Drones (PvP) - noel-wolfisheim/notes GitHub Wiki

PVP and Drones

I'll probably add to this as I find more instances where certain drones are good for certain PVP tactics.

Varying your Damage Types

This is mostly important for ships whose guns only do certain types of damage i.e. Gallente and Amarr. Since your guns will only be doing Kin/Therm or EM/Therm, its a good idea to take drones of a different damage type to give you a bit of unpredictability, and as a counter to people who know you're coming and set up their tanks according to your gun damage.

Interceptors Raids

Warriors are the fastest drone at 4200m/s and can catch these guys and do some damage. If you can get the target in your drone range and tell them to engage, they will chase the inty down well outside of your normal drone range.

Something that happens quite often when using Warrior II's (or Warrior I's with a high drone navigation skill) is that against slower targets the drones will fall behind. Warrior II's base speed is 5040m/s. A taranis travels at (for the sake of example) 4400m/s. Your drones catch him quickly and begin to orbit dropping out of MWD state. They only impulse at something like 900m/s. When engaging an inty you must tell your drones to ENGAGE TARGET all the time so they keep MWDing after them.

A clever inty pilot might deliberately draw your drones off and then warp away, though, leaving your drones "dead" outside of control range, so be wary of that. As of Rev3 and possibly before, drones will obey the return command if they're outside of control range.

Gate Camps

The heavier and more damage the drone does the better for the most part. Hobgoblins for light, Hammerheads for medium and Ogres for heavy. This can vary depending on if you know what might get caught. If it's frigates/destroyers/interceptors, Warriors/Valkyries would be better. Sentry drones work well here, especially if you assign them to assist something fast.

During a gate camp you'll be waiting for targets to come in and be trapped by a bubble or tackled. Have your drones out and ready to go and give everyone in your camp a better chance at getting them.

Because of the bandwidth nerf on drones, it is not possible to deploy more drones than your bay can hold. Therefore, launching your own drones and picking up those from someone else is no longer a viable tactic.

Raiding a gate camp/group of hostiles

If I know I'm going to do a hit and possibly run on a group of hostiles, I'll try to bring drones I consider more disposable. After warping in and engaging the target with guns/tackling/jamming or whatever gear, make launching the drones the last thing you do. Once you engage the drones on the target, forget about them. Focus on destroying primary targets as they are called and your drones will fuck shit up as needed.

If you are taking damage or targeted and need to warp out, leave the drones behind. Your ship is much more valuable as is another clone and it takes too long for them to return. Recalling drones should never be considered when you need to warp out. If you need to get the fuck out, do so.

Submitted to the forums by ZoSoZodiac