Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As stated in the subject, offer a tech2 variation of Fighters and Fighter Bombers that allow for customization.

Let the pilot who has the skill to operate them be able to pull them up in the loadout configuration tool and mix and match modules in the same way we can with normal ships. The caveat to this and the way we keep it from becoming too