I hate drones

[Falconeer]

Can't help it, I don't like them.

But looks to me like carrying a few with you has no drawbacks at all. Every (?) ship has a drone bay (although small) so if you don't stuff a few drones in there you are just wasting a free opportunity and because they don't use fitting slots, cpu or grid it's not like you have to give up anything else to use them. Finally I don't think they slow down your ship at all.

I remember in my very few days in Ultima Online, I wanted to be a halberd warrior and despised magic with all my heart, and they started busting my balls with the fact that I was so gimped because you are supposed to train at least this or that spell.

So I want to know, are drones the magic of EVE and actually malus-free or when you decide to stuff a few drones in your ship you actually have to renounce to something else (which would make much more sense to me, but I am afraid it's not the case)?

[Reg]

There is no downside to carrying and using drones except the time you spend to train the skills to use them.

Edit: Oh wait. They do make you easier to find if someone is using probes and looking for you.

[Merusk]

Depends on what ships you're flying, I suppose.   If you can only drop 2 into your bay, Yeah you're not missing much.  If you're flying a Battleship then you're losing an opportunity to have some frigate/ cruiser raping power that doesn't have the drawbacks of your guns tracking speed or missile's explosion velocity.

I still recall that venture into lowsec where 3-4 of us in cruisers were simply destroyed by some OgreIIs. Gravyz was the guy's name.  Yeah he "Only" killed 3 of us in about 22 seconds.

[Falconeer]

This sucks. What's the rationale?

Even ammo takes inventory space, and everything takes shared space or fitting slots, has a wight or hinder your agility, to the point that you have to make choices all the time, not to mention modules. The whole concept of EVE fitting is that you have to put on something and put out something else... and drone totally escape this? Why the fuck? Fuckin hate fly-shaped RC cars in space, now with 100% less drawbacks!

[Endie]

Load up EFT, give yourself Drone Interfacing 4 and some T2 mediums (let alone T2 larges) and see the leap in DPS.

If you are running missions, even disposable T1 hammerheads will (with DI 4) chew through frigates faster than you can lock targets in a BS.

In PvP, T2 warriors will scare off (or kill, in lag) that pesky interceptor in no time.

In PvP or PvE, if you are jammed or neuted, as long as your drones are already fighting they don't give a monkey and will cheerily continue causing havoc.

Plus, in PvP people are surprisingly prone to panicking when a drone swarm hits them.  Not to mention that trick with assigning drones to fast-locking ships on gatecamps that I had people doing last week: a couple of interceptors with 20 drones each will almost instantly deal battleship damage to any target unlucky enough to decloak, and will probably paralyse an inexperienced pilot when their ship literally disappears behind a swarm of circling red dots.

[ajax34i]

This sucks. What's the rationale?

Giving drones to all the battleships was probably done so they'd have a way to counter frigates.  Tackling is so damn prevalent in every PVP encounter that each battleship would otherwise be forced to perma-install 2-3 small guns to deal with the tacklers, and having to do that on a battleships is ridiculous.  Of course, not having drones would simply force a battleship to bring in a few support buddies in frigates, but, you know, people want to PVE L4's solo, so yeah.

Anyway, I think that's why drones are so prevalent in the bigger ships.  They're a free weapon for dealing with small frigates.

[Phildo]

You know, I was almost positive there were a few battleships without drones, but on closer inspection I was very very wrong.  Wow, that IS gimped!

[Falconeer]

Thing is they are free dps. Small or big, there is no point apparently in NOT having drones in your bay or out dealing damage. This, I don't like at all!
At this point, with no downsides at all, I wonder how come not everyone use them all the time. I mean, if you are not  a drone-hater like me, isn't that like having a turret and not using it?

In fact, let's take our last 40 frigates blob. I am not even sure if they use the ship's capacitor to fuel themselves, but even if everyone of us had only 1 small drone and used it, wouldn't that be better than NOT using it?

[bhodi]

Many frigates and cruisers have no drone bay at all.

My blackbird doesn't have one, but my griffin has a 5m3 one... just enough for a hammerhead or warrior :)

Your conclusion is why I spent a solid 2 weeks getting my drone skills up enough to use medium T2s. They really, REALLY help in missions.

[Morat20]

This sucks. What's the rationale?

Even ammo takes inventory space, and everything takes shared space or fitting slots, has a wight or hinder your agility, to the point that you have to make choices all the time, not to mention modules. The whole concept of EVE fitting is that you have to put on something and put out something else... and drone totally escape this? Why the fuck? Fuckin hate fly-shaped RC cars in space, now with 100% less drawbacks!

Well, to make them other than "kill frigs for me in a battleship" (and frankly, if the frigs focus on the drones they die quick), you need an actual drone boat and both Drones and Drone Interfacing to 5/5. (Which takes a fucking long time).

