EVE General Discussion

You don't see a group at first. All you see is "Drones in Bay (X)" and "Dones in Space". No groups. After you expand Drones in Bay, then you see the groups to RMB on. Worse, if you haven't done grouping yet (first time undock), you just see a mess of different drones in your bay, and no groups. If it's a new ship, that's the first thing you have to do when you get into space. And if you are attacked before this is completed (at undock), you are at a severe disadvantage.

And following your plan, after the 3rd keypress, you don't see drone hitpoints, until you expand "Drones in Space (5)". That's another click.

But even assuming everything you said is correct, and it takes just 2 clicks (ideally). Add to that one more click to fire turrets. That's a total of 3 clicks MINIMUM. Now, compare it to a ship without drones, and without split weapons. How many clicks to bring 100% of its DPS to bear? 1 click! In other words, a drone boat user still has to work 3x more to bring his weapons into combat. So, my offer stands, if you think this is balanced I'll be happy to trade my 1x PLEX for your 3x PLEX.

My vision of drones would be to make them a viable choice. Plain and simple. Including equivalent mechanic to overheating, mods, implants, rigs (currently there are no damage rigs for drones, except sentries, and sentries don't benefit from racial specialization skills), etc. As for the UI? It'll have to be completely torn down and rebuilt. Basically drones would work like other combat modules and you'd be able to group them like turrets, but unlike turrets you'll be able to mix different sizes and types. For example if flight one is bound to F1 and consists of 2H, 2M and 1 L, that's what will launch from your bay if you press F1. If drone loss occurs, pressing F1 again will send a replacement drone, of appropriate size, from your drone bay to attack the group's current target. If no replacement of appropriate size is available, downsize one size down and replace. Same with launching groups - if group is 2H, 2M and 1L, but only 3H and 2L are available, it would launch that automatically.

If you press F2, which can be bound to flight number two, this automatically tells group one to return AND launches flight 2 without waiting for group 1 to return (drones are smart enough to return to the ship without wasting bandwidth, using a homing beacon). And either Shift+F(x) or whatever to make drones return, since we can't overheat them it's not too bad.

This would be the first step. The second step would be to turn drones into missile-like weapon system. That is, they can no longer be targeted manually, but can be defended against with smartbombs or a new module "Drone Defense Screen" or something like that, which would function as Defender Missiles module does, only be specific to drones. That way, if you feel you need it, you sacrifice a utility high (or more than one) to fit that. And if you don't feel you need it and run into a drone boat? Well, that was your choice. Risk vs Reward. As a side effect, drones will have no HP to watch any more, and would get "used up" with time - similar to laser T2 crystals, they would basically become ammo.

And this would be just the tip of the iceberg. A lot more would be needed. Change to the AI so that drones don't split damage and stay on target. Aggressive drones should engage a target even if aggression is already ongoing when they launch, AND if target pops and no new command is given they should either automatically return, or engage nearest target doing damage. Personally I wouldn't mind automatic return to bay. Signatures of drones need to be looked at (uniform 100 sig radius for all races is bull), other stats need to be looked at too. Etc., etc.

But there's lots of possible approaches to what can be done with drones. They could add 5 module slots (drone 1, drone 2, etc.) and give the option to control each drone separately, or group them together. Grouping them would create a "tower" of shield/armor/hull, and clicking any of those brings that drone back and immediately launches a "fresh" replacement if one is available. A new module gets added - drone bay repair - which will repair drones in bay when active. And increase drone travel speed 500%. That way, drones will require tons of micromanagement, but you'd seldom lose any if you play "whack a mole" well enough.

Another possibility? Evasive maneuvers! Manual option that sets a drone into "evasion" mode. Cuts its DPS 70%, but makes it impervious to all damage but a smartbomb's. Also, depending on race, drones of the same size would orbit at various distances. That is, Gallente would fly close/blasters, Caldari would fly far/missiles/rails. So Caldari drones would be more likely to avoid a smartbomber, at cost of DPS.

Erm... What happens if you're going to switch a target? Yes, you have to click (disable turrets) + click (choose a new target) + click (activate turrets). Ah, and you have to do a lot of clicks to swap your ammo type/force turrets to recharge and so on :)
Another little fact about drones: they not always attack. You can set them to guard your friend, right? Another clicks.
So?

i'm sorry but your new vision of how to interact with drones is a bit too complicated and ignores some facts.
And please, don't put everything you would like to say in one large heap. We didnt talk about "ah-i-cant-see-drones-hp". It's not about launch-and-control, it's about stats -- a very different story.

And yes, i agree with an idea of pre-expanded list of drones. But you have to do it only once. Why are you talking about that in weird way "it-happens-every-f**king-time"? :)

No offence, man :)

Are people seriously whining about something that takes 2-3 seconds of single didget clicking in a roundabout whine about how they can no longer launch drones and not pay attention to them?

Try to think about it a little bit.

Q: Can drones be launched with keyboard?
A: No, they can't.

Q: Can turrets/missiles be fired with keyboard?
A: Yes, they can.

This alone should be enough to an intelligent human being to realize that this is a serious issue. If I have to take mouse pointer off of overview, drag it to drone window, and do "single digit clicking" (which is less than 10, thank god for that at least, but I assume you would be fine with 9 clicks?), while the other guy could be doing it with a single keypress and without taking the mouse off of wherever it needs to be? From overview to spamming D-scan to whatever? I mean, it's fairly simple: can you do D-scan AND launch and operate drones at the same time? No you can't. Can you launch missiles and operate D-scan at the same time? Yes, you can.

And you think this is fair, balanced, dandy?

And the whole "launch drones and don't pay attention" is a huge croc anyway. There's a handful of situations where this was ever viable. And pay attention to what, anyway? You can't tell if your drones are being targeted, or have EWAR applied to them (unless you target each drone each time you launch). Your first indication of drones pulling aggro is drone shields going down. If the drone is far away, it's likely death, even if you are paying attention. If it is far away AND webbed, it is certain death, even if you are paying attention. And "don't send drones far" is not a valid argument - otherwise why have Drone Link modules and Drone Navigation modules? Both are designed to send drones far.

Is there a way to deal with the current situation? Yes, absolutely! Just fit EWAR (TP seems to work wonderfully), or RR, or something like that. And your drones will never pull aggro. IN FACT, I would say it's EASIER to AFK in a drone boat now, with the new AI, than with the old AI! With the new AI, all you need is to deploy drones and TP a target, and all ships will attack you. Heck, you can juggle aggro now. You can send drones somewhere far away (furthest enemy), turn EWAR off, and see all the ships peel off of you and go after the drones. Shoot them as they burn away. Then turn TP back on. It works. I can "adapt".

But is it an IMPROVEMENT? I don't think so. In may ways, the AI in this game (if it can be called that) is dumber than Doom I.

In a way, they're right. Ninja salvaging is an idiotic mechanic. I always felt that way, regardless of everything else. Wrecks don't occur in nature, they're created by players. A player who creates a wreck should have rights to both loot and salvage. It makes sense. In fact, when I talk to people who are just starting in EVE, most of them don't even realize that's how it works - all of them assume that loot and salvage are protected. It's just logical.

Though personally I don't care - been a very long time since I salvaged anything. But just from common sense point of view, it should both be both or neither, not 50/50. I'd be fine with it either way. But having only loot protected and salvage not is counter-intuitive. Always has been.

The only thing that needs to be changed is the drone UI, and their behavior (focus fire really doesn't work now does it?)