Eve which sentry drone is best

This makes controlling drones easier, as you can give a command to the entire group. To move a drone in or out of a group, right-click on the drone, or drag it in or out of the group.

Create groups of drones which you intend to launch and use together; usually, this means groups of five identical drones, but in some cases you may want to create groups with a mix of drones. Only drones of the same type may be grouped you cannot, for example, put e-war and combat drones in the same group.

You can delete unused drone groups by right-clicking in your drone control window and selecting "Delete group". Drones have built-in weapons that don't need to reload. If damaged, a drone's shields will slowly regenerate on their own, but damage to its armor and hull will need to be repaired e.

Drones are capable of serving many different roles and exist in many different sizes. There are five general categories:. Details on the characteristics of individual drone types are shown below in Drone Type Details. A discussion of the uses of these drones in game can be found in Drone Mechanics.

A ship must have a drone bay to use drones. You can find out if a ship has a drone bay, and how big it is, by looking at the Attributes tab in its Show Info window. If it has a drone bay, it will tell you the drone bay's capacity in cubic meters m 3. The size of a ship's drone bay determines how many drones you can carry with you, ready to be launched into space; larger and more powerful drones take up more space in your drone bay.

The size of your ship's drone bay is fixed and cannot be enlarged using modules or skills. Only drones can be carried in a drone bay; it cannot be used to carry other cargo. While you can carry drones in your cargo bay, you can only use them if they are in the drone bay.

The other important ship attribute is its "bandwidth". You can only deploy as many drones as you have available bandwidth on your ship, and bigger drones require more bandwidth. Your ship's bandwidth is fixed, and is not affected by skills or modules. Many ships and especially dedicated drone ships can carry many more drones in their drone bays than they can deploy at once; this allows them to selectively deploy different types of drones, or to replace drones which are destroyed in combat.

However, irrespective of your ship's bandwidth, you can only only have as many drones in space at once as you have levels in the Drones skill which allows up to 5 drones at level V. The only exception to this limit is the very rare Guardian-Vexor cruiser. This means that with high bandwidth you might be able to deploy five heavy or five light drones, while with lower bandwidth you may only be able to put out five of the light ones.

By default, your control range is 20km, which means that you can only order a drone to attack an enemy ship if it's within 20km of your ship. This range can be extended by training:. To increase it further, you can install modules and rigs on your ship:.

Once you've ordered them to attack a target, your drones will pursue that target even outside your drone control range, whether or not you continue to have that target locked. Drones will shut down if they exceed km distance from their host ship, or if their host ship activates its warp drive.

See Abandoned Drones , below, for your options if you lose touch with your drones. Almost all drones except the stationary sentry drones have a built-in microwarp drive MWD , which allows them to travel quickly to engage a target. Once they arrive near their target, they shut down their MWD, orbit the target, and fire their weapons. This means that drones have to travel to the target and then stay within range of it in order to apply their damage.

In practice, this means that drones will have difficulty against faster, more agile targets, as even though they may be able to catch them thanks to their MWD, they may not be able to stay within weapons range for long at their non-MWD speed. Larger drones in particular are almost useless against fast frigates for this reason.

You can give commands to each drone individually, or to all of your drones at once. If you issue a command like "attack that target", the drone will fly to the target you have selected and start firing on it once it's within weapons range, but you cannot exercise any finer control than that. You can give a drone commands either by right-clicking it, selecting it in the overview and using the overview buttons, or by using a radial menu by long-clicking.

You can also give "launch" and "return to drone bay" commands by dragging drones in the drone control window from the "drones in bay" to the "drones in space" folder. Additionally, you can use keyboard shortcuts for many of these commands. These can be changed in the Game Settings window. Once you give a command to your drones, they start carrying it out in the next server tick.

In practice, this means that your drones may take seconds to respond after you give a command. You can modify your drones' default behavior through the drop down menu at the top left of the drone control window.

Your drones will not automatically attack hostile ships in this mode, but will stay in orbit around your ship until given a specific command. This is the default mode, and it's recommended to keep your drones in this mode for PvE particularly when running missions, as you want to control which rats you aggro and for most PvP. Your drones will automatically attack any entity which attacks your ship using the same targeting logic as auto-targeting missiles. Note that they will only react to hostiles which begin attacking you after the drones were launched.

This mode can be useful if you are being jammed , as it gives you a chance to attack something at least. However, as your drones are fairly dumb in their target selection, in almost every other situation you want to command your drones manually as your drones may inadvertently attack something you would rather not.

