Drone mechanics

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This is a guide to the use of drones. The drones page explains the types of drone available, lists essential drone support skills and attempts to give you a quick-start guide to deploying and using drones. This page, on the other hand, tries to cover some of the subtelties of drone control, and to supply some ideas for drone selection and tactics.

Most of the information here will be useful for anyone who uses drones. The sections on PvP and PvE combat each have a subsection devoted to the use of dedicated droneboats (ships with large dronebays and hull bonuses to drone damage, hitpoints and/or dronebay space).

Advanced Drone Control

You can find the basic things you need to know to fit, launch and operate drones, and open the Drone Settings window, on the Drones page. This section discusses drones' range, automatic target selection, binding drone commands to keys, and the Assist, Guard, Scoop and Abandon functions.

Range

Your drones can attack anything within your drone control range, which is determined based on a base of 20km, modified by your training in Drone Avionics and Advanced Drone Avionics, and any Drone Link Augmentors you have fitted. Once you've ordered them to attack a target, your drones will pursue that target anywhere within your drone control range, whether or not you continue to have that target locked.

When their target leaves your drone control range your drones will start to travel back towards you. However, they will not use their MWDs, so they will do this very slowly -- to get them moving properly again you should manually order them to return and orbit or return and scoop, or give them a new target.

Note that sentry drones still need their target to be within your drone control range before they can open fire, even though they don't need to move and sometimes outrange your base drone control range with their own optimal range.

Aggressive Drones

When set to aggressive, if they don't receive any orders from you, your drones will pick a target at random from among the entities (ships and other drones) hostile to you within your drone control range. If they are set to Focus Fire they will (hopefully) all pick the same target. Note that the target must be hostile to you. (Incidentally, drones use the same target selection system as friend or foe missiles.)

If you're jammed by ECM, or badly sensor-damped, releasing your drones with aggressive settings will at least get them to attack something. If you're dissatisfied with their target selection, you can 'roll again' with another random selection by recalling them to your bay and re-releasing them, though this will take a little time.

Hotkeys

Most drone commands can be assigned to hotkeys. This can save you a lot of needless clicking in PvE, and a lot of wasted time in PvP. 'Engage' and 'Return and dock' are probably the most useful commands to bind.

Sadly the launch command can't be bound to a key.

Assistance and Guarding

The 'Assist' order will make your drones follow the gang member you've ordered them to assist, and attack whatever that gang member attacks. This can be useful in a number of circumstances: for example, if you're camping a gate with a bubble in nullsec and an enemy ship comes through and cloaks, if your drones are assigned to assist a friendly interceptor which then burns to the enemy's last observed position, the enemy can be uncloaked not only by the inty, but also by the drones orbiting it.

Bear in mind that, as the owner of the drones, you are still responsible for their actions when they're set to assist. If you're in highsec and set them to assist a friend who then attacks a neutral target, your drones will engage that target and CONCORD, holding you responsible, will destroy you along with your friend. ('Friend'.)

The 'Guard' order is similar. Instead of attacking whatever your friend is attacking, however, drones set to 'guard' a ship will attack anything that attacks that ship.

People with drones assigned to assist or guard them have no direct control over those drones.

Abandon

The Abandon command does what it says on the tin: abandoned drones just sit there in space, and you no longer have any control over them. You can then launch another flight without recalling the abandoned ones.

If you enter a POS forcefield with drones out, they will automatically be abandoned. If you warp out without collecting your drones, or if you're blown up, they will also be abandoned. You can return to them and scoop them up (see below) but any passers-by will also be welcome to do this.

Scooping

If you have spare space in your dronebay, you can scoop abandoned drones straight into the bay, and then use them. This is occasionally useful in protracted PvP combat (you may see this tactic used, for example, in the unusual PvP format of the Alliance Tournament).

If you don't have dronebay space, you can scoop abandoned drones into your cargo hold. You won't be able to use them immediately, but you can dock up and then move them to your dronebay, or sell them or reprocess them.

Drones in PvE Combat

Drones are a vital part of any PvE pilot's arsenal. The first part of this section describes the use of drones in general PvE, the second part discusses which drones you should bring to shoot each type of NPC, and the third part focuses on drone strategies for drone-specialist pilots flying dedicated droneboats.

