Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Reliable means it works all the time. Otherwise it is the definition of unreliable. So it's not going to happen.

Your experience with drones isn't universal. When i pull drones in and redeploy them npc's don't automatically go for the same drone, or even go for any drones after being pulled in.

This statement tells me everything I need to know about how and why you have so many problems losing drones. In PvE drones should NEVER be 60k out from your ship. If you allow them to wander off that far your drones losses are not a game problem and they are definitely not an agro problem they are the direct result of PILOT ERROR.

Moving on, since the drone agro change there are people like you Mike Voidstar and the OP that are constantly complaining about the drone agro, the losses as a result of it and how it needs to change. And yet there are those like myself and Daichi that have adapted to life as a drones pilot in this new age of agro mechanics and as a result we have very little problems and very few drones losses. One could look at these and simply say that things are working as intended and that the only changes needed are to your expectations and to the way you employ your drones.

Okay... I'll simply spell it out.

Remote sensor booster.

Work at long range (though they are less likely to "connect" at longer ranges). Don't cost much cap.

Warp in. Wait for ships to aggro your ship. Pop drones. Target a drone. Activate remote sensor booster. Send drones to wipe out ships.

You will NEVER get drone aggro as long as you don't trigger the next wave of a site before killing all the ships in the current wave.

So if you are running an anomaly where the next wave doesn't spawn until the current wave is gone... you will never have your drones get aggro. The remote sensor booster doesn't really help all that much... but you aren't running it for the boost, you're running it to control aggro.

Now... if you kill a trigger ship mid wave and more ships arrive, the newly arriving ships MAY target your drones because of the damage the drones are doing before being drawn in by the booster. In that scenario you do have to recall the drones and then pop them out again and apply the sensor booster again. But that's an avoidable scenario.

Have people forgotten that the op is using a proteus? He can get as close as he wants and tank just fine.

Yes I am using a Proteus. However I don't think most people reallise how bad drone aggro is in DED sites.
Tommorrow If I'll find the time I will try to record the insane amount of aggression drones get in not anomalies but DED sites.
according to some I should keep my heavys within 8km then drones are by far the worst weapon system....
There for i seriously doubt that CCP planned for drones to be used like that. I mean why get all these drone speed bonuses etc if they should be like right next to your ship what's the point....

Anyways incoming recording of DED site drone aggression ASAP.

Also thanks for keeping the thread civil o/

It may be different for me in a Rattlesnake than a proteus is... but I've never had too much of a problem (even with not using any e-war for aggro control). Now that may be because the missiles from the snake help keep aggro a bit and my "heavy" drone system is a gecko rather than heavy drones... and with the 275% role bonus to drone HP the gecko is pretty darn tanky. I pretty much send out lights to kill frigates and destroyers (which don't get aggro from anything other than frigs and destroyers), then launch the gecko and tear through everything while my cruise missiles smash the larger ships who are further away.

I sometimes lose a light drone and once every 5-10 runs I may have to pull back my Gecko for a bit due to a worry about damage... but nothing even remotely like others describe. I'm mainly running 6/10 and 8/10... I hadn't been running sites all that long when CCP nerfed the escalation percentages from anoms into the ground (haven't gotten one in ages... probably 100-150 anom's run with no luck)

I generally run anoms in VNI/ishtar fits which use a remote sensor booster to control aggro. When I ran without one my drones would get targeted constantly. Since switching to use one I only get drone aggro if I trigger the next wave of an anomaly without clearing the current wave. If I trigger the wave properly, my drones sit until the rats aggro me (due to the remote sensor booster), then they attack and I never get drone aggro as long as the booster is running.

Not everyone likes using the immobile sentries.

Combat drones naturally go 60km on just skills, that should be their useful range. Blasters go about 20km with short range ammo, if you need to limit a weapon that is supposed to have range as an advantage at shorter range than the shortest range weapon with short range ammo loaded, something needs fixing.

Blasters easily go to 20k on a Battleship. With some longer range ammo you can get it out quite a bit further.

I didn't say they should not be shot at. I said their useful operational range should be in that area.