Throwing a few Ogres Is into your ship will give you a nice boost, but nothing amazing. The ability to send our two or three Hammerhead Is or Hob Is to annoy frigates helps, but won't really do a bunch.

It's when you have FIVE fucking Ogre II's out there -- (Heavy Drones 5/5), with a 100% boost to damage and shields (Drone Interfacing 5/5), and another 40 to 50% because you're flying a Domi (Gallente Battleships 4/5 or 5/5), that they go from "nusiance" to "Raping face".

But if you're flying a gunboat with the same level of skills, you're mounting T2 guns with good ammo and raping face too (all your skills and boat bonuses are boosting guns). More importantly, people can't target your very expensive guns and blow them out of the skies.

[TheDreamr]

Your choice of drones is just another part of your tactical fittings - unless you're flying a dedicated drone boat you have to make educated guesses at what mix will provide the most benefit unless you want to be warping out to refit for every fight.

Lets say I have 75m3 to play with on my battleship ... how do I split that?  3x Heavy / Sentry to maximise my fire power at the expense of being able to snag smaller?   5x Lights + 5x Mediums to cover all my bases but lose DPS?  EWar drones to weaken targets?  Logistics drones to buff my gang mates?

All useful options, but limits on drone space and bandwidth means there's a lot of scope there to adapt and dabble.

[Reg]

I don't understand Falconeer's objection though. All battleships have a drone bay. It's not like anyone is at a terrible disadvantage.

[Merusk]

His objection seems to be that they're counter to the entire rest of the philosophy of fitting a boat.  There's no downsides to using them.   

Here's one downside though: Micromanagement.  Drones will split between targets or get targeted by non-locked aggressives at times and you have to pull them back.  That draws your attention away from other things.  Another downside was pointed out above. They go POP quickly and constantly replacing them is MUCH more expensive than buying ammo.

[Morat20]

His objection seems to be that they're counter to the entire rest of the philosophy of fitting a boat.  There's no downsides to using them.   

Here's one downside though: Micromanagement.  Drones will split between targets or get targeted by non-locked aggressives at times and you have to pull them back.  That draws your attention away from other things.  Another downside was pointed out above. They go POP quickly and constantly replacing them is MUCH more expensive than buying ammo.

Yeah, here's the two ways drones are used in PvP:

1) Against a moron: You deploy drones, moron never targets drones, you generally destroy moron. (I've been that moron).
2) Against a non-moron: They deploy drones, you target at least one and shoot it a few times with a single gun. (You'll nail it if it's MWDing, and if you can't hit it when it's firing at you, it's not doing enough damage to matter). Drone-owner sees drone damage, recalls drones which dock, then releases them. You have to retarget them, but the entire "Recall, store, release, wait for them to MWD out to target and start firing" part you're beating the shit out of them and they're not doing as much DPS.

PvP between drone boats is, basically, nos+tank and a lot of drone fetching and recalling, with drones often attacking drones. (it's fun to switch from smashing them to suddenly pop two of their drones and then back to them).

In PvE, I spend all my time acquiring aggro, and micromanaging the drones to make sure they don't aggro other groups and actually focus on the target I want. I don't think I could manage more than two guns and do that.

[Falconeer]

His objection seems to be that they're counter to the entire rest of the philosophy of fitting a boat.  There's no downsides to using them.   

Exactly. If my ship, even a stupid frigate, has room for one and I am not using it because I hate droids then I am just wasting potential, gimping myself.
Should I be allergic at hybrid weapons sounds, or missiles explosions, or lasers vectors then I could just follow a different road and use something else without feeling gimped.
With droids, if you have a bay and you are not using it (and you can only put droids in there) you (me) are stupid. 

But thank you so much for the replies, they helped me vent and MAYBE find an agreement with the droid race. Exterminate! EXTERMINATE!

[Murgos]

All the ships have been balanced with the drone bay factored in.  Drones did not suddenly appear in the last patch.  The drone bay IS A PART OF THE SHIP, just like a turret hard point and has been calculated into the ships design from inception.

Yes, not using drones when you can is JUST AS stupid as not fitting any guns.  Your point is moronic.

[Falconeer]

If what you say is true (and I am sure it is) I just need a droneless ship.
Are there bigger than cruisers droneless ships?

[Morat20]

If what you say is true (and I am sure it is) I just need a droneless ship.
Are there bigger than cruisers droneless ships?

Any Battleship with a dronebay of less than 125m3  or a bandwidth of less than 125m3 isn't really a drone boat. You can't field 5 heavies. Which is, well, most of the battleships.