General Use

Even if you never fly a dedicated droneboat, if you run missions or tackle exploration sites you will want to use drones. Why? As you begin to fly medium and large ships, frigate-sized NPC enemies become increasingly hard to kill. It may sometimes be impossible to kill them using medium-sized weapons (let alone large ones!) once they settle into a close orbit around you.

To compound the problem, in tougher exploration sites and L3 and L4 missions frigates can be the most dangerous enemies, because they can warp-scramble you; certainly, bigger ships will deal more damage to you, but you can always run away from them, while scrambling frigates can hold you down and let their allies kill you.

For this reason, it's a good idea to be able to field at least a full flight of five light drones when you begin to attempt L3 missions. Even if you're flying a battlecruiser with a 50m³ dronebay for L3s, it may be wise to bring five light drones rather than five mediums, to deal with the frigate problem.

Standard L4-running battleship fits include a flight of light drones. Most battleships also have the dronebay space to bring at least a flight of medium drones as well, which will help you deal with NPC cruisers and battlecruisers. At this point it's good to have T2 light and medium drones, as they are considerably superior to T1 drones.

If you're flying a battleship with a reasonable dronebay and decent support skills such that your primary weapons can kill cruisers reasonably fast (a Navy Raven -- which has a 100m³ dronebay -- fitted with rigor rigs, for example), you may also want to consider bringing a flight of light drones and three sentry/heavy drones. The sentries or heavies can do some DPS to cruiser targets (sentries work quite well on them when their angular velocity is low) and can augment your DPS against battlecruisers and battleships. This will entail extra skill training, unless you've trained sentries or heavies for some other purpose.

In normal PvE combat with non-droneboats, the standard procedure for drone use is to get the attention of the NPCs by beginning to attack them with your primary weapons before launching drones, to make sure that your drones don't get attacked. In some missions non-aggroed groups of NPCs may attack your drones if you launch them, or if your drones attack NPCs that you have already aggroed -- mission guides such as the ones available at Eve-Survival can warn you about this beforehand.

But, with so many different racial variations in each drone size, which race's drones should you be using?

Racial Drones and NPC Resistances

Each NPC faction does and is weak to certain damage types. As the article on drones explained, each race's drones do a particular damage type:

• Amarr drones do EM damage
• Caldari drones do kinetic damage
• Gallente drones do thermal damage
• Minmatar drones do explosive damage

To complicate matters, different races' drones also have different damage modifiers -- Gallente drones have the highest damage modifiers, and Amarr drones have the lowest. This means that there are some cases where the higher raw damage from Gallente drones will beat the fact that another race's drones hit your enemy's weakest resists. (You will see from the table below that thermal damage, the type Gallente drones deal, is almost never NPCs' strongest resist.)

File:Drones.jpg

Different light drone damage outputs on different faction targets -- Serpentis have the same resists as Guristas

The chart to the right provides a calculated example of the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of light scout drones (taken from this post).

Since Gallente drones are rarely the worst choice, you can get away with using them against everything if you're lazy. When you reach higher-level missions with more pronounced NPC resists, or if you're relying on drones as your primary source of damage, you may want to start using drones to hit your enemy's weakest resists.

The table below indicates which racial drone damage type should be most effective against which faction:

Faction Name	Weaknesses	Best Drone Race
Angel Cartel	Ex/Ki/Th	Minmatar
Blood Raider	EM/Th/Ki	Amarr/Gallente
Guristas	Ki/Th/Ex	Caldari/Gallente
Sansha's Nation	EM/Th/Ex	Amarr/Gallente
Serpentis	Ki/Th/EM	Caldari/Gallente
Rogue Drones	EM/Th/Ki	Amarr/Gallente
Mercenary	Th/Ki/Ex	Gallente
Mordu's Legion	Ki/Th/Ex	Caldari/Gallente
EoM	Ki/Ex/Th	Caldari

Drones as a Primary Weapon

Dedicated droneboats work well in PvE, with good support skills. Using drones lets you control the type of damage you're doing, and can free up space on your ship for salvaging (and, if you're doing exploration sites, hacking and archaeology).

