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why doesn't ccp evolve drones?
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Shadime
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#1 - 2013-04-15 09:22:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Shadime
Why the wait on fixing drones so long. Why not do small changes to the obvious, small amounts and see the player response.

Like:

slight incremental increase in EW drone effectiveness until you see them used (target painter, webber, sensor damp drones for example, NOT ECM drones though obviously). May be increase stacking penalty at the same time so that it may become an option to mix one EW drone with e.g. 4 combat drones but avoid OP when using all EW.

slight speed increase in the underused combat drones (amarr and caldari) until they are worth considering

Its a slight database value change and they can easily see the results on TQ in their statistics extraction software. Why wait so long for a jesus-update on drones?

Just pondering....
Kasutra
No Vacancies
No Vacancies.
#2 - 2013-04-15 09:33:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Kasutra
I'd presume they are not doing a massive drone overhaul yet because the drone code is ancient and threatens to eat the brains of developers when poked.

I'd also assume that they are holding off on numerical drone rebalancing because they are doing a crapload of ship rebalancing right now, which is

  1. More important
  2. Likely to interfere with whatever statistics they might extract. The way the game is played is changing fast these days.
Ineun
Tungitanium Industrial
#3 - 2013-04-15 10:22:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Ineun
Its easier to rebalance the ships first, finish up the tieriicide initiative and then work on a major system such as drones.

especially as in odyssey theres "new" droneboats on the way (old ships reworked). once they finish they they can look at drones and see whats missing / redundant / OP / UP, especially as the "core" drone code will need a overhaul by now anyway,

drone systems "work" adequately for now. once they have the time and resources to commit to "getting it right" they will do so.
Battle BV Master
Bacon Never Dies
#4 - 2013-04-15 10:46:27 UTC
Seems logical that they get around to it, but also wondering when since I like drones.

Hopefully this thread will get one of those blue Dev tags and we have something of an official response.
Barrogh Habalu
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#5 - 2013-04-15 10:55:35 UTC
IIRC they are preparing some tweak, but it's not certain yet. We can drom our ideas in F&I I guess, especially considering EW drones.

Future of T3 cruisers - multi-tool they aspired to be instead of sledgehammer they have become
Drake Doe
88Th Tax Haven
#6 - 2013-04-15 12:26:59 UTC
It's simple, CCP should just flatten the stats like on missiles which would en up with all drones having the same tracking, ehp, dps, and speed by taking all the current drones and combining the best stats of each. Of course the minmatar and caldari would be shield tanked but they would have the same sig radius and ehp.

"The homogenization of EVE began when Gallente and Caldari started sharing a weapon system."---Vermaak Doe-- "Ohh squabbles ohh I love my dust trolls like watching an episode of Maury with less " Is he my Dad " but more of " My Neighbor took a dump on my lawn " good episode! pops more corn" ---Evernub--
Riot Girl
You'll Cowards Don't Even Smoke Crack
#7 - 2013-04-15 13:00:26 UTC
Shadime wrote:
may become an option to mix one EW drone with e.g. 4 combat drones but avoid OP when using all EW

Hah! Now this gives me an idea of having a logi drone with your combat drones to give them reps... could add an interesting angle to drone use.

Oh god.
Shadime
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#8 - 2013-04-15 16:08:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Shadime
Just some numbers to add to the discussion:

Current:
hob: 3360 m/s 1.92 dmmod therm 2.178 track
warrior 5040 m/s 1.56 dmod expl 3.24 track
hornet 3840 m/s 1.74 dmod kin 2.52 track
Acyl 4560 m/s 1.38 dmod em 2.964 track

Buffed:
against shield:
hob: 3360 m/s 1.92 dmmod therm 2.178 track
Acyl 4560 m/s 1.47 dmod em 2.964 track (7% dmod increase)

against armor:
warrior 5040 m/s 1.56 dmod expl 3.24 track
hornet 4108 m/s 1.74 dmod kin 2.52 track (7% speed increase)

against fast targets:
Acyl 4560 m/s 1.47 dmod em 2.964 track (7% dmod increase)
warrior 5040 m/s 1.56 dmod expl 3.24 track

The problem was that you can't be bothered to send acylotes after fast targets as the dmod difference makes up for unfavorable dmgtype and that you can't be bothered to send hornets after armor tankers as warriors arrive faster and thus make up for the damage difference. Dunno if track means anything substantial

increase track disrupt, sensor damp, target paint drones effectiveness by 25% without changing stacking or by 50% with stronger tracking effect. Another option would be to add a ewar (and combat utility) drone effectiveness module for low slot that increases effectiveness by say 50% (you have to scarify a low slot so should not be OP). If going this route you could lower ECM drone effectiveness so that it only with this module retains its current effectiveness.

If going this route I can understand a wait for next major release though.

and as a previous poster wrote, if the drone code is so ancient you need to be able to read hieroglyphs then I can understand the wait also. A quick update on this from CCP would be very interesting indeed.

and also, even if there's a big ovehaul on ships going on, it doesn't have to affect a drone update if its about tweaking effectiveness between drones of similar type (as above)
Freyya
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2013-04-15 17:12:18 UTC
Drone code is as ancient as Rome is young...it's pretty much as legacy as it gets. adjusting that pile of crap is probably worse than recoding the whole damn section of code. God i wish they'd do that....it'll take alot of time to probably just look at what changes might fix and break..
Tub Chil
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#10 - 2013-04-15 17:45:42 UTC
Even something as simple as dragging drones to module slot would be a huge boost
Hakaimono
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#11 - 2013-04-15 19:07:04 UTC
I think they might tackle the UI with drones first since its mostly cosmetic and won't interfere with ship balance. Fixing the UI by itself would be quite nice.
Kata Dakini
Undefined Array
#12 - 2013-04-15 19:08:55 UTC
I've experimented with web drones and some of the other ewar drones in the past.

My conclusion is that they simply don't have the HP to survive long enough to warrant their use.

Seems there are a lot of ships around now that have a small drone bay but they are non-bonused drones. Look at the Maller, that drone bay would be very useful if you could stick a few web drones in there and have them survive long enough to actually web the target.

Perihelion Olenard
#13 - 2013-04-15 20:20:27 UTC
The drone upgrades will probably be a difficult thing to do. They're already doing a lot for this coming expansion.
Garviel Tarrant
Beyond Divinity Inc
Shadow Cartel
#14 - 2013-04-15 23:35:53 UTC
Shadime wrote:
Why the wait on fixing drones so long. Why not do small changes to the obvious, small amounts and see the player response.

Like:

slight incremental increase in EW drone effectiveness until you see them used (target painter, webber, sensor damp drones for example, NOT ECM drones though obviously). May be increase stacking penalty at the same time so that it may become an option to mix one EW drone with e.g. 4 combat drones but avoid OP when using all EW.

slight speed increase in the underused combat drones (amarr and caldari) until they are worth considering

Its a slight database value change and they can easily see the results on TQ in their statistics extraction software. Why wait so long for a jesus-update on drones?

Just pondering....



Drones cannot really be balanced properly until they get a full system overhaul

As it is with the game running on 1 second ticks they simply cannot manage their own speeds and orbits.

Basically drones are dumb fucks.

BYDI recruitment closed-ish