If you tick this box, then all your drones in space will attack a single target particularly if they are choosing their own targets in "Aggressive" mode. There are almost no situations in which this box should not be checked. This option applies to fighter and fighter-bomber drones as used by capital ships. As these drones have built-in warp drives, they can follow your targets even if they warp away - if you want to prevent this and keep your drones with you , uncheck the box.

Disabling the "attack and follow" setting is a good idea if you suspect that your target may warp to a POS and if your fighter drones follow, they will likely be destroyed by the POS' defenses. If you warp away while your drones are in space, if your ship is destroyed, or if you give the "abandon" command, your drones will become inactive and remain stationary in space.

At this point, anyone can recover them by flying to them and using the "scoop to drone bay" or "scoop to cargo bay" command. You can also reconnect with any drones which you have personally abandoned by right-clicking on your ship or the capacitor on your HUD and selecting "reconnect to lost drones"; this works as long as the drones are nearby, on the same grid.

It's not possible to use a tractor beam on abandoned drones. If you've warped away without recalling your drones, but cannot directly return to the location e. Your drones can take shield, armor, and structure damage during a fight just like your ship. Their shields will regenerate slowly, whether the drone is in space or in your drone bay at the same rate , but armor and hull damage needs to be repaired.

When in combat with drones, keep an eye on your drone's health through the drone control window, and when a drone starts taking armor damage, recall it to your drone bay and launch a fresh drone if you have spares - it's much cheaper to repair drones than to replace them.

If you dock at a station with repair facilities, you can easily repair all damaged drones at the cost of some ISK. Also, they get repaired automatically at no cost while your ship is tethered to a Citadel.

There is currently a large limited quantity of these drones available. They use the Dragonfly Fighter Drone model, and also use twice the bandwidth and drone bay of a normal heavy drone 50 Mbits and 50 m3 respectively.

They do not benefit from any Racial Drone Specialization skills. They have the same skill requirements as a normal T1 heavy drone. Gallente combat drones deal out the highest damage, but have the slowest velocities and tracking speeds.

Minmatar drones have the highest velocities and tracking speeds, but deal the least amount of damage. Caldari drones do more damage than Amarr and Minmatar, but are also slower than those two. Amarr drones have higher velocities and tracking speeds than Gallente and Caldari, but deal less damage than those two. Amarr and Caldari drones all have the most total HP. They have the same total HP at each size category. Caldari and Minmatar drones have more shields than armor, while Amarr and Gallente drones have more armor than shields.

And, of course, each race's drones specialize in one type of damage: Gallente-thermal, Caldari-kinetic, Minmatar-explosive, and Amarr-EM. The key point is to know your potential enemy's weaknesses, and then load the drones that emphasize strengths against those enemy vulnerabilities.

Use EVE-Survival. They did the least amount of damage compared to all other drones. This position is now occupied by the Minmatar drones. The Amarr and Minmatar drones are, however, quite fast, and they have high tracking, allowing them to keep up with faster or smaller targets. Many people consider Gallente drones, due to their high DPS, to be the "general purpose" or "default" drone to use. Certainly, Gallente drones deal out relatively high thermal damage, but remember that they are also the slowest drones - if they can't keep up with fast targets, their value will be reduced.

And if a target has high thermal resists, your Gallente drones won't do much damage. In short, don't make broad assumptions about which drone types to use.

Do your homework, and select the best mix for the expected combat situation. However, instead of orbiting the target ship, they stay where they have been deployed and fire at their enemies from long range. They are, in effect, robotic snipers. They have varying ranges and falloffs that are much longer than their heavy attack cousins. However, they have low tracking speeds and are immobile once deployed. Sentry drones also require some more skills than the other drones talked about so far.

Skills required:. As of the Kronos expansion, sentry drones do need, and obtain bonuses from, the racial Drone Specialization skills, just like light, medium and heavy combat drones. The ranges and falloffs of the different racial types of sentry drones vary - this is different than ranges for standard combat drones, which do not vary by race.

The Gallente sentry drone Garde does the highest damage and tracking, but has the shortest range. The Caldari sentry drone Warden has the longest range but lower damage and tracking. Amarr Curator and Minmatar Bouncer sentries operate at moderate range and damage, relatively speaking.

They do gain the benefit of Racial Drone Specialization skills, but otherwise they have the same damage and damage multipliers. The real strength of Tech 2 Sentry Drones is in their increased tracking and range. If you have the drone bay space, it's useful to carry more than one flight of sentry drones, for when you moved too far away from them and can't recall them remember they can't move, so they can't fly to you - if you need to get out in a hurry you might have to leave them.

