I hate drones. Does that mean I can't do missions in long term?

This is advice I wouldn’t give to my worst enemy.

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:joy: :joy: :joy:

Amarr ships have a couple of significant advantages. People love to hate them.

Amarr ships use an armor tank that is handy because it gives you a bigger buffer than the ubiquitous shield tanks. If you clear the field fast enough then you don’t need to worry about your sustained tank.

Lasers are great because they give decent low-alpha dps, meaning that there are fewer wasted volleys with stacked turrets.

The best thing about lasers, in my decidedly amateur opinion, is that they force you to participate - you need to switch crystals frequently based on range and you need to manage your ship’s capacitor.

All of these things, taken together, mean that Amarr ships can be great PVE ships . . . But the min/max players don’t like them because they are after efficiency, not fun. PVE is boring enough. Why make it even more boring by using drones and missiles?

Everything you said is true in proper context. The problem is that the context was not provided to newbie… this is how ignorance spreads.

Lasers are almost categorically bad in low level PVE in relation to the alternatives (making the distinction between “good” and “sufficient” here) with almost zero exceptions, and in the cases where they are okay they are at best average. Lasers shine in higher end content to be sure, but since we’re talking about L1-L4 missions here, they’re out of the question.

Well somebody’s jealous. :slight_smile:

You had problems doing lvl 4 missions with lasers?

I don’t know what you mean by that :thinking:

I can fly lazerrrrrr beeeeeemz just fine (including how to minimize traversal to maximize hits). I just kind-of-sort-of like having high throughput so I wouldn’t consider using them in low level PVE, not even against Amarr/Drones/Khanid/Sansha/Blood, when there exist missile fits with far superior throughput at comparable costs/skill reqs that can be used for any other factions also :man_shrugging:

Well, one thing I consider to be great about them in Low Level PvE is that you basically have infinite ammo, with a newbro T1 fit.

Not having to deal with ammo supply is something I still love four months in, and during my first month of playing EvE was literally a godsend.

Buy a drake train missiles, osprey navy also works - caracal navy is crap unless you want to be up close, then go with raven, navy raven and then golem.

Though rattlesnake is imo the best solo pve ship out there on most days.

I do all L4’s in a Tengu. There are a few missions where I had aggroed the entire room with drones in a Loki and received 1200 DPS :joy:. Now my Tengu is slow but it’s precise, and quite easy to control the Room, I don’t see the need for drones personally, unless you want to fly a Rattlesnake and fall asleep during missions. :grin:

Compared to other types of ammo, I love drones for this reason! Yes, you will sometimes lose drones (if you warp off and forget them, or if you don’t pay attention to their health), but drones are a type of ammo that can be reused and reused indefinitely if you pay attention. Don’t be afraid to sometimes lose them though, that’s why your drone bay has room for spares. :wink:

Not sure about missions, I rarely do those, but I guess you can use ships with other damage systems as well. Only downside is that you’ll have to pay for ammo then.

@Anderson_Geten
may i add, that target painters have an activation time of 5sec? while 5sec seems low enough to be used on every npc… in reality it is not.
the micromanagement involved in counting your missile volleys (because of the flight time) and managing your target painter is (imo !) annoying.

especially for smaller targets (and lower skillpoints - like the OP) - this leads to unnecessary time spend re-activating the missile launcher on one target, because the painter was a) not yet on your target or b) the painter is not on your current target anymore, because you dont want a* to happen.
the (scripted) missile guidance computer (MGC) is (again: in MY opinion, not necessarily yours) a lot more convenient, because it doesnt require a target and has a 100% uptime

i am sure with enough practice you can negate most of the drawbacks of a painter and sometimes get a 1-shot, where an MGC would need two volleys.
on the other hand: even with practice, at some point you will lose a volley due to the activation duration of a target painter. so i guess the two modules are even in terms of efficiency, the MGC is better suitable for convenient reasons - less micromanagement.

@Feonar_Cadelanne …which brings me back to the OPs original request:
drones arent that bad. like in any other game, there are things to know about the stuff you use.
e.g. apart from the raw stats of a drone there is NPC “behaviour” - by that i mean NPC prioritize their targets. “generally spoken”:
frigates will lock up and shoot light drones pretty quickly, they will not lock up and shoot medium drones that quickly (with exceptions) and they rarely target heavy drones (again with exceptions). the bigger the drone, the worse is the hit chance on frigates - this is the drawback. so you have to choose wisely. BUT at some point you won’t even think about it anymore, it come naturally.
then you have the stats again:
i see many new players use gallente drones (hobgoblin, hammerhead, ogre) only BECAUSE they do the most damage - in theory!
they are however fragile, and slow drones and do thermal damage.
in many cases (depending on the enemies resist-hole) a caldari drone would do better, because it hits more often (debatable), is faster (therefore does damage, when a gallente drone would still be on its way to the target) and the player has more time to react, because of the bigger shields (which refills, unlike armor and hull - hint: be aware of the damage profile of NPCs, shields have zero resist to EM ).

to cut things here, practice makes perfect
you will face mechanics everywhere in eve, no matter what weapon you use.
dont be afraid to try out new modules, ask questions again and give yourself some time to experience and learn :slight_smile:
missiles could work out well for you, because there are ways to use them very convenient (maybe(!) with a loss of some dps).

cheers

WTF do you even mean ? Between the moment the missile goes out and the moment it hits, there is often more than 5s. The only cases where this matters, is when the rats are like 30km from you and die in a volley. But then why are you focusing on them when you drones can chew them ?

If you can’t manage THAT level of micro management… well sure you should go for a full passive rattlesnake. MAYBE this way you may enjoy it.

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the same could be said about the use (“micromanagement”) of drones. that comment isnt helpful.

plus, the OP asked for an alternative, namely “no drones - is it possible?” and a more relaxed way to do missions. looking away for 5 or more seconds without losing something and feeling to have “failed the game”
and here it does matter.
all i was doing (trying) is to put the GIVEN topics into context.
in a perfect world, or rather the bubble of L4 missions at 100km sniping, and the will to do do it efficiently, you might be absolutely right. BUT the way i received the OPs message, this is not the case.

bold = edit

my phoon can hit at 103km ! ( < it’s a joke don’t be serious about it)

Anyhow, small drones are the best way to deal with small rat when they come close. So you can not fit them but then it’s a waste of time.

unfortunately true in very many cases. i’ve never had an issue with it… but i can understand if somebody does.

Whenever I have tried using small drones, the rats just switch aggro to my drones and pop them (or try to, anyway).

Drake is one of the worst possible ships you can use to blitz L3s. Reliable and easy to use? Absolutely, but slow a ■■■■. Caracal Navy is one of the fastest possible ships possible to blitz L1-L3 missions (we do NOT use it for L4s) - faster than a Gila (in L1-L3s specifically) - if fitted properly and flown. I co-run an organization that pays mission runners to service our clients and specializes in blitzing, I know what I’m talking about. We’ve done extensive damage modeling in Pyfa and field testing, so we know our fit is superior both in theory and practice.

T3Cs, even blingy 3b+ fits, are subpar for L4 blitzing, though certainly doable without question. This was also determined per damage modeling and field testing. We’ve found far cheaper fits that outperformed it easily.

Dude, you suck at modeling damage.

Someone tries to do something and suddenly he becomes an expert ! That’s a Hommer Cunning effect !

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I am having a bit of trouble finding a definition of this. :thinking:

ahmm…well…maybe everyone isn’t into blitzing as much as you are, friend.

I found your corp’s advice on not using MWD-cloak trick in low and null and bubbles…“interesting”.