Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I didn't have the luxury of playing when drones could be controlled more than 5 at a time, but seeing the "15 drone death machine" got me thinking:

I wonder if awarding Gallente ships with the ability to control more than 5 drones would be worthwhile to give Gallente drone ships some much needed flavor and love? Hear me out, and these bonuses would only apply to the strict drone boats (Tristan, New Dessie, Vexor, Myrm, and Domi):

Start with ability to control 5 at the frig level, and gradually increase this as you move up the ship ranks until you get to 10 at the BS level--Tristan has five. New Dessie has seven, Vexor would have six, Myrm eight and Domi would have 10.

For balancing concerns, the bandwidth would remain the same, so the Domi could choose up to 10 mixed wing drones or just five heavies.

The increased drone control could come in the form of (for the new destroyer, for example) "Role Bonus: +2 drone control," etc., with each ship getting the requisite bonus to add up to its allotted drone control. I'm pretty sure with server and gameplay upgrades (time dilation) in addition to the fact that these changes would only affect very specific ships, the increased load on the server wouldn't be game-breaking. Besides, we're just talking about a handful of Gallente (the drone race's) ships. Amarr drone boats (and all others, except maybe Gurista, since they're obviously true drone boats, too) would retain their max 5 drone control, because they're already compensated with a larger drone bay or are not "true" drone boats (BSs with 125m3 bandwidth for example).

Why do this? Gallente drone boats need more to separate them than +10%/level to be compelling. Generic 10%/level bonuses are very bland and don't really differentiate the ships very much. Now, they're all very much like "one sausage, different lengths." Remove the weapon bonuses if balance is a concern, but I think it's fairly balanced with 10 weak (read:easy to kill) drones or 5 strong ones, and the interesting gameplay choices Dev's (and us as players) are fond of come in with "Do I want to fly a dedicated drone boat over a Gunboat today?" Or "Which drones do I take? Should I use 10 medium drones? Two sentries, five mediums and 3 lights?" Etc.

I agree that drones need an overhaul altogether, and I think this is a very interesting and creative way to get Gallente drone ships back on people's "want-to-fly" lists in both PvP and PvE. I'd love to hear the community's (and Dev's) thoughts on this.

Of course any feedback is appreciated!

IIRC, the main reason for the initial change was server load. I can't imagine that we're in a better position to arbitrarily add more items to keep track of in a system.

I would also love lots of drones over stronger drones but I don't think it's the best thing for the server.

(I prefer less lag over more lag)

One serious problem would be the fact that 5 heavy drones are much worse than 10 medium drones, and same with lights and mediums. The reason for this is that both groups have exactly the same dps, but losing 1 med only removes 1/10 of your damage projection.

This^^ 10 mediums do the same DPS as 5 heavies with much better tracking, faster movement, less volume and are harder to take out (except with smartbombs). u'd effectively make heavies obsolete. also, it may be worth remembering that 2 smalls do MORE dps than a single medium, again, with better tracking and speed etc.

maybe it would be nice for non-BS sized ships that have to use several different drone sizes to max dps. for example, ur 8 drone myrm would use 7 mediums and 1 small, for a little extra dps and better tracking. This might actually make it a much more viable tier 2 BC, infact, freaking terrifying in small fights.

I'd once hoped they'd eventually make a tech 3 BS with the ability to field +1 drone per level of something (probably gallente offensive subsystem) and have a max bandwidth of 175 and bay of 400m3, for two wings of 7x heavy max damage set up and 10x small fast track. but with the coming of DDA's this isn't really needed.

personally i believe the short comings of drone boats lies in their being forced to split weapon systems. The most successful sub-cap drone boat is the myrm and that has no turret bonus.

i think the above reason is why drones should either 1) get a massive buff to hp or 2) give you more of them. Shooting drones would be less worthwhile if you have to kill 10 of them to stop the damage application. In that case, it'd be easier to attack the mothership to get rid of the drone problem, which, hey, that's what you have to do to every other ship in the game if you want them to stop attacking you anyway. That, to me, sounds like balance if I've ever heard of it.

With respect to the 10 meds vs 5 heavies argument: the heavies could easily not be made obsolete if they got an HP bonus option, say, and the rest were given the "swarm" treatment. In that scenario, using 10 meds vs a smartbombing BS just wouldn't make sense, as your dps would all be neutralized when the bomb goes off. Heavies would be tankier (than they are now) to be able to survive sbombs. Again, the most effective way to get rid of the drones would be to kill the launching ship.

All this emphasis on amount or resilience isn't because "omg I want to see more drones" or to cause lag lol. There is plenty of room to improve drone boats, to shift the incentive away from killing (and effectively neutering the drone ship's dps) drones toward the ship itself, and to add much-needed flavor and personality to Gallente ship lineups.

With respect to the server lag: again, we're not talking about all ships with drone bays/bandwith. We're only talking about the dedicated Gallente drone ships--those ships whose design intents were to deliver their damage from their drones. Last I checked, there weren't Domi/Myrm/Vexor blobs running around causing ruckus.

Which is why I feel drones need a TOTAL overhaul in this game.

Why would any sane pilot use 5 heavies when he can use 10 mediums? And why CAN'T he use 10 mediums? He's got the bandwidth for 5 heavies, which is the bandwidth needed for 10 mediums. He's got the bay space. The whole "5 drone max" restriction is completely nonsensical and artificial.

Makes absolutely no sense to me. None at all.

You should probably read the op instead of making wild assumptions. You'd have read that the max drone amount would be 10.

In fact, it's utterly ridiculous that when--it's not IF--but when a pilot kills a drone, a whopping 20% of that ships damage is gone.

looks like u didnt read my post properly



and a 20% loss for losing a drone is pretty balanced along side not having too much tracking for that kind of firepower. the chance of losing drones in a fight is inherent to using them, and its right that each loss be felt. and u can protect ur drones with recalling and redeloying, its not easy because it shouldnt be. drone boats like the domi can have spare drones or u can just replace lost drones with those from another wing. its not ideal but this is as much apart of using drones as flight times are for missiles.

extra drones wont happen for the same reason fozzie wasn't allowed to give out ROF bonus' for rockets on the new frig/dessie rebalance ...... server lag.

the answer lies in a drone overhaul and ship racial bonus' differentiation. i.e. amarr drone ships having say an extra drone HP bonus gallente having a extra tracking bonus and guristas having damage bonus'.

I think tristan has a tracking bonus already come winter.

Also drone mod changes in particular highs so less need to stick guns on them and more drone skills like a falloff /orbit speed etc.