Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It's been a while since Drones have been a serious force in EVE. They're usually considered a backup weapon or a weaker main weapon that's only viable with backup from normal weapons like turrets and missiles. I'd like to recommend that we remedy this by introducing new Drone Control Units or a module that will provide a 99% reduction in CPU and Powergrid usage of Drone Control Units that could be fit in low or mid slots to allow ships to equip the Control Units in the hi slots.

I'd much prefer to see a new collection of Drone Control Units rated small, medium, large and Capital class to make increased drone deployment a viable option for more than just Carriers, rather than a module that provides the 99% reduction since that would only reduce the fitting requirements of the current Drone Control Unit to a point where Battleships could make use of them to any worthwhile extent.

If adding small, medium, large control units it may be nice to have them add drone bay m3 and bandwidth as well as increasing the number of drones you can control. Small control units could add 5m3/5bandwidth, mediums could add 10m3/10bandwidth, and large units could add 25m3/25bandwidth. That way ships that normally aren't 'drone boats' could make good use of them as well.

Pretty much exactly what I posted, but the bonus to drone HP is pretty OP when you consider you're going to be fitting more than 1 of these at a time so I can't really support that part of it.

Something I would like to see is an enhanced survey scanner. It seems strange to me that races capable of building titans and dreadnoughts can't improve on a asteroid scanner with a range greater then 22.5 km. A rig or a sensor booster to extend this range would be welcome.

Great idea! I must admit that I like the way Advanced drone skill was integrated into the DCU hp/dmg bonus. You should keep in mind that when asking for what you want, the tradition is to ask for more so that what is agreed upon is closer to what you originally want. I would change your 1% to at least 4%. I would also remove the dmg bonus, as dmg modules are usually found in the low slots, and it gives more room for the other bonuses and agrees more with the original capital DCU, which I think should also give hp, m3, and MB/s bonuses.

Protective Ambiance Expanse

Very similar to a POS force field, this bubble can/will :

Uses a Medium Slot requiring 20 power grid and 90 Cpu
Can be fitted to any ship
Active Mod using 80GJ per 10 sec cycle
A cooldown of 30 seconds is required
A charge that can be reused unless destroyed will be required...at 2m3
Disables Weapons and Drones(except when out of bubble) from being able to fire when inside the bubble
Will have a 8km radius
Ships outside the bubble will beable to lock ships in the bubble, but unable to fire any type of weapon except for the atachment on the ship which will disable the bubble if destroyed
Bubble attachment has 6k shields at 40/50/60/60 resists...2k armor at 70/60/50/50 resists..500 structure at 20/20/20/20


A Tier2 Version should be made availiable with the following exceptions :

Mod requiring 90 > 110 Cpu
85GJ a cycle
12km radius
Bubble attachment with 10k shields...3k armor...2k structure
Can decloak ships

Miners will still beable to activate strippers from within the bubble
The bubble must be decycle for encased ships to warp or jump
Decloaks ships within 2km of bubble(unless interferes with balancing)

Feel free to add ideas or comments

Nope, didn't forget at all. But giving Drones 125% bonus HP and then putting 10 of them on the field is a ridiculous amount of extra damage that can be absorbed by your drones before you're out of them. That's an extra 12.5 drones worth of hp to chew through, at 5% per module it's only a 25% total bonus and so only 2.5 drones worth of extra hp that needs to be dealt with. You give drones an extra 125% hp and it won't even be a tactical decision about whether to shoot the drones or not to shoot the drones....it'd be stupid to shoot the drones, just focus down the pilot instead unless you've got some sort of aoe to burn the drones down. At 25% bonus hp it still leaves the option of focusing the drones instead of the pilot's ship, it won't be a clear cut decision. Also, I never said 'drone dps over drone hp' I want a little of both. I want to make using drones as a primary weapon viable while not making them invincible or removing all strategy from a fight they're involved in. Tactical decisions are important, and making something unbalanced only removes those decisions from the mix because one option is so vastly superior to the other that it's not only the obvious choice, but also the only viable one.

