EVE New Citizens Q&A

I've read you can only have as many drone slots as the skill permits (5). what things can increase this? (Ships?).

Do fighters follow a different system?

The term "Drone slot" makes no sense. There are three things with drones that you could be talking about, 'Drone Capacity', 'Drone Bandwidth' and 'Allowed Number' (of drones in space).

Fighters are used on Capital ships - Carriers and Super Carriers. I don't know enough about them to advise. But it will be a long time before you should be considering them. I'm only going to cover sub-caps here.

Subcap Drones come in 3 sizes: Light (5m3), Medium (10m3) and Heavy/Sentry (25m3), where m3 = cubic meters.

The character skill "Drones" determines the maximum 'Allowed Number' of Drones that you can launch regardless of actual size of drone. It is one of the most important skills you can train assuming any sort of combat is envisioned. The maximum allowed number of drones that you can launch (for sub caps) is 5 with Drones V trained (one exception, but ignore, it will never happen). Note that Drones V doesn't just allow the launching of 5 drones but is also a prereq for several other important drone skills. Including all the Drone specialization skills which are needed for T2 Drones.

'Drone Capacity' is a ship characteristic, it is the size of your ship hanger in cubic meters, usually fixed in size for most ships, but a few ships allow a capacity increase as one of it's ship traits. However, the size of the hanger does not determine what you can actually launch (see Drone Bandwidth). Some ship's Drone Capacity is considerable larger than the Drone Bandwidth and while you may be able to carry a larger drone in your hanger, you might not be able to launch it, instead you would carry spares of the type you can launch.

'Drone bandwidth' is also a ship characteristic, again in cubic meters. This determines the combined maximum size of the flight of drones that you launch. It isn't vital that you use the full bandwidth, but the more you use, generally the higher DPS. Although it depends on the target, smaller targets require Light Drones. Launching 5 light drones will only utilize 25m3 bandwidth, which may appear a waste if your ship has a bandwidth of 125m3 (typically Battleships), but is necessary if you are trying to kill a tackle frigate.

Assuming you have Drones V trained in following examples

Example 1. The Amarr Frigate Magnet, has a Drone Capacity of 40m3 and a Drone Bandwidth of 15m3. This means you can poke upto 40m3 of drones into the hanger but only launch 15m3 of them at any one time. You could stuff a single heavy or sentry (25m3) into the hanger with 15m3 left over. But the only drones you can launch is either 3 light (5m3 each) or one light + one Medium (10m3).

Example 2. The Gallente Destroyer Algos has a Drone Capacity of 60m3 and a Bandwidth of 35m3. Typically you would stuff 2 Medium (Hammerheads) and 3 Light (Hobgoblins) into the hanger as your primary launch flight and then have a backup flight of 5 (light) ECM drones or 5 (light) Warriors.

As a rule of thumb your first consideration is to fly the highest allowed number of drones. The second consideration is the largest type of drone (unless your target is known to be a small drone target). Generally, two smaller drones are better than one of the next higher size. Thus if you have a Bandwidth of 25m3, you should be flying 5 Light Drones, not 2 Medium and 1 Light. But with a Bandwidth of 40m3 the highest DPS combination is 3 medium and 2 light. Finally, with a Bandwidth of 125m3 the ideal flight is 5 Heavy or 5 Sentries, but you would hopefully have additional Drone Capacity (hanger space) to store a flight of light drones for tackle clearance.

Edit: There is also a super heavy drone called a Gecko (50m3), these are an exception to the above rules. 1 Gecko is better than 2 Heavies, but it costs a fortune, at time of writing around 55M Isk each.

Oh yes, you're right... but it is just meaningless different words used to enhance the lore. To all intents and purposes Cubic Meters and Mbit/sec mean the same thing when it comes to sub-cap drones. A light drone has 5 of them, a medium drone has 10, a Heavy has 25 and a Gecko has 50.

Technically you are correct, however Major Trant uses an analogy that I have found to be helpful when working with new players in the past. And in the end it really does matter as long as the player understands the concept of the bandwidth and the limiting factor it has on the number and in some cases the type / size of drones they can use.