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When to Use Light vs Medium Drones

When missioning, when should I use light drones, and when should I use medium drones? Someone told me I should use light drones vs. frigates and medium drones vs. cruisers and larger. Is this correct?

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5 answers

  • 2

matt_12 [ Editor ]

ships in new eden are roughly dropped into 4 categories.

  • small, medium, large and capital.

Each class has a racial specific ship set and a generic ship.

Smalls have racial frigates, and Destroyers are generic (but require the specific races frigate skill)

Mediums have racial cruisers, but with a generic battlecruiser skill.

Battleships are the odd ball as they have a one size fits all bit!

  • Each size has a drone set designed to offer optimal damage to each.

Light, medium, heavy, fighters & bombers.

Now for my personal opinion, generally, I fit my ship to deal with big ships, and just use lights for the small stuff.

As many ships don't have enough drone bay space I often resort to using small drones on cruisers.

  • I would always use complete flights of 5 drones of any one size.

If I'm using a drone boat like a domi, I would carry Lights and Heavies and leave the mediums in the overlap, otherwise I'd just be swapping drones out all the time.

Actually I would in all likelyhood just use sentries to take care of them all, but that's besides the point.

Medium drones are designed to take out cruisers and battlecruisers, the do a good job at the former, but struggle with the latter, and the can hit destroyers as well, but frigates can take a while.

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  • 8

kazz [ Editor ]

Small drones - Optimal for Frigates/destroyers. Can also take down cruisers but may struggle with elite ones.

Medium drones - Optimal for Cruiser sized hulls, potentially BC and BS (especially if you have T2) depending on the situation. They are a lot faster than heavy drones so if you know there are problems with agro switching in the mission and the rats are far away then it can sometimes be worth using mediums on battleships (obviously will take them longer to take it down). Mediums can take down frigates as well - but will take them longer than a light drone.

Heavy drones - BC/Battleships.

Sentries - Anything at the right range (usually I would carry just Sentries for range then a round of lights for fast frigates/cruisers that come in too close before my sentries have popped them).

With drones SP really does make a huge amount of difference to how versatile you can be with their usage.

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  • 2

mymindisglowing [ Editor ]

It all comes down to your drones' tracking speed (notice that is one of their given stats on the info tab). Complicated math is involved, which is really not what your question is about. The simpler answer is that the smaller the drone, the better its tracking speed and ability to hit smaller, faster targets. However, the smaller the drone, the less the damage when it actually hits. You job is to strike the middle ground balance between the two.

Thus, your rules of thumb:

Light - frigates/destroyers, can push it to cruiser in a pinch

Medium - cruiser, can push it to battlecruiser, might be able to push it down to frigate in a pinch, depending on how zippy the frig.

Heavy - battlecruiser and battleship.

Fighters/bombers would be used to make a dent against cap ships.

As to matters of personal taste and preference in loading out, I always pack with light drones for frigates where warranted. Never underestimate frigates, as they are usually the ones to web you or warp scram you for the larger dps ships. Typically, you want them out of the picture fast and out of your way so you can focus on the big guns, and there is no faster means than light drones.

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serker
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I can add that Gallente light, and to lesser degree medium drones are the best in pve. According to eveinfo.com, all npc frigates have the same or almost the same resistance to everything, thus giving advantage to gallente drones due to their best damage. Cruisers have a bit more mean resists, but Hammerhead IIs still wins.

mymindisglowing
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BTW: the reason Warrior Iis are highly favored for pvp is that they are the fastest drones and thus most likely to hit against speedy opponents.

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  • 0

thefish

Medium drones, besides they have higher damage than their smaller brothers, can really outrun and kill almost any NPC frigate, with one exception. But this is very important exception - med drones cannot kill elite npc frigates fast enough, they lack speed and tracking for this task. Need i to mention that elite NPC frigs are always carrynig a scrambler and/or web?

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  • 0

dragonrider000 [ Editor ]

it can depend on what race of drone you use for example a valkarie II is going to track frigates alot better then say a hammerhead II.

However valkarie IIs are not as high damage for pve and are more Suited for pvp. so yes basicly use smalls for frigs/destroyers and for some of the weaker npc cruisers then move up to mediums for elite npc cruisers and the ocational battlecruiser. then move up to heavys for battlecruiser and battleship sized ship.

Personaly i got my drone speed and tracking skills maxed and just use Ogre IIs to destroy everything including elite frigs and has worked very well.

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