For anyone that’s dug into entity files you’ve likely noticed a stat on almost all NPCs called “Drone Tanking Modifier” and that for most, but critically not all, of the times it’s listed it is set to .7 . What this stat is actually doing is making drone boats do 30% less damage to all common rats. This was added during one of the rat AI passes to prevent what were at the time passive domis from running 4s AFK or atleast making them much slower.
As best I can tell this was depreciated at some point either intentionally or accidentally. I noticed this after noticing a tool I built to predict ratting fit effectiveness was vastly underestimating drone boats.
This removal has likely contributed to the surge in VNI orbit ratting - bots or otherwise - that has overtaken null ratting and missions. My proposal is to re-add it or modify values if it is just somehow all my tests showing false negatives.