Player Features and Ideas Discussion

If this:




then I think it should be implemented thus:




As long as there is only ONE "massive one-off Rogue Drone Incursion" (over days/weeks whatever) that becomes part of Eve lore and not another grinding method.

Having lived in drone region for years, I can say the area is resource poor in that there is very little variety. Right now everything here comes down to minerals.

1. Expand the loot table, include:
silicate to technetium (moon minerals),
heavy metal to enriched uranium (PI),
golden cytoserocins to fullerite c32s (gas clouds)
ice of all types
drone/fighter/fighter bomber/faction fighter/faction bomber blueprints
the entire salvage table range

2. Make the alloy type frequency tie to the industry level - higher industry - more frequent, higher quality alloys/loot.

3. Make the amount of alloys dropped tie to the military level - higher military - larger volume of alloy/loot drops.

4. Drone NPC convoys. Something to reward the beginner belt ratters in drone region null sec.

This variety will bring mineral prices up by spreading the value, without decreasing the overall worth.

I believe the financiers call this "diversifying portfolio"

Just a thought, why not switch up a couple of regions and give them drone-style rats, so there is not a concentration of a large amount of drone region space, which coincidentally is occupied by the same group, and will likely forever be occupied by a single entity because it is so tightly compact. You don't necessarily have to swap region for region, you could also take a region of drones and distribute it amongst different constellations in a bunch of regions. You would have different areas of space reliant on this space for minerals, and the drone space would be reliant on the regular space for isk. It would make regions more diverse than they are now, which is a good thing.

You don't necessarily have to give the regions drone rats, but you can switch it around so the NPC in the region drops something similar. A good example would be Outer Ring, where the ORE belt "mining ops" could drop some drone goo-like object.

While I'm still a new player and all that, I honestly don't think all npc's are supposed to equals, or are they? On the other hand, I do agree with you.

Let's look at it from a role-playing POV: Drones are a problem, right? They are as much of a problem, if not more, as pirates, therefore there should be bounties on them to, right? Especially in high-sec systems... I mean, if they pay bounties on pirates because they make life a pain in the ***, why the heck don't they pay bounties on drones as well? They're quite a hassle them to, hell, I'm playing trough the SOE Arc right now, and there's a lot of complaints about drones from the npcs...

As a final note: The bounty should be set according to the threat they pose, as with pirates.. One drone: lol. twenty drones: Interesting! 50+ drones: FFFFUUUUUUU

---Yay! First post!---

EDIT: Oh btw: As the OP pointed out, there should be around the same ISK/hour ratio with drones as with rats. Either that or another incentive to take the small bastards down. There should be some kind of storyline behind it too! Make some declaration from the major powers in the universe; "To this day we may have underestimated the impact rouge droned have on the universe, therefore we will form this day on pay a bounty for the help of ridding our fine galaxy of this menace!"

I'd say keep drones the way they are because if the rest of nullsec is like Fountain, if you remove drone minerals, you remove all the high grade minerals from the game.

Hint: You don't mine in Fountain, EVER.

Oh and drones are everywhere, you just have to scan em with these things called probes.

Hello.

I don't do drone sites but I'm saying this as "neutral" observer (aka afk cloaker/lame ganker)

1. There seems to be shitloads of hordes per one system. I've never seen possibility to have so many sanctums in system at same time -> my understanding is this means more total isk gnerated even though more people needed.
2. Many people in dronelands use bots of some kind. This is sadly not a joke. This means isk/h ratio doesn't mean so much as long as bot runs 23/7. It's doubtful it's possible to do same with sanctums since they probably run out. Unless you kill everyone else in system.
3. Explorable drone sites seem to be dropping lucrative amount of loot compared to other sites. For example almost guaranteed good loot in form of officer's "boxes" I.E. most of angel sites seem to have either very low drop ratio unless they're outright broken.

Notice I am not saying drone sites are better than others just that in some ways they're good, as long as you're into collecting trash from wrecks.

I have to admit I think drones shouldn't drop minerals but something else.

Because mining.

Rogue drones should also drop named version of various drone modules. For instance, Drone Link Augmentors, Drone omnilink tracking modules, Drone Navigation Computers. Combine that with some other modules (depend on the type of drone, there are tons of different ecm and combat drones that could go rogue) and you could have a decent loot table for drones.

Drones should refine into moon minerals, not roid minerals.

This is not a bad idea, but just waving your hand and making the change is a bit lame.

This would be a major change to the game, and especially one of the npc powergroups. Making it happen without any storyline is a bit of a disservice. Instead of making the change (potentially positive as it may be) abruptly, instead explore the opportunity it presents you to add other positive changes to the game.

You could simply say drones now have bounties and drop normal loot, and pretend it was always like that, and the game keeps on chugging along as it was.

On the other hand, you can work in some more in-depth backstory and make multiple positive changes at one point.

For example:

Say you work up a chronicle or similar about an Intaki hacker, who comes up with some code that neutralizes the rogue drones. The Syndicate then takes over the drone hulls and uses them for their own purposes. The (former) drone ships are now Intaki Syndicate ships, and have bounties and drop loot.

Further, you could then make the drone-ship hulls available via the Intaki LP store, which is terrible and possibly the worst LP store in the game. Potentially you could add Intaki commanders, officers, plexes, etc which could drop flavored loot and maybe ship BPC's.

So instead of just making a change to effect mineral balance you also:
-Add to the Eve backstory
-Improve the LP store of one the factions
-Provide players with cool new ships to fly
-Provide an incentive for people to head to relatively underpopulated areas of nullsec to get access to the new ships

That's one potential example, the actual change could happen in some other manner. The point is still: Why just wave your hand and say, "No more drone poop!" when instead you can make broader and more lasting positive changes?