Questions about Drones

[Toing]

Hello all.

Im new to eve, but already decided to use drones as a offensive and defensive approach. I created a Gallente char and reached drones and drone light operation IV (will hit V in 4 days for both).

The problem is, my main interest is mining/pve. After 2 week of mining with my venture (almost went mental), i was able to buy a procurer fitted with a strip miner and 2 mining laser upgrades II. My strategy is to carry 4 hobgoblins I to defense, and this works fine in 0.8 sec, because hostiles will be, in most cases, 2 or 3 small ships, and my drones just eat them for breakfast.

But now i am making my first incursion in 0.5 sec, and notice that, in most cases, hostiles will be 2 or 3 frigates, and sometimes, 5 hostiles (one battleship, one cruiser, one frigate and two smalls). Since i dont want to loose my procurer, and i want more isk per trip, my questions are:

1) Can i defend myself against these hostiles with 5 hobgoblins I? My idea is not become too involved with battle itself, leaving the drones to make the dirt work.

2) If answer to 1 is negative, can i defend myself with 5 hobgoblins II? (I dont have the medium and heavy drone skills trained [yet])

3) Since my shields are all T1 (because my skills still dont support T2), if some of the hostiles approach my ship, will i be able to withstand some dmg until my drones can engage? (im using kinectic deflection shield and adaptive invulnerability field x 2)

4) I read in a forum that, for attack battleships and battlecruisers, we should use heavy drones. Is this true? What is the correlation between drone/target? (ex: light drones for small, medium drones for cruiser, heavy for bs)

5) it is possible to make a drone boat to solo lvl 4 missions? I saw this fit in osmium --> https://o.smium.org/loadout/59530 , but i dont want to invest my isk unless it is true u can solo lvl 4 with drones

Tks in advance.

[OneLittleBanana]

1) youll have a hard time and you need a good tank (skillwise) and keep moving so the enemies do not hit you that hard, best is orbiting an asteroid on maxium laster range on full speed

2) easily of course with t2 drones. they are way better but skills take long training

3) if you stay on gallente space youll only encounter serpenis with kin/heat dmg, so fit 2x kin deflectors and 1x heat deflecor, youll do way better than with the adaptives.

4) no, its not like that. its just damage output of the drones and bandwith - you cant fit heavies on all ships. also sometimes heavies will have problems tracking frigates, but in the end they kill em. best overall id say is med hammerheads.

5) lol, yes. even when just sidding there and doing nothing most lvl4 missions cant kill me... but ishtar is terrible for lvl4 - time efficency wise.
its more like nullsec ♥♥♥♥ when you have to be fast and sneaky. in highsec is no need for that. just use a megathron or the fugly other drone battleship ship.

[battlecattle]

Originally posted by Toing:

Hello all.

Im new to eve, but already decided to use drones as a offensive and defensive approach. I created a Gallente char and reached drones and drone light operation IV (will hit V in 4 days for both).

The problem is, my main interest is mining/pve. After 2 week of mining with my venture (almost went mental), i was able to buy a procurer fitted with a strip miner and 2 mining laser upgrades II. My strategy is to carry 4 hobgoblins I to defense, and this works fine in 0.8 sec, because hostiles will be, in most cases, 2 or 3 small ships, and my drones just eat them for breakfast.

But now i am making my first incursion in 0.5 sec, and notice that, in most cases, hostiles will be 2 or 3 frigates, and sometimes, 5 hostiles (one battleship, one cruiser, one frigate and two smalls). Since i dont want to loose my procurer, and i want more isk per trip, my questions are:

1) Can i defend myself against these hostiles with 5 hobgoblins I? My idea is not become too involved with battle itself, leaving the drones to make the dirt work.

