Ships & Modules

no offense but this is a stupid argument. Are you saying then that two Ishtars with rep drones are also impossible to kill. If so then why are there not fleets of Ishtars owning EvE with rep drones.

It's the same logic through out the game. What company do you ever see that has to reinvent their product every time they build it? (T2 drones for instance).

I support this idea. The amount repped is super small, and would allow armour tankers to repair in the field without docking. Even if you only fit a single light armour repair bot... you could repair yourself without docking.

From what I'm reading at:

• http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Heavy_Shield_Maintenance_Bot_II
• http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Light_Shield_Maintenance_Bot_II

The heavies will take a bit more punishment, but not a huge amount depending on which ship(s) are attacking them, due to their significantly larger sig radius (25m vs 110m), and their slower speed (3,840m/sec vs 2,400 m/sec). I'm not going to work on the maths as it's early, and I'd have to look up a lot of formulas and fill in too many blanks (transversal, distance, guns, etc), but the difference in defenses (130 vs 492) don't make a huge difference when being shot at by a battleship. I'm quite interested in this however, and may recruit a corpmate to test this out this evening.

And I'd also note that this is exactly how I'd see them being used. Released for a couple of cycles, pulled back in, released for a couple of cycles, pulled back in... Just like when you pulse your regular reppers. The exception is that it takes more button presses/mouse clicks to handle drones, which (as we all know) can be the difference between winning a fight, and losing it. Also, as I mentioned, your modules are capable of being overheated. Which again (as we all know), can be the difference between winning and losing.


The fundamental point I was trying to get at with my OP, was that it seems daft, and slightly unfair that people multi-boxing can use this technique, as well as all the other benefits that come with the power of two™, yet a solo player cannot. Two players should have an advantage over a single player, but they already do. What they also get is this ability to repair each other in the fashion you've described.



I don't quite see how this is an issue. If you're referring to gang/fleet PvP, this already happens. Your FC will most likely primary their logistics, and if they aren't going down, a few ships will be ordered to take out the repair drones as they're much easier to pop, and will likely result in their tank being broken. Ships can already have repair drones on them, so this is a bit of a moot point.

Also, in regard to using a couple of repair drones with the rest being combat drones... To the best of my knowledge, you aren't able to split drones to attack multiple targets. The result of this would be that your repair drones will wizz off and start trying to repair the enemy ship as soon as you attempt to engage them with your combat drones. This, to me at least, seems to be the ideal way of CCP preventing this type of play style (if they want to of course).



As I mentioned in a previous post. Why would you need them in PvE? I'm assuming you're talking about solo PvE (as they're already used in fleet PvE). Ships can already sail through solo PvE, well, solo, with ease. As I said; "Time is money". Those that run missions for their ISK want to do it quicker, not be safer whilst doing it. Those that can't do them with ease are likely lacking skills. Spending about 20 days training for some T2 heavy repair drones are going to be much more beneficial getting up some T2 tank, and increasing their DPS. Not to mention that those other skills are much more useful outside of running level-4's.


TL:DR - I understand that a worst case scenario needs to be looked at, and I appreciate that you've put your views (and concerns?) across in a clear, concise manner. What I do feel though, is that a lot of the points put across are more about T2 heavy repair drones in general, and not about them being able to repair your own ship in solo combat, which this thread is all about.

Crying?

You misunderstand me sir.

You're correct about remote repair not working on yourself. This makes a lot of sense. A turret-esque module mounted on one of your high slots shouldn't be able to shoot at itself. It would be like a handgun shooting itself, not really physically possible. If you look at the physical design of the reppers, you'll see that it can't aim at its own ship.

That's fair enough.

Also, you call them "remote repair" drones... I assume you're making that term up? Because, looking at:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Light_Shield_Maintenance_Bot_I

I see that they're actually called, Light Shield Maintenance Bot I.

I also see that their description says, Shield Maintenance Drone.

Do you see the word remote, anywhere? I certainly don't.


