Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hi there. It's me again. You remember me? The guy who likes drones? In the kinda unsettling way?

Maybe this will refresh your memory:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=359626&find=unread

Got it now? Good. Anyway, Lets talk drones. Again. Except this time, I'm not writing the post at 5 AM, when every cell in my body is screaming for me to stop being a moron and go to bed already. I'm writing it at 6 AM, when my body has given up on hope of sleep and is choosing to instead make me miserable.

I may have some minor issues with insomnia.


Anyway, lets get a few things out of the way first.

-Thanks to everyone who posted in the first thread: Your ideas added a lot to that thread, and I'm probably going to blatantly steal some of your concepts.

-I still don't support drone poop as a way of balancing drones: The good news is, I might have something better. Burrito money may make a comeback after all. But....more on that later.

-Drone ships: eh.....I still like the concept, but it's evidently been stated so many times that CCP is well aware of interest in Rogue Drones as a faction. Me blabbering about cool designs for said ships isn't gonna do anything, so lets just leave it be.

-Drones chewing on stuff and lowering resistances: I think this idea is cool enough that it warrants looking at, despite the balance problems. But we do need to address balance issues, or else this whole concept will just turn into "GIVE ME OVERPOWERED NEW TOYS" which nobody (almost nobody) wants.

Okay then. Lets get started. As I've started before, rogue drones don't really give out much in way of loot. Even sentient drones, the equivalent of faction ships, give out materials that are worth very little, mainly because they don't really DO much. I mean, sure you can make fancy split damage drones, but...how many of you use those things?

If anyone has their hand up, they should feel ashamed. The cost of them isn't worth the added value, unless maybe you're going to use them for PVP-Oh. Wait. We have Geckos now, which do omni damage. well...I guess they're just useless. No wonder the components to make them don't go for much compared to T2 components.

But....from a story perspective, why don't they? The components are all things that operate more efficiently than the stuff currently available. Maybe it isn't T3 quality stuff, but it's at least T2. Why the hell aren't we putting this components into more things?
Here's just a quick overview of what we could put those components into:
1. T2 Drone Rigs
2. Absolutely any kind of drone upgrade system
3. T2 Ship construction for "drone boats", which probably need superior drone handling technology
4. The Gecko, and in the future, other "super heavy" drones (Thanks Danika!)

That's a pretty extensive list. And it would do a good bit to make drones worth going after, just due to basic supply and demand.

But lets take things a little deeper.

Lets talk about breaking down resistances of ships. About clouds of nanite's that attack a ship and start chewing on the complex bits that make it work. To be clear, this is NOT going to deal damage. It's just going to take down resistances. There are many ways we can balance this effect. But rather than assuming I know best, I'm just going to list every method I can think of (And copy/paste any methods YOU guys think of) to balance this tool and let CCP decide what they like, if anything.

1. Only affect resists added by modules: This means a ship can never be taken down lower than it's base resists. This is good for players who are just starting out, but not so good for the capsuleers who have been around long enough to pick up some blinged out ships.

2. Only affect base resists: The exact opposite of the one above, with roughly opposite issues.

3. Only take off a certain percentage of resists: Your ship can't ever lose more than X percent of it's resists in any category.

4. Make it dependent on ship size: A bigger ship can carry more nanites, and thus reduce resists more. By the same token, a bigger ship needs to have more nanites attacking it for resists to drop in any significant way. Basically the nanites would work a lot like neuting does today.

5. Make it absolutely suck except on ships designed for it: I don't like this idea, but I can kinda understand the need for it if it proves to be too overpowered.

Anyway, that should cover most of the balance issues for those nanites.


So, what do you guys think? Is more uses for rogue drone components something you'd want? How about the nanites? Do you have any ideas for how to how to balance it? Let me know in this thread.

I think I might have been unclear. This isn't a new damage type. Its more like a new type of Ewar. I do like the new superheavy drones bit though. I'll add that the original post, thanks!

How about we just put some loot on drones weighted toward meta variants of drone modules? similarly just ensure that their salvage tables yield a fair distribution of components used in existing drone rigs?

At a minimum they should be no worse off, disregarding metagame market factors, in their loot tables compared to anything else I might choose to shoot.

I'm a little confused by your question. How does one "tank" against a statis web? Or against sensor dampening? This is just another kind of Ewar. Are you asking what countermeasures will be put in place to balance this? I'm going to assume you are.

There are multiple routes that could be taken to deal with this. Maybe a module that reduces the effect of nanites, or perhaps nanites of your own that attack the ones that are trying to eat your ship. Or perhaps you could launch something that fools nanites into going after that object instead? Kind of like chaff for heat seeking missles.

Alternatively, we could just set a cap. Like, perhaps a ship can never go beneath 50% resistance, or some other number.
Of course, that'll **** off anyone flying a T3 or otherwise pimped ship, seeing as many of those rely on ridiculous resists to survive.

Yet another thing that could be done is setting these items as high power, like neuts are. You have to chose between nanites and guns, which makes this more of a fleet Ewar than an individual kind of thing.

Does that address your concerns, or have I misunderstood the question?