Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I have no problem with sentries. I don't have a problem with Ishtars. But i do remember another time when Ishtars did dump and runs, and the two options to save yourself were kill every drone it barfed out, or just run away. This was the era of the nano ishtar, travelling at over 15k/s, faster than any drone could travel.

TBH I love sentries, but they don't have enough of a downside. For a comparison, they are like an artillery park in modern warfare. Stationary, deployable, attacking indirectly and at longer ranges.
However, in modern warfare Arty gunners don't drop their artillery off and do donuts in their hummers while the guns do the work, the gunners are at their gun doing the job. Tanks get to fire their stuff "on the move", the Arty fires, packs up and scarpas to another locale.

So heres my bad idea for the pile:

Change the drone control range of sentries so that it is not based on sentry-target distance, but sentry to Controller distance. Then cripple that range so ships must be sitting next to their sentries, or at least be damned close to them. Ishtars can have their sentries, but their transversal will be nerfed by having to stay near enough for control. BS's need the transversal a little less, so it softens the nerfing for them, but still makes them more difficult to deploy usefully.

The gist: Sentries are really for carriers, as a stationary supporting weapon, one usable without the delay of travel time(regular drones/fighters). It happens that BS's and below CAN use them, but they will lose out on some of the defenses their hulls rely on: mobility.

Fire away

one way too stop the dump and run tactic... definitely remove them from carriers though

What does Ishtar get in exchange? And VNI?

Because pairing a fragile ship with a high speed movement bonus and a weapon system that not only can easily be killed by bombs, and is available in very limited quantity, but requires them to stay nearly stationary sounds like a barely disguised way of saying "**** em for PvP, but don't disturb my ratting" with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever.

Couldn't even do the align-> fire of a Tier 3 BC to avoid bombs. So like a Tier 3 BC, but more expensive, less useful, more restrictions, can't align while using their weapon system effectively, and can lose their weapon system easily.

-1

Again with the nerf Ishtar / sentry drone combination. Why is it that everyone misses the most logical first step in balancing this combination and jumps immediately to the nerfs instead?

Based on reading online the most common complaint with Ishtar / sentry combination is the ability to set them to aggressive mode which allows them to attack without the pilot needing a target lock or to set them to assist another ship in which case the Ishtar becomes nothing but a transport mechanism either of these allows them to drop and run away and hide.

While nerfs to damage, control range, bandwidth and various other ideas would solve the problme for the PvP crowd it would have an even larger and un-intended affect on the usefulness of the Ishtar for PvE. We don't care about PvE you say and my response is you should, this is a game that is played by many different types of players and we all have to share the same ships and equipment and the needs of ALL segments of the game need to be considered in any balance adjustment that is made.

As this applies to the Ishtar / sentry combination why start with the nerf bat big time when a simple change to drone use mechanics may solve the problem for the PvP crowd yet have minimal impact on the PvE crowd.
Just one such idea is to remove the aggressive mode and the ability to assign drones to assist another ship, so what does this do for the situation.
1. It requires the drones pilot to have a target lock to be able to shoot anything.
2. It prevents them from dropping drones and running away like a scared baby.
3. It makes drones ships just as susceptible to EWAR as most other ships.
4. It would have minimal affect on the use of this combination in the PvE segment of the game.

So I say give these simply fixes that have minimal impact on the PvE side of the game a try first. When they are tried and IF they do not solve the balance issues for the PvP crowd then we can start to look at other things that can / should be done.

Lights and medium drones are even more vulnerable to a smartbomb than large drones.

The issue is not how much DPS they do with them. You could triple the DPS of medium drones and they would still be largely useless for any situation where the enemy knows they are coming due to their destructibility and their travel speed. A single firewall becomes able to rid most of your gangs dps off the field in an instant.

Example.

Hurfablurf are bringing an Ishtar gang through. "Whelp someone fit up a medium smarty stabber and lets go defang all their dps in a few seconds.

If you take Ishtars and bring their DPS and projection down to that of the other gun cruisers, suddenly they are cruisers with none of the benefits of guns and all the weaknesses of Ishtars.

If you remove sentries then they are just plain terrible. The effectiveness of medium/small/large drones as a primary weapon system past a few people scales about as well as a rock swims.

But unlike cruisers with their fixed guns, drone boats have many other options at their disposal. Just because they have the bonuses to another type of drone doesn't exclude them from using options in their drone bays.

Hurfablurf and his ishtar gang are comming through a gate, the gate is camped, and someone has their stabber standing by to defang. Hurfabluf jumps, and holds cloak. ( or at least most do) There are still many options. They can decloak with optimal range and tracking scripts in omni-links, and pop out gardes. They could just Starburst out of whatever bubble they may be in ( if its bubble hell then thats pretty rough, and their scout should be biomassed[in game]) with drones out to agress whatever attacks the owner.

Dream scenarios and fantasy solutions aside, it makes no difference. Drone boats have more damage and application options than any other weapon system, and the ability to do so without a lock. The ishtar does not need its Sentry bonuses apart from how it is currently being used. The ishtar has not always had its sentry bonus, it has just become the FOTM.

I'm not getting rid of sentries, I'm changing their use to a type appropriate to that weapon system.

Still, thanks for shooting holes in my ideas, I really do appreciate it. Can't come up with solutions that work if people don't point out flaws. Not saying this would be the best or even a good one, but something to kick around.

Of course I'd rather not bargain, but extremes are extremes, and what I proposed seemed to nail things in place. It doesn't have to absolutely lock things down in place. I just want the boats to be in the same approximate area as their stationary drones. a control range ( not target range, in this they are seperate, as stated) of (arbitrary amount) say 30 km gives a ship with a small sig enough of an orbit to acheive a decent speed tank, provided they watch the direction of orbit. It does leave me with a conundrum of how to use the drone link augmentors.

The cane's awesomeness was a loss

ed damn, 30km is a pretty large area for my "mostly stationary idea"

Just take away the hull-based tracking bonus. If they want to apply BS damage to cruiser targets, let them sacrifice the fitting required to get it.

How about you try out the thing called the search tool? This topic is put up every single day...

Re-Re-Repost.

Why is every dam person start a new thread are you all to silly to check the first two pages if there is a thread to this topic and if there is so post you thing in this.


To the istar/sentry, no they are not overpowerd there are counters to them (no i don´t talk about bring more of them).

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sorry almost forgot

Repost --> vote 4 close