Remember also that drones are the only weapon system that is not vulnerable to neuts, nos, or ECM. Once they're on a target they stay on that target and pretty much never stop unless you pick them off one at a time. Give a Dominix the ability to fly 10 large drones at once and the extra 125m3 to its dronebay and it'd be a extremely versatile juggernaut. It'd have the drone capacity to carry a full complement of heavy drones, sentinels, and ewar drones and be able to swap them out pretty much on the fly to tear anything it came across apart. Give those drones even 25% bonus hp and damage on top of the bonuses to drones the ship already gets and it's going to cause some real havok out there. The Myrmidon would become exceptionally powerful as well, consider what would happen if you could forgo fitting weapon on the Myrm in favor of 2 Large Drone Control Units. You'd expand it's drone bay to 200m3 and give it 125MBit/sec bandwidth. It wouldn't be able to fly 10 large drones, but it'd be able to fly 5 heavies or sentinels, and the DCU bonuses would again stack with the ship's innate bonuses to drones. Slap a couple Small DCUs on it just for the extra drones and it'd be able to easily field 10 medium drones and swap them out on the fly and get it the rest of the 15% bonus it'd be missing from having only 2 Large DCUs. So it'd be a BC with 10 medium drones that did the same dps and had the same amount of health as 17.5 drones in any other ship that didn't have drone bonuses. Or it'd be able to fly 5 large drones and just keep pushing more out as they die. Heck, with just 2 Small DCUs you could have the Myrm flying 5 heavies cause it's already got a large enough dronebay to carry 7 of them. Even the Vexor would be getting a huge boost...heck....the Vexor would end up being able to field the same 5 Heavies or 10 Mediums with the same bonuses that the Myrm could....and it'd move faster and be smaller...

I also never said the carrier was 'OP'. I said it was extremely powerful, and when compared to other current drone based ships it is. Pit a carrier 1v1 against any other drone boat and it'll win, no contest. It'll have more drone capacity, more bandwidth, be able to put more drones on the field, it'll use Fighters or Fighter Bombers, and get bonuses to remote repair so it'll can keep drones on the field longer than any other drone boat. Pit a carrier against 3 or 4 other drone boats and it'll still come out on top. Even if we gave the 3 or 4 drone boats these new Drone Control Units we're asking for it'd probably still win or at least drive them off, it's supposed to, it's a Carrier. This is not to say they're unkillable, they're incredibly vulnerable if you know their weaknesses and exploit them. My point was that carriers are already very powerful drone boats and giving them even more of an edge in combat isn't something I'd ask for at this time. If these new Drone Control Units were added and worked out well, then I'd certainly be willing to revisit a buff to Capital Drone Control Units. But I think buffing them now would be a mistake.

Seriously....Fighters and Fighter Bombers with 125% bonus health? NO THANK YOU!

Module

Have "once removed" version of cloaking. Call it a stealth module. It would "dampen" a ships ability to be detected by D-scan, NOT eliminate it, just make it detectable only at a closer range. This would be a counter to the script I proposed above for increased D-scan ability.

Module

Capital class module only.

Electronics suit. Provides +1 warp strength without the normal penalties applied to sub capital ships. Provides a small percentage increase to sensor strength. Provides small percentage increase to scan resolution.

Think of it as the "Power Diagnostic Unit" of the midslot for your electronics woes.

Ship class with new modules

Call this class of ship the CEO's Command Post

This ship would be sub capital and have very few defenses or weapons. it is intended to be a ship that aids in administrative activities that a typical CEO might want.

The module would be new in Eve and would do some of the following:

*Boost your ability to place buy/sell orders over greater distances, perhaps across entire regions.

*Allow you to instantly update member locations. this would be at a faster rate than the corporation window currently has.

*Allow you to REMOTELY view a battle from another player's capital class ship fitted with same module from another system or at a range greater than 100km

*Allow a portable location for members to join your corp in space

*can use a clone vat bay

New module concept


Distortion Field
A module based on the technology behind the cloaking device. Upon activation it surounds the ship with a visualy distorted field, making it harder for hostile ships to score accurate (critical) hits with turrets and missiles.

However, due to the sensor disruption caused by the distortion field, it lowers the sensor strenght of the ship.


Specs
Activated Module
High slot. Only one module can be fittet at a time.
Intensive CPU demand. Scales with ship size.
Requires Electronics skill lvl 3. Affected by Electronic Uppgrades