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The problem with drones...
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Xenuria
#1 - 2012-03-13 16:39:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Xenuria
Drones are horribly imballanced and need a complete rework. Evidence listed below.


With Max skills a set of 5 Heavy Orge 2s do "475" DPS. (no mods, rigs or implants can be fit to increase this damage output)
With Max Skills a set of 5 Garde 2s do "450" DPS without rigs and "538" with rigs. (Only Rigs can increase the damage output)

Clearly sub capital drones are sub par in comparison to blaster platforms.

Consider the following!

My protues flagship "Velvet Rising" does at minimum 767.7 DPS from turrets alone. It does 185.4 DPS in drones for a combined 926.1 DPS. With implants the total dps is 984.1 including drones. DPS rigs are not used because it would make the fit impossible or the tank inefficient for level 4s and 5s.

A decent Dominix can expect to reach 1000 dps but in turn have a weaker tank. Then again so could the proteus have a much higher dps at the cost of a thin tank.

The discrepancy is within the usage of drones as a support unit verses as a primary unit of damage dealing.


The Two Sides of the Argument.

If you take the argument that drones are support and should not get a buff or be changed then my counter-point would be that if this is the case then ships like the ishtar should be reworked to give them a "primary" form of damage dealing that is at least equivalent of greater than the "support" damage dealing they do. I would also point out that the Drone Synthesis Subsystem should not exist or be buffed so it can better compete with the hybrid turret subsystems. All in accordance with the argument that drones are by design a support unit and not a primary form of damage.


If you take the argument that drones are NOT a support unit and are in fact a primary form of damage dealing than I would argue that drones are thus to weak and need modules or implants, maybe even a buff to bring them in line with other primary forms of damage dealing. While still compensating for ships and fits that try to exploit the most out of both.



Conclusion

No matter which side of the argument you take I still make a valid point that drones in their present form need reworking.

CSM 12 Candidate
Karn Dulake
Doomheim
#2 - 2012-03-13 16:45:18 UTC
TL:DR but i agree with you anyway.

Can i have my like now :)
I dont normally troll, but when i do i do it on General Discussion.
Aqriue
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-03-13 17:02:15 UTC
Xenuria wrote:

My protues flagship "Velvet Rising"

WTF is protues ?

Sorry, had to do it Roll
Dbars Grinding
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2012-03-13 17:02:45 UTC
If i could post a picture of a dead horse and a man beating it i would. This is a topic players kind of gave up on since CCP has ignored it for a long time. At least give us implants or somethin.

I have more space likes than you. 
TheBreadMuncher
Protus Correction Facility Inc.
#5 - 2012-03-13 17:04:22 UTC
Wah wah, one gallente damage type doesn't do quite as much as another! Fix the game immediately! Roll

"We will create the introduction thread if that is requested by the community. Also, we will have an ISD Seminar about the CCL team in the coming weeks in which you can ask your questions about the CCL team and provide some constructive feedback to us." - Countless pages of locked threads and numerous permabanned accounts later, change is coming.
Vito Antonio
Doomheim
#6 - 2012-03-13 17:05:07 UTC
Aqriue wrote:
Xenuria wrote:

My protues flagship "Velvet Rising"

WTF is protues ?

Sorry, had to do it Roll


protues is a t3 ship, like tenku and legaon...
Petrus Blackshell
Rifterlings
#7 - 2012-03-13 17:31:41 UTC
Vito Antonio wrote:
Aqriue wrote:
Xenuria wrote:

My protues flagship "Velvet Rising"

WTF is protues ?

Sorry, had to do it Roll


protues is a t3 ship, like tenku and legaon...

And kilo

Accidentally The Whole Frigate - For-newbies blog (currently on pause)
Garmon
Gods Holy Light Bringing You're Penance
#8 - 2012-03-13 17:35:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Garmon
By far the biggest problems with drones is that there's been nothing but power creep for other weapon systems over the years, especially when tracking enhancers are concerned, drones are not able to apply their full damage most of the time, and apart from sentrys, they're definitely not "immediate" dps
I like Duncan
Sisohiv
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2012-03-13 17:42:40 UTC
"Augmented" drones should have been given 4/ 8/ 20 bandwidth.
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#10 - 2012-03-13 19:12:50 UTC
I absolutely agree. Drones need to be looked at. Even the UI alone could use some serious love.

