Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Before anyone says this is too complicated, let me remind you that you are playing EvE.

Looking at the T3 cruisers I realized how CCP can breath life back into the drone gameplay that they killed a while back. The answer is a bit large, but completely doable and worthwhile.

Modular drones. Drones that work just like the tiny spaceships they are. Give them fittings slots and add new micro level modules of all types that only fit to drones.

What does this mean? Right now you take, let's see, a Hobgoblin. 56 shield, 296 armor, does 15 thermal damage, MWs around at 550m/s. But after the change your basic Hobgoblin would not do 15 thermal damage. Instead it would have a single high slot... and a single mid slot & a single low slot. It's speed would not be "550m/s MW" but a base speed of around 300m/s that could be improved, if the owner so desired, by adding a micro-AB or a micro-MW to it's mid-slot. Take the MW speed bonus but the big signature spike that goes with it? Go for the safer route with an AB but be a little slower? Or skip it altogether, live with being slow and a micro-shield extender to it and raise it up to 106 shield or so? Or maybe just take a tiny speed boost with the micro-overburner, or use that low-slot for a 25mm Titanium Plate micro-armor? Or improve it's aim with a micro-target tracker?

Want ECM? Web? Drain? These no longer have to be dedicated drone types. Instead they would just be modules that would fit into standard drone hulls. As always there is a trade-off because just as with player ships you'd have to decide which modules you want to fit into the tiny number of slots you have available.

So now we've swept all the ECM, web, drain etc drones into the waste bin, along with all the repair drones as well - again, these would just be micro-modules that you would fit to the basic four drone hull sized. Medium drones could have two of each fitting slot, or you could do it racially - Minmatar would have more high slots, Caldari more midslots, Amarr more low slots, etc.

Then the only thing left to do is add an inherent range/damage multiplier to Sentry Drones (look at basic Destroyer stats for an example) and you're done.

Note that not only does this add variety, but it adds endless possibilities as well. Let's say you like the higher shields and extra mid-slot for the Caldari drones, but don't want to just do Kinetic damage. No problem, use a micro-laser or micro-autocannon if you want. Want to have a drone with a weapon in it's high-slot and sacrifice all defense to squeeze a micro-ECM (5 types to choose from, now!) into it's mid-slot? Go ahead. Want to use the low slot for a micro-nano plating on your Amarr drone that you've fit with a micro-rail gun? Do it!

You'll also notice that, except for sentries, there is no inherent upgrade to drone damage with size because there isn't any inherent damage linked to the drone hull. What you'd have is an increasing number of high-slots that you can fit your micro-weapons into... or not, if you decide to make them do something else instead (For example, take your medium drone's two high-slots and add one micro-shield transfer and one micro-remote armor repair, thus making a universal healer that excels at neither.)

Note that would not flood the game like you would imagine. After all, all of these modules already exist in three-to-four sizes already. It would just be adding another size to the already existing list, and one you could tune out just as easily as any other list that you don't want to expand the tree on.

Serious Replies Only Please (meaning if you're not a drone boat captain, or a former one, then your opinion doesn't count).

Beat you to it. Read the first link in my Sig.

And my idea is a lot less complicated and gets the job done.

I just want to see something, anything, done about drones in their current state.

I like your idea though, and I think it would add the most depth to the drone system.

For those that have not read my thread on this subject, my idea is as follows:

Each size of drone has a Combat and an Attack type which you load with a script during assembly. This script is either for a damage type or a utility.

This assembly proces would work in the same way as T3 assembly, As you build the stack, a list of the useable scripts appears. Select one and the stack is assembled that way.

This system affords a possible 74 combinations using only 8 shells and 11 scripts, (utility sentry drones not included, but they could be.) Want to introduce a new drone, fine! One new script could make as many as 8 new drones.

Having to faff about with constructing drones like ships, (which in some ways is cool,) would become a ball ache and a half in a very short time. Even if you only have 5 micro modules per drone, by the time you have fitted 30 drones for a drone boat, your fitting 150 mods. No thank you.

there are way more basic things that need to be done before getting all fancy.

being able to see drone damage in the bay and which enemy is targeting your drone just like you can see which enemy is targeting your ship in the overview.

More AI control options so the silly things don't light up their MWD and run back to you in a straight line thereby killing transversal and blowing up sig radius. flight patterns would be amazing!

drone launch buttons, bindable to a function key like highlsot modules and groupable. that one probably needs a bit more thought though.

Anything that requires "assembly" of any kind for a drone is too complex. They need to stay simple so the hamsters don't wear themselves out, and so the players don't go batty fitting them.

Drone control needs to be revamped. The drones themselves don't.