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Assist dynamic, drones, and carriers
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shaux
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2013-11-25 22:12:52 UTC
Hello.
This is to address the overwhelming capacity of drone assist dynamics. The lack of fighter use.
First to illustrate I think there is a problem with drone assist and the sentry dynamic. It is to easy to dominate without to much concern for failure. It is like having a chess piece that is both the queen, the knight, and the king all wrapped up in one. There is a direct balance issue with any level or tank type being unable to survive even the briefest of encounters with even small groups of properly setup ships. In essence the cost per damage projection is null, the use of fuel/ammo/resources is also non existent. Fighters have become passe, almost treated as ignorance to use or sentries.

First the concept that a single ship can direct more drones than it's current drone bandwidth. In many cases the ships used have no drone bandwidth and only the long lock time coupled with how easy it is to hide the vessel brings the dynamic outside the level of power equal to any other version of fleet dynamic.
What if you instead had a module or class of module. High slot so that it is a trade off for dps and can have a graphic icon (sensor dome for a turret?). These modules are only used for directing additional drones. They do not give you the ability to direct more drones from your bay as they are just there to relay commands to the ship managing said drones. Capacity would be based on skills and not subject to the diminishing returns dynamic. For instance, if you have Drone command (new skill) 1, your modules give you 25 Mbit drone bandwidth up to 125 at Drone command V. This would mean that at the absolute most, you could have 8 drone control units with 125Mbit command units at up to 5 drones per unit. So at max you can get assisted by up to 40 drones. Perhaps make this a gang warfare module, or dynamic link module. This way we keep the assist dynamic and it makes sense.. Add cap use and or animation and you get an opposing dynamic that allows the intelligent aware fleet commander to adjust tactics for the field and have a chance of succeeding against 12 drone battleships with a hardened frigate or t3.

Just a thought.
jiujitsutou
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2013-12-03 12:26:11 UTC
I agree with your Point of view that asign mechanics are a problem (and not the drones themself).
I kinda like your module idea too , but i dont think assisting drones should be related to the bandwith of the controling ship, as fighter , wich you rightfully claim are underused , can be asigned to anything , but you can only receive the control over 5 fighter (assuming you skilled drones to lvl 5).
So my suggestion is : either A) apply fighter asign mechanics to all drones (no more than 5 per ship) , that way asigning wouldnt make any sense anymore , carrier would need to "fire" their own drones wich in terms would make them not anymore the ship of choice against subcaps (but wouldnt really effect their cap vs cap fight capability )
or b) Creat a "Dronecomander" Module wich will be the only way to get drones asigned at all , the dcm shouldnt need alot of grid /cpu so it can be fitted on almost all ships it shouldnt use fuel or (alot) capacitor , but it should make the dronecomander stationary and not remote supportable (basicly a siege modulle with all benefits and downsides) , that way sentry fleets could still be controlled by 1 guy but he would be easy to kill for the hostiles. It would only be fair as sentry fleets (not only carrier) are ewar imune (unless you menage to lock down all enemys without any exception ..)
Emma Yobibit
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2013-12-03 16:59:24 UTC
Wait was it not 2 years ago that drones where completely under powered and unused in pvp? Wait did they change since then?... no they did not why are we nerfing them? for fun? ya sure why not?

You need to prove me that they need nerfing first, assisting your drones is a part of game play mechanics and smart bombs counter that, shall we nerf smart bombs so they do less damage to smaller targets next? I will agree with you then maybe.
Praesus Lecti
The Terrifying League Of Dog Fort
Deepwater Hooligans
#4 - 2013-12-03 17:42:00 UTC
Emma Yobibit wrote:
You need to prove me that they need nerfing first, assisting your drones is a part of game play mechanics and smart bombs counter that, shall we nerf smart bombs so they do less damage to smaller targets next? I will agree with you then maybe.


Bombs are a lousy counter to drones, especially sentries. Launch bomb...recall sentries at the last second, re-launch sentries and re-assist.

Why people are complaining is because of scale. A few people assigning/assisting drones to someone isn't a big deal. 200 carriers each puking out 10 sentries then setting them to assist a faster locking ship is seen as a problem by some. So how do you deal with 2000 sentries spread across dozens of kilometers which you can recall/re-deploy nearly instantaneously?
Endovior
PFU Consortium
#5 - 2013-12-03 21:09:01 UTC
Praesus Lecti wrote:
Emma Yobibit wrote:
You need to prove me that they need nerfing first, assisting your drones is a part of game play mechanics and smart bombs counter that, shall we nerf smart bombs so they do less damage to smaller targets next? I will agree with you then maybe.


Bombs are a lousy counter to drones, especially sentries. Launch bomb...recall sentries at the last second, re-launch sentries and re-assist.