If you do fit weapons in the highslots, on some droneboat hulls with no on-board weapon bonuses (such as the Myrmidon and Arbitrator) fitting non-racial turrets can be a viable option. Projectile turrets are a popular choice since they use no capacitor energy to fire and let you control which type of damage you deal. If you decide to do this then you will need extra skill training for the non-racial turrets; this can work quite well for Amarr Arbitrator pilots, as projectile turrets are viable alternative weapons for the Punisher, Vengeance, Malediction, Maller and Prophecy too . . .

Sentries and Heavies

When you start attempting L4 missions you will probably initially have to choose between using sentry drones and heavy attack drones for your main anti-battleship DPS (their skill prerequisites are somewhat different, and training either kind to T2 takes some time). If/when you have trained for both kinds of drone you will be able to pack both and use whichever suits your situation.

I recommend sentries, but the advantages of each kind are listed below.

Heavy attack drones:

• can move around -- unlike sentries, you can deploy heavies and then begin moving to the next acceleration gate
• sometimes offer slightly more on-paper DPS (this partly depends on your support skills) than their racially equivalent sentry drone

Sentry drones:

• don't have any travel time delay:
  • they can open fire as soon as they're launched, and can switch targets instantly
  • you can also instantly recall them if you need to run away or to swap to a flight of light drones to kill a scrambling frigate
• can more reliably get low angular velocity on smaller NPCs -- as the smaller NPCs burn straight towards you after aggroing sentries can kill many of them in a few shots
• can have their DPS directly enhanced with rigs: the Sentry Damage Augmentor rig

Navigation computers can help to mitigate the problem of travel time with heavy drones, and omnidirectional tracking links will help both kinds of drone to track smaller targets, and will help sentries to get a longer range.

PvE Tactics

The general aim in PvE is to use drones as the main damage dealers while keeping them from harm. This can be achieved by either by drawing the enemy’s aggro away from the drones, for instance using on-board weapons to draw aggro to the drone carrier. Furthermore, recalling drones to the drone bay breaks the enemy’s target lock, forcing them to aggro something else (usually the drone carrier). Using sentry drones for sniping often keeps enemy ships outside their effective range.

Drone brawling

Drone brawling is a broad category encompassing the use of light, medium and heavy drones. Usually, the drone carrier will be at close range to enemy ships.

Fitting advice

Primarily, the drone carrier should have a regenerating tank appropriate for the mission. That means full T2_Tank for level 3 and 4 missions. While not strictly necessary, a Damage Control II may prove a lifesaver. Drone Damage Amplifiers are essential to increase drone DPS. Omnidirectional Tracking Links may be helpful though they are primarily used to help sentry drones. A propulsion module (Afterburner or MWD) is used to get into range faster, though ships with a very good tank could also slowboat towards the enemy. Cruiser sized ships (especially HACs or pirate faction cruisers) further benefit if they can run an afterburner indefinitely (i.e. being essentially cap stable), thereby decreasing the chance to be hit by or take damage from large, battleship-sized weaponry in level 4 missions (‘’speedtank’’). Gun or missile turrets are usually fit last making best use of the available CPU and power grid. The rig slots are often used to supplement the tank or balance its weaknesses.

Tactics

When using light, medium or heavy drones, try to stay close to the drones to be able to recall them quickly once they start taking damage. This will break the enemy’s target lock and force them to target you instead. Thus, you will probably orbit enemy ships somewhat below your gun’s optimal range. To get into brawling range, either use your propulsion module to get close to enemy ships or stop completely and deploy sentry drones to draw enemy ships towards you. Once the sentry drones start missing most of the time, recall them and start orbiting the enemy ship while attacking them with guns and drones. Generally, it is advisable to eliminate small ships first, as they can scram and web you or your drones. Being webbed is very bad for drones, as they will take damage fast while taking much longer to return to the carrier. Some battleships will try to orbit you at uncomfortable distances for brawling with heavy drones, which may be a problem for slow battleships without propulsion modules. In this case, stop your ship and deploy short-range sentry drones (Garde or Curator, depending on enemy vulnerability), which should be able to hit the enemy ship well.