But then, I'm very biased. I love drones. I love pet classes in general, so having 5 little pet drones is the whole reason I went Gallente as my primary.
J3ssica Alba
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2012-03-13 19:40:15 UTC
I too would love to see drones given more love. More hp also. And more dps. Moar.
This is my signature. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.  Without me, my signature is useless. Without my signature, I am useless
Rek Seven
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2012-03-13 19:48:12 UTC
I think the best way for drones to be buffed it to introduce high slot modules that improve drone performance. This way a ship like the dominix could do away with guns all together and use these new mods to bring their drone dps in line with gun/missile boats.

The wishlist is pretty much complete...
Aiwha
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#13 - 2012-03-13 19:53:27 UTC
Aqriue wrote:
Xenuria wrote:

My protues flagship "Velvet Rising"

WTF is protues ?

Sorry, had to do it Roll




No, its

[h1][red]WTF IS PROTUS?![/red][/h1]

Sanity is fun leaving the body.
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#14 - 2012-03-13 19:55:02 UTC
Xenuria, you make a good point

I would like to expand on the Ishtar when compared to the other 7 HAC's
The Ishtar's HAC bonus is a joke, and using heavy drones is pretty awful unless you are right on top of your opponent at the beginning of the fight
Consider, an MwD'ed Ishtar is going FASTER than it's heavy drones, therefore has to get into point blank range before even deploying them.

All other HAC's, including the Demios (2.3km opt + 9.4km falloff), have a functional attack range of minimum 10 km
Further, 6 of the other 7 HAC's have a HAC bonus that increases DPS of their primary weapon system. The Muninn does not get a DPS bonus, it ONLY gets an improvement to the range and tracking of its optimal weapon system

The Ishtar must with 5 km to lay down any damage, and heavy drones essentially have to be within 3500 m to do any functional damage (even closer for optimal), yet heavy drones are too slow to do any real damage to a target unless it is slowed significantly

The Ishtar's HAC bonus of expanded drone bay and increased drone control range are laughable
I am sure that people will say that the Ishtar makes a fine sniper boat with sentry drones. On paper, sure, but I have seen extremely few sniper Ishtar's out there compared to the Muninn and Zealot. (OK, the Eagle and Cerebus are crappy snipers too)
Plus who really uses a full 375 cu m of drones in a fight? Most fight don't last long enough to utilize more than 2 flights of drones

I would suggest changing the Ishtar to a fixed 250 or 275 cu m drone bay, and change the HAC bonus to 10% MwD drone speed / level, and 5% falloff on blasters

Suddenly, the Ishtar's primary weapon system has some teeth
Dodona
The Guardian Knights
#15 - 2012-03-13 20:17:08 UTC
Topic really should be "The problems with drones."

Augmented/Integrated Drones:

Change lights and mediums to 8/15 Mbs bandwidth with increased damage to suit the 40 Mbs and 75 Mbs ships like the Myrmidon, Proteus and the Celestis variants. 100/125 Mbs ships could also use Augmented mediums as a higher damage replacement for regular mediums without resorting to slow-ass heavies.

Change the sentry/heavy drones to 20 Mbs with the same damage output to suit ships with 100 Mbs like the Navy Vexor/Drone Proteus.

Increase drop rate for Augmented/Integrated drone BPCs.
___________________

Make drones auto-primary enemies with ECM applied to the host ship (ie without requiring lock).

Increase the usefulness of the drone rigs and balance the Electronic Warfare drones
Xenuria
#16 - 2012-03-13 20:27:00 UTC
Holy crap...

I made a thread with my main and people actually agreed with me...

inb4 hell starts freezing over.

CSM 12 Candidate
Takashi Kaeda
Perkone
Caldari State
#17 - 2012-03-13 20:32:29 UTC
But what gender of drones are we talking about here and are they heteronormative?
Aethlyn
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#18 - 2012-03-13 20:41:59 UTC
Not sure why it hasn't been linked here, but they're aware and thinking about adding damage mod modules.

Looking for more thoughts? Follow me on Twitter.
Xenuria
#19 - 2012-03-13 20:58:09 UTC
Takashi Kaeda wrote:
But what gender of drones are we talking about here and are they heteronormative?


I want my drones to be pink and wear pretty dresses that leave trails.

CSM 12 Candidate