Smartbombs are actually really awesome against sentries... if you can coordinate properly.
Interceptors to get you a warpin, and smartbombs to annihilate the drone horde. Tricky to set up, but super-effective when it works.
jiujitsutou
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#6 - 2013-12-04 10:08:53 UTC
Endovior wrote:
Praesus Lecti wrote:
Emma Yobibit wrote:
You need to prove me that they need nerfing first, assisting your drones is a part of game play mechanics and smart bombs counter that, shall we nerf smart bombs so they do less damage to smaller targets next? I will agree with you then maybe.


Bombs are a lousy counter to drones, especially sentries. Launch bomb...recall sentries at the last second, re-launch sentries and re-assist.


Smartbombs are actually really awesome against sentries... if you can coordinate properly.
Interceptors to get you a warpin, and smartbombs to annihilate the drone horde. Tricky to set up, but super-effective when it works.


smartbomb = bomb (in that case) they can just recall the drones and wait untill the support fleet killed you and than relaunch (thats for carrier)

@ Emma as i stated above not the drones and their damage mods are the problem (they made drones the third "fullweaponsystem" ) and im certainly not against that , but by editing drones (and /or droneboats) ccp created a new problem (they couldnt forsee ?) . Now People can just asign their unjamable ,and extremly hard to destroy sentry drones (of wich they will have more than 1 set anyways) to 1 Person wich than activates them all . Compare that to missles and Guns and you will see that both missles and Guns can be stopped from doing damage by ewar (tds for guns , sensor ewar for both and smartbombs for missles) , while its almost imposible to counter drones (and remember not every small alliance can bring a bomber /smartbomber wing with doubtfull chance of successand influence on the fight). Also the asign mechanics allow it capitals (namely carrier) to be the weapon of choice against subcapitals , wich canot do alot against them, if these carriers would need to lock up the primary and than actiate their drones on them they would still do the same amount of damage , but they couldnt obliterate entire subcapfleets in a matter of minutes (carrier lock very slow compared to bs and smaller). So to summarize : Carrier are a problem wich in huge parts can be solved by editing the asign mechanics (carrier could do 1k dps to subcaps before drone damage mods too, with fighter drones but they needed to lock the target to activate them or have 2* the amount of fastlocker in fleet wich would do it for them), also ewar would be back in the equation wich would bring it back in line with the other 2 weapon systems . I can see why you are critical , editing the asign mechanic could indeed be bad for small gangs wich can only defend them self against a numericly and ewar superior enemy by assisting drones to the only not jammed ship (i have been in such situations before).
On a side not i dont think drones were useless ever .. , but thats my opinion only .

add: Optional to editing the asign mechanics we could also discuss the influence of ewar that is beeing used on the "mothership" (the ship that carried and launched the drones) , but i think that would have a far to huge negative impact on drones as a weaponsystem .
Savira Terrant
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2013-12-06 15:21:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Savira Terrant
I agree with most points made, but disaprove the notion of a module and a cap of only 5 drones.

As the OP stated, the problem is neither the drones nor the mechanic, but scale.

Having drones assigned by 12 people as a hard cap that cannot be changed is the way to go in my opinion. 12 is the magic number because you can lock 12 people e.g. for RR BS gangs or for small Incursion fleets who have 12 to 13 guys on field.

Rather a hardcap on number on drones should be 60 then.

.
Abrazzar
Vardaugas Family
#8 - 2013-12-06 15:32:37 UTC
Maybe just limit drone assist to members of your own squadron.

Sovereignty and Population

New Mining Mechanics
jiujitsutou
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2013-12-06 15:49:16 UTC
Abrazzar wrote:
Maybe just limit drone assist to members of your own squadron.


wouldnt really solve the problem , but would be a decent hotfix
Batelle
Federal Navy Academy
#10 - 2013-12-06 18:03:11 UTC
tl;dr but agree that fighters need a usability buff.

"**CCP is changing policy, and has asked that we discontinue the bonus credit program after November 7th. So until then, enjoy a super-bonus of 1B Blink Credit for each 60-day GTC you buy!"**

Never forget.
Michael Loney
Skullspace Industries
#11 - 2013-12-06 19:31:53 UTC
I started a new post with an Idea for a solution:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=302699&find=unread

Did not want to clutter up this one P
Bandua
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2013-12-06 20:50:55 UTC
anti-drone bomb and smartbomb.

Can be mounted on interceptors, or fired from stealth bombers.

Has an AOE of 10 KM. Uses an ECM mechanism that incapacitates the drone. The drone owner must reconnect to the ECM'd drones, and reassign them.

Believe there is a lengthy delay already ibetween reconnects, 5 minutes or something.
jiujitsutou
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#13 - 2013-12-09 13:21:58 UTC
Bandua wrote:
anti-drone bomb and smartbomb.

Can be mounted on interceptors, or fired from stealth bombers.

Has an AOE of 10 KM. Uses an ECM mechanism that incapacitates the drone. The drone owner must reconnect to the ECM'd drones, and reassign them.

Believe there is a lengthy delay already ibetween reconnects, 5 minutes or something.




2 Questions crossed my mind :
what if they pull the drones back in time (thats why bombs smartbombs donot really work reliable) ?
and can they just relaunch new drones ? (carrier can carry alot not fighter drones)