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Drone aggro in missions
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Mattikus Hemah
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#1 - 2015-10-15 17:50:34 UTC  |  Edited by: Mattikus Hemah
Hi all,

Im areturning former eve player. While doing missions I noticed NPCs are very aggressive vs drones, Trying my best to keep them alive but still losing drones regularly. At this point I switched to to smartbombs to get rid of frigates. My drone skills arent the best but short of training them, any thing else I can do to get aggro off them?
Estella Osoka
Cranky Bitches Who PMS
#2 - 2015-10-15 18:27:11 UTC
No, you now have to micro-manage your drones. No more AFK-drone boats for missions.
Paranoid Loyd
#3 - 2015-10-15 18:33:32 UTC
Mattikus Hemah wrote:
any thing else I can do to get aggro off them?
As soon as they get agro pull them back in, then wait for the argo to switch back to you. It is rare that they switch back after that, although they do on occasion.

They should not be sent out further than 15-20km.

"There is only one authority in this game, and that my friend is violence. The supreme authority upon which all other authority is derived." ISD Max Trix

Fix the Prospect!
Mattikus Hemah
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2015-10-15 19:23:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Mattikus Hemah
Paranoid Loyd wrote:
Mattikus Hemah wrote:
any thing else I can do to get aggro off them?
As soon as they get agro pull them back in, then wait for the argo to switch back to you. It is rare that they switch back after that, although they do on occasion.

They mostly do in my case, and in situations where close-by dps is high they reach hull damage almost instantly, meaning I can send them out for the few seconds NPCs take to switch back to them, and even then I will lose some to high dps, if it really is like this I'll stick to smartbombs..

Edit: is it worth while to look into remote drone repairing? can it even be done from a battleship?
The Bigpuns
United Standings Improvement Agency
#5 - 2015-10-15 20:00:45 UTC
Mattikus Hemah wrote:
Paranoid Loyd wrote:
Mattikus Hemah wrote:
any thing else I can do to get aggro off them?
As soon as they get agro pull them back in, then wait for the argo to switch back to you. It is rare that they switch back after that, although they do on occasion.

They mostly do in my case, and in situations where close-by dps is high they reach hull damage almost instantly, meaning I can send them out for the few seconds NPCs take to switch back to them, and even then I will lose some to high dps, if it really is like this I'll stick to smartbombs..

Edit: is it worth while to look into remote drone repairing? can it even be done from a battleship?


It totally can be done, but it depends on what ship you are flying as to whether it is worth it.

Elite frigs do like to tear apart drones, but I normally find that having decent skills, t2 drones, and a watchful eye let's me save them 99% of the time. As far as holding aggro on yourself, use ewar like tp's and webs, or just do loads of dps from turrets/missiles. Nothing is infallible, but you can up your personal aggro several ways.

And btw, as an ex player, I assume you are aware of the risk you run by using smartbombs? (also assuming you're in highsec)
Shiloh Templeton
Cheyenne HET Co
#6 - 2015-10-15 21:22:49 UTC
NPC frigates seem to be the biggest adversary & mostly towards moving drones. My sentries are usually fine if I target all the npc frigates first. Occassionally I'll pull 1 sentry in if it starts taking damage and put it back out shortly.

If some frigates get under my guns I'll swap for light drones. I don't use mediums or heavies until all the frigate npc's are gone.

Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#7 - 2015-10-16 00:56:34 UTC
Flying a Dominix I have found that Angel Cartel and Guristas are the worst in terms of shooting my drones out of the sky (that one time I tried geckos and went to market to replace them on,y to find that they were worth 100M each… oops).

Other NPC groups are easily distracted by TP, remote reps, or simply running your own local repper.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#8 - 2015-10-16 04:38:09 UTC
elite frigs attack light drones
elite cruisers and smaller attack medium drones
heavy/sentry drones can take aggro from almost everything. but usually take aggro from cruisers down.


if your ship is pumping out enough dps drones usually get ignored.

also if using a turret ship try killing frigs at range to prevent them from getting in range where they can hit drones.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter
Hasikan Miallok
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2015-10-16 05:01:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Hasikan Miallok
There are a few other things that can reduce drone aggro and focus it back on yourself.

