Ships & Modules

Hi, I'd like to discuss about sentry drone mechanism.
My expression in English may be poor, but please don't be sarcastic.


Usually drones have limited control range, which means you cannot manipulate drone remotely further than your skills permit.
That is what we call "drone control range", and we can expand the range up to 60km with all level 5 skills trained.
In case of normal combat drones, like warriors or ogres, we can understand this control range limits the area that we can deliver DPS and effectively attack the targets.
However in case of sentry drones, actually they do not move, their dps cannot be delivered more than the "drone control range, and it seems to have no problem at that moment.

If we define the meaning of "drone control range" is the distance between ship and drones, then the we can expect those sentry drones to attack enemies within optimal range where ever they are.
However the system defines drone control range is the distance between drones and locked target.
So if you want to attack enemy at more than 60km, then you need to fit drone link augmentor(DLA) regardless of the optimal range of sentry drones, and this becomes huge penalty when we use sentry drones.

When we use Wargen II, it has 60km optimal and it could be expanded by ship bonus or omni tracking link module, but it requires DLA additionaly.
As long as we increase the optimal range of sentry drones for any tactical reason, we are force to fit DLA and it consumes high slots which is critical limitation.
If we want to sharpshoot at more than 150kmk range with sentry drones, we need at least 5 DLAs

So I'd like to suggest to define "drone control range" as the distance between the ship and drones.
We don't want to fit 4 DLAs at high slots, it really limits the usage of sentry drones.

+1
drone control range is distance between the ship and drones, not drones and locked target.

Thats what hes saying he wanted. He wasnt saying thats what it is.

I don't know about sentry drones because I am missile user
but if you're right it must be fixed
the drone control range is different with drone can shooting

someone can say is a penalty but nope
at first you can think about cruise missile
We can throw cruise missile more than 100km but if you're noob
you're lock range is 80km
but drone ship has also lock range the drone shooting range must be free from
drone control range

It's neither of those.

Currently drone control range is range between your ship and target.

For example:
Your drone control range is 60km
Your sentries have 120km optimal range

Sentry <------60km-------> your ship <-------60km-------> target
<---------------------range from sentry to target----------------------->

I think that drone control range for sentries is like locking range for ships. Because if you set drones to assist and have enough drone control range you dont need any locking range whatsoever.

example: leader have locking range 100km and locks target at 95km
slaves have locking range 50km and set sentries to assist leader
leader engages target and all sentries start shooting as long as slaves are within drone control range of tatrget (which might be more than their locking range)

By removing drone control range it would boost rr droneboats imensely.

Because sentry domi's area clearly underpowered when it comes to applying dps at range..............................



....................

It's wrong. Sentry uses drone control range as its lock on range.

If you are in a wormhole which have reducing lock on range effect, sentry cannot shoot target.

Sentry <-0km-> Ship <--------------60km----------------> Target
<-Sentry's Reduced Lock on range, 45km->

Sentry cannot shoot the target because sentry cannot lock on the target.

While Sentry Domi's are currently looking at the blunt face of the nerf hammer I do believe this is something of an issue.

The problem, of course, is that the effective range of sentries has steadily increased with the introduction of Drone Sharpshooting, Omnidirectional Tracking Links, rigs (IIRC) and then the Domi's new bonus while, since the introduction of sentry drones, the only increase to drone control range has been the DLAs (IIRC Electronic Warfare drones were introduced at the same time as sentries).

The difficulty with the current drone control range mechanics is that they work against the longer ranged drones - Wardens require so much more equipment that you might as well use Gardes and save the slots (and CPU) while also gaining damage.
The simple answer would be simply to increase the crone control range from the DLAs but the effect remains (why fit DLAs if you can go with more damage and not fit them).
Switching Drone Control Range to be the maximum distance to drones (rather than to target and to drones) doesn't work either as it obsoletes DLAs entirely (unless you're the sort of masocist who wants to send heavies 100km to attack a target).
The most sensible option would be to give a bonus to control range to the longer ranged drones but I don't have any idea whether that's even possible with current drone mechanics.

Sentry boats are already powerful and they don't need any more buffs. This is coming from someone who flies them often. There are plenty of ways in increase drone control range far beyond what low DPS sniper boats can attain, and we track on a dime and hit harder than 1400mm arty at that range.

In it's current system, a tradeoff is needed to allow sniping with sentries from long ranges, and high slots/rigs are a hell of alot better than making it hurt your tank/drone dps.