According to you their useful operational range is about 25km on the fastest variety, and at that I'm sure that those less god-like than you will be losing them consistently.

Drones aren't ammo. I can't load up 5000 of them for next to nothing and just blow them out into space. They need to be survivable in their intended useful envelope. That envelope should not be limited to 1/3 of their unaugmented range.

That means improving their survivability in some fashion, either by being able to handle the agro issues in some fashion, or improving it in other ways. The AI change was a straight up heavy nerf to drones, which were balanced just fine before the change. If they wanted to kill the AFK part I'm 100% behind that, but they should not have made the change without compensating the nerf with something that makes up for the usefulness that was lost.

No you are wrong in all possible ways.
The ability to choose a weapon that meets the size, damge type and range requirement for any given target were and still are the only real advantage drones have or ever had. And yet within that flexibility there are still sentry drones that excel at long range engagements, and those sentry drones are superior to any other drone for that role because ZERO travel time and this is even more important now with the increased agro we have to deal with.

You like many others were seduced by the lazy mans launch, set aggressive mode and ignore them aspect of what drones used to be. For whatever reason CCP decided that the lazy mans way you were seduced into will carry a penalty of continual drones losses for those who refuse to change. As I stated it is obvious that the changes and the game are working as intended, those of you who refuse to adapt are losing drones constantly, those of us that are willing and have adapted to the new norm are not losing drones.

I guess that thing the PvP types are always telling the carebears applies here as well.
Adapt, die or get out.


Then you better learn to like replacing drones because not using those immobile sentries are a huge part of why you are losing so many drones.


Yet another indicator of YOUR problems with drones, you confuse maximum limits with practical operational limits. See the ship, your fit and your character skills all combine together to set the absolute maximum limit you can use drones at. The practical operational range will vary dependent on the specifics of each engagement but it will ALWAYS be less than that maximum range unless you use sentry drones. As an example if you have drones out at 15k, you are attentive to their damage indicators and recall as soon as they are taking damge, yet they are destroyed before they can return to the bay then you have exceeded their practical operational range under those circumstances. And yet in another engagement with less argo or less overall damage you may be able to extend that practical operational range to 50k or more. In short because you can use drone at a specific range does not mean you should use them at that range.

To be short and blunt.
You and the others like you are the primary factor in your drones loses. Your lack of understanding the intricate details of a weapons system, how and why it works the way it does and how you should employ them combined with your unwillingness or inability to adapt to changing conditions have result in unacceptably high losses. Considering that there are those out here in EvE land that are willing to change and have changed and we have very few drones losses means this agro thing is a personal problem not a problem with the game.

D, you are funny, and making a lot of assumptions.


Firstly, I actually enjoyed EVE as a game. I never 'played' it AFK. I never allowed my drones to roam free, and in fact have never used the aggressive setting except to test how useless it is.

I prefer combat drones to sentries because they move. Period. I don't like to enter a pocket and just park, I like to move around, even if only to the next gate. Understand I HATE sentries because they make me have to sit still. I have used them, but I seriously don't like them.

All that drek you talk about being able to select a drone regardless of range and size of target means....wait for it.... application at range. That was their advantage. The *useful* range has been completely stripped away, and most of the damage too as they now spend almost all their time popping in and out of the drone bay. Yes it's still possible to use them, but there is absolutely no reason to do so over simply using a Marauder. I didn't even bother training Marauders until after the AI change, and it was because of this issue.

No, Sensor Boosters don't get anymore agro than other ewar or boosts. I have tested this extensively. There is always a point where the AI decides drones must die, and at that point they eat them. I'm simply not going to play glued to one spot as only sentries can survive long enough to do anything, or rabidly watch the range on the combat drones since there is no way to tether them close.

60K isn't a maximum. That's just what you get from skills alone. You can use the module and rig to go far further. Forgive me if I would like to actually use the skills I trained.

I know you like to assume you are all godlike and a supa expert, but just because you 'solved' the issue by turning your drones into a shorter range weapon system than blasters does not mean the situation is good.