Tutorial - New Player Experience - until Aug 2018

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).

				Damage		Faction comparison
Faction	Light	Medium	Heavy	Prim	Sec	DPS		Speed
	Hobgoblin	Hammerhead	Ogre				+23%
	Hornet	Vespa	Wasp				+15%		+13% (+13%)
	Acolyte	Infiltrator	Praetor				+8%		+37% (+26%)
	Warrior	Valkyrie	Berserker						+50% (+36%)
All drones do the primary damage type. 'Integrated' and 'Augmented' drones do a mix of the primary and secondary damage types.

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	65.6	1820 m/s	8000 m 400 m/s	6140

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%

Faction	Drone	DPS	Range	Tracking	EHP
Amarr	Curator I	25.6	35+10 km	0.023 rad/s	3500
Caldari	Warden I	22.4	50+35 km	0.01 rad/s	3400
Gallente	Garde I	27.2	20+15 km	0.03 rad/s	3500
Minmatar	Bouncer I	24.0	35+40 km	0.016 rad/s	3400

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%	+20%	+20%	+20%	(Size) Drone Operation V (Race) Drone Specialization I
'Augmented'	+32%	+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		+20%	+20%	+20%	Sentry Drone Interfacing V (Race) Drone Specialization I
Faction		+20%	+26%	+80%	Sentry Drone Interfacing I

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. 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

			Damage
Faction	Fighter	Fighter-bomber	Prim	Sec
	Templar	Malleus
	Dragonfly	Mantis
	Firbolg	Cyclops
	Einherji	Tyrfing
Fighter-bombers do only the primary damage type. Fighters do 70% primary and 30% secondary damage types.

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 against which NPC enemies:

Faction	Light/Med/Heavy drones		Sentry drones
	Best	Alternative	Best	Alternative

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.