2) If answer to 1 is negative, can i defend myself with 5 hobgoblins II? (I dont have the medium and heavy drone skills trained [yet])

3) Since my shields are all T1 (because my skills still dont support T2), if some of the hostiles approach my ship, will i be able to withstand some dmg until my drones can engage? (im using kinectic deflection shield and adaptive invulnerability field x 2)

4) I read in a forum that, for attack battleships and battlecruisers, we should use heavy drones. Is this true? What is the correlation between drone/target? (ex: light drones for small, medium drones for cruiser, heavy for bs)

5) it is possible to make a drone boat to solo lvl 4 missions? I saw this fit in osmium --> https://o.smium.org/loadout/59530 , but i dont want to invest my isk unless it is true u can solo lvl 4 with drones

Tks in advance.

1) Procurer has a bonus to drone damage IIRC, so it should be able to handle a few npc frigates without much issue. It may help to choose drones suited to the damage weakness of the local pirates (hobgoblins do thermal, warriors do explosion, hornets do kinetic, and acolytes do EM). It should be noted hobs do the most raw dps of the light drones and thermal is often the best or second best damage to do to most npc enemies, so hobs are usually a decent choice in PvE, warriors are the fastest and have best tracking so are often a good pvp choice.

2) Light drones are the best choice against frigates due to superior tracking and speed. The bigger drones are better against bigger targets. T2 drones are better than t1. There are also navy faction drones that are a little bit more expensive than t2s that do more damage than t1s and have more health than t2s but do less damage than t2s. Navy drones have the same skill requirements as t1 drones.

3) You should train into t2 shield hardeners as soon as you can, but t1 hardeners should be alright so long as you're using the correct resistances to counter the local rats' damage type. Serpentis are thermal/kinetic, guristas kinetic/thermal, sanshas em/thermal, blood raiders em/thermal, drones omni, and angels explosion/kinetic.

4) Use different drones for different sized targets. Lights are generally good for frigs/dessies, mediums for cruisers/battlecruisers, large/sentries for battleships+

5) An Ishtar probably could solo l4s with the right fit (though personally I wouldn't use the fit you linked), but honestly I'd recommend training into a dominix or rattlesnake battleship (armageddon would also work for someone trained into Amarr ships) simply because battleships can do more damage and have more room for error. Additionally, battleships can equip micro jump drives to quickly jump out 100km which is great for anyone looking to out-range some incoming damage (MJD + sentries is a popular setup for drone boats). One thing I will say is make sure you train into t2 shields/armor before trying to fly a BS in a l4.


One last thing I'll mention: You stated you're training gallente ships but are using shields, which is fine for some gal ships, but gallente is normally armor tanked. Two main reasons for this are many gallente ships have bonuses to armor tanking and gallente ships generally have more low slots and fewer middle slots than traditional shield ships to accomodate armor fits. I realize you're probably focusing on shields atm to protect your procurer (which has a shield bonus IIRC), but it may be worth considering training into armor.

[Shotgun]

Should I just go ahead and say it, or does someone else want to do the honors for me this time?

[sdb62]

run the incursion itself and make 30x isk u make mining per hour

[battlecattle]

Originally posted by werewolf62:

run the incursion itself and make 30x isk u make mining per hour

He shouldn't be running Incursions until he has solid battleship (or logi cruiser) and shield/armor skills. IIRC, a BS should be looking at 90-100k EHP before boosts.

But aye, incursions make more isk than mining, I'd say around 100mil per hour based on personal experience. That said, there's often a wait time for a spot on fleet to become available.

It should also be noted that Incursions are content designed for fleets, don't try to solo them. Most incursion groups prefer gunnery-focused ships rather than drone boats (WTM would probably take a domi, but they'd secretly be wishing you were flying something else), particularly Nightmares, Vindicators, and Macharials though some groups accept other ships.

[Toing]

Thanks for the replies, now i have a better idea of what to do!!

[BobDoleReigns]

Originally posted by Shotgun:

Should I just go ahead and say it, or does someone else want to do the honors for me this time?

Since the other replies missed the point... you're better off doing literally anything rather than mining...

[xzyzzy]

You'd be better off training to fly a battleship and just run the incursion, mining isn't all that great.