You can run 2/2/1, or 5 mediums, but unless you've got those skills high enough for T2s, their damage is negligable against other battleships. A BS with less than 125m3 or 125 bandwidth only carries drones to pop frigates and maybe cruisers -- which means carrying lights and mediums means you can fit all big guns without worrying about how to deal with ships too small for your sig radius.

If you don't WANT to carry drones on a BS, what that means is you're saying to the world "Please, kill me with some cruisers, because I couldn't fucking hit one to save my life" or "Please, kill me with cruisers OR battleships, because I don't carry enough big guns for a battleship, nor enough smaller guns to deal with cruisers".

[Moosehands]

DPS isn't the end-all, be-all of Eve combat though.  If you're in a gang roving deep into enemy space, having a couple remote rep drones that you can whip out in a safespot is very handy.  Not to mention that even a single EW drone in a frig or cruiser counts as a "free" web or jammer.

But as Morat20 points out, drones can be targeted and killed.  I can't aim at a web or a gun or launcher on your ship.

[Logik]

Not to mention that even a single EW drone in a frig or cruiser counts as a "free" web or jammer.

Actually, it's more like a free fraction-of-a-web per drone--and they suffer stacking penalties.  The difference is -30% velocity versus -75% (-90% on a t2 webber).

[Morat20]

I need to clarify my point -- there are plenty of battleships whose drone bay is 75m3 and have a bandwidth of 75. Those boats are, effectively, "droneless" -- at least as far as combat is concerend.

You can carry exactly three heavies. And launch three heavies. Or you can carry five mediums and five lights (and launch one set or the other). Basically, you don't have enough for a full wave of "proper size" (heavy for attacking battleships) drones, much less the wave + spares you really need.

Those boats should be carrying cheap mediums or lights to deal with tackling frigates or annoying cruisers. Repair drones are nice, but the skill investment is huge.

Lots of people PvP in battleships without drones -- mostly because their battleship can't carry or deploy enough drones to make the skill investment worthwhile. (Or they specialize in dealing damage from outside drone range -- with full skills and the right modules, you can make drone range extend out to sniping range -- but drones take forever, even on MWD, to get to a target -- guns travel instantly).

[Slayerik]

I was going to argue in this horrible thread because I personally have about 4 mil in drones :)
 Basically, its just dumb. Spend a week or 2 training drones like every other motherfucker.

[dwindlehop]

I have the perfect solution!

Train ECM drones. You do need Drones V, but not Scout Drones V to be effective. In fact, with ECM drones II, you're probably done.

Depending upon the target, larger ECM drones are just as or more effective than the same bandwidth's worth of smaller ECM drones. It's a free jammer, basically, and it will still be worth fitting for a long part of your Eve career. The training required is minimal apart from the electronics skills, but you've raised no objections to electronics skills. Most of the training you have to put into making scout or heavy drones effective is in the DPS skills or for T2 drones. If you go for ECM drones, you don't need to train those at all, you don't need T2 drones, and best of all you are not gimped relative to pilots with maxed drone skills (assuming you fly turret/missile boats).

I have 26M SP and 800k in drones. For a very long time I had just Drones V and no dps skills because I went the ECM drone route. I only recently got T2 drones, mostly because I was starting to fly more expensive ships and I get paranoid about being tackled by a lone frigate. Even in that case, ECM drones can usually get you out. The only time you might miss scout drones is when you want to do an infinite amount of damage very slowly and aren't Amarr.

[5150]

If what you say is true (and I am sure it is) I just need a droneless ship.
Are there bigger than cruisers droneless ships?

On average I believe the Caldari ships have the most ships with small/non-existant drone bays - however I believe every Battleship has at least a 75 drone bay

Seriously if you have _any_ interest in PvP you need to consider you drone training (unless youre just going to fly a Blackbird/Rook/Falcon all the time!)

[Endie]

I have the perfect solution!

Train ECM drones. You do need Drones V, but not Scout Drones V to be effective. In fact, with ECM drones II, you're probably done.

Everyone, especially PvE people, should train electronic warfare drones.  What is not generally realised is that you get something like 3km per level extra range on all your drones for each level you have in it.  This is for reasons not clearly or readily understood... 

[Fordel]

One thing that always kinda bummed me out, was I never got to enjoy the drone zerg, it was 'fixed' before I got my drone skills high enough. Five drones is kind fun. So clearly 15 would've been 3 times as fun!

Then I could've pretended my ship was the Galactica or SDF-1 or something :D

[Nerf]

I wasn't around for 15 drones, but I do remember all the fun we could have with them before CONCORD started instascramming them too.  HiSec isn't very safe noobs when a 20 minute old gallente squad can sit there and laugh from pods as you get devoured by drones while concord sits idly by.

Ah, memories.