Recommended ships

The following ships make good choices as PvE drone brawlers in level 4 missions:

• Ishtar: Fast, agile, tough tank and excellent drone bonuses for brawling
• Dominix: Cheap, versatile, tough tank, good drone bonuses for brawling
• Armageddon: Cheap, tough tank, good drone bonuses for brawling
• Dominix Navy Issue Excellent tank, good drone bonuses for brawling, hybrid turret bonuses, high combined damage (drones + hybrid turrets)
• Gila: Cheaper than the Ishtar, fast, agile, excellent tank and good drone bonuses for brawling
• Rattlesnake: Best battleship-class tank, good drone bonuses for brawling, extremely high combined damage (drones + torpedoes)
• Nestor: Tough tank, good drone bonuses for brawling, extremely high combined damage (drones + lasers)

Drone sniping

Drone sniping encompasses the use of sentry drones to deliver damage at great range, often outside the effective range of enemy ships. Thus, tanking is less of an issue as with brawling, though T2 modules are still required in level 3 and 4 missions. Good skills to increase locking range, drone control range, drone optimal range and drone damage are required.

Fitting advice

While the tank is often reduced for the sake of Drone Damage Amplifiers and Omnidirectional Tracking Links, some tank is still necessary for occasions when enemy ships come into range. Given that the overall tank is less than in brawling ships, a Damage Control II has an even bigger beneficial effect on effective HP. A Sensor Booster is required to increase locking range. A Micro Jump Drive (MJD) is used on battleships to quickly get into sniping range, while an Afterburner may be fitted additionally in order to manoeuvre faster during MJD cooldown. Cruiser-sized ships rely on an Afterburner or a MWD to get into proper range. Several Drone Link Augmentors are usually necessary to increase drone control range to sniping ranges. The remaining high slots can be fit either with long-range turrets to increase overall DPS at sniping ranges or with short-range turrets (even of smaller calibre) to deal with fast ships which come into range. Equip a full flight of Wardens, which have the longest optimal range of all Sentry Drones, as well as a full flight of either Gardes or Curators, which have shorter ranges, but better tracking and higher overall DPS. Against Angel ships, Bouncers may be preferred as secondary drones since Angels are most vulnerable to explosive damage. Round off with a flight of medium, small, and armor repair drones.

Tactics

Keep at a distance from enemy ships, using a micro jump drive (battleships), microwarpdrives or afterburners. Stop the ship, then deploy sentry drones. That way the drones can be recalled instantly when taking damage. Shoot the enemy ships with the sentry drones most appropriate for the range the enemy ships are currently away, usually starting with the smallest ships, as these are the fastest. When the incoming damage is too high, recall the drones and activate the propulsion module to gain distance from enemy ships. Note your drones' optimal ranges depending on whether you have Optimal Range Scripts, no scripts, or Tracking Speed scripts loaded to your Omnidirectional Tracking Links and swap scripts according to enemy range. Note that the effects of Optimal Range and Tracking Speed Scripts cancel each other out, if used at the same time (scripts were added to Omnidirectional Tracking Links in Rubicon 1.1).

Recommended ships

The following ships make good choices as PvE drone snipers in level 4 missions:

• Dominix: Excellent sniping bonuses, excellent range, solid tank; Fits a MJD
• Ishtar: Excellent sniping bonuses, excellent range, solid tank, fast
• Rattlesnake: Good sniping bonuses, but many module slots; Can be made an excellent sniper; Fits a MJD
• Nestor: Good sniping bonuses, but many module slots; Can be made an excellent sniper; Fits a MJD
• Vexor Navy Issue: Glass cannon sniper: Fast, excellent sniping bonuses, but only cruiser-sized tank. Can output nearly as much DPS as the Ishtar or Dominix.

Drones and Mining

See also: Ore Ship Guide: Mining Drones

Mining drones are usually a minor augmentation to the mining power of a dedicated mining ship.

The first thing to note when considering mining drones is that you may need your dronebay to defend yourself against rats -- the Retriever, for example, only has 25m³ dronebay space, forcing pilots to choose between a flight of light scout drones for defence, or a flight of mining drones. If you're mining in a group, you can arrange for one or two miners to bring combat drones for defence, while everyone else packs mining drones.

Which drones should you use? Although Harvester Mining Drones' description calls them 'the most efficient mining drone', they do take up twice as much space and bandwidth as normal mining drones, and they move half as fast as Mining Drone IIs. Since mining drones have to travel repeatedly back and forth between you and your target asteroid, this can be a significant problem. You may want to stick with normal mining drones, either T2 if you can use them or T1 if you can't.

