Weird Damage output for Drifter Event

[OmniSanti]

I noticed my silly little Hornet 1's can destroy those Drifter Frigates (Albeit slowly)

Yet my Caracal volley only deals ~80 damage.

Can someone explain this?

[Harrison]

Basically, your drones are better at hitting small targets than your missiles are. Light missiles will hit them very well, heavy missiles kind of well, and heavy assault not so well. If you have a cruise launcher on there we need to have a different discussion.

Missile damage is based one two things: the target’s velocity and signature radius.

In the missile stats the attributes that are affected by these two things are explosion velocity and explosion radius. There are two skills that change both of these under the missile skill tree, I do not know what they are off hand (I’m away from my computer).

Short of training those two skills you can help increase your own damage through the use of a stasis web, to slow the target down, and a target painter, to increase the target’s signature radius. Also using light missiles will help as well.

For more in-depth info https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Missiles_101 is an excellent resource.

[OmniSanti]

Thanks Harrison.

I was also taking a peek at some Reddit posts, it appears that the event is kinda broken maybe?

Seen people claim even Carriers cant put a dent in the Drifter Cruiser, others claim a double web OH your MWD gets the trick done but you still will need serious DPS to get the cruiser under 70% shields.

Hope CCP fixes this, I like the skins but they are impossible to finish as an Alpha.

Easily tankable though.

[ZynXao]

actually there is nothing wrong with the drifters. yes, this cruiser is fast as hell and can pack a punch but, this is what makes it so interesting imo. I tried a bunch of fits now and had a lot of fun trying these out. what will always work is the good old trusty Gila. I solo the cruiser in around 5 minutes with rapid light missiles and hammerheads. I also tried a dual web Ashimmu to actually catch that guy and the site will be done in around 3 minutes solo. same for a dual web Vigilant. with a pulse Oracle it actually only takes around a minute to kill it. I have to admit that these ships are quite expensive for a new player so maybe do this site with a friend.

and the Carrier thing was with the bigger site which spawns a drifter battleship instead of a cruiser (you have to scan these down in high sec). I did these with a friend where I played the web/scram ship with the Ashimmu while he did the dps in a Rattlesnake. the Battleship is also pretty fast and will warp out after a few minutes so a web/scram combo is recommended. got really unlucky on the loot from the BS yet though...

edit: forgot to say that the Gila definitely get's the site done with decent alpha skills for cruisers, drones and missiles. if you like PvE it's worth getting into a Gila anyways