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:DDD woot higher modifier, now if only we could get a Damage Modifier and a Damage bonus, sorta like a BCS, but no RoF bonus.

Huh, interesting. The boost is slightly nicer, but these are still underpowered comparatively .

A boost in drone hp may make up for the lack in dps, since you cannot change the rof.

Thanks for the updates though!

Again, make them a highslot module so that they are useful to actual droneboat users and not just the EFT warriors.

they wont do that, damage modules are a LOW SLOT MOD, that way you are forced to choose between a better armor tank, or more dps.

What on earth is with the hyperbole in this thread. Shield Gank Domis on TQ can do almost 1,400 DPS standard, and overheat up into the 1,500+ range. A 15% bump to Maxed out Ogre II's is all of 71 additional DPS. Two EDA's take that to 142 additional DPS. Oh yea, terribly OP~


@ CCP SoniClover:

I finished running the numbers on the new EDA. The reduced CPU is nice, but they are still catastrophic to Gila and Ishtar fittings. You *can* fit them, esp. with the new CPU rigs coming in, but they really require you to gut something else to fit them on the ship. Hell, my Gila on TQ runs 4x lowslots without any CPU consumption at all due to how tight that ship's CPU is ._.

At 15% Strength, the EDA is now sufficiently powerful that a Curse would fit them over BCUs. Yay. The damage gap is pretty minor however, and that Curse would still gain slightly more DPS by fitting 2x HML over 2x EDA (yes technically Hammerhead IIs have a 4dps advantage, but Hammerhead IIs are too slow for a Curse to use).

EDA's on a Pilgrim are... problematic. The ship is starved for slots at every level (highs, mids, lows, you name it), and dropping tank for damage mods - while a nice choice to finally make - is scary because pilgrims are thin, even with a full 5 tank slot. EDA's also run into a somewhat common opportunity cost decision - damage mods vs. guns. While it would look very funky, a single Neutron Blaster Cannon II on the pilgrim is capable of adding 50+ dps. To beat that blaster, you need to give up two low slots for EDA's for 15% EDA's to beat out a single unbonused blaster's additional damage. Personally, I'd much rather give up my small neut than lose two tanking mods.


As mentioned previously, the reduced CPU isn't enough to help the Ishtar and Gila. Sentry-nano versions of each of these ships would prefer SDA II rigs, as the SDA uses up a lot less CPU than an EDA does while granting the same DPS bonus to your sentries. To fit 2x EDA requires so much CPU that you usually must give up rails on the Ishtar, which completely negates your damage gains. Gila's are a bit more amicable to them, but the fits heavily depend on CPU rigs AND a litany of faction medslots to get the fitting to work (the need for a DLA on the Gila doesn't help anything here).

Brawling Ishtar's will be extremely hard pressed to fit EDA's due to their lack of low slots. With only 5 lows to tank with, they pretty much will need all of them to not just ~die~.

Myrms won't fit EDA's past some sort of weird 4+ damage mod shield gank fitting. Gyros add more dps on 220's than EDA's add to the 2/2/1 Thermal drone split. Using explosive drones or blasters will only exacerbate the DPS disparity between a real damage mod and the EDA. This is a bit of a moot point tho, as most myrms don't fit damage mods anyways.

Domis have too many fits to go through every possible Dominix fit. Just as with 12% EDA's, 15% EDA will still have fits that are used on the Domi. That said, most of those fits are going to be some variation of a pure shield-gank Domi, and they may not be used until *three* MFS are already in place (third mag stab adds more DPS than first EDA). For much more conservative Dominix fits, the EDA is basically a dead mod not worth fitting. Either they have guns and a MFS will add more, or they can add 1-2 guns adding more DPS than an EDA would, or the ship is some variant of pure tank (hive, hospital, etc) and the tradeoff for 15% damage is not worth the loss in DPS tanked.

Many domi fits, particularly hive-themed domis, would also prefer SDA rigs to EDA's. Same damage modifier, less important slot to grab it from. It does cost a bit more CPU on the Dominix than an EDA does, but most Domi's don't run into CPU trouble.



TLDR: Buffs make the EDA usable on the Curse, all other ships are highly suspect at best.

I'd recommend bumping their stats to this:
1) Cut CPU to 20/25tf
2) Bump DPS up to 16/20%

I have considered the options of adding ancillary effects to the drones, such as +HP, but all this will really accomplish is adding two :meh: effects together to make yet another underwhelming drone module. If the DPS modifier on the EDA is an insufficient reason to add it to your ship, a few more %HP isn't going to change the equation. in most circumstances a modest bump to drone HP is simply not going to matter (either your drones aren't going to get shot, or they are and a few extra HP won't save them). Most pilots would prefer to have their lows and CPU going to mods that will always give them a combat edge, not a "maybe sometimes" edge.

As such, if the damage modifier isn't competitive, the mod itself won't be competitive. HP modifiers can be tacked on if the damage modifier winds up in the "almost worth it" zone to sweeten the pot, but the EDA is not there yet.

Is there a specific reason for wanting to keep their overall effect on damage output lower than their counterparts for other weapons systems?

Getting them into high slots would make them more attractive for a lot of fittings.
If they use up a low slot, only a few dedicated drone ships will use them.
with highslots you might see them a lot more on BCs and BS and generally have a lot more options.
I like more options.

Definitely looking forward to seeing how it works in practice. The CPU requirements are now in line with all other damage mods aside from Ballistic Control Units, which require 35 and 40 CPU for T1 and T2 versions, respectively. The damage bonus is somewhat low on paper, but drones have certain advantages and disadvantages over other weapons which may mitigate that. So it may make sense to release the mod in its currently updated state and see what players do with it.

On a somewhat related note, will there be rigs for boosting the damage of non-sentry drones? And will this module suffer stacking penalties from the Sentry Damage Augmentor rig?

You are nor sure i'am pretty sure it would , you never saw a fleet of domis with a massive drone bonus , and what special cases around drone combat do you mean?The ability to lock send drones and be emune to ewar?Tracking disrupters ?Nos neut?

The Only thing dependent of drones are the ability of us to kill them, and to outrun them and gain range.

I agree, high slot damage module.

on another note, invention for the Blueprint should be changed to use Gallente skills and items, instead of the caldari stuff used now, also the missile launcher icon for the item isn't really the best icon for it.