EVE General Discussion

UPDATE #2: Odyssey 1.1 drag & drop

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UPDATE: A similar thread focusing on drone UI got a dev response, still cautious at this point, but shows that the issues have not been completely forgotten by CCP:



Thumbs up for this, hope game designers find this thread about and start planning for mechanic update!

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Drone mechanics, including their AI, UI and stats have been dated for years. Random behaviour, terrible usability, cruiser-size sigs and battleship speeds, broken chase/orbit modes, practical issues with sentry drones and mobility- list is long and well known by both players and CCP.



Instead of keeping the ship as "fairly good" and actually fixing the "terribly outdated" drone mechanics, BS tiericide turns the Dominix from a popular jack-of-all-trades into a sentry carrier. It loses two roles, the all out ganker and neut Domi, and gets sentry-oriented drone tracking and optimal bonuses with more vague hints of actually fixing something about drones.



I'm not one to claim that drones in their current state are "useless", but they certainly do not work as primary weapon system. 50/50 damage split between turret and drone dps fits are viable, but moving a larger portion of damage into drones in their current state results in worse practical performance. This happened to the Myrmidon, the ability to field 4 heavies came with the cost of turret hardpoint, resulting in lower dps in most situations- as heavies are extremely niche, mediums are used.

Drones need their stats rebalanced as a weapon system, UI needs a complete overhaul, and their mechanics looked at.

So, the question is- is this going to happen, and when?

Also drones are one of many things hobbled by terrible legacy code that the whole system is based off. It's part of why new content/fixes can take so long as everything the devs do has to be awkwardly navigated around these minefields that are the games legacy code from 10 years ago. They can't change rate of fire of drones because of this even. So it's likely going to be a long time unless they dedicate more resources to rewriting the basecode properly to fix all the issues. Which is a risky thing in and of itself.

So the only option really is careful amputation and replacement with a new vat grown organ.

Is 'Code Surgeon' even a occupation?

People seem to be managing fine with them.

I think everyone knows what the problems are, with regard to PvE use anyway. And yes we've adapted, I mostly field two sets of faction sentries and a flight of lights for close encounters.

It's mostly the interface and lack of nanite repair capability. actually just being able to see which ones are poorly (in the bay) would be a great help.

Drones aren't in an ideal place but they are still one of the most widely used weapons systems which means they can't be that badly broken. Cruise Missiles are in far more desperate need of an overhaul (which they are now getting, thankfully). I don't really know what CCP can do with drones, there is no easy fix for them.

I don't know anything about POSes.

So you're saying that because not all drones are useful in all situations, they need to be fixed? I disagree. You have the drones you need to do the job you want and they do it efficiently. I don't see you calling for Defender missiles to be fixed.

What fixes would you like to see?

Defender missiles need to just be deleted.