Skillwise, to support your mining drones you will want to train:

• Mining Drone Operation: 5% yield bonus per level
• Drones: as with combat drones, you want to train this to V to get five drones in space at once
• Drone Interfacing: the +10% per level bonus applies to mining yield as well as damage
• Drone Navigation: training this cuts down on the time your drones spend travelling between you and your asteroid

There is one rig, the Drone Mining Augmentor, which will increase the yield of mining drones. However, most mining ships may have other options for their rig slots which would be more useful.

Drones in PvP Combat

As with PvE, drones are an essential part of PvP for almost everyone: very few PvP pilots can get away without training drone skills and learning how to use them. This section discusses the selection and use of normal damage-dealing drones for general PvP, the pros and cons of using ewar and logistics drones, and finally the use of dedicated droneboats in PvP

Combat Drone Selection

The simplest PvP use of the dronebay on most ships is as a source of extra DPS. Even when flying ships with only 5m³ of space, like the Stabber or Griffin, having a light scout drone's additional DPS can't hurt.

Some ships have bandwidth and dronebays which let you choose between having a full flight of drones, or a smaller number of bigger drones; usually the option of a full flight offers more DPS. The Rupture, for example, could field five light scout drones with one spare, three medium drones, or four lights and one medium -- four lights and one medium offer the most DPS, and five lights will outdamage three mediums. Light drones will also reach their targets faster and will damage frigate targets more.

That last point leads us to a slightly subtler use of drones in PvP: as a source of precise DPS. A flight of light drones can be an important part of a medium or large ship's defence against frigates. In a large, mixed fleet this is less important, as your own frigates will (you hope) be able to defend you, but in a small gang or solo situation it can be wise to bring a flight of light drones even if you have the dronebay to bring a full flight of mediums (50m³ dronebay ships like the Harbinger and Brutix are good examples of ships where this might apply).

A small number of battleships don't have drone bonuses but still have the bandwidth and dronebay to field a full flight of heavy or sentry drones for a significant DPS boost. The Armageddon and Megathron can do this, though it will use up all of their dronebay. The Minmatar Typhoon has 125 bandwidth and 175 dronebay space, which lets it bring heavies or sentries and one or two extra flights of drones (a flight of Warrior IIs and a flight of EC-300s, for example).

Combat drone choice for PvP usually comes down to either Gallente drones (for raw DPS) or Minmatar drones (for explosive damage, and their speed).

Combat Drone Use

The most reliable way to use combat drones in PvP is to tell them to attack your primary target.

However, because they can move independently and faster than you, they can also be quite useful for chasing weak but dangerous enemies away. Some ships, such as most of the force recons and stealth bombers, like to circle around the edge of a fight applying ewar and/or DPS without coming in to close engagement range with their enemy. If you notice one of these ships hanging around within your drone control range, it can be productive to send your drones after them because:

• your drones are probably faster than you
• ewar, which some force recons use to defend themselves, doesn't work very well against a flight of drones
• once your drones have locked on to a stealth bomber or force recon, it can no longer cloak even if it jams or sensor damps your own ship's targetting
• by forcing a bomber or recon off the field, you can remove a lot of potential DPS or ewar power

Other good targets for drones include

• frigate-sized tacklers who are pinning down key members of your gang
• other drones, if your gang is mostly in small ships which will be threatened more by enemy drones than by their primary weapons, or if the enemy gang is using ships with drone bonuses
• fighters or fighter-bombers, if the enemy is deploying capital ships

One large smartbomb can wipe out most drones within its range in a few cycles (in about one cycle, if they're just light drones!). It is therefore important for the first person to spot smartbombs to call them over Mumble so gang members can pull their drones back, if -- and only if -- you're flying with free voice discipline. If you're in a larger fleet, with silence needed over Mumble for the FC to communicate, then you can at least pull your own drones back when you see smartbombs.

One final note: if you have a criminal flag, or an aggression timer with the local faction navy, then sentry guns on gates and stations will see your drones as a valid target. Since sentry guns have perfect tracking, they will kill your drones very fast if they decide to shoot them. This is the main reason for the unpopularity of dedicated droneboats for gate work among lowsec pirates.

Ewar Drones

Most electronic warfare drones aren't actually very useful. This is because their effects are subject to stacking penalties, which makes them very underwhelming compared to ship-mounted ewar.

