Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'd also like to see a ship(s) who gain bonuses toward smart bombs... Personally I would rather have a smart bomb ship for some PVE stuff than standard hybrid etc.

You realize what smartbombs do when in high sec, right ? So much for average PvE.

And another question would be - you have been on the receiving end of a pipe bomb run, have you ?

Smart bombs are a niche weapon system and can be use to specialized but great effect as it is.

And I do not see that they got nerfed, please explain ?!

The risk of finning a npc bakon/celestial/other player is pretty big; #Concord
A possible solution could be resticting sb's to low and null-sec only, (or only certain sizes).



Thx!

Also, make smartbombs smart.

Should have stopped right there and put this in one of those topics.

The one thing I would like to see on smartbombs is to give them some sort of falloff so that their damage is guaranteed in their current area, but it randomly goes further so that it's an actual defense against small ships instead of just a drone killer.

Even on Large smartbombs the range is only 5000 meters, which is less than the effective range of all small weapons other than blasters. If they would randomly go from 5k to 15k, with the average weighted at the lower end, they would be much more effective in fulfilling their function.

Firstly i think, with the current amount of nulli ceptors fleets running around, some effectivness would get lost :)

I think you might be overthink it a little bit. Lets assume you have indeed a 7 sb's gimped fit battleship with 600 *7 = 4200 damage with 12 sec sb cycle time. With a cruiser hull with avarage 30k EHP, you will still need 7,1 smartbombing battleships to pop him (or 3,5 (=4) in 2 volleys (2x12 sec). (+ 1 hic ship, so that is 5 people for 1 cruiser) (I do ask myselve thou if ppl still warp blinldy to gates with 5 ppl in local?)

It will be effective to the smaller stuff thou.


Added: Even bombs do more damage and thereby is cov op cloak used. Something rlly differant than a battleship

Smart Bombs have always been a bit more of a novelty / specialised weaponry to me, in-fact if it were for Drones chances are they would've been removed with Mines a long time ago.

To be honest, I'd rather see them get increase range but also a shift in what they're designed to do.
Right now outside of using them for their intended purpose (i.e. Drone Removal) the only other real use people have for them is to simply be bigger arseholes via 'Pipe-bombing'

What would be better would be to see the ranges increase:

Small - 5km, Medium - 10km, Large 20km

But instead of doing specific Damage, they should instead be energy bursts designed to specifically disrupt systems.
EM - Force Module Deactivation with short Delay on Reactivation (this would include Cloaking Devices... but Guard should be like ECM and checked against the Sensor Strength for the /chance/ for success)
Thermal - Increase Heat
Kinetic - Overload (Damage) Drones
Explosive - Damage Modules

This would then make them far more of a Utility rather than simple close-range Alpha Device, which makes more sense if you think about it as they're suppose to be "Smart" Bombs; what isn't smarter than doing highly specialised utility damage.

It also gives us an excuse to say that doing this would also remove a "Fun" gameplay aspect, so rather than completely removing such; instead we can say it's time we welcomed back an old friend.
I am of course talking about Mines.

They should come in 3 Varieties...

• Proximity - Detonate if anything comes within it's range 3 - 6km
• Trojan - The Ultimate F-U Weapon, that is combined with another device (like Cargo Containers) so when it is accessed it explodes
• Kamikaze - Magnetically attracted to Ships, detonates when it impacts... they act like they're being tractored towards the target that gets in range of them

Bringing them back should come with some provisions, such-as they would be an illegal weapon in High-Sec (regardless of where you are when they go on, you instantly go Criminal if they detonate) ... they can't be placed within a given range of a Gate / Station. Owners can Activate / Deactivate them via the Drone Menu.

They would be susceptible to EM (deactivates them) and Kinetic (destroys them) Smart Bombs.
Like Containers / Deployable they can only remain active for a limited time in Space.

That would depend mostly upon how 'effective' they are at their specialisation.
The way I would envision them would be as relatively weak, so the idea is more for example with Thermal / Explosive (focused towards burning out Modules) on their own they won't be that effective - but rather are more intended to increase the damage being taken when Over-Heating; so forcing people to use it less or potentially burning them out /if/ they push it longer.

We're talking something like 0.2 - 0.5 Heat Damage / Amount per Cycle; which at 10 - 6 Seconds per cycle really is very low.
But it is enough to nudge things over the edge.

With the Kinetic, as it's focused entirely on Drones (the Missile variant would be 'Defender' Missiles) then it really would be reasonable to keep them roughly on-par with current Smart Bomb damage.

The only one that could potentially be really OP would be the EM, but as I see that being on-par with the Multi-Spectrum ECM but without any Bonus or ability to be 'Buffed' that means the larger the ship; the far less useful they become outside of massive numbers; but if you've ever used an un-bonus multi-spec the actual chance of it being effective is really like throwing half a dozen dice and expecting them all to be 6s ... good to have as an additional utility if you have nothing better, but no where near as effect as say a Neutraliser.

And that's really the idea behind all of the suggested changes; as right now Smart Bombs aren't exactly /super/ effective unless you have them in all of your high-slots and more often than not in a very large group.

So ideally we want them to remain as a clear secondary utility, but something that is adds some more interesting gameplay possibilities.

I agree, they could use riggs or a little damage buff