Consequences for me in PvE (solo L4s in Myrm) because of the NPC drone aggro changes:

Never use Scout Drones for what they are actually for: Frigs (Instead kill all the frigs with guns first and lose dps)
Never use Medium Drones for what they are actually for: Cruisers and BCs (instead use scout drones and lose dps)
Only use Heavy Drones when there are around 3 BS left and be careful. (use mediums instead, lose dps)

Sudden Drone aggro switches from ranges 50km-20km result in a lost drone and there is nothing you can do about that.

The People you wanted to hurt (afk mission runners/bots) use Centries and those are completely unaffected by the changes because they effin pop stuff from 100km away...

I will be in a Centry/Gun boat the next days, i just thought ill be nice to the other newer players that have to rely on everything but Centries and tell you what i experience.

It adds 0 to the gameplay, its basically just a giant nerf for pre centry pve droneboats.
Wich wasnt nessesary since non droneboats in the same brackets dish out equal dps without drone transit times.

For null sec pvp gozus: Please i know you dont L4, you dont need it, dont comment on it.
For "make the game harder" people: there is no workaround that isnt cutting dps. its not a difficulty issue.

Opening your drone window and watching what gets aggro and pulling it back into your drone bay solves the losing drones problem.

Collecting the aggro on your own boat first helps to a degree in mitigating drone aggro, all together the idea of drones getting aggro is to stop afk mission runners, I do not disagree with this.

yes, Sentry drones tend to be beefy enough to not need as much nursing, yes they tend to do a lot of dps. But they also pin you to a single point once that enemy deeps closes in you could be in trouble.

In my mission runner days i have always used drone boats, Heck i went fooling around in level 4 missions in a vexor for poops and giggles. I haven't lost a drone in god knows how long. So the current drone system isn't all that bad. drone upgrades make life better in many ways. I guess i don't agree with what you're saying. New players will just have to learn the tricks associated with using drones in missions and actually looking after them (or just replace them over and over)

Yeah maybe my mission running days were before the 'change's maybe i've just been lucky, but my fooling around with the Vexor was very recent and i had little problems with managing drone aggro.

However if we work off your idea of the drones permanently receiving aggro. how about we work around another option. I tend to see very few drone boats with turrets on them anymore. (mind you i haven't looked at many drone boats lately) Lets say your myrmidon has a couple of drone link augmenters in the high slot, Why not use another high slot to run a shield repper to toss onto your drones as they take damage, It might be enough to keep them alive as they continue to munch on the enemy or as they are returning to the bay.

I know a mate who was fooling around with an Ishtar fit that had a repper on it for this reason (I don't know if he ended up using it or not.)

I should start saving this.

1) EWAR does not work. My CNR with twin painters still loses aggro, regularly. To the point it's just not worth the hassle of deploying when considering point 2 below.
2) Watching aggro does not work unless the drones are in extremely close orbit. Approx <15km for lights, <10km for mediums and even then it is a crapshoot. There's too much lag in the GUI showing lock changes, drones taking hits and the return commands.

The simple reality, in missions, is that they are NOT worth the trouble unless you're using sentries. Can you use them? Absolutely. Is it worth it? Absolutely not.

I rather suspect many people claiming non-sentries are actually workable beyond point blank ranges or that there's some way paying attention can save all drones all the time haven't actually tried it.

Their returns quite simply do not merit their hassle. And I say this as a mission toon....you know, one of those folk that scrape every last iota of ruthless red cross blapping efficiency out of a boat and I'm telling you they're just not worth it. Unless sentries.

thx for the reasonable replys.
good to see honest people assessing the situation fair and correct.

for the others: i do it for the ISK and for fun. since your so amazed, my current fit:

[Myrmidon, New Setup 1]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Federation Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane

Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
10MN Afterburner I
Drone Navigation Computer I (yes im trying to save them)
Cap Recharger II

250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Lead Charge M
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Lead Charge M
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Lead Charge M
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Lead Charge M
250mm Prototype Gauss Gun, Lead Charge M

Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Semiconductor Memory Cell I

Hobgoblin II x5
Hammerhead II x5
Federation Navy Ogre x3

effective range 33km +/- 10km

as i said will switch to hyp soon

fly save :)

As someone who uses a Myrm for level 4s myself coincidently I have to say this is a rather bad fit.
Sentry drones are your friend:
I use:

[High]
5x Prototype Gauss

[Mid ]
3x FN Omnidirectional Tracking Links (tech IIs are fine as well)
1x 10 MN Afterburner
1x Cap recharger

[Low]
3x Drone Damage Amplifier II
Corpum C Type Medium Armour Repairer
2x mission specific hardeners.

[Rigs]
Aux Nano Pump I
Drone Control Range Augmenter I
Capacitor Control Circuit I

[Drones]
4x Sentries (Garde II)
5x Hobgoblin II
5x Hammerhead II
5x Warrior II

Works very nicely but you need to do some tactical warps, occasionally.
Tech II sentries with 3x omnis shred everything including frigs, for the time anything gets too close you have the other drones to deal with them, gun damage for added dps.

At my current skills which are far from perfect it does 580 dps @ 50km optimal (Garde II, Tungsten charge) with sick tracking on the sentries.

Needless to say this setup is also very very nice for speed running level 3s.

If you're going to use Ogres, then I'd advise you get a fourth; you've got the bandwidth, so it's self-defeating not to use it.

As for that deadspace-armor-rep Myrmidon fit, it's got one problem: it's a three-hundred-million-ISK fit. If you're going to drop that kind of money on a mission boat, you might as well get an Ishtar or a Gila, and make use of the full battleship-grade drone bandwidth.

well this is not a fit discussion thread but:

ya know i cant use sentries (miles away from tech IIs), thats why i dont use them
the fit is actually maxed out for what i can use,what i want from it and what it does.
btw EFT says 250dps-527dps. with the dps range from 5 scout to 3 heavies/2 meds with antimatter for the BS cleanup
EVE says 526dps but thats eve BS lol

cheers :)

I use the same c-type repper and hardeners on my Ishtar as well. I think the ship + fit is like 400 mill. It's really not that bad.

as i said, pulling back from 50-20km once u see a drone get a dent in its shield does not save it in a L4 combat situation, most of the times.

I think I see the problem.

please describe what you see

Sending drones out that far. Yes the aggro changes have not helped droneboats. But by the same token I was using sentries back when i was maybe 2 months old in EVE and long before the aggro changes, because even then they were just plain better.

Faction sentries rock and are an excellent stopgap while you train the skills. You have to be pretty brain dead to lose one, and can sell them back at close to break even once you can use T2.

idk. can we stop the smartassing and stay on topic?

last address to the smartassing:
4 ogre vs 3/2 hamms is 12dps diff in EFT. point is, i switch from 5 hamms to 3/2 when the time is right so 2 stay on target and thats more then 12 dps.
you know what? lets be exact here, just for the sake of it, i am in the mood:
2 hamms on target for me is 86 dps
switching from 5 hamms to 3ogre 2hamms takes around 10 secs (travel time etc.) so thats 860 damage.
EFT gives 363 dps for 2 hamms/3ogres and 375dps for 4 ogres.
that gives you 2 functions: f1(x)=363x+860 and f2(x)=375x they meet at 71,7.
that means after 71,7 seconds 4 ogres will have done the same ammount of dmg as 2 hamms 3 ogres and from then on will do "more" dmg. usually i only switch to 3/2 when against 3-4 BS. after 71 seconds u know...
kk thx i pass...

on the "magstab" topic:
because of drone aggro:
before i field any drone i kill frigs with guns; in this situation magstab+drone dmg offers more dps
when i kill dessys, cruisers and bcs i field light scout drones; in this situation magstab+drone dps equals 2 drone dmg mods
(with travel time included dual drone dmg amp is less dps)
in the "ogre phase" dual drone amps give me 20 dps more and its also the least dangerous, shortest and last phase...
so the magstab kinda helps me to gap the lamedronezone and get to the ogre phase faster u c?



and yes, to answer my beginner 100mill fit with a 300mill isk tech II sentry fit when its clear that i cant use ANY sentry yet and judge my fit as "bad" even though its just sth different and in itself quite balanced, is as the other stuff:

u n r e l a t e d

and yes bro, i know, sentries are good
what is with titans r they strong too?
sry when im a little punchy here but cmon u guys....

for the others:
thx for backing up the claim and sharing your exp and view :)

idk man, where should i start, drone skills give idk 50k range? and then there is an item that increases that for 20km...
ok maybe all drones other then sentries became close range weapons now... ?

we are not talking about sentries
i addressed sentries as being not affected at all by the changes
and yes, i know that they are awesomesauce
and i also said that i am addressing this for people that need to use everything BUT sentries
what you basically imply is "ok yeah they are ****** up and not viable in PvE anymore but who cares, there is other better stuff later in the game"

i kinda settled with this view aswell, thats why i did this post, to tell ccp that light-heavy drones are ****** up in PvE
that afk mission runners are not affected and that the only people affected are those beginners until month 2-3 wich choose drones

I think I see the problem.

please describe what you see

This thing has been explain over and over and over again, sadly until people learn how to use search function of both forums and google or bing or yahoo or w/e your pref search engine is these topics will still get started over again...

To get back to the topic, changes are welcome in my opinion and require people to be present and active, lets not forget the old days where cap stable double rep domies would just go into the mission, pop drones out and go eat lunch or something to return to all npc's dead and mission completed. Similar to afk mining... Anyhow the changes that have been made affect only elite npc's and only they are affected by agro changing ability. What that means is that normal npc's will not ever change agro from you to your drones. Learn the names of elite type npcs and deal with them 1st or use the very simple tactic of poping drones out, wait for agro shift, bring them back in, wait for the agro to come back to you and then resend your drones and you have around 2-3 mins before they change agro back again... And where did you get that idea that sentries arent affected by agro shifts? I have had my sentries targeted numerous times in some missions by elite destroyers and cruisers...

People have suggested using sentries for the number of reasons and the most important one is they dont have to fly and orbit their target to be able to do damage. Sending drones to 50-70km away is just plain dumb because of time lost and infectiveness. You came here for advice then accept what people are telling you. If you want to be afk and do stuff in eve then reroll to a miner.

And why in this golden age of domi mission running boats with mjd's would you still be using a myrm... But it's your choice, you can do w/e you like to do with your toons.

I see someone trying to use a close range weapon system at long range.

as i said, pulling back from 50-20km once u see a drone get a dent in its shield does not save it in a L4 combat situation, most of the times.

Why should drones be a system used exclusively at short ranges? It makes sense when you talk about blasters and so for the simple reason they'll stop hitting past a certain point.

For drones this is a pretty bold statement to make considering they can fly out to 100km+ and shoot stuff there just as well as they would do 1km away. This 'weapon' system is effective at any range really.

I see someone trying to use a close range weapon system at long range.

Wrong ship/fit for the job at hand, simple as that. Drone aggro changes was needed, even if I don't like them... It makes drone boats have to pay attention without making them unviable, like other weapon systems.

I use lights and sentries constantly,perfectly viable. Stop sucking :/

wtf is a centry

Thank you for one more totaly unqualified,unrelated and unnecessary comment.
Please interwebs gief moAr.