I am a a complete newbie, just about to hit level 40 and I am planning to get a vo'quv.

All these threads about broken pets make me a bit worried tho. Is there any sense to get a carrier now? It seems that bops are affected the most of the brokenness?

Are there any (pve/stf) builds that work currently regadless of the pet ai problems?

Although I haven't played a lot since the patch on my carrier, this is my experiences.
The drones seem to tunnel vision on the target that you have targeted when you launch them. Selecting another target while in attack mode seems to have not much effect.
The fighters that come with the carrier work very well. If you don't have the attack mode turned on they will find a target on their own. If you do, they will switch to your current target instantly.
The BoPs weren't THAT broken, they were just hard to control: they go for their own target and ignore your orders. I haven't used them since the patch on the 15th, but supposedly they improved their AI.

Btw, you might want to turn off attack mode as soon as combat ends. Sometimes it keeps you in red alert for AGES, and you can't use full impulse.

ps: every single pet in the game seems to be broken in STFs and they can't attack transformators and gateways. they can attack generators and probes, spheres and cubes

ps2: i haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, but auxiliary power reduces the cooldown on your hangar abilities, ie. you can launch pets more often.

I wouldn't say they 'improved' thier AI.
They 'changed' it.

Either way they did not change the part of the AI that was the major problem (control issues).
They only changed the AI in the respect of how the BoP's attack an indevidual target.

I noticed now when entering an STF if I issue an attack order on a target that I'm not already engaged with at the begining of the round, they just stop dead in thier tracks and do nothing (not even follow me any more).
It seems like issueing an attack oder does not place your target on thier 'hate list', they will only attack if said target is already on thier list.

BoP's are broken, but they will still fly around and attack things. Just don't expect to be able to controll them as well as fighters. Sometimes you just 'give up' and leave the attack command on, and just spawn them as the timer becomes available. Let them just do thier own thing and hope for the best.

I use both high end KDF carriers, the BoP pets can annoy me at time but I do not tend to use them much. In fact I do not know anyone who does use them, like the poster above put, the fighters are great.

The fighters launch faster (shorter cool down to get 2nd wave or replace destroyed ones), very responsive to commands and can do great damage.

the onther pets are ok to, the BoP are the slowest to launch and can sometimes forget they have forward facing cannons. In PvE they are ok as they can keep something busy 15km away, but for real combat fighters are way better

I don't fly them but I have fought them and I can say one thing: With the right skills, power siphon drones are DEADLY! They can bring a fully powered ship with EPS transfer, EPTS, red matter capacitor, to absolutely no power when used in conjunction with other power lowering abilities.