Ships & Modules

It's pretty obvious how the 10% bonus to optimal and tracking will benefit sentry drones. But what about drones -- particularly heavy drones? I understand that drones have a fixed orbit they follow, will they take a wider orbit to match their new optimal or stay the same? How much will medium and heavy drones benefit from the extra tracking -- I presume lights already have no problem with tracking?

Yeah the bonus is basically two free T2 Omnis, no stacking penalty if you have Gal BS V.

Keep in mind Light Drones have the highest tracking of any weapon in the game, and Heavies better than any turret. That said, they hit for **** **** until they turn off the MWD and go into actual orbit. So, it's conceivable that the new bonus will help them at least hit a little while MWD is still on and/or while they are bouncing around trying to get into a stable orbit (Warrior IIs max skills lol).

My thoughts is that the new bonus is really meant for Sentries as they have pretty bad tracking at base. This will give them a little more punch while allowing those ships to fit less Omnis and more utility, which is never a bad thing.

What I'd really like to see CCP do (they talked about wanting to work on Drones as a weapon system as well as actual Drone boats) is change the static +10% dmg bonus/lvl to +15 or 20% per lvl. This would put Drones closer on par to their equivalent weapon systems. Right now, the max a Drone boat can do with T2 Ogres is 825 DPS using (4) DDAs, using just the Drones. Compare that to ANY BS's main weapon system (no Drones) and it's certainly sub par, by like 3-500 DPS less. I'm not saying Drone boats like the Domi/Rattlesnake/Ishtar should be doing 1500 DPS with only Drones but at least let us hit over 1K DPS with only Drones (except with the Ishtar, keep it's bonus the same). The BS sized Drone Boats should be on par or close to it with other BS DPS output, but their not at all (again, only talking the Drone DPS). The Domi is getting a DPS nerf with the loss of +25% Hybrid dmg in favor of the new opt/track bonus. The Rattlesnake is getting a DPS increase with the Cruise, but it's terrible, only ~80DPS.

All in all, I hope this change to the Domi will bring more love to Drones in the future as there are many of us, myself included, that have SERIOUS amounts of SP invested in Drones and just enjoy that type of play style.

Orbit velocity isn't affected by drone navigation, and hasn't been for years, only MWD velocity. You can't hit the thorax for full damage because of its sig radius being too small for the drones sig resolution, not because your skills are making the drones orbit faster.

Shouldn't it be this way...?

After all, the Ogre is a cruiser sized weapon, and blasters are the highest tracking frigate sized weapon system. I think it makes sense that a frigate can out-track a cruiser sized weapon system.

After all, assuming that the Sig resolution is a guide, it's 125m, the same as all cruiser sized turrets. Also worth noting that tracking aside, a single unbonused Ogre will outdamage a single bonused Neutron Blaster with void.

Also, turns out that a Merlin with Void loaded in a Light Neutron gets 10 less DPS, and tracks worse (though still has a lower sig resolution giving better effective tracking).

waitaminute

domi is getting 50% tracking/optimal at gal bs V????

All I was trying to say was that the statement "Heavies [track] better than any turret" is not completely accurate due to the existence of Light Blasters. Debating actual performance is a slightly different topic, but we can do that too if you want. On the one hand, Void ammo reduces tracking, of course. On the other, aside from the sig resolution factor you mentioned, I will point out that heavy drones attempt to orbit their target at 1km, which is obviously ridiculously close compared to the "cruiser size" weapons you're talking about, and closer than most frigates would be likely to try to fight at. In fact, that's barely more than HALF of the Light Neutron's optimal range.

Tracking isn't just a function of what class size the weapon is in, but the range(s) it's supposed to be operating in. For drones, that's "scraping the hull".

My bad, I will rephrase. Heavies track better than any BS sized turret in the game. I did also say that Light Scouts have the HIGHEST tracking in the game in the sentence directly before the Heavy's comment. More to point, Scout Drones of = size have WAAAAY higher tracking than Turrets, Sentries not included (since they aren't "Scout" Drones).

However, no matter how high the tracking is of any Scout Drone, they can't seem to hit a damn thing until they are fully in orbit mode and MWD is off. This is completely counter-intuitive to how ship turrets work as if I fly straight at your ship with MWD on and am firing at you I sill certainly hit you, but not as hard as when I am in a stable orbit. Anyone who has max skills and uses Warrior II's knows what I'm talking about. They can insta pop most NPC Frigs but only AFTER they are in a stable orbit. The bonus to the Optimal/Tracking may actually help this Drone quirk. Still I'd love it if CCP could fix having Drones fly in a straight line at every target.

EDIT: I just checked and 2 of the 4 Heavies do indeed have better tracking than even Small Electron Blasters (which aren't even the same size gun platforms). Add in the available 'Augmented' Wasp and then it's ONLY the Ogre that has a tiny bit lower tracking than a Small Electron Blaster. So the argument is fairly petty at this point.

There are (4) Drones of each type, i.e. Orgres. From T1 -> T2 with 2 varieties in between. Each have a different tracking (yes that's kind of odd and not inline with turrets). Well 2 have the same, 2 have different from the first 2, making it (3) different tracking Ogres.

There are (7) types of Electron Blaster (not even including Faction). From T1 -> T2 with 5 varieties in between. Some would consider that the Cosmos variant isn't "in between T1 & T2". ALL 7 have identical tracking, making them essentially ONE item for your comparison.

As for my statement of "Keep in mind Light Drones have the highest tracking of any weapon in the game, and Heavies better than any turret", my fault in that was only the Ogre as the 'Augmented' Wasp is just as much a Drone as any other Wasp Drone and does indeed have higher tracking than any of the 7 (non Faction) Electron Blasters.

All of this was completely wasted on an oversight by myself which you took upon yourself to compare with a different weapon size entirely, seeming like a petty argument.