions) like to target their own "size" in drones. Frigates will attack lights, battleships will attack heavies.

But yeah, it does seem kinda random. I wonder...

/runs_off_to_check_something

When CCP first changed NPC's to the Sleeper AI, all NPC's were targeting Drones and basically made Player Drone Boats un-usable. After a little while CCP changed the NPC aggro towards Drones to be based more on size. Also it seems that the NPC's will concentrate their fire on one specific drone at a time. I might be wrong and I'm sure there's probably more to it than this but to my understanding this is the basic ratio:

NPC regular Frigates, Destroyers and their Elite class versions will target Light and larger Drones.

NPC Elite class Frigates, Destroyers, regular Cruisers and their Elite class version will target Medium and larger Drones.

NPC Elite class Cruisers, regular Battlecruisers, Battleships and their Elite class version will target Heavy and larger Drones.

I think all NPC ship classes will attack Sentry Drones.

Anyway, in my experience I've found that if I destroy all NPC Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers first before launching Drones, the larger class NPC's will not aggro on them. However, if there's a spawn or another group within the pocket, all NPC Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers will aggro on the Drones. When I recall the Drones, the new spawn will switch aggro to my ship. In the case of the other group within the pocket, those NPC's will return to their original location.

If my ship is webbed and scrammed by a close orbiting NPC Frigate and I can't hit it with my autocannons, then the Drones come out and take care of the EWAR NPC's. I keep watch on the Drones and recall each individual Drone when it starts taking Armor damage.


DMC

Ive been running dual Typhoon fleet issues since I came back, all me damage is in missiles pretty much, but my setup goes over 1k IF I can use my Ogres lol

But Ive got 4.2 million SP that I effectively CANT use because they made them useless with their fuckin new AI. Wish theyd give a refund for stupid **** like that

Of course you can still use them, you just have to watch them now. I dual-(tri/quad)box sleeper sites with sentry Dominixes and believe me when I say level 4 mission rats don't care anywhere near as much about drones as sleepers do.

What you meant to say was that you can't fire-and-forget your drones anymore... which is true.

[Gila, semi afk Sweeper]
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Cap Recharger II
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I
Caldari Navy Thermic Dissipation Field
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster
10MN Afterburner II

Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Scourge Auto-Targeting Heavy Missile I
Small 'Solace' Remote Armor Repairer
Small 'Atonement' Remote Shield Booster

Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Ogre II x5
Ogre II x2
Hammerhead II x7
Hobgoblin II x7

Fit for Guristas.

Aggro on my ogres is rare. The combination of native DPS (from the missile launchers), EWAR (apply damp to structures, , AI don't know the difference) and logistics (I launch a can and shield rep it because Ogres will soon fly out of rep range) generates a level of threat the NPCs have a hard time ignoring.

Some rare aggro switching occurs but I've only like a handful of ogres (less than 5) in the 3 months I used this ship full time. Vexor NI, Ishtar and Domi work fine doing this but aren't as good as Gila/Rattlesnake/Armageddon because of the missiles.

In null sec it's a LOT easier because instead of a damp I use ECM burst. In my experience (and it could just be my imagination), the npcs hate ecm/ecm burst and damps way more than they dislike Webs and TPs.

The npc AI is just easy to game and you can get an idea of it from the stuff Stoic posted.

Edit, oh and orbit the can with AB on to keep from getting squished.

The random and difficult to understand component is an "encounter" tick. In my experience, a gurista ded 7 will either present no drone aggro for the entire complex, or it will repeatedly drone aggro, based on time spent. in its worst configuration, it is indistinguishable from sleepers, and will reliably aggro on drones every 45 seconds if the drones happen to be shooting.

The gurista ded 7 is an excellent thing to replicate the finding with, because its not hard to find, and it can be observed in the different modes, and its utterly clear because the ded-huge-spawn-omatic gives you ample time to observe the state, repeatedly in each pocket. (you don't really tank 10-12 battleships at once in a mission unless you are bad).

IMO the encounter tick is either always there, but rolls random strength, or rolls random durations that are approximately multiples of 45 seconds. There may be a grace period on each grid before it starts.

In my experience, sleepers almost always roll 45 (or full strength), deds randomly roll all sorts of variations, missions often roll "off or low strength" and anomolies almost never roll it.

The more amusing thing is that the Maze can roll the encounter tick the same way, and if it does, the elites at the end will eat your drones every 45 seconds if you don't have one webbed. If it doesn't roll it, you can kill all 20+ elites without retracting your drones, and I can tell you before I get to the last pocket, which thing will occur from observing the earlier pockets.

The flipside is that its easy to chaff your way out of the maze in that condition - which gives a tactical upperhand to a droneboat when there is 1 neutral opponent with a tengu, ie if I've started the maze first, I'll get out before he gets there and then chase him in with curators, but he can't make the opposite occur to me, he has to carry his own point to make me stick.

What I think they did in the latest patch was make the drone aggro thing to be more size sensitive, which causes a gunnery dominix to retrieve battleship aggro from sentry drones on the timer.

This I have seen occasionally but note I don't use battleships for deds where the timer is common, so its only been in the very rare anomoly that has rolled the timer. the gallente cruisers are basically drone signature sized, and having nothing like the hitting power of domi turrets, so I don't think I'll ever see it in a ded unless I take a domi in for laughs.