Problem with this theory about "removing frigates at close range" is "HOW?"

Tried that, it didn't work. When you've got 30+ rats on your screen and all of them decide to alpha your drones at once, the drones die. First salvo. The end. And that's exactly what happens, by the way.

As people have pointed out, Sleeper AI works in sleeper sights because you're only facing 5 or 6 ships at once (or so I'm told). But when you plug that same AI into 30+ ships at once it turns into the dysfunctional mess we have now.

What's really pathetic is that it's obvious that CCP removed things like "lock on time" from NPC ships, at least in regard to drones. You can deploy a flight of light drones - the smallest sig - and enemy battleships will be shooting at them in under a second. Have you ever tried to target a drone in a player ship? It takes forever. The tiny sigs come into play when we try to target drones. The NPCs? Not even part of the equation.

And because sig is no longer part of the equation the drones are now getting hit far more often than before. See, rats have always been able to target drones. The question was "Could they hit them?" Little light drones had few HP but we good at dodging fire. Big drones had lots of HP but were easier for NPCs to hit. But now that mechanic has gone out the window and NPCs hitting drones has become automatic. If they're in range, they hit. Drone signature radius has obviously been removed from all NPC calculations.

The trouble with your "solutions" CCP is EVE is a gear grinder and ISK is how we are competitive. Nerf income, you nerf a players ability to compete.
You shouldn't be nerfing income faucets. Any income faucets. You should be addressing the monopolies and bottlenecks that create ISK mountains.

No player in this game should be a trillionaire.

For those with tunnel vision, this is related to the drone nerf. The drone nerf was a PvE nerf, the same is the HML nerf was a PvE nerf, the opposite of the over powered Artillery never getting nerfed because Artillery for PvE are fail.

The problem is not that a level 4 mission runner makes too much ISK. It's that most of that ISK is being sent to other players who have no reason to take it out of the game. That's why ISK volumes rise. You know this though.

moon goo nerf is only solution.

Rightclick -> launch drones. Rightclick -> attack target. When they take a large amount of damage, Rightclick->return to drone bay.
Honestly, if I can do it without drone hp or damage bonuses on my ship, I'll bet you can do it too. It might require some extra clicking and, god forbid, paying attention.

I don't agree. Moon mats aren't the problem. Being able to hold moons with pure Tech 1 fleets .aka caps/ super caps is an issue but that's another thread.

Most players are in High Sec. That's the case because most Null won't support high populations. The incomes are unsustainable when there are 50 people in every null system. So most people are forced to be in high sec. They don't have anything null people want. So money goes in and never comes out. it isn't that a Null alliance makes too much from their moon ISK, they have no motive to part with their ISK.

Trade is a two way street. We don't have trade in EVE. We have hoarding.

No they stay in high sec to minimize losses. There is plenty of space, no one is forced to go anywhere in EVE, you are where you want to be, and people in null do have reason to part with iskies, its called war. War would even out most alliances if certain ones didn't have most of the moon goo, thus having most of the tech 2 mats, thus having the most influence.

Read the original post, drones aren't getting insta popped, they also aren't stealing the aggro of an entire room unless your running complexes in a rifter. I play the game too, I know better.

Then you're lucky. A lot of us are getting our drones killed before they can do any significant damage to circling frigates.

Read the original post, drones aren't getting insta popped, they also aren't stealing the aggro of an entire room unless your running complexes in a rifter. I play the game too, I know better.

Perhaps you would be good enough to record a mission and then post it on You Tube so we can all learn your tactics that the rest of we dumb drone users clearly are too dumb to grasp.

Let's see, how about L4 Mordus Headhunters, or the Serp, Angel, or Sansha room from WC 4.
Or Buzzkill. Yes, I would love to see a You Tube video of Buzzkill.