Difference between revisions of "Tutorial - New Player Experience - until Aug 2018"
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Revision as of 05:50, 31 October 2014
Drones
Subcapital combat drones
Light drones:
- Use 5m3 space and 5Mbit/sec bandwidth
- Move and track targets very fast
- Are the best drones to use against frigates and destroyers
Medium drones:
- Use 10m3 space and 10Mbit/sec bandwidth
- Move and track moderately fast
- Are the best drones to use against cruisers, and are also good against battlecruisers
Heavy drones:
- Use 25m3 space and 25Mbit/sec bandwidth
- Move and track slowly, but do lots of damage
- Are good against battleships, and can handle battlecruisers
Sentry drones:
- Use 25m3 space and 25Mbit/sec bandwidth
- Cannot move in space
- Can hit targets at long ranges, but have poor tracking, and so will have difficulty against close or fast targets
- Most effective against battleships and battlecruisers, but can also hit smaller targets if they are far enough away
Each race has their its own light, medium, heavy, and sentry drones, and they each do one damage type (for instance, all Amarr drones do EM damage, while all Caldari drones do kinetic damage).
Each drone type has its own skill ( Light Drone Operation, Medium Drone Operation, Heavy Drone Operation, Sentry Drone Interfacing), which is needed to operate the respective type.
Faction comparison
Within a drone class (e.g. medium drones), each faction's drones have strengths and weaknesses compared to the other factions'.
Light, medium and heavy drones
- Minmatar drones are the fastest drones (50% faster than Gallente drones with MWD on), and so excel at chasing fast ships. However, they do the lowest damage.
- Gallente drones do the most damage (23% more than Minmatar drones), but are the slowest.
- Amarr and Caldari drones fall between Gallente and Minmatar drones in terms of damage and speed (Caldari drones do a little less damage than Gallente drones, but are a bit faster; Amarr drones do a little more damage than Minmatar drones, but are a bit slower). Additionally, these drones orbit a little further away from their targets, making them apply their damage more consistently, and are a little tougher (+25% more hit points, compared with Minmatar and Gallente drones).
Therefore, the four race's drones represent a sliding scale between damage and speed (the percentages in the table below are relative to the worst-performing drone family). Note that the table lists two values for speed: the speed with MWD on (when the drones are chasing a target), and the orbital speed with MWD off (when the drones are orbiting and attacking a target).
Faction | Drone | DPS | Speed | Orbit | EHP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Amarr | Acolyte I | 7.0 | 3850 m/s | 3200 m 830 m/s | 500 |
Caldari | Hornet I | 7.5 | 3150 m/s | 3200 m 745 m/s | 500 |
Gallente | Hobgoblin I | 8.0 | 2800 m/s | 2800 m 660 m/s | 400 |
Minmatar | Warrior I | 6.5 | 4200 m/s | 2800 m 900 m/s | 400 |
Amarr | Infiltrator I | 11.2 | 2300 m/s | 6400 m 525 m/s | 1000 |
Caldari | Vespa I | 12.0 | 1890 m/s | 6400 m 470 m/s | 1000 |
Gallente | Hammerhead I | 12.8 | 1680 m/s | 5600 m 440 m/s | 800 |
Minmatar | Valkyrie I | 10.4 | 2500 m/s | 5600 m 550 m/s | 800 |
Amarr | Praetor I | 22.4 | 1380 m/s | 8000 m 320 m/s | 2000 |
Caldari | Wasp I | 24.0 | 1125 m/s | 8000 m 280 m/s | 2000 |
Gallente | Ogre I | 25.6 | 1000 m/s | 7000 m 250 m/s | 1600 |
Minmatar | Valkyrie I | 20.8 | 1500 m/s | 7000 m 350 m/s | 1600 |
Gecko [1] | 65.6 | 1820 m/s | 8000 m 400 m/s | 6140 |
- ^ The Gecko is a cross between a heavy and a fighter drone, which was given out for free to every pilot before the Kronos expansion. It can be flown by subcapital ships, but requires 50 Mbit/s of bandwidth (twice as much as a heavy drone) and deals omni-damage (ie its damage is split equally between the four damage types). It requires the same skills to fly as a Tech 1 heavy drone, and there are no Tech 2 or other variants of it.
