Player Features and Ideas Discussion

i think the main problem is ship bonus on supposed drone boats don't go far enough and the high slots are largely useless on them unless your fighting at close range which obviously leads to problems if you want or need to snipe or keep range.
Some suggestions to improve drones are : improve tank on drones themselves/T2 resists on T2 drones more in a omni tank as you cant fill holes at all and more EHP relative to the races tank style.
orbit speed needs to be higher and maybe mwd speed could be higher for recall so they don't get killed so easy on return and ogres need more speed full-stop.
range and damage across the board needs to be more consistent amarr drones just plain suck.
And high slots need to be useful on drone boats or you will always have hybrid weapon systems so high slots is where all drone upgrades besides the damage amp should live.
And of course as its the main/only weapon system on the ship the dronebay is in essence a reload bay so should have lots of spares/different ammo types plus of course your always likely to lose some drones if you need to warp off quickly without waiting an age for the drones to return.

Drones are fine as they currently are. Amarr drones (especially the small ones) work very nicely against Nano-Shield-Tanked Frigates, even much better than Warror II. Naturally you don't see this on EFT so that's why this is a secret for most people in EVE.

Also medium drones even with new damage mods don't do anywhere near enough damage 365 dps with 3 damage mods
for a main weapon system is very poor when you consider its optimal range is 1250 its tracking isn't good enough at this range to much damage that's assuming it can keep orbit and doesn't count traveling time to target if it can catch the target that is.

This means a vexor has to use hybrids too do any decent consistent damage which is why myrmidon will prob get a full rack of ogres even though they are in reality bs size weapon.
Also medium drones don't have a skill for them you have a combined one with lights a bit odd.

That does get annoying

And maybe racial drones should be bonused by race the caldari ones could be bonused by guristas line

It depends. Sometimes I see my drones go to "Drones in distant space" where they will listen themselves as "returning" and be under my control again when I re-enter the field. Other times you lose control entirely, but with the new ability to reconnect to drones I can see this strategy working quite well.

E: I have no idea how they behave when assisting an ally, I'd assume they stop what they're doing and either disconnect or attempt to return, as with an attack order.

1: New interface, I can only assume that no Dev has actually every used drones
2: See 1 - seriously!
3: How about a special tractor unit for Hi slots that tows sentry drones (apply negative velocity penalty of choice)
4: How about T3 drones? So we can build them to our choice of damage, armour, etc. Special module for T3 drone interface (H/M/L) (skill too)
5: Adverse to damage setting. Self aware drones don't like getting hit, set them to break off and return when taking (Shield/Armour/Hull) damage.
6: Fluff - I want to name my drones - I'm sure that every Drone pilot wants to name their drones :)

Would that not back-up one of the original points?
On the whole I personally tend to use Caldari Drones exclusively, but aside from the fact they are the most balanced between Damage, Speed and Defense it is mostly for Role-Playing reasons.

Still I do agree that the Amarr Drones are an oddity within the Drone lines, same goes for Sentries as well.
Now I know that CCP are working on better "Drone Controls", which will have them controlled the same way you control your main weaponry .. that interface did look quite nice, but some things I would suggest would be this:

1 • Drones are over-used on the whole, frankly they provide ships with large drone bay and bandwidth a serious advantage in Damage Dealing which is currently IMMUNE to E-WAR.

Now to me Drones are a Combat System in their own right, just as Launchers, Projectiles, Lasers and Hybrids are.
As such, I think it would be better if Drones on the whole were removed from most Ships.

Instead Specialised "Carriers" should use them natively, with those who want to use them on normal ships still being allowed to but they have to dedicate a High-Slot (Drone Launcher) and Cargo Space
Sure this would mean some ships would be able to Carry and Launch up to 8 Drones, but frankly as this is balanced vs normal Weaponry; then it becomes a REAL choice of how you want to fly the ship you have.

2 • Drones are Immune to E-War. Now by this I don't mean they're immune to being jammed or such, in-fact there is a glitch with how they were where if you Neutralise or Vampire a drone in a group; none of them can hit you. Just down to how the mechanics work and the fact that hardly anyone does it.

Still should your ship suffer E-War and lose lock, the Drones are complete unaffected and still merrily do whatever you last told them to or head off to attack something new. Should you have set them up to "Assist / Guard" then they are completely unaffected.

This is just stupid, because they "cost" Bandwidth to use up to 5 at a time. This would suggest that they NEED a perminant link to your ship. You can claim the exact same about being able to give them orders as well, given this is limited by range; but oddly not range FROM your Drones but instead FROM your Target.

Again this makes absolutely no damn sense.
Now to me I think there should be Rules for how Drones should work... I mean given the Yulai Convention that forbids the use of Smart AI (see: Rogue Drones) it would make sense if Drones must be linked to a Parent Ship at ALL times. With the default behaviour of losing this link to return (if possible) i.e. if your beacon is still within System - should it be no longer possible to return they should Auto-Destruct.

That to me would actually solve TWO major issues with Drones. a) Being able to Attack targets that have flown WELL beyond their normal operational range (max iirc is 60km natively) and b) Armies of Drones on Gates where a battle took place sometime within the previous 2 hours. Seriously, it's f***ing annoying!

3 • Drones should not only Mimic the race they represent, but rather than being Different in terms of Damage / Speed; instead should all do the same Damage / Speed / Defence.
For those who want to run "Drone Carriers" as it were, they should instead have modules (as we have a Drone Damage one now) that re-jigger the Drones internal setup... so more power goes to X-Y-Z system. The module would take away from 1 System and provide that percentage to another, but as we're talking Damage-Speed-Defence this is an entire Rock-Paper-Scissors system.

4 • Drones should have an "Operational Time" ... while this might seem like an annoying feature, hear me out.
One thing we would ALL love to see would be Warp Disruption Drones or Webbifier Drones that are actually useful.
Obviously though a concern about that becomes "well you could use them indefinately making them Overpowered"

So the solution is simple. Drones would have a limited Operational life, let's say 5minutes (like Seige) for normal use after that point they automatically return and dock to recharge which then takes 10seconds (like Weapon reloads)... you could always then have say an "overload" option on them that uses their power up more considerably but gives a quick burst of better performance.

e.g. ECM drones + overload could double their jam strength, but reduce their usage to <1minute. Would make them useful for getting a quick jam in, but after that they would return meaning you wouldn't have them at all.

Drones such-as Warp Disruptors again would be useful for a limited time, but obviously they'd be better overloaded as Scrammers; this in-turn would only be useful to disable a microwarp to reach a nano-fit target to get a local point on them as it would be incredibly short lived.

5 • Sentry Drones kinda should do what they say on the tin. They should act as a Defensive Sentry Drone for Assigned Craft.
Ideally my thought here is they could magnetically attach themselves to whoever you set them to, then act as Defensive Turrets; but would imagine that being a pain to program ^_^ so orbiting would work well.

Still point is that they should work in the same way FoF Missiles do, so they'd be the only drone unaffected by losing a lock as your ship (or the one they are assigned to) is no longer designating targets. Instead they are working on their own accord based on threat level.

There should still be deployable weapon platforms (similar to Warp Bubbles) imo, as there are times when this can be tactically useful... but they definately shouldn't be drones.

also how about reducing the sig radius of drones i mean an ogre 2 isnt the size of a cruiser yet has the same sig as one this is very odd and med is 50 higher than a frig and even the lights could do with being smaller so rockets don't do full damage for explosion radius.

ah come on