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The suggestion was to find an alternative bonus to improve drone reliability.

But for the sake of argument, a drone speed bonus would mean:
Drones take less damage
Drones spend less time traveling to a target
Drones can more easily chase a target (IE Berserkers MWD at ~1500 m/s). Most hacs can outrun this. Two EDA's would improve serkers speed to ~1800. Suddenly, only a handful of nanohacs are faster than serkers. Now your serkers are hitting a target that they would have never touched.

Such a change, I would consider to be a visible damage increase. As well as an optimal range bonus or, to a lesser extent, a drone bay m3 increase.

This is actually why I'd be most happy if ccp would just merge omni/nav/dura modules into one module, giving us the choice of dmg or drone speed&tracking&durability. I have yet to even once fit a nav module or a dura module on a drone ship. If i had unlimited amout of med sltos, i'd fit em, but without unlimited, omnis are always better.

Edit: This ofcourse doesn't change the fact that the drone damage module needs to have comparable dmg bonus to weapon damage modules to be considered viable.

Love the ideas in this thread.

+1 for making drones and droneboats a viable full-fledged weapon system.

I am happy you agree with us but I am sad to say its not gonna happen... its CCP we are talking about...

Would be nice if they at least acknowledged the problem first. A simple post along the lines of "S***, yes, drone boats are a mess, we'll look into fixing it, maybe this year, maybe next year". That at least would be a step in the right direction.

I mean, let's face it. Almost nobody uses drone boats. Out of pirate faction battleships, Rattlesnake is the cheapest one at around 500 mil, while others like Mach and Vindi go for 1 bil, and Bhaal for 1.2 bil. Guess why? If you couldn't put such a ludicrous passive shield tank into it, nobody would use it at all. And that's just one example of drone boats being short-changed. And as CCP mentioned that they are aware of active tank vs passive tank issues, after that is reviewed who knows what would happen to the Rattler.

Look, I'm a "new" player, with my current main just reaching 10 million SP now,. Out of that, 5 million is in drone skills. And I am acutely aware that this was a HUGE mistake. I've crippled myself horrifically by going this route, compared to choosing turrets or missiles instead. I'm doing things slower and far less efficiently than non-drone character with similar SP. Had I gone the Caldari route up to the Tengu, I'd be doing things far faster with a lot less hassles now.

Drone fixes, and drone boat fixes, would be pretty good. Though I'm not holding my breath. And like the fellow above said, it would be nice if CCP sat down and decided what they want Gallente to be. If you want them to use drones as a main weapon system, then perhaps giving the Gallente lineup many more drone ships, or more drones to control, and maybe *gasp* a drone Marauder instead of a turret one, that would help. If you want Gallente to use hybrids with drones being as auxiliary system only, then step 1 would be to redo the tutorial for new players to avoid what happened to me. And step 2 would be to kill drone boats, because they will never be viable. Just make up your minds and do it, it can't be any worse than the way things are now.

You make valid points =( However, at present, CCP believes that the drone damage module should not be equivalent with the other damage sources. Looking for alternative sources to bridge the gap is the intention.

You're not the first and certainly won't be the last to begin Eve thinking "oo drones.. they look cool" and then investing 2/3 months training them up. Especially if you start as a Gal char.

Drones have always been, and always should be, a subsidiary damage type barring a few specific, Gallente ship fits. Gallente are supposedly the subcap drone specialists. It makes sense that the likes of the Domi , Ishtar & Vexor should rely on drones for dps while they use utility highs for other useful stuff which ignores the pretty naff 5% hybrid bonuses.

It also makes sense that those same hulls should be the prime beneficiaries of a Drone Damage module.

But a while back, CCP spread that drone damage buff out to Ammar boats (Curse, Pilgrim, Arbi) and so diluted a strong racial strength.

Partly because of that spread, the world & his uncle all want 'in' on this new drone damage mod, to their own ends. But of course, they can't. It's a low slot mod; it doesn't buff the way turret/missile damage mods do; and its fitting reqs are hefty.

But mostly, it's because drones can now be stocked on 80% of the ships in game. So it's not really surprising how many players are complaining about its slot status, buff percent or cpu.

Balancing this mod wouldn't be half so contentious if it simply wasn't available to so many standard/odd/way-out-there ship fits which include drones. I'm quite sure there will be EFT warriors even looking at the Tengu's Rifling Launcher subsystem for an edge. Briefly

If it were up to me which ofc it isn't, I'd limit this mod to Gallente subcaps droneboats - those that actually use drones as primary dps. On anything else it's just a shitfit. But on a Vex or Domi..well

Just to put this into some perspective.

3x T2 (turret) damage mods currently provide a 65% increase in dps output POST STACKING.

5 hull bonused Garde II's with a 65% dps boost would do 743 dps.
Ogre II's would do 770dps.
Hammers 384 dps.
Hobs 240.

So lets be honest here, even if the EDA's give the full bonus of a standard damage mod drones are still going to be the lowest dps "Main" weapon system. Ofc there are other pro's and cons and I don't think they should do any more dps than that but given that you're giving up 3 low slots 750 dps isn't exactly a gamebreaker. Add this to the fact there are probably only 3 ships that could realistically fit 3 (domi, Navy domi and rattler) it seems that anything less simply isnt going to be worth the effort.

Agree FULLY High slot damage mod for the drones is the way to go. As i stated in the other post PvE drone boats very rarely use there high slots for turrets while every other slot (mid / Low) is locked down. And for PVP drone boats they either use neuts or reppers really.

Please CCP High slot drone mods is the most viable solution .

I think add two mods, one High slot Mod and a Low slot mod as well. Make them have diff stats, prob the low slot on have more damage or a 2nd effect, with more cpu req? Im just throwing out ideas.

Btw, all the "I only know how to use drones and I think the grass is greener over there storys" are cute guys, way to get really emotional over some weapon systems.

It so funny the gal's cry about this even though it gives them nothing but more options.

I also think its a hoot how you have cal's crying about how long there missiles take to get anywhere, ammar's crying about not being able to switch damage type, and mimmie crying about split weapons and high training reqs. No one seems to understand how to play to there strengths, and just want to beat there heads against there weaknesses