# Drone ship pve in highsec l4 not viable anymore.. fix suggestion included **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussion\ **Created:** [August 6, 2020, 6:50am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932 "2020-08-06T06:50:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Brun\_Warbear](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/brun_warbear/32/380353_2.png) [@Brun\_Warbear](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Brun_Warbear)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 9:55am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/242 "2020-08-13T09:55:30Z")
The missile DPS is type-locked too. Not only do the drones have an excellent bonus but given that you can choose your damage type in almost all circumstances they will do more DPS than missiles on a Rattlesnake. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvia\_Kildare](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/sylvia_kildare/32/416948_2.png) [@Sylvia\_Kildare](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Sylvia_Kildare)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 5:08am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/243 "2020-08-14T05:08:37Z")
> [@PI01\_Wanga](#): > > already argued that guristas ship line is not “Drone” ship due their missile deal more damage then drone. beside 125m3 drone boat with 2 gecko, 2 medium and 1 light combination dish out more dps then rattlesnake with gecko. > clearly you didn’t read the entire post as well (can’t blame you due to the many flame and troll post) but i tested it with bling ship full with durability rig and implants to increase drone HP. Ooops, sorry. You’re probably right. I did SKIM the whole way from top to bottom, but yeah I didn’t read every single word. 😉 Anyway, fair enough. But some people don’t fly their snakes especially with any missiles at all, filling the highslots with nothing but DLAs for drone range, neuts for PVP or reps/cap transfers for spider tanking or just the cap transfers for tinker mode with local reps, etc. etc. Missiles AND drones is very nice, tho. I still consider them mostly droneboats because I think a max skill pilot gets more DPS from the drones in a snake than from the missiles (3 BCS, 3 DDA), IIRC. But I could be wrong, for the longest time I had t2 sentries, t2 heavies… but still L4 cruise missiles and torps, no t2 yet, and my opinions on the snake might have been too formed in cement back in those days. > [@Brun\_Warbear](#): > > The missile DPS is type-locked too. Not only do the drones have an excellent bonus but given that you can choose your damage type in almost all circumstances they will do more DPS than missiles on a Rattlesnake. Oh, but hey… good, glad I’m not the only one who thinks that. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sylvia\_Kildare](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/sylvia_kildare/32/416948_2.png) [@Sylvia\_Kildare](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Sylvia_Kildare)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 5:13am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/244 "2020-08-14T05:13:10Z")
> [@Daichi\_Yamato](#): > > Btw, if the EOS is tanking just fine, why are you warping away for repair? > [@PI01\_Wanga](#): > > all my drone are damaged too much. lost 1 augmented hobgoblin. Yeah, I was gonna guess… he’s warping away to rep his drones, not to rep his Eos. > [@MB\_ThePhotographer](#): > > I said this before. I don’t know if it still works because it’s not worth doing when there are better ships for the few missions that have bad agro for drones. > > When the 1st drone takes agro, pull it back the the drone bay breaking lock. The npc’s now agro more drones, but usually split their agro. Launch the 1st drone, set to orbit and repair while calling in the next aggroed drones. At this point, it’s usually just best to recall all of them now breaking lock on the drones and taking agro on my ship. Launch drones, set them to orbit and repair them. Then/rinse/repeat. > > It’s not worth doing, but it can be done. Yeah… it’s a lot of micromanagement. Esp if you’re just single boxing… Unless you’re on room 4 or 5 of an extravaganza L4, it’s probably easier to warp off and rep (at a citadel for free, hopefully) and then return to the mish than micromanage all that. That said, on my drone boats with enough bay space (Domis, Nestors?.. not so much Rattlesnakes and Ishtars), I do often keep some rep bots for repping the drones… usually after a pocket is cleared or while waiting on a MTU to pull something or whatever. Lately I’m not flying drone boats at all… after experimenting with triple Leshaks last year… mostly this spring/summer I triplebox Claymores or dualbox Machariels with 1 Noctis behind. The Claymores all have armor rep bots along with their hobs or acolytes or whatever and salvage drones (75 m3, yay)… but I really should change 1 of 'em to hull bots. The Machs I fiddled with more recently, and I put armor bots in one and hull bots in the other, and that way I can take care of any drone damage on field if I want to. Usually just wait till I’m done mishing and only salvaging with the 3rd toon and my two Machs go find a public citadel to park at for a bit and idle. But yeah, Claymores and Machs are not droneboats, ofc, but just mentioning my methods most recently. Can do all of that with drone boats (more easily in most cases, a domi could hold both hull and armor bots at once if it wanted… less room for lights/heavies/sentries then, tho. mobile depots DO exist, tho!). Twin Nestors many years ago (after Domi → Rattlesnake → Ishtar → 2 Ishtars progression) was fun because of not needing the mobile depots, btw. ---