Just like when you have several things giving you the same bonus on your ship, when multiple sensor dampening, target painting or tracking disrupting effects are applied to a target, each effect after the first one is reduced. So the first drone will have its full effect, but the second drone will only do about 85%, and the third only 57%. The fourth and fifth will be pretty negligible.

The end result of this is that to get the effect of one T2 ship-mounted ewar module with standard (level IV) support skills, you need a full flight of medium-sized equivalent ewar drones -- using up 50m³ space and 50 bandwidth. So, for example, five TD-600 tracking disruptor drones are about as useful as one T2 tracking disruptor on a ship with no tracking disruption bonuses (and in the case of TD and SD, the on-board module has the extra flexibility offered by scripting).

TD, TP and SD drones are therefore generally not worth it, compared to the other uses of the dronebay and bandwidth they would take up.

However, because of the chance-based nature of ECM, ECM drones are not subject to stacking penalties. Although individually they have quite low chances to jam, a full flight of them is surprisingly effective, particularly against medium- and small-sized ships which have lower sensor strengths. You can use them to reduce the DPS you take over the course of a fight, or to give you an opportunity to escape by jamming whatever's tackling you. They really shine in small gang situations.

Logistics Drones

Logistics drones can be useful, but can't really replace dedicated T2 logistics cruisers such as the Guardian and Scimitar. A single flight won't cope with that much damage during a fight, so if you plan to use them in combat it's best if most or all gang members bring them -- and of course you must weigh up their benefit against the lost DPS from combat drones or jams from ECM drones. In combat they suffer from the travel time problem just like combat drones.

Dedicated logistics ships may find logistics drones are a useful little extra, and they do have the advantage for logistics pilots over combat or ewar drones that they do not give their owner aggression, cutting their parent ship off from jumping or docking.

Armor logistics drones can also be a helpful way to use your spare dronebay space for post-combat use, especially if you're in a small fleet on a longer roam with no dedicated logistics ships. You will be very popular with pilots whose ships are still alive, but damaged, especially if they're in small ships which even drones can repair quickly outside combat.

Dedicated Droneboats in PvP

Dedicated droneboats have large dronebays and bandwidth for their size, and deal the majority of their DPS through drones. This has advantages . . .

• outsourcing DPS to your drones frees up slots on your ship for everything else: ewar, capacitor warfare, tank, nano, remote-repair, tackle &c
• alternatively, you can pack DPS drones and fit weapons in your highslots anyway, for very high DPS
• if you have multiple flights of different drones, you're flexible: you can attack frigates, attack big targets, repair allies, jam the enemy with ECM drones &c
• your drones can continue to fire even if you're jammed, damped or tracking-disrupted

You can see some of these 'outsourcing' ideas at work in several popular Dominix fits, in which drones deliver DPS while the highslots are dedicated to heavy energy neutralizers, or remote armor repair modules. The Amarr Arbitrator and its T2 cousins the Curse and Pilgrim (and the 'mini-Curse', the Sentinel) all rely on drones for DPS, using their slots for electronic warfare and capacitor warfare.

Of course, reliance on drones has its disadvantages too:

• the enemy can destroy your drones, or you can be forced to warp out and abandon them; you can't shoot or smartbomb the turrets off a turret BS or force it to drop them in the middle of a fight!
• it's hard to enhance the DPS of drones (the only module that directly does it only does so for sentries, and takes up a valuable rig slot); normal ships can just throw damage modules into their lowslots
• unless you use sentry drones, all your DPS is delayed while your drones hustle over to your target
• drones require more micromanagement than launchers or turrets

As with PvE droneboats, on hulls with no on-board weapon bonus it can sometimes make sense to fit non-racial turrets, often projectile turrets. On a Myrmidon, for example, autocannon instead of blasters can offer:

• capacitor-free DPS
• selectable damage types
• more tactical flexibility (Barrage offers considerably longer ranges than Null ammo)

Drone Selection

Drone choice for a dedicated PvP droneboat depends on your role, but if you're looking for DPS drones then, sentries aside, the choice is usually between Gallente (for DPS) and Minmatar (for speed, and to hit explosive-weak armor tanks). Of course, if you have a large dronebay you may have room to bring alternative flights, so you can choose the drone size and damage type for your target. Add ECM drones and (if you have allies) repair drones on top to taste.

