Missions & Complexes

Oh yes. I went there.

Faction? Hybrids or missiles? Don't know. I am only looking at the role bonuses.

One such role bonus could be 100% increase to drone hitpoints and damage, at the cost of only being able to have out 3 or 4 drones at a time.

I'm curious what thoughts are. This will never happen mind you.

You had me up until you started talking about slaves.

Extra drones per level of Marauder. I like. Sort of a mini carrier.

even if a gila had extra drone control bonuses, it would be OP. you're talking about carrier class drone capabilities.

I'm all for it, though. i quintuple-box, and would jump all over any opportunity to control a small army of drones

I could see it happening by way of a ship that has reduced requirement bonuses to drone control units

and a nerfed number of low slots, or limited drone bandwidth that dictates... 10 mediums max.. not even 125Mbit, just 100.

I'd even be satisfied with 10 lights. 50Mbit bandwidth, 5 drone control units. there's your mini carrier, with mini drones lol

still OP though. even if you make it paper thin like the tier 3 battlecruisers.

We still don't have Amarr-Gallente and Caldari-Minmatar pirate factions...

Also, oh hi Kian

Yeah. It kills me not to have them. Esp as amarr/gallente just screams EOM.

Except that even with all bonuses, they still don't do enough DPS to be par with the current Marauders.

Either more damage, or more drones would help with that. The rest of the Marauder role bonuses would remain.

That is, of course, on paper, using blasters, with crap range as it relates to mission running. In most cases, range is your best friend when running a drone boat.

How about they include additional bonuses to drone hitpoints and damage like they do the proteus?

Would not take much to lift the drone damage.

I would also vary the marauder role bonus to not conflict with current ships.

If I were dreaming.

Hyperion Hull

With the one less slot for being a drone boat probably something like: -

High - 6
Medium - 5
Low - 6

5 turrets.

Gallente Battleship Skill - 5% Bonus to Large Hybrid Turret Damage, 10% bonus to armour repair amount per level.

Marauder Skill - 15% bonus to Drone damage and hit points per level, +10km bonus to drone control range per level

Role bonus - 50% bonus to drone speed and tracking
Role bonus - 50% bonus to scan probe strength

Should hit somewhere near the 1200 DPS mark with 425mm rails and 3 DDA

Lots of drone bonuses hopefully does not completely obsolete Ishtar and Navy Domi

I don't totally agree here.

On paper, I could easily hit 1000 DPS on each marauder ship. Yes, there are faction ships that could be considered "better" than a marauder, but that's not the point. What is the point, is that even if I max battleship skills, fit the proper BS with the proper drones, I will never get > 1000 DPS with pure drones.

People have said they do with the mods, yet when you actually go and apply their settings in EFT you find that the values are complete BS, and off by 100-200 DPS. A more accurate reading for pure Gardes would probably be in the 800 to 900 range w/ 4x DDAs, not assessing the officer mods.

Honestly, what's so wrong with an increase to make drones as capable as marauders? Even a Rattlesnake, with its bonus to drones, 4 DDAs, and awesome tank, still does not have the DPS. Sure you can fit torps, more TPs, etc, but you're augmenting the damage with your weapons, and on paper it looks good, but it doesn't always pan out.

Not so much, since you don't get great drone+gun DPS on an armor-tanked boat. Not enough lows.