**Author:** ![Immaminestuff](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/immaminestuff/32/216221_2.png) [@Immaminestuff](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Immaminestuff)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 12:22am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/245 "2020-08-15T00:22:47Z")
> [@PI01\_Wanga](#): > > sentry domi? and rattlesnake is not a drone boat. it’s more of a missile boat. Rattlesnake… not… drone… you uhh… what…? You could argue that it’s 50/50 I suppose, but by that logic a Domi-navy issue isn’t a drone boat either… Anyhow, compared to trigs and wormhole rats level 4 mission rats are quite tame when it comes to drones, just about the only drones I ever manage to lose are light drones, and even then it’s usually because I’m not paying attention, besides, drones are pretty cheap anyways, unless you go around losing Geckos repeatedly (how?) replacing drones will cost you a fraction of the price that other ships burn in ammo. Really when you think of it drones are kinda busted from an isk efficiency standpoint, I’ve lost ONE T2 light drone in the last 40-50 hours of mission running, ONE Set of scorch crystals for my Megapulse Nightmare costs way more than that. ---
**Author:** ![MB\_ThePhotographer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mb_thephotographer/32/373722_2.png) [@MB\_ThePhotographer](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/MB_ThePhotographer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 1:31am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/246 "2020-08-15T01:31:25Z")
WHY would you say that in public? 🙄 Now CCP is going to nerf drones… 😬 ---
**Author:** ![Xeux](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/xeux/32/428022_2.png) [@Xeux](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Xeux)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 1:32am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/247 "2020-08-15T01:32:54Z")
CCP doesn’t come here. ---
**Author:** ![MB\_ThePhotographer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mb_thephotographer/32/373722_2.png) [@MB\_ThePhotographer](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/MB_ThePhotographer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 1:45am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/248 "2020-08-15T01:45:52Z")
But their spys do. You can find Himlar posting in the forums “if” you know where to look. ---
**Author:** ![Xeux](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/xeux/32/428022_2.png) [@Xeux](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Xeux)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 1:48am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/249 "2020-08-15T01:48:01Z")
I think @Alistair_Atreides is Hilmar’s nom de plume. ---
**Author:** ![MB\_ThePhotographer](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mb_thephotographer/32/373722_2.png) [@MB\_ThePhotographer](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/MB_ThePhotographer)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 1:55am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/250 "2020-08-15T01:55:21Z")
One does have to wonder? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Alistair\_Atreides](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/alistair_atreides/32/267403_2.png) [@Alistair\_Atreides](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Alistair_Atreides)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 2:03am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/251 "2020-08-15T02:03:32Z")
> [@Xeux](#): > > I think Alistair is Hilmar’s nom de plume. He doesnt have a face so good. Next time quote me so I get a ding-y ---
**Author:** ![Drake\_Sertan](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/drake_sertan/32/285663_2.png) [@Drake\_Sertan](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Drake_Sertan)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2020, 5:25am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/252 "2020-08-15T05:25:50Z")
I really needed this thread today 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![Toey\_Maulerant](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/toey_maulerant/32/199812_2.png) [@Toey\_Maulerant](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Toey_Maulerant)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/253 "2020-08-17T17:36:09Z")
Light drones target Frigates, don’t use anything except sentry or light until frigate and destroyers are killed. Medium Drones on Cruisers and above. Don’t launch medium drones until frigates killed. Heavy drones only on battleships, use them only when there are only battleships left. Sentry drones, snipe at 100km. Target in order Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Battleship. Pull them in and out as needed (won’t need often) Use T1 drones, cost is so much less than t2 just like use T1 ammo over t2 in a PVE level 4. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvia\_Kildare](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/sylvia_kildare/32/416948_2.png) [@Sylvia\_Kildare](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Sylvia_Kildare)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 9:30am UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/254 "2020-08-18T09:30:28Z")
> [@Immaminestuff](#): > > Anyhow, compared to trigs and wormhole rats level 4 mission rats are quite tame when it comes to drones, just about the only drones I ever manage to lose are light drones, and even then it’s usually because I’m not paying attention, besides, drones are pretty cheap anyways, unless you go around losing Geckos repeatedly (how?) replacing drones will cost you a fraction of the price that other ships burn in ammo. The issue with that is that light drones are not supposed to take NPC aggro so easily. Lights are supposedly to only take aggro from frigs/DDs, if you clear those, you should be in the clear, yet… the times all the Sansha cruisers, BCs, and BSes in a mission room start ripping apart my lights… I’ve lost count. Similarly, Mediums from C/BC and down, and only heavies/sentries from BS rats. But as I just said, the NPC rats don’t care about those old rules, they’ll shoot any and all drones now, size be damned. ---
