Rats do not pose any threat, no matter the change, as one is able to perfectly calculate the outcome of a fight against NPCs, can take enough time to figure out the minor details and can warp out at any time should there be any mistake to try again. All that matters is the time it takes to kill them.


Every ship can kill rats, it comes down to the question of efficiency. If I can do a mission in 30 minutes in ship one, or in 50 minutes in ship two, I take ship one. And while before every ship had its pros and cons, now half of them are pointless and the other half is superior. And the only trivial way to keep drones alive is currently to not use them at all, which cannot be the intended purpose of a 'weapon'.

I made the mistake to read your other posts as well Tippia, and found nothing but blank statements or false arguments, so you are either a troll, massively clueless or both. Whatever it is, you are trying to defend a severe issue in this game, one that still exists even if you close your eyes, you just won't see it anymore.

If you would have actually read my post, you would have seen that I listed Dominix as one of the ships that do not have any issues. There are two reasons for it: first it has a 50% drone hp bonus and second it uses sentries. This combination is pretty save, as it works with a level of drone HP that allows to recall in time. Try flying a mission in a ship that does not have an HP bonus, use Ogres and watch them instantly explode. Then please tell me how everyone would have been perfectly able to recall those in time.

On the rest of your post: I was speaking about gun-boats which uses drones primarily to defend against elite frigates, something absolutely necessary in some missions. Before you could deploy them, have them wipe out the frigs (which wasn't easy, I'd like to mention as those pesky elite frigs have a troublesome combination of HP and repair sometimes, requiring solid drone skills to kill), now you need to recall your drones about 3 times per frig and bring some extra drones as with the reaction time of the drone interface, you tend to loose one every other mission. This is not only extremely tedious and annoying, but as well lowers your isk/h to a point where some people have already started to just skip certain (otherwise lucrative) mission, because it just isn't worth the trouble.

I have done some extensive testing one drones after the change and talking about isk/h (which is the only relevant factor for mission runners) using drones now boils down to the following:
- Sentry guns are fine at range or when used in a drone-boat. Otherwise use only when only BS are left, or they tend to insta-pop. As they require you to stand still, you need an appropriate tank, which impacts your fitting choices.
- Heavy drones are useless now. They cannot be recalled in time, which means they either die before they either reach any enemy or on the way back when recalled. Their damage is negligible considering the dps loss for the constant traveling back and forth to your drone bay.
- Medium drones are usable only vs. enemy battleships or low orbiting cruisers, however most of the time the extra DPS isn't worth the risk loosing one (considering the dps loss from recalling them). With only BS left you better stick to salvaging drones.
- Small drones are still required vs elite frigs, but they tend to die a lot thanks to the usual drone AI lag and low hp. Bring extras or skip missions with frigs spawning close to entry point.
- Salvage drones are the drones of choice atm. They don't do any damage, but they are not targeted either. Effectively they speed up your (solo) missioning by salvaging usually in time when you cleared the pocket and therefore add the most to your isk/h.

I almost maxed out all my drone skills, just to learn that the best way is to not use them anymore but stick to salvage drones. I still say this is heavily broken.

- Heavy drones are useless now. They cannot be recalled in time, which means they either die before they either reach any enemy or on the way back when recalled. Their damage is negligible considering the dps loss for the constant traveling back and forth to your drone bay.