Player Features and Ideas Discussion

When I first discovered EVE, back in Apocrypha, I was stunned by the amount of detail and lore put on every faction out there. It seemed like a great, deep science fiction universe I would love. And I do. But there's a certain faction that always seems to be forgotten when it comes to updates and ingame events, one that is among my most favourite ones. And that's the Rogue Drones.

I think it's pretty sad that a faction that has its own dedicated Epic Arc (the SoE one) and technically controls a few nullsec regions has almost no content when compared to the other ones. Sure, they got officers, but in all these years other pirate factions got ships, ingame events, relevance in the ongoing history of EVE... even the SoE and the Mordu's Legion got ships and became very important in terms of lore -Thera, for example- while the Rogue Drones remain pretty much as they were when I first saw them. Little more that space ants with awesome designs. Some of their models are not even used ingame, as far as I know.

I say it's time for them to shine too. There is enough lore to make the basis of something great for them -probably CCP still has uncovered RD lore- and since they are intelligent machines there's a lot we could have around them. They even have a rather curious damage profile, and unique weapons (they're stated to be particle beams).

These are just some quick ideas on ingame events starring the Rogue Drones, and their rewards.

- RDs start infesting star systems at a faster rate than usual. They start to appear in very large numbers, buidling hives that create more of them. Large drones and infested ships appear as well. Players would try to run abnormally difficult sites about reaching and destroying a hive. These hives could drop blueprints for RD modules and drones, maybe even ships.

- Drifters or another faction hack (read: mindwash) RDs to serve their purposes. The RD faction as a whole sees this as abductions and a loss of "life", as each drone is intelligent. Players would fight these "possessed" RDs, which would drop special AI chips (basically, the drone's brain). By turning these chips back -and thus their consciences- to RD hives (kind of as if they were a POS) or agents in space, you get LPs to exchange for blueprints of modules, drones and ships.

Which kind of rewards could these be? Some ideas:

- Drone-related faction modules.
- Literal Rogue Drones, except they would serve you like any other drone. Since some RDs are quite large, they could even be faction fighters or Gecko-sized faction drones.
- New weapons: particle beams. They deal the same strange damage profile as the RDSs: thermal and explosive at least.
- Faction ships: old fellas like the Infested Dominix (basically a better drone Dominix) or even completely new designs based on the awesome RD hive aesthetics. Some of the usual RDs are large enough to be frigate-sized as minimum; maybe they could qualify as flyable ships. You can expect them to bring many drones with them.

I've heard CCP had some issues with them due to not being able to give them agents (because of portraits). Well, I say one could use Aura-like models or even bizarre hard-light figures like the Goo faction portraits on Grey Goo.

In my opinion, Rogue Drones are a yet unopened box of wonders with a lot of potential and an unique feel, and it's sad to see them largely forgotten about for so much time. What do you guys think?

1. Drone faction modules already exist. Search the market for the word "sentient"
2. Once a Rogue Drone starts to follow a player's orders, they're no longer rogue. We already have drones.
3. I have no opinion on the new weapon, provided it's balanced. I see no reason to add a new weapon, but I'm not against CCP doing so.
4. I would not object to skins that make your ship look infected, but I say no to actual pilotable rogue drones.

Look on the market under 'Augmented'
They already exist.

So basically, SKIN's for drones? Well, if it can be done, why not? Then again, there are still ships in Eve that don't even have a SKIN beyond their default, so that would likely take a backseat in priority anyways.

Why dont you just go all the way? Drone Player characters that can have their brain transferred between ships. Drone pc's ships are not infested they are "integrated". Brain cube is just another form of capsule.

RDs should be responsible for POSageddon

When they're finally done with structures and ready to take the POS out of the game, they should run an RD event. RD start warping in around every POS in the game, slowly at first, and increase in frequency. They exhibit curious behavior, ignoring attackers and just bashing themselves against POS shields. This goes on for about a week, and (insert appropriate faction) puts out a memo: pack up your ****, the rogue drones are adapting.

Now, you can pack it up and sell your old POS gear via the usual reimbursement plan to said faction, you know, so they can research this new threat. However, capsuleers that choose NOT to do so will discover something terrifying. As (faction) announces that they've successfully engineered countermeasures to the new RD anti-structure devices and have applied them to all upwell and existing faction structures, the RD's unveil their new weapons, and start hammering POS shielding with increased vigor. A few fly right on through and start attaching themselves to POS towers and modules, dealing damage over time. They integrate with POS guns, turning them on their owners until the rest of the starbase is consumed.

You can shoot these drone swarms up for POSageddon LP tokens (Siege drone cores) to trade in during/after the event for whatever loot.

As time goes on the RDs get better and better at punching through shields, and begin to gain resistance and additional DPS. Capsuleers can attempt to stem the tide, but they simply become more powerful without end. They're feeding on the shields you see. When they take down towers, those towers don't explode. They just reveal a new drone swarm, formed from the components of the towers and modules. Capsuleers can attempt to defend the beleagured POSes remaining, but the automated assault is endless, and continues 24 hours a day, every day, with each swarm growing in power linearly until it runs out of starbases to eat.

Drone swarms that don't have any towers left in the system warp to a deadspace pocket somewhere else in the system, scanning it down reveals a site containing an officer that drops maybe some cool barbie gear like facial implants or trophies or limited edition BPCs or something. Their ultimate goal, a big ol' rat king of a drone, built from the consumed starbases.

These sites remain in the game forever until killed, the last remnants of the once proud capsuleer starbases. Perhaps years down the line someone may still find one in some far flung abandoned part of Wspace and claim the now ultra-rare loot it contains.