**Author:** ![Mkikaden\_Tiragen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mkikaden_tiragen/32/243913_2.png) [@Mkikaden\_Tiragen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mkikaden_Tiragen)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 2:03pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/255 "2020-08-18T14:03:17Z")
They care about what is dealing damage in the room - and some NPCs just plain HATE drones as part of their backstory, too. If the majority of a fit’s damage comes from drones, the drones are going to be at risk of drawing aggro. Drone fits should take this into account and include modules that can help pull aggro back to the ship or otherwise protect the drones. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvia\_Kildare](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/sylvia_kildare/32/416948_2.png) [@Sylvia\_Kildare](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Sylvia_Kildare)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/256 "2020-08-18T16:45:41Z")
I can literally be doing 3000+ DPS from the superlasers of 3 Leshaks on grid (doing remote cap transfer AND armor RR to each other, which should draw even more aggro than the DPS alone) in a Sansha Blockade and my Acolyte IIs with no DDAs on the ships will take damage, so… it’s not entirely from that. ---
**Author:** ![Mkikaden\_Tiragen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mkikaden_tiragen/32/243913_2.png) [@Mkikaden\_Tiragen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mkikaden_Tiragen)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/257 "2020-08-18T17:18:07Z")
I never said it is entirely from that. I have, in fact, repeatedly said there are a lot of mechanics in play. This includes AI tweaks to be more attentive to drones as targets, but there are also specific ships that will go out of their way to target drones, and specific missions that prioritize drone aggro for certain groups/pockets. ---
**Author:** ![Sylvia\_Kildare](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/sylvia_kildare/32/416948_2.png) [@Sylvia\_Kildare](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Sylvia_Kildare)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 5:20pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/258 "2020-08-18T17:20:54Z")
For sure. But the aggro mechanics have broken and been “fixed” so many times over the years… I don’t know if you remember, but there was a time when nullsec VNI ratters reported they had to get out of their ship and back into it to fix massively over-the-top 100% drone aggro, for instance… I have no faith that current drone aggro mechanics are functioning as intended. And if they do anything to stop bots and people trying to 100% AFK PVE content with drones, they are also frustrating to legions of at the keyboard players. But so it goes. Alls I knows is… I’ve been in sleeper sites and incursion sites with less drone aggro than many L4 missions these days. Something about that seems… not right. ---
**Author:** ![Mkikaden\_Tiragen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/mkikaden_tiragen/32/243913_2.png) [@Mkikaden\_Tiragen](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Mkikaden_Tiragen)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 5:31pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/259 "2020-08-18T17:31:26Z")
The 100% drone aggro bug is a whole separate issue from intended AI behaviors; CCP has acknowledged it is a bug, but haven’t figured out how to fix it, and it is still a thing to this day. When it comes to intended drone aggro behaviors, you have a few mechanics to consider: 1. Target size: the AI almost always prefers targets of its own size class before larger targets default - thus, frigates and destroyers will usually target light drones in preference to their deploying ship unless that ship is also a ‘small’ ship class. 2. Target threat assessment : the AI has some weird threat perceptions - EWAR tends to rank higher than pure DPS, for some reason. 3. Faction target preference: Sleepers/Drifters HATE drones and will target them to the near-exclusion of everything else. And that is just a portion of the AI - there’s more considerations in play, including specific mission AI behaviors. Some missions just plain are intended to not be readily done by brawling droneboats. ---
**Author:** ![Tauroqa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/tauroqa/32/242613_2.png) [@Tauroqa](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Tauroqa)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 5:59pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/260 "2020-08-18T17:59:50Z")
I’ve experienced that near 100% drone agro bug, it’s as if my ship didn’t even exist and they simply kept going for the drones…Fixed it by docking, and logging in/out…even so, drones are a ■■■■■■■ hassle to use now. ---
**Author:** ![Xeux](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/eveonline/user_avatar/forums.eveonline.com/xeux/32/428022_2.png) [@Xeux](https://forums.eveonline.com/u/Xeux)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 8:15pm UTC](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932/261 "2020-08-18T20:15:57Z")
Wouldn’t the 100% drone aggro be desirable? Fit a couple of remote reppers and lock them on your single light drone, set it to orbit your ship, and you don’t have to worry about any incoming damage. [Previous page](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932.md?page=12) [Next page](https://forums.eveonline.com/t/drone-ship-pve-in-highsec-l4-not-viable-anymore-fix-suggestion-included/258932.md?page=14)