The sort of things that SEEM to reduce aggro

- NOS something even a structure
- target painting and similar the enemy ships
- repping a fleet member or friendly drone

The mob AI is also a bit flakey but in a predictable way. For example if your sentries are being attacked, deploying just 4 instead of 5 often seems safer. Also some particular NPCs tend to attack T2 drones fanatically but ignore T1 drones.
Morgan Agrivar
Doomheim
#10 - 2015-10-16 09:17:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Morgan Agrivar
If you know what drones to send after what rats, then you should be fine. For instance, you can send out medium drones against battleships and don't have to worry about them getting aggro. For cruisers, I have had no issues sending out light drones. Now for elite frigs and cruisers, I just shoot them or send light drones, but you have to pull them back in when they get targeted.

And a tidbit I learned...in the mission "Damsel in Distress", if your drones are too close to the structure when it pops, it destroys your drones. Lost five Vespa IIs and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what happened. :(

RIP my little friends
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#11 - 2015-10-17 00:23:34 UTC
Sentries with a remote rep seems to work and once you kill everything you can with the sentries what ever is left usually is not that hard to deal with.

Your ship / fit and mission style will have some affect as well.
Kitty Bear
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#12 - 2015-10-17 09:09:53 UTC
Drone class v's NPC ship class plays a part too.

NPC frigates can rapidly switch to shooting Medium & Heavy drones, but can ignore Light drones for some time
NPC cruisers can switch to shooting heavy drones, but can ignore small & medium drones

Target switching is more likely with elite class npc's

NPC's targeting preference (mostly in order of priority)
PC ship using e-war
PC ship using remote reps
Drones of a class size larger than the npc
Potential target applying DPS to npc's
Host PC ship
Buoytender Bob
Ronin Exploration Mission and Mining
#13 - 2015-10-17 16:13:57 UTC
I've even had my salvage drones attacked by the elite frigates; first time that ever happened.

.

To buck the popular trend, I began to Rage Start instead of Rage Quit.

...and every time I get another piece of Carbon, I know exactly what CCP is getting this Christmas.
Atomeon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#14 - 2015-10-17 23:24:21 UTC
Well changing targets and losing drones is a bit hard. They cost more than usual ammo (And drones get treated like ammo now), they come short in supply.
A drone ship has limited set of drones and when all lost is left with no guns to shoot.
Drone ships need bigger bays.
Hasikan Miallok
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#15 - 2015-10-18 22:36:13 UTC  |  Edited by: Hasikan Miallok
Atomeon wrote:
Well changing targets and losing drones is a bit hard. They cost more than usual ammo (And drones get treated like ammo now), they come short in supply.
A drone ship has limited set of drones and when all lost is left with no guns to shoot.
Drone ships need bigger bays.


The problem is most likely going to be that bigger drone bays for "spares" will turn drone ships into mini carriers and let people carry a rainbow selection of all possible drones types and sizes. In PvP with more drone bay some drone boats may become OP. "Spares" also does not solve the cost problem in PvE.

There is always the option to drop a mobile depot and reload spare drones from your cargo bay.
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#16 - 2015-10-19 00:28:31 UTC
Atomeon wrote:
Well changing targets and losing drones is a bit hard. They cost more than usual ammo (And drones get treated like ammo now), they come short in supply.
A drone ship has limited set of drones and when all lost is left with no guns to shoot.
Drone ships need bigger bays.

the only time you should lose drones is if you aren't paying attention. In a drone boat with damage and hp bonuses drones should kill targets fast, or even kill targets before they get in range to shoot drones. don't send your lights to kill elite frigs at 80km, instead drop sentries and snipe. and don't let heavy drones get too far away, those things are slow and if they start taking damage they need to be close or they will die. plus if they are that far away you are wasting a ton of dps waiting for heavy drones to travel from target to target. If your sentry drones are getting hit you have a lot of time to scoop them, those things have a lot of HP.

and if you choose to not fit any weapons, well that was your choice. it might also have something to do with why your drones are taking so much aggro.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter