Test Server Feedback

First, when was the last time you saw a fleet of Domis? Honestly? Or heck, a fleet of Gallente ships, period? I've kept an eye on the top 20 killboards, and there's less and less Gallente boats there every year. A year ago, there were two. Now it's down to just one, and that is Talos in the #20 slot. Yeah, I guess in the grand scheme of things it's a meaningless statistic, but it does show something, because I honestly don't remember a Domi making the list in the past 3+ years.

The special cases around drone combat are the fact that they can be destroyed, and that even a dedicated drone boat can only carry a limited amount based on size, and their travel time.

The fastest drone still moves a heck of a lot slower than a missile, and way slower than any turret (which are instant). In many cases, drones (especially heavies) just don't make it to the target before it dies. Sentries don't have this issue, but suffer of all the shortcomings if any turret, plus they're stationary - you either babysit them, or you likely lose them because you have to warp out or they get destroyed while sitting there. If you lose them for whatever reason, you have to dock up and resupply (biggest non-carrier can only carry 3 flights of big heavy/sentry drones in its bay), not to mention the price tag associated with losing a flight of T2 heavies (3 mil at current Jita prices).

While drones travel, they use MWD and approach in a straight line - which results in zero transversal to a stationary target and increased signature radius. Need I say more? And then of course there's smartbombs. A single T2 smartbomb can kill most drones in 3-4 pulses, last time I checked.

There's very good reason why drone boats are just not being used often, or at all. And giving drone boats a module that is WORSE than its turret/missile counterpart is not going to change that status quo.

And another fun drone fact? There are still no implants to improve drone damage. Yep, implants for turrets/missiles were added in 2008, I believe. So, 4 years and counting of being treated as a red-headed step-child. And the only rig that increases damage only affects sentries.

I agree as well, well said +1000000

Don't increase drone damage any further - it will severely tilt hybrid drone/gunships off balance due to ridiculous amounts of DPS. As is with 15%, a shield rail dominix is already pushing 1300-ish DPS to 50km.

Alternatively, make drone damage mods stacking penalized with other damage mods.

Christ and Hunter, what is with EVE-O posters?

Dominix, 3xMFS, 3x EDA, 1x TE, 6x426, 5x Bouncer II, 5% Large Railgun Damage, 5% Turret Damage: 1,170 dps @ 41+39km.

This dominix needs *three* ACRs to fit, and has 52k EHP, 32k effective shields. It has no tackle, low scan resolution, and is fat and slow. The railguns have 0.013 tracking, and the bouncers 0.012. Good luck hitting anything but other battleships. This is an entirely useless fitting. The dominix has to overheat all its rails (with those twin 5% damage implants) to hit your inflated numbers.

Let me make this clear - nobody is going to fly a dominix like this. Its useless at sniping, useless in roaming gangs. If you want to bash a POS without any counter hostile action knock yourself out, but that is its only possible use. Acting as if you can make a viable fitting like this is the friggin king of strawman arguments.


Just so we are clear, you can use this same Dominix, right now on TQ, and do 1,000 DPS at 41+39km. You even have a full 3 lowslots to maybe make your tank not completely suck! 3x EDA on a full-****** Dominix fit doesn't make the ship overpowered, its only 300 additional DPS for a completely gimped fit.


That all said, I do agree Domis are potentially problematic due to their ability to "double dip" on damage mods. I've been saying this sense my OP! This is why I wanted EDA's in the highslot, so you can't fit a full rack of guns at the same time. Each EDA would require a gun to be dropped on a ship like the Dominix, and that would easily counterbalance vs. the gain in DPS.


As it stands, if anybody actually read my post with numbers crunched, you'd see that 15% EDAs are too niche for the majority of drone ships to use (let alone a non-drone boat). If you want to dispute that, go make a reasonable fit showing 15% EDAs are OP and then come back. I'm getting tired of these overinflated DPS, useless boats being held up as examples of drone damage mods being too good.

High-slot would make pure-drone fits viable, where currently they're lagging behind pure-guns and pure-rockets; as they are now, even someone with lots of drone skills and little gunnery would still be better off fitting guns + gun damage mods.


So "tradition" is a great reason for anything? By that logic, "weapons are high-slot items". Except drones aren't. Drones are different; they act differently and should be treated differently.


Maybe once it's on the live server I'll grumpily tolerate it; but while it's on the test server and they're asking for feedback, I'm going to keep testing and giving feedback, as I would imagine that's what the "test server feedback" forum is for :-P

also with the change to drone bandwidth and drone bay years ago, give me one good reason why all drone boats don't get their drone bays doubled, or even tripled?

If you're going to do it, do it all the way. Do not implement half a band-aid and call it fixed, the band-aid will simply fall off.

More importantly, if you are cautious of adding a 22.9% drone damage modifier, mix in another bonus. 10% drone speed for instance.

This will cause drones to be more reliable and, thus, increase their damage.

On the plus side, the EFT warriors wouldn't complain, because the raw DPS doesn't change. Herpaderp.

remember drones boats are a ship that can be versitle changing drones etc. Drones should be a little bit weaker than other types of fire power.

I posted this in the other thread related to the super friends changes but will post it here too since it has to do with the module




Agree with all the above Drone boats dont depend on turrets to do there damage. Any drone boat pilot i know would happily give up there turrets for the drone damage mods to be high slot. And most drone boats Armor tanked Ie (low slots are already taken). I can understand you want to make them in line with gyros and heat sinks and such but it just isn't viable.

As example of this A domi set up for afk missions will have there lows filled with armor hardeners 2 repairers and a cap power relay while the mids are all cap rechargers. Most people dont even fit turrets to a afk ship like that and instead choose drone link augs a laser ( any will do to pull agro) and reps to repair your drones. And for the PVP side of things A neut Arbitrator is about the same lows for tank Mids for scrams and utility mods and your highs are neuts.

***Both Drone boats have fits where these new mods would only be beneficial in a high slot position.****

Now im sure there are other examples of ships in the same situation, and people who fit there ships differently but i do believe that the new drone damage mod should be a high slot And should be buffed more then currently offered (especially since Nothing can be done about the ROF)

The balance to that is the fact that drones need to be drawn in, then redeployed. Moving back and forth takes time. Lost time is lost damage. But by your logic, all weapon systems should be lower EFT damage.

Your argument is flawed.

And **** EFT.