Sentry drones
- Caldari drones have the longest range (about 150% more than Gallente drones), but with the lowest tracking and damage.
- Gallente drones do the most damage (21% more than Caldari drones) and have the best tracking (200% better than Caldari drones), but have the shortest range.
- Amarr and Minmatar drones fall between Caldari and Gallente drones in terms of damage and range (Minmatar drones do a little more damage with better tracking than Caldari drones, but have less range; Amarr drones have slightly more range than Gallente drones, but worse tracking and damage).
Therefore, the four race's drones represent a sliding scale between damage and range (with short-ranged drones having better tracking). Note that, in the table below, range is given as "first falloff" (i.e. the optimal range plus 1 falloff); Amarr and Minmatar drones both have the same optimal range, but the Minmatar drones have a much longer falloff range.
Faction comparison | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Faction | Sentry | Damage | DPS | Range | Tracking | |||
Garde |
+21% | +200% | ||||||
Curator |
+14% | +29% | +130% | |||||
Bouncer |
+7% | +115% | +60% | |||||
Warden |
+143% |
Drone variants
Light/medium/heavy drones
In addition to the basic Tech 1 drones (described above), there are four other variants of drone within each race's light/medium/heavy drone lineup:
- A Tech 2 drone, which is more powerful (better speed, damage, and hit points) than its Tech 1 counterpart, but requires additional skills to use.
- A Faction drone, available from LP stores. They don't require additional skills to use (beyond those required for the Tech 1 drones). They have a very large number of hit points, but slightly lower damage than their Tech 2 counterparts.
- 'Integrated' and 'Augmented' drones, which can be thought of as enhanced Tech 1 drone and Tech 2 drones, respectively. These drones are produced from the components found in NPC rogue drone wrecks. They need the same skills to use as Tech 1 and Tech 2 drones, respectively, but have slightly improved stats. The damage they do is split between the race's primary and secondary damage types (unlike all other types of subcapital combat drones, which deal only the race's primary damage type). However, they are fairly rare and therefore very expensive.
The table below lists the stats of these drone variants, using the Tech 1 drones as a baseline.
Variant | DPS | Speed | Orbit | EHP | Skills |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tech 1 | (Size) Drone Operation I | ||||
'Integrated' | +15% | +10% | +10% | +10% | (Size) Drone Operation I |
Faction | +20% | +20% | +20% | +100% | (Size) Drone Operation I |
Tech 2 | +20% [1] | +20% | +20% | +20% | (Size) Drone Operation V (Race) Drone Specialization I |
'Augmented' | +32% [1] | +32% | +20% | +80% | (Size) Drone Operation V (Race) Drone Specialization I |
Sentry drones
Sentry drones also have Tech 2 and Faction variants (but no 'Integrated' or 'Augmented' drones):
- Tech 2 sentry drones have better range, tracking, and hit points (compared with their Tech 1 counterparts), but need additional skills to use.
- Faction sentry drones have (compared to their Tech 2 counterparts) the same range, but many more hit points. They don't require additional skills to use (beyond those required for the Tech 1 drones), and are available from LP stores.
Note that, for sentry drones, the Tech 2 and Faction variants do not have higher damage than their Tech 1 counterparts (although the damage of Tech 2 drones can be further increased by training the racial drone specialization skills).
Variant | DPS | Range | Tracking | EHP | Skills |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tech 1 | Sentry Drone Interfacing I | ||||
Tech 2 | [1] | +20% | +20% | +20% | Sentry Drone Interfacing V (Race) Drone Specialization I |
Faction | +20% | +26% | +80% | Sentry Drone Interfacing I |
- ^ a b c Tech 2 and 'Augmented' drones gain an additional +2% damage for every level of the appropriate racial drone specialization skill (e.g. Amarr Drone Specialization for Amarr drones) you have trained.
Capital combat drones
Fighters
Fighters are frigate-sized drones that do cruiser-sized damage and can only be fielded by carriers and supercarriers. They are capable of warping, and will pursue a target into warp - the only escape from fighters is to jump system or to dock[ref 1]. They need the same amount of bandwidth as heavy drones (25 Mbit/s), but compared to them, fighters are a little faster, do a little more damage, and are much tougher.