My original post stated that at the very least something should be put in the description, to save newbies wasting ISK and precious early SP on training for something that doesn't do what any new player would expect them to do.

If we compare this to your example of a remote repairer...

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Small_Remote_Armor_Repair_System_I

We can clearly see the item is called, Small Remote Armor Repair System I, and that it's description is clear in its abilities, This module uses nano-assemblers to repair damage done to the armor of the Target ship.


Basing an argument over false information is a poor way to go about getting your point across.

I agree on some level, they should be renamed, Remote Light Shield Maintenance Bot I. To be honest, that would satisfy me for the most part. But I find it very poor form (especially with their incredibly lackluster description [which is shorter than its name!]). If I had to guess, I'd actually say that these drones were put in on a whim, forgotten about, but are now widely used and so can't be modified without great thought.


TL;DR: I'm far from crying. My primary concern is that no where in-game does it even hint at the fact that you can't repair yourself with drones. All things aside, the description should be changed, and possibly even the name, if self repairing from drones is never likely to enter the game.

If you use the "all drones engage" shortcut then yes, that is what will happen, but if you manually right-click on the combat drone group and select Engage with a target different from the one your logistics drones are repping then they will attack a different target. It's a pain in the ass way of dealing with them of course which could cause problems in high-sec, but it's workable.

The real fun is when you try to figure out why you can't put two medium painter and three medium webber drones into the same "Make targets easier to hit" drone group. This becomes even more annoying given that they should both be EW drones.



If all you pack for combat drones are a set of lights to take out frigates and leave the rest of your drone bay for reloads or salvage drones you are, in a very real sense, wasting that drone space and y7our available bandwidth. Packing logistics drones for those times when you screw up on aggro can be of use. Furthermore packing armor rep drones on shield tanked ships means you can repair any armor damage you sustain mid-flight when testing out ship builds. This can be especially useful if you really screw the pooch and go deep into hull damage as well.

The biggest advantage, however, to using logistics drones is that with the right planning and for the right missions you can forgo an active tanking module altogether. I've done several missions in my nightmare where a pair of T2 heavy shield bots would have handled all of the damage I actually took. Being able to remove the XLSB for those missions would give me the option of improving mission mobility with an MWD, reducing incoming damage with an AB (and somewhat enhancing mission mobility), improving damage application with a painter or TC (probably not as good as a painter given what the ship already has), or further reduce incoming damage and improve EHP by slapping on another hardener.



They do tie together. If the system can't feasibly support widespread usage of T2 heavies for self-repair purposes then the idea to allow self-repair via logistics drones shouldn't be implemented. Furthermore the concerns need to be addressed because more than a few people who would be opposed to this are going to use them to attack the idea regardless of whether or not it is logical or sensible to do so.



Unfortunately there are two small details that derail this train of thought.

#1 The inability to use remote repair modules and logistics drones on oneself is in all likelihood linked purely to the inability to target one's own ship and not to some innate flagging mechanics implemented by CCP. By not allowing us to lock our own ships they bypass a whole mess of code that they'd need to create to prevent people from doing things like shooting themselves and getting CONCORDokened while in an NPC corporation. This applies to drones as well as they apparently use standard targeting mechanics and subsequently cannot target themselves as well.

#2 You can lock up your repair drones and have all of drones other than the one you're targeting repair it. There is no realistic reason why your logistics drones should be able to repair one another but not the ship that "owns" them. There is still a realistic reason for them not being able to repair themselves, however.

While #1 is a technicality it's one that needs to be considered as the idea that these modules are innately unable to affect the owner, as opposed to them being able to do so due to interference from other mechanics, seems to be part of the foundation for your response.

The drone overhaul is the elusive White Whale. We will chase it to the ends of the cosmos, relentlessly searching for the White Whale; no system will be safe. But, in the end, it'll end up consuming us to madness and we will never find that which we so yearn for.

TL;DR - no drone overhaul is ever happening

I fully support this idea. It should be fully implemented when pigs fly, give or take.