Drone DPS, Bunnies, and Sandbagging

[Pacolipse 1]

Raw discord post:

ok, theory crafting question. Right now we only have HHH and DDD, but if only 50 drones can assign per person this is wrong

ideal fleet would have lots of ogres and hammerheads out overwhelming HHH

so large amounts of people are sandbagging by not drastically overwhelming the HHH

we should also use logi to increase light drone dps and only have the 10x armor and 10x hull drones needed to do spot fixes slowly after a shield catch (shield drones would be more effective in emergencies anyways)

So i think a little more micromanaging is called for on drone cloud control

so we are not losing contests for this reason

so 10x person per drone bunny with logi use equal 4x drone bunnies not 2

if were not filling 3, people are sandbagging

also specify 4 logis to do armor;/hull and the rest hobgoblins

maybe a set of 5x target painter drones and web drones on the DDD could help when they are evading webs and keeping range

(Pacolipse/Jetcanplumber)

Edited September 4, 2019 by Blobert
Pasted as Plain Text

[Pacolipse 1]

To expand:

Ideal fleet without newbro's could look like this and make us look more competetive:

8 logis: with drone assignments: (DDD)

       2 hullbots

       2 armorbots

       1 TP

       1 web

       4 Hobgoblin II

1 Fleet booster

1 Webs specialist (Bhalgorn)

30 mixed DPS preferring heavy drone capable. (prefer 2/3 DPS for towers)

So what this means is we need 3 HHH's all full with 2 more overflow set of 5 drones (to ddd would be fine)

Unless all 3 of the HHH's are full, people are sandbagging. Also using logi for a small specialist swarm for DDD frees up dps from our BS.

 

This will be an extra task for FC/backset to accomplish, but will make us much, much more likely to hold our own and get happy GC's instaed of the other kind.

 

Pacolipse

Edited August 29, 2019 by Pacolipse

[Brok Haslack 2]

The Hull-bots & Armor-bots are there for patching someone up live. So that if they get a heavy switch a second time ( think Leshaks in a TCRC ) their passive buffers are at maximum again.

So rep-rate is needed.  Maximum bots.

And, sadly, Logis just don't have the drone bay for other stuff.

My opinion anyway.

[William Sayeth 2]

Well, yes, we could minmax how many drones of each kind everyone brings and coordinate it beforehand, and improve a lot of things. But WTM is fundamentally not at all a minmaxing community. If most people in fleet have drones in the right place, and listen to the FC well enough to most of the time be where they should, that's gonna have to be serviceable as a low for a loosely tied, open community. The premiere goal of most of the line members is to sit back and chill, shoot stuff, chatter about nullsec changes or turkey roasting and maybe save up to that fancy skin. And WTM has survived and thrived for a very long time, catering to this core group.

This could be changed into something vastly more serious, but that has high costs in terms of how many pilots we would lose or not be able to bring. This in turn results in severely reduced uptime (which atm is a main selling point of flying with WTM) and it changes the climate into a competitive one, over time increasing tention and drama between participants. What likely follows then is that even a portion of those who can live up to higher requirements will leave as they don't enjoy the experience anymore, and isk/hour which had increased from 100 to 300 drops to 0 with 9 ppl and their alts left in fleet trying to form, wondering how WTM died when performance was at such a high. (Let's not even have to sit for three hours trying to form, even if we eventually can field 20 leshaks and sustain on 5 logi, imo.) 

Still, improvements can and should be made, certainly, as long as we keep in mind what it is that has allowed WTM to stay relevant. The blatant sandbagging you mention initially can and should definitely be thwarted, especially if we help the FC realize when it's happening. We don't want to end up in a spot where it feels useless to put in the extra mile because someone's been "dcing" on beacon the last three sites. But FCs are good at counteracting this, and I've no doubt they can sort out who isn't deploying drones.

[Pacolipse 1]

Ok spoken to a few FC's in TS and here's my final point:

HHH shoots targets backwards to minimize travel time, and maximize DPS application

we have 30 people putting out medium/heavy drones and only 10 of them are doing this reverse list.

