Hello.
Here’s my problem.
I have a Dominix with sentry drones.
To be clear, my Dominix has a 105km targeting range, it controls the drones up to 60km. It’s static, and the drones are right next to it, less than 3000m away. The targets are 75km away, acquired and selected. With the ship’s bonuses and my skills, the drones have an optimal range of 103km. However, I get a message saying they can’t fire beyond 60km.
Why?! 
For sentry drones, their maximum firing distance would actually be equal to the ship’s control distance, not the one indicated in their profile?
Thanks for your help.
Never used sentries specifically but I assume this applies to them as well:
Control range
You can only command a drone to attack/repair/mine a target if that target is within a certain range of your ship; this range is known as the “drone control range”.
Source: Drones - EVE University Wiki
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Uriel’s link is the reason. Drone Control Range means the range up to which you can engage a drone on a target.
You need to increase this range with Drone Link Augmentors.
It’s not a problem of control distance, but of firing distance.
I control the drones; they are within the control range.
But no matter at what distance I control my drones, whether it’s 1 km or 59 km, although their optimal firing distance indicated in their profile is greater (103 km) than the control distance (60 km), it is limited by the latter.
This means that even if a drone sentry were 59 km from the ship (still within the control range), the furthest it would fire would be a target 59 + 60 = 119 km from the ship, when it should be 59 + 103 = 162 km.
Do you see the problem?
So you dont need to post this in 2 areas.
Are you using the correct sentries for long range vs short range?
Which drones are you trying to use?
Read this sentence again! You can only command a drone to attack/repair/mine a target if that target is within a certain range of your ship; this range is known as the “drone control range”.
while regular drones can and will fly past that point, a fixed drone, like a sentry will not.
In order for your drones to attack something beyond your control range, you need those NPCs to attack you while your drones are deployed and not already shooting something. Usually I will attack something closer with the sentries, that they (or I) can easily dispatch (like approaching frigates before they orbit) and then they will aggro to larger targets that can be further away. Ofc you don’t have as much control, but it is a way to be able to fire at things longer than your control range.
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Doesn’t matter that the drones are inside your control range - the enemy is OUTSIDE your control range.
You need to extend your drone control range to be able to tell your drones to attack targets further out.
However - if you tell your drones to target something within your control range and it then leaves your control range, your drones will keep firing at it even though it’s outside your control range (because then you aren’t controlling your drones, they are following an earlier controlled command).
You ship locking range has nothing to do with this. You can have a drone control range further than your ship’s locking range (if you fit a lot of Drone Link Augmentors).
So time to fit 2 T2 Drone Link Augmentors and you’ll have 108km control range and can order your drones to attack at these ranges.