Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So before drones were ignored in missions. This made it possible to afk missions. Rather than removing the "aggression" option for drones and simply make all drones "passive" only, CCP thought they would tweak the AI for more immersive play.

The down side now is that it put using drones in missions from top dog all the way down to under dog. A full 180. Is it still possible? Absolutely. Can you AFK the mission anymore? ABSOLUTELY. Thus the problem.

Drones will seldom, if at all, attack drones of a size class that is smaller than them. Yet with a shield tank BS in a L4 mission that offers a bonus to drone damage (eg. Rattlesnake), it is possible to solo missions still with drones.

Sure it only has 50 bandwidth, but I only need T2 lights and mediums so I can still put out 5 of them. Use the mid slots for tank and buff the damage of the drones even more with damage amps which is a low slot module. All except the most demanding L4s (blockade) could be face tanked and once the light targets (frigs and dessies) are taken out with the light drones, the lights will take out the medium targets without taking aggro and the mediums can easily take out the large targets without taking aggro.

So where am I going with this and what does it have to do with a new drone module.

Well the enemy switching aggro is nice. The player has to be at the keyboard. It adds some drone micromanaging. The same AI mechanic also means that they will switch to other players that show up. All around it adds to immersive game play.

But at times it becomes impossible for ships that need to use the appropriate drone size to take out a target. It literally becomes...

Launch drones
Fire 3 vollies
pull drones in because they now have aggro
rinse
repeat
blow your brains out because the mission run becomes a mission crawl


So currently there are two low slot modules to upgrade drones. There are two medium slot upgrades as well. However, there is only one high slot upgrade. I don't include the one that can only be used on caps.

So I propose a new high slot upgrade module. What this module does, is makes the drones immune to getting locked for x amount of time after they get launched. Each additional module equipped has a diminishing effect. So if the first one added a minute, the next one would only add 45 seconds. This would be a passive module. You sacrifice hi-slots for more un-interupted use out of the drones.


Alternatively.

Instead of a passive module, an active module. While active, it grants just one drone lock immunity. Requiring you to have 5 to cover all drones. Quite the trade off. The AI needs to be smart enough that if it can't get a lock on the drone, it will continue to engage the ship. The balance of this one can be tweaked by controlling cap drain and effect range.

I don't often do missions, but when I do I don't use a drone boat.

OP's reasons are why.

Some kind of specialized logistics or ewar that redirected damage to the host ship/increased drone up/mass logi heal, or acted as a lock breaker but only for drones might be good, non-PvP breaking options.

Also ATXII drone tournament online.

I totally disagree with almost everything OP said.

Drone boats can not afk all missions, nor should they.

Drones are fine.

Wanted to say more - but that said it all actually.

I fly drone boats a LOT. Primarily sentry domis, but also gecko rattlesnakes. I ALSO use (unbonused) geckos on my machariel. Oh and geckos on the VNI too.

I remember the last time I lost a drone quite clearly, because it was last night. I was (very) drunk and watching the AT over the domi window and camping a gate on the other screen whilst my domi sat blapping stuff afk. Even then, I almost saved that drone, I just underestimated angels long ranged capabilities. That is what it takes to lose a sentry these days. Boozed, watching a different monitor with the view obscured on the other one.

My gecko has never been into armor on the rattlesnake, they have a few times on the mach to be sure but never lost one yet. I use the vni in level 2 missions for standing and the geckos roflstomp them all day long.

Light drones can be eaten very quickly by elite frigates, it is true. WC is a particularly bad offender these days - typically you'll lose an unbonused drone the minute they switch aggro. However there is not a single ship which has any business PvEing that CANNOT deal with elite frigates without drones at all, given suitable skills and and fitting. If you do not have these skills/fitting, I question what you are doing in the PvE game - certainly it invalidates any right to complain about it.

What we really need are modules, rigs and implants that give +1 to drones and more bandwidth. That'd make things interesting, kinda like the modules carriers uses but for all/some ships

Could also give them a PvP-wise negative bonus so the PvPers don't get their pants on fire.

What he is asking for is a module to improve the over all survivability of drones in light of the dark hunger the rat AI has for them. This is indeed a major problem of drones that need fixing in the PvE environment, and to a lesser extent will be a problem for PvP when people stop letting ishtars Kite them and just start popping the drones.

I don't think the answer is to make them permanently untargetable, May as well make them turrets at that point. However, a 20 second cycle module that did it for the first 5 seconds of the cycle would not be bad. If we allow for multiple modules of this sort to be fit, possible a longer cycle time of 50 to 60 seconds would be better. Drone focused ships would have real competition for high slots, traditional counters on drones would still work (bombs and smartbombs), and unless all of the high slots were these modules you would have to be tactical about when you used it.

There have been other suggestions to improve drone survivability in the past. Fix their Sig to represent their size, hp buffs, active repair, repair in bay, dedicated logi modules that don't require targeting, etc... It's not a new problem to be addressed.

This has been brought up many times. For example drop sentry drone for a 10/10 rep it and force aggro to the drone. Easy way to solo 10/10 or any high level site without any real skill. This issue has been known for a long time. I doubt anything will change unfortunately.

How is this a problem ? Its exactly how it should work. Drones usually survive if managed properly like ships flown properly. If you use a drone ship, the ship (host) is usually afk while the drones (weapons) are in need of management. if you fly a ship, the weapons (F1-8) are afk and you manage the ship (host).


Totally agree with you here.


Agreed so far, with the exception of aggression vs ewar, those PvE frigs can be a pain if yo miss the small window to actively engage them. I had to warp out three times yesterday with 4-7% shields till i got rid of the 3-4 frigs per group of perma jamming frigs on my Retriever.


There is nothing tedious about it, I actively engage every target and manage my drones, always (not to exaggerate, but like 95%). Unless you call maneuvering and engaging 80 frigates and cruisers in your autocannon fit BC tedious too, but then almost eerythign will fall under that category. Just because youc an afk with drones doesn't mean you should or ought to, it does not become the default position.

And there is nothing wrong with reshuffeling either, unless you talk the recently screwed over guristas ships with the undersized dronebay and losing 50% dps by doing so.