resulted in them being completely ignored afterwards in each room.

About this I read somewhere that this IS a bug, and will be fixed

Lost 7 TIER 2 drones in Angel Extravaganza, without doing the bonus room.
And yes I did pull them back, but with the incredibly clunky UI it takes ages.

I was aggroed by whole room instantly in several missions.

CCP never changes, whenever they relase something new its either totally broken or a bad idea. This is both.

Unless they plan to start selling Tier 3 cruisers for real money, then it would be a genius buisness move from them.

If you paint/web/ECM any rats they hate you more than your drones. It also helps to kill frigs first since it's them that aggro drones more often than other rats.

As for room aggro, maybe CCP means for lvl 4's to be more group based that solo pimp bltized. The revamped T1 logis are looking better and better....

EWAR doesnt help with mission rats, they still insta switched to drones. Guess they ARE different from sleeper AI, good work CCP
I foresee glorious return of the raven as only viable PVE boat.

You claim that EWAR does not help, however many missionrunners have reported that one single web or target painter is enough to completely secure your drones. Maybe you should test that out instead of bitching about a change that one can easily adapt to if one is smart.

2 nights of missioning.

0 drones lost.

It's enough to secure them against 1 frig(the one you put the ECM on) However should you face 4 or more your drones are doomed.

That is utter bullshit and you would know it if you actually tried it, a single TP is enough that in full room aggro in WC and Blockade, my drones where never targeted once. Only downside, as soon as that TP drops your drones are toast, so you either need 2 TPs and have one of them active all the time, or activate your single TP on something you are not going to shoot. If you only have one TP and shoot that target, you will have a short time where you have no TP on something which will result in Dronetoast.
I am not saying the mechanic is great, I am only saying it is possible to do this. If you cannot muster a single midslot for a TP on either a shield or armor ship, you are doing something seriously wrong.
For these reasons, a dual TP torp Raven or RNI is in my opinion the best option for missions now as with t2 torps and a TP you will kill elite frigs in about 2-3 volleys since the precision skills affect torps now.

Let me guess. You are flying a Tengu :D?

No.

Passive Rattlesnake. I snipe the frigs with 2 faction omnis and a TP. If they get into range, I wait until they actually web me, then pull the sentries and release the lights.

My strategy really hasn't changed.

1) Target all frigates
2) Snipe most, if not all with sentries
3) If frigs get up close and web me, pull sentries, release lights
4) When frigs are dead, pull lights, release sentreis
5) Cruisers, BCs, BSes, in that order

To hell with triggers. If I hit a trigger, pull the drones, wait until yellow boxed, then release them back, and do the same thing, starting with frigates.

Did this with The Blockade - twice now. I'm starting to think I have too much tank in a passive rattler now. Probably going to consider switching to active using XL ASBs and a couple of hardeners.

Oh, and yes, I paint the frigates before their destruction. It can get a little bit more tedious than normal, but it works, and I have not had a single problem with NPCs switching to my drones.

And my noctis alt sits in the pocket previous with its salvage drones.

You seem to believe that your experiences are universal. They aren't.

I took a Machariel in to an anomaly (anoms and mission suse the same NPCs) and barely made it out in structure. Every time i launched my hobgoblins the frigs pounded them, and not even my 1200 dps coming from my guns, my target painting or my NOSing could drag the aggro off my light drones before 2 or 3 would pop. if it weren't for a very lucky hit from my autocannons on a frig I was moving away from, i'd have lost it.

Hell, i couldn't even get the "launch drones, pull drones" bug to work, and ccp does intend to fix that defect.

You seem to think people are just whining because they don't want to adapt, this is not true of everyone or even most people, this AI change should have been a part of a comprehensive change to how things work, as it is it's just more frustration for no gain.

I am also a rattlesnake lover. But you cant talk for sure for everyone here. I give you an example. Doing 1 drone horde i have no prob. But the dps inside there is among the biggest you can encouter as high end anomalies. Rattlesnake tanks it easy. But sentries dont. And i always used a TP even before the ai change. The drones do get agro. And funny that i dont see em bleeding on shield first. Not all times. Some times rats change the target and that sentry ends up with armor damage with the first hit. Now imagine that on the long run. You will probably say carry armor reps drones. I am but guess what , every time you rep you dont have dps on the room. Please show me another weapon choice that has that . My point is that ? On all races of rats of course (because there are races that tracking disrupts, ecm etc but its your choice to be there for the LP store)

And how is that Raven going to deal with spawns of 3-4 frigs?

[Rattlesnake, New Setup 1]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II

Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Target Painter II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
Cruise Missile Launcher II, Mjolnir Cruise Missile
Drone Link Augmentor II
Drone Link Augmentor II

Large Core Defense Field Purger I
Large Core Defense Field Purger I
Large Core Defense Field Purger I


Garde II x5

This is the fastest isk/h that works for me for that ship. Rest drones ofc depending on situation

EWAR doesnt help with mission rats, they still insta switched to drones. Guess they ARE different from sleeper AI, good work CCP
I foresee glorious return of the raven as only viable PVE boat.

Yeah, I gotta say... When the AI change was announced I was all, "pfft, look at the whiners... Devs have tested, only lost a couple drones in a big missioning session. We'll just have to pay a little attention." Then I tried it, and couldn't even scoop warriors from 5km away before they got blapped. This is massively, massively harder on drones than the devs seem to have experienced; I don't know what the discrepancy is, but I lost more drones today than I have in the rest of my eve life.