Each race has each its own fighter, and their damage is split between the race's primary and secondary damage types, but otherwise they are very similar to each other. There are only Tech 1 fighters (no Tech 2 or Faction variants). In order to use fighters you need to train Fighters (which also improves the damage of your fighters).
Faction | Fighter | DPS | Speed | Orbit | EHP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Amarr | Templar | 33 | 2125 m/s | 5000 m 250 m/s | 12,900 |
Caldari | Dragonfly | 33 | 2000 m/s | 5000 m 225 m/s | 12,200 |
Gallente | Firbolg | 33 | 2250 m/s | 5000 m 280 m/s | 12,400 |
Minmatar | Einherji | 33 | 2500 m/s | 5000 m 300 m/s | 12,400 |
Fighter-bombers
Fighter-bombers are anti-capital-ship drones, and can only be used by supercarriers. They launch torpedoes (which are integrated into the fighter-bombers; you do not need to carry ammunition for them!) which do tremendous DPS to very large targets, and can be very dangerous to slow battleships. However, they pose little threat to smaller ships, because their torpedoes have very slow explosion velocities (60 m/s) and very large explosion radii (2250 m). Just like fighters, they can also enter warp.
Each race has its own fighter-bomber drone, but aside from the different damage types, they are very similar to each other. Additionally, there is a Sansha faction fighter-bomber (the Shadow), which does slightly more damage than the Tech 1 fighter-bombers, but is ludicrously expensive. Fighter-bombers need the [[Skills:Fighter Bombers]] skill (which also increases their damage).
A Tech 1 fighter-bomber costs about as much as a battlecruiser.
Faction | Fighter | DPS | Speed | Orbit | EHP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Amarr | Malleus | 93 | 1485 m/s | 20 km 175 m/s | 25,800 |
Caldari | Mantis | 93 | 1400 m/s | 20 km 158 m/s | 24,400 |
Gallente | Cyclops | 93 | 1575 m/s | 20 km 196 m/s | 24,800 |
Minmatar | Tyrfing | 93 | 1750 m/s | 20 km 210 m/s | 24,700 |
Sansha | Shadow | 100 | 2500 m/s | 20 km 158 m/s | 25,200 |
Using Drones
Drone choice
Depending on the difficulty of the PvE encounter, you will want to bring:
- Level 1 and 2 missions: light drones
- Level 3 missions: medium and light drones
- Level 4 missions: heavy or sentry drones, and light drones
Rats from each of the pirate factions in EVE are vulnerable to different damage types. There are drones from all four empire factions available to you; not only does each faction's drones do a different damage type, but they also have different stats (e.g. Gallente drones do a lot of damage but are slow, while Minmatar drones are fast but do less damage). The table below summarises which faction's drones are most effective[ref 2] against which NPC enemies:
Faction | Light/Med/Heavy drones | Sentry drones | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Best | Alternative | Best | Alternative | |
[1] | ||||
[1] | ||||
[2] | ||||
[3] | ||||
[2] | ||||
[4] | [1] |
- ^ a b c This drone family has a slight edge when fighting NPC battleships or elite cruisers.
- ^ a b While Gallente drones do a bit more damage (about 10% more), it's more effective to use much longer-ranged sentry drones to pick off NPCs as they approach, and only switch to Gallente when they come close.
- ^ While Gallente drones are more effective against smaller Mordu's Legion ship (cruisers and below), Caldari drones are much more effective against battleships (Gallente drones perform very poorly against Mordu's battleships), and their longer range allows you to pick off enemies as they approach.
- ^ This only refers to the Sansha's Nation NPCs found in missions, anomalies, and belts. Sansha's Nation ships in Incursions have different characteristics.
A long, long time ago... |
---|
With the Kronos expansion (2014), all combat drones were rebalanced. Before then, Amarr and Caldari drones were almost never used, as they were overshadowed by Minmatar and Gallente drones. Also, Gallente drones were almost always the best drone to use for PvE. |