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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Modular Drone Concept.
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Verdis deMosays
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2013-09-16 01:51:45 UTC
I love drones. Being Gallente that should be obvious, but after I had an epiphany about drone construction I have become even more interested. Perhaps I should go to work for CreoDron. Anyhow, after the usual Gallente self promotion, you might be wanting to hear my idea.

My idea came from a desire to give more utility to drone carrier frigates and cruisers. These boats have a nice utility and damage from their drones but with the travel time of even light drones they are less appealing for distance. Of course there are sentry drones, but only Battlecruisers and above are capable of fielding a full flight of them due to bandwidth. So here's my idea.

Modular Drones
These drones would fall in the meta 3 range similar to the Integrated/Augmented series, having about the same shield, armor, and hull stats. However they would not have any onboard weapon or equipment systems, instead having one of 3 types of modules set in a single slot on the drone. Here are what I was envisioning.

Stasis/ECM/Neut/TP/TD/ETC modules:
+20% to signature radius, -15% hp (or whatever, say its 10% better than T1 drones)

Combat Drones:
Slightly higher damage and tracking than Integrated/Augmented series.

Sentry Drones:
-100% velocity, low tracking, additional HP. Proportionaal to T1 sentries, slight bonus perhaps. These would be available in Small and Medium sizes and the real gem of this idea.

These drones would be refittable at any station or any ships with a fitting service. The benefit would be the ability to carry several drone modules, at 1m3 each, in your hold and refit on the fly for what you need. Also having the smaller sentries would allow a Rail Tristan to deploy a flight of 5 light sentries, hit a target at range and kite to their hearts content. In addition to providing long range support for smaller gangs and missions. I would welcome any thoughts on this idea, in addition to any cross posting to other forum pages. Thanks immortals, fly safe, and may your loots always be faction, and your kills swift.
Matthias Thullmann
Dynatron Inc.
#2 - 2013-09-16 02:42:10 UTC
I like the smaller sentry drone idea, but you realize they would be scaled right? Longest range small sentry would hit at like 20km and do 10dps.

The drone fitting idea is kind of ridiculous, that might work for fighters but drones are... drones man.
Verdis deMosays
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2013-09-16 11:28:13 UTC
Well, the idea of extra drone utility is appealing to me, and probably a lot of other pilots as well. I would love to hear from some folks about why it would or wouldnt work instead of just a quick lolumad.

As for a 20km optimal on the sentries, that would be just fine by me :)
Matthias Thullmann
Dynatron Inc.
#4 - 2013-09-16 14:48:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Matthias Thullmann
Verdis deMosays wrote:
instead of just a quick lolumad.

OK lol

It's kind of like saying I want missiles to have slots/scripts so I can switch damage types, or heal ships they hit instead of hurting them. See how silly it sounds? Maybe it can be implemented on fighters and fighter bombers because those ships are essentially remote frigates/cruisers with npc pilots inside.

Drones however already have enough versatility, if you want a drone which has a smaller volume so you can carry more options of them just say so. Like a faction drone (rogue?) which might fold itself a bit tighter in the cargo bay.



PS I didn't mean to sound kneejerk in the dismissal there, sorry if it came off that way.
Verdis deMosays
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2013-09-16 21:06:08 UTC
No problems Mon. Its just an idea. I really like the idea of modifying an existing drone hull, and especially the idea of a light or medium sentry. So if there are any ideas on this I would love to hear them or alternatives, since there are really no changes that have been made to drones in recent memory, and this is the one I happened to come up with.

Besides, a drone module would be pretty much like changing the weapon on any other ship, or even aircraft today. Doable, and effective, and gives lots of options. And isn't that what eve is about?
Tarn Kugisa
Kugisa Dynamics
#6 - 2013-09-16 22:32:15 UTC
Drones need actual turrets and not sticks where sprites come out

Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to troll everyone you meet - KuroVolt
gawrshmapooo
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#7 - 2013-09-17 02:43:38 UTC
It's a cool idea, now try fitting tens or hundreds of the goddamned things.

I sell combat boosters of every strength and type. Message me to get your edge.
Veritas Obscurus
The Divine Machine
#8 - 2013-09-17 04:27:36 UTC
I'd like, for more drone utility, to propose a counter-idea.

Isolate a rogue drone you like. Activate a T2 Hacking module while you're fighting it. If you succeed at hacking it enough, it goes inactive as you've deleted it's 'rogue' ness. Then you can scoop it, and take it back to station, where you reverse-engineer it and make smaller versions that you can use...or in the case of the smaller ones, you just load it into a carrier's bay to use as a surprise version of a fighter.

Want a missile drone? Catch an Alvum Bomber. Things like that.

And we could finally catch and use Spider drones ourselves!
Matthias Thullmann
Dynatron Inc.
#9 - 2013-09-17 12:26:05 UTC
Tarn Kugisa wrote:
Drones need actual turrets and not sticks where sprites come out

I'll drink to that, but CCP blew their entire graphic budget on gates.