That means the other 20 are either not deployed, or chasing primaries with the VVV.

We need 3 Heavy bunnies, all doing separate targets together to get best DPS from our drones, and also as a call-out system for done bunny full, ass all 3 should be full without ogres in nightmares, or gecko's deployed.

[Davionious 27]

Lots to discuss here: 

1. Armour, Hull and Shield bots: They are not there to save pilots.  They are there to improve isk efficiency by allowing all ships to start the next site rather than bouncing for reps at a station.  So no Shield bots are needed.  If you don't catch someone in armor by the time the bots land then the bots will be applying immaterial levels of reps.  Armor bots are useful to patch battleships over time.  Hull are not needed as the Booster should have a large T2 Hull Repper fit.

2. Number of heavy drone bunnies:  An optimal fleet needs 4 Drone Bunnies to do it right.  There are two optimal fits - Geckos and Aug Ogres.  Geckos are better at applied DPS against ships while Aug Ogres do more DPS on towers. Ideally you should have a Mobile Depot and switch from Geckos to Aug Ogres or Sentries for tower bashes (Note to self re 4000DPS Shack fits).  The Optimal Vindi runs either 2 Geckos, 2 Hammerheads and 1 Light or 5 Aug Ogres. Machs and Shaks are optimally fit with 2 Geckos.  Alternatively they have 4 Aug Ogres ie 4 Heavies.   Nightmares are 1 Gecko, 1 Hammerhead and 3 Lights or Alternatively 3 Aug Ogres.  Logi should be 5x Lights not bots as primary but that's not doctrine. 

A fleet with lots of drones might be:  18 Vindis + 6 Machs / Shaks + 9 Nightmares + 6 logi + 1 Booster.  This is:

• 9 Gecko Vindis   -  4 Heavies + 1 Light    = 36 Heavy +  9 Light
• 9 Ogre Vindis     -  5 Heavies                   = 45 Heavy
• 3 Gecko Machs  -  2 Geckos                    = 6 Heavy
• 3 Ogre Machs    -  4 Ogres                       = 12 Heavy
• 4 Gecko NMs     -  2 Heavies + 3 Light    =  8 Heavy + 12 Light
• 5 Ogre NMs       -  4 Heavies                   =  20 Heavy
• 6 Logi                 -  5 Lights                      = 0 Heavy + 30 Light

DPS = 81 Heavy + 9 Light = 90 Drones.
Snipers = 46 Heavy + 12 Light  = 58 Drones.
Lights = 9 DPS + 12 Snipers + 30 Logi = 51   - these should go to the DDD and DDD is Full.
In practice Logi brings Logi Drones not Lights so DDD can be near empty. 

So in the best case scenario DPS assigns Mediums and Heavies to the HHH and Snipers assign mediums and Heavies to SSS.  All Lights go to DDD and overflow if any goes to VVV.

DPS = 18x4 = 72 Heavies  (Over by 22)  assign to HHH and overflow goes to SSS the Special Sniper drone bunny. 
Snipers = 30 Heavies  (Under by 20)  assign to SSS.  Ie Between SSS and HHH the DPS and Snipers have their drones fully allocated except for 2.

Then you have Lights = 18 x 1 + 6 x 0 + 9 x 3 + Logi Lights = 36 + Logi which are assigned to DDD. Since Logi can field an additional 30 lights then you end up with a potential overflow of 36 + 30 + 2 - 50 = 18 of mostly light drones having to be assigned to the VVV.  

With this fleet comp SSS, HHH and DDD are all full and VVV has 2 heavies and 16 Lights.

Overall, VVV is the worst DPS ship to have drones because their job is to be now where the DPS does not need to be until later.  This is why the VVV is otherwise known as the professional sandbagger.  But you don't need more than 2 heavy bunnies because you need these guys shooting cruisers and the very rare battleship that gets away. 
But then WTM allows much flexibility on drones and does not require people to bring the optimal configuration of drones for their ships.  So ….  this is just math.  