Some ships, notably the Vexor, have an awkward 75Mbit/sec bandwidth. When fitting for situations which require maximum DPS, you may need to field a mixture of drone sizes rather than a coherent flight. The Vexor can field, for example, two heavies, two mediums and one light, with enough room left in the dronebay for an additional flight of lights, or of EC-300 ECM drones.

Switching drones in the middle of a fight can take valuable time. Sometimes it's quicker to just abandon the flight you have out already rather than wait for them to MWD back to you. Winning is worth the cost of a new flight of Ogre IIs, and if you hold the field you may be able to collect them afterwards.

Sentry drones can offer new tactical possibilities -- dropping sentries and then moving away from them, forcing your opponent to choose between shooting your DPS and chasing you, for example -- and are ideal for POS-bashing (they use no ammo, after all!). You can 'snipe' with sentries, though the Gallente Ishtar HAC still can't really mesh with a traditional sniper HAC gang as it has to keep stopping to deploy and collect sentries.

Drones Versus Drones

Small-scale battles between droneboats often involve a 'drone war', in which, since both ships have their DPS tied up in their drones, they both order their drones to attack the enemy's drones. Smaller drones tend to beat larger drones, and if it simply comes down to a battle of attrition then the ship with more dronebay space dedicated to light scouts will probably emerge victorious. However, you can try a few tricks to swing the contest your way. Consider that:

• To order drones to attack other drones, you need to have locks on the target drones
• The time taken to switch out a flight of drones depends on their distance from you (further away, they'll have to fly longer to get back to you)

It is therefore greatly to your advantage for the drone war to happen near you and distant from your opponent: this will let you swap flights to break your opponent's lock on your drones, and will force your opponent to take a lot of time, or abandon his current flight, any time he wants to swap flights.

You can try to tempt your opponent to send their drones to you -- hope that they set their drones on your ship, or even refuse to launch your own drones until they do so. You can also try launching medium or heavy drones without ordering them to attack, in the hope that they will send their drones to attack your drones, at which point you can swap flights and retaliate.

Sentries muddle all of the above tactics, of course, because a ship that can field them can drop them and remain with them ready to scoop them again -- though by doing this they give up the ability to move around the battlefield. Some sentry-fielding ships can also drop sentries and move, trying to force you to choose between attacking the sentries and attacking their parent ship as described above in relation to the Ishtar and Gila. (And at this point the topic shades into the more general subject of movement in solo and small-gang PvP.)

Notable PvP Droneboats

Gallente

• Ishkur: AF with potential 50m³ dronebay; one of the best AFs, good DPS ship or sticky tackler; good solo
• Vexor: tough, flexible secondary tackle/DPS ship; shield-tank and fit blasters for more DPS than a Thorax!; good solo
• Ishtar: lots of DPS and drone space in a small package; like other HACs can lose its role in a large mixed fleet; unlike some turret-based HACs, doesn't really work as a sniper
• Myrmidon: tolerable DPS; sometimes fitted with autocannon or lasers; active armor tanked Myrmidon can be good small gang bait
• Dominix: cheap and powerful Swiss Army Knife of a ship; high DPS w/ blasters and large drones; or RR or capacitor warfare platform
• Sin: despite its drone bonuses, its primary function is to create covert cyno bridges, not to use drones; not noticeably better as a droneboat than the Dominix, but massively more expensive

Amarr

• Sentinel: ewar, capacitor warfare and drones in one frigate hull; superb 1v1 ship, decent small gang support
• Arbitrator: flexible combination of ewar and DPS; shield or armor tank; good solo or gang support ship
• Curse: lethal mix of ewar and capacitor warfare, with drones for DPS; great gang ship; would be good solo if everyone didn't dock up when it appeared on scan
• Pilgrim: cloaky Curse, with a shorter range; good surprise solo/small gang ship; can be a heavy scout/initial tackler

Gurista

• Worm: similar to the Ishkur; held back by rockets' weakness but can mount a superb shield tank (for a frigate)
• Gila: similar to the Ishtar, with missiles instead of hybdrid turrets, and a bigger dronebay

(Unless you're quite rich, the Rattlesnake doesn't offer a great deal more than the Dominix for PvP, given its expense.)

See Also

• See the Tips and Tricks section on drones for information about drone use in combat.