Science & Industry

Thank you for taking the time to read this as I have an idea for you to consider. This is not a “rework the Orca to give me something for free” pitch, this is a technology suggestion to add into the game that can add to the abilities of the pilots.

The Orca for all its tremendous size and hauling capability it’s limited.
Currently – 50MB of drone bandwidth
Suggest – 125MB of drone bandwidth

Currently – 5 drones controlled at once
Suggest – 8 drones (Tech 1 rig) and 10 drones (Tech 2 rig) controlled at once with a rig installed and required training completed (see next item)

A new drone rig to control an additional 3 drones (Tech 1) and 5 drones (Tech 2) similar to how the Medium Command Processor adds an additional Command Burst module to a command-capable ship.

Even though you can use the rig to unlock the ability to use more drone bandwidth, it will be the skill training that will allow the use of more drones in game.

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Large Drone Command Augmentor (new item)

Description
This ship modification is designed to increase the number of drones that can be utilized on a command-capable ship.
Increases drone bandwidth to 125 MB

Attributes
Volume 20 m3
Tech Level 1
Structure Hit Points 40 HP
Maximum Active Drones +3

Fitting
Rig – Must be installed into an open rig slot
Rig Size – Large
Calibration – 25

Variations
Tech 1
Large Drone Command Augmentor

Tech 2
Large Drone Command Augmentor II

Industry
Large Drone Command Augmentor
30 X Fried Interface Circuit
100 X Damaged Artificial Neural Network
60 X Charred Micro Circuit
20 X Megacyte

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Large Drone Command Augmentor II (new item)

Description
This ship modification is designed to increase the number of drones that can be utilized on a command-capable ship.
Increases drone bandwidth to 125 MB

Attributes
Volume – 20 m3
Tech Level 2
Structure Hit Points – 40 HP
Maximum Active Drones +5

Fitting
Rig – Must be installed into an open rig slot
Rig Size – Large
Calibration – 100

Variations
Tech 1
Increases drone bandwidth from 50MB to 125 MB
Increases the total number of drones to 8

Tech 2
Increases drone bandwidth from 50MB to 125 MB
Increases the total number of drones to 10

Industry
1 X Large Drone Command Augmentor I
1 X R.A.M.– Robotics

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Advanced Drones Control skill book (new item)

Skill at remote controlling drones. Can operate 1 additional drone per skill level.

Required Skills
Drones V
Drone Navigation V
Drone Interfacing V

Cost: 5,000,000 ISK

What if this was to be restricted to mining, ECM and salvage drones?

LOL drone boats the ones with the 50% damage and hit points used to get 1+ drone per lv so in the old day you could tell the skill lv of a pilot by the number of drones launched. if a drone boat launched less than 15 drone's it gave a good idea on the pilots skills and I had people run when my vexor/domi launched 15 drones in the old days but it produced massive lag the worst was the carriers and moros as the they could launch a lot more the moros had 10 drones +5 per lv which added upto 35 drones each maxed 2+ of those really lagged a system :)
but flying that amount of drones was very expensive when you hit a ship with smart bombs as the drones were 1/3 the strength so died a lot easier but after the reduced the max drones to 5 it was a lot harder to kill drones on drone boats. the moros drones then were 7x(damage and hit points) so where very tough and could hit all sizes of ships so the moros lost it drones :(