So Tl;Dr;  If we want to get serious about drones:  (a) Mandate 2 drone layouts per ship - Ogre and Gecko (b) Add in the SSS as a Sniper drone bunny (c) split heavy and light drone assignments between HHH and SSS.  Use VVV in the last resort. 

 

3. Support Drones: This is an interesting idea. I have no idea about the numbers so can't comment.  I do know in an elite fleet when the DDD can benefit from Web links, 3 Scimi links and 2 SeBos you don't need them.  But overall DDD's don't need drone DPS to kill frigates.  So using painters and webbing drones may be more useful. If your drones eWar Sansha do they get aggro and instablapped? Also you can fix the too many painters by requiring 1 paint, 1 web, 3 lights per logi.  If support drones make sense at all. 

 

 

[Pacolipse 1]

Davonious, thanks for the heads up:

I didn't know about the fleet booster running the hull repper. Also we don't need any more than 1 set of 5 armor bots for slow fixes on ships and drones after shields are caught. I made this list based on cheaper variations (aka not gecko's and not using oversize drones)

So based on what you said here is a new list:

8 logis: with drone assignments: (DDD)

       2x5  armorbots

       1x5 sw-300 (Webifier)

       1x5 tp-300 (Painting)

       4x5 Hobgoblin II or Acolyte II

1 Fleet booster + drones for fit

1 Webs specialist (Bhalgorn/loki) + drones for fit

20 DPS (Vindicator/Leshak)  20x5 Ogre II

10 Sniper (Nightmare/Mach) all with 5x mixed heavy or medium

-----------------

* note some fits might have over-sized drones but this is the maximum drone numbers we might see, especially if we choose to have the FC micromanage the Logi's drone choices.

So this is 36 x 5 = 180 drones out and assigned.

ddd would have 4 lights, and 2 support sets.(30)

hhh1 full (50)

hhh2 full (50)

hhh3 full (50) (unless non drone boats are used like loki for web role then 45)

Having 2/3 of our heavy/ mediums not doing HHH priority means chasing targets for long periods of time, and longer site time, and less money per time. So having 3 ships burning out to target and close ranging it means drone targets melt almost as fast as primaries and we free VVV up to shoot targets normally.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Pacolipse

[Pacolipse 1]

I'll be testing this in fleets that I run over the next few weeks to see how it goes and what speed we gain from it if any.

[Juan Carlos Minjita 120]

Are the drones you suggest allowed under current r&r? 

I would caution against asking people to change their load outs for your fleets as a t badge when they may be refused by the next fc.  Please try to go through the right channels first. 

 

That being said, the idea of multiple drone bunnies is a good one, I would like to see the results of the testing. 

[niki lasvegas 537]

I have some experience with webdrones. They were so useless i quickly gave up on the idea of using them... in incursions. Ever.

[Jaden Alenko 6]

On 9/12/2019 at 11:59 AM, niki lasvegas said:

I have some experience with webdrones. They were so useless i quickly gave up on the idea of using them... in incursions. Ever.

Really? 5 Heavy web drones don't do anything as DDD? Hmmm, I see two situations then:

1) They're close enough to get double webbed and you blap them.

2) They're too far to be double webbed, but at that range the transversal is low enough that you blap them.

 

What about as HHH? Those dang Romis are soo fast lol.  Could the HHH load a set of heavy webbing drones to web the Romi down at range and then all the heavies can pile on?

[Sparta 72]

19 hours ago, Jaden Alenko said:

Really? 5 Heavy web drones don't do anything as DDD? Hmmm, I see two situations then:

1) They're close enough to get double webbed and you blap them.

2) They're too far to be double webbed, but at that range the transversal is low enough that you blap them.

 

What about as HHH? Those dang Romis are soo fast lol.  Could the HHH load a set of heavy webbing drones to web the Romi down at range and then all the heavies can pile on?

The issues is the drones are just awful 

Edited October 26, 2019 by Sparta