Having a choice of sentry drones is also useful for when you need to shoot at different ranges. Aside from combat and support model drones, these drones exist purely to mine ore from asteroids. Harvester mining drones yield an extra seven cubic meters per cycle over its tech 2 cousin, at the expense of going half as fast. However, they are now very rare, and extremely expensive. One of the random drops from these killed freighters would be these drones.

Experienced miners know that Harvester mining drones, while able to mine a slightly larger volume, are not worth their exorbitant cost, since they fly at much slower speeds. By coordinating fleet drone usage, it becomes an easier task for everyone. Advanced drones require higher level skills, and won't be covered in detail in this introductory class.

If you are curious, be sure to attend the Drones class to learn more. Advanced drones come in several varieties, as follows:. For more information on advanced drones, see the syllabus for the Drones class. There are also 'drones' that can be encountered in missions or in wormhole space that will oppose pilots in combat: Rogue Drones and Sleepers.

It's by far the most effective drone support skill; every other level in it is like having another drone. It replaced a previous skill that actually gave you one extra drone in space per level, but this had some major lag issues in big fights, so it was changed to an equivalent bonus to drone damage.

If you only ever train one drone support skill, make it Drone Interfacing. Drone Durability - makes your drones tougher and harder to kill. Useful if you find your drones dying quite a lot. Drone Navigation - makes your drones faster when they are using their microwarpdrive. It doesn't affect non-MWD speed, so it doesn't affect how much damage your drones do.

Teachers note in case people ask: it used to have a bug that made your drones do less damage, but this has now been fixed. Useful to get your drones places faster. Drone Sharpshooting - increases the range at which your drones can shoot effectively.

Great for Sentry Drones, still useful to allow your drones to get into range faster. Drone Avionics - it unlocks one of the drone modules the Drone Link Augmentor module , and it also gives you a bigger drone control range for all drones. We'll cover drone control range in a minute. Advanced Drone Avionics - it unlocks EWAR drones, but possibly more importantly, and it also gives you a bigger drone control range for all drones.

Drone Damage Amplifier - a low-slot module introduced with the Inferno expansion, it simply increases the damage your drones deal. Fitting more than one will suffer from stacking penalties, just like other low-slot damage modules. Very effective in specialised drone ships. Drone Link Augmentor - a high slot module, increases your drone control range by a lot. Remember that the further you send your drones, the longer they will take to get there.

Drone Navigation Computer - a mid-slot module that increases the thrust gained from your drones' microwarpdrive. Because it increases thrust, instead of directly increasing speed boost, it is more effective in lighter drones. You will gain a much bigger effect from this module for light combat drones than you will for heavy combat drones. Omnidirectional Tracking Link - a mid-slot module that increases your drones' tracking speed and optimal range.

Great for sentry drones, less used for other drones although it can still add some damage, especially if you use your drones against smaller ships than intended e. These can be fit with Tracking scripts, just like turret tracking computers. Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer - a low-slot module introduced with the Kronos expansion, it is very similar to the Omnidirectional Tracking Link, with slightly different stats.

They cannot use Tracking scripts, just like turret tracking enhancers. Drone Control Unit - a module that can only be fitted to capital ships that gives you the ability to launch one extra drone more importantly, one extra fighter or fighter-bomber in space.

There are also eight different drone rigs that can be fitted to your ship with various effects on your drones. There is a range limit to your drones. The basic drone control range is 20,m or 20km. Training both these skills to V will give you a drone control range of 60km. This is always the distance from your ship, to your drones and to your target even if you assign your drones to someone else.

If your drones are further away than this you cannot order them to engage, mine, assist or guard anything, and if the target is further away than this you cannot order your drones to engage, mine, assist or guard that target.

Remember this drone control range is only the range at which you can give orders, and that drones operate semi-autonomously. If for some reason your drones do become further away than your drone control range, they will happily continue doing what they are doing autonomously.

For example, if you set your drones to attack a target that subsequently moves away, your drones will continue attacking that target even if it moves out of your drone control range. You can order drones to return either to orbit, or to drone bay so long as they are within km of you. Once your drone s are further away than this km, you can't even do that - and if their target is destroyed or warps off then they will become abandoned, and you will have to go and get them.

Watch out when setting drones to attack fast-moving targets such as interceptors. They move at extremely high speeds, which means your drones will often need to activate their microwarpdrives to catch up with them. It appears the drones cannot activate their microwarpdrives when they are outside your drone control range not too sure of the exact range, but I assume it is your drone control range. If their target is too far away they will instead become Idle and start making their way slowly back to you, without using their microwarpdrives.

With intensive drone skill training, and by fitting drone modules and rigs, you could theoretically extend your drone control range to over km. Using non-sentry drones as extended-range snipers is not very effective, however, as it takes a lot of time for even the fastest drones to travel long distances - it would take half a minute for the speediest drones, Tech II Warriors, to reach the target at such long range. Most drone boat pilots try to establish an effective drone control range of about km.

Most drone engagements for pilots with typical drone skill levels occur between km. Sentry drones, on the other hand, benefit greatly from extended range. They have very long ranges, allowing for easy sniping. Most new players use drones in a rather ham-fisted fashion. They fly into a mission room, deploy drones, target enemies, order drones to engage, and see what happens.

This can be effective in simpler missions - but can also be a disaster in more complex situations. Understanding how to engage and control your drones effectively will maximize your chances of success - or survival. Look at your drone control window. This should be placed on your screen where it is easily accessible, especially if you are a drone boat pilot.

Many pilots put this in the lower right corner, but you can place it anywhere as long as it won't be cluttered behind your overview or other windows.

To launch your drones, you need to right-click on the desired drones within the 'Drones in Bay' section of the drone window, and select 'Launch Drones'. To make launching multiple drones faster, you can add drones to groups to do this, right-click on a drone in the drone bay and select Move Drones. Note that you cannot launch more drones than your ship bandwidth allows.

To know your ship's bandwidth, right-click on your ship in space, click the "Show Info" option and select the "attributes" tab. If you try to launch more drones than permitted for example, if you add six drones to a group and then try to launch the group you will still launch all the drones you can, and then also get an error message saying you can't launch that many in space. The 'Launch Drones' command cannot be keybound. In the upper left corner of your drone control window, you will see a square consisting of horizontal parallel lines.

Left-click on this square, and you will see the " Drone Settings " option. You will see options for Passive vs. Changing the options in this window will set the default behavior for your drones. The Passive option will keep your drones under your direct control - with this option selected, your drones won't automatically attack when you are being aggressed by another entity. They will continue to orbit and remain idle until directed otherwise by you.

If you select the Aggressive option, your drones deployed in space will engage targets by themselves if they meet these conditions:. An interesting note: Drones and "Friend or Foe" missiles use the same aggression pointer. So, whatever target your drones are attacking, either by your direction or by their own aggressive selection, any FoF missiles will go after the same target.

Under the new Crimewatch system, any pilot that does the last two actions in high security space gets a SUSPECT flag, and becomes a valid target for anyone. Be aware that if you then attack them, then you become a valid target for the aggressor, and they can fight back!

Drones set to aggressive will not automatically engage a target if doing so would cause a limited engagement. Drones will only engage such a target if you explicitly order them to attack.

Amarr Empire. Akali Kuvakei. Gallente Federation. Raven Solaris. Sentry sniping Domi with a Micro Jump Drive is going to be fun. Prince Sanguine wrote: Finally going to focus on sentry drones but I'm not really sure which drones will perform best in the higher level ranges. Sama Guild. Britta Nolen. Ptraci wrote: Prince Sanguine wrote: Finally going to focus on sentry drones but I'm not really sure which drones will perform best in the higher level ranges.

Britta Nolen wrote: Ptraci wrote: Prince Sanguine wrote: Finally going to focus on sentry drones but I'm not really sure which drones will perform best in the higher level ranges.

Lion Investments. Ruskarn Andedare. I use faction gardes and wardens. University of Caille. Lyris Narin wrote: The only reason to deploy a drone other than a Garde II is because you cannot yet do so, in which case a Garde I is your weapon of choice in the interim; or, in those very few cases in which you are a very smart fellow who knows exactly why you need some other drone in order to make a marginal improvement in your fitting performance.

Lyris Nairn wrote: That makes you one of the latter category, but even then I'm sure you carry Gardes to swap out once the enemies get close. Lyris Nairn wrote: I take it from the fact that you posted this thread that you are not the latter, and so I further endorse the former: Garde II. Lyris Nairn wrote: Josef Djugashvilis wrote: For long range level 4 mission sniping, Warden IIs are quite handy, mine can hit out to km at the moment.

Borderline Procurements. Maxxor Brutor. Prince Sanguine wrote: higher level ranges. The Nine Nine. Muad 'dib. I need tracking! I need damage type X! I need cheap drones! Bloody Wench. Best sentry drones? Previous Topic Next Topic. Prince Sanguine Likes received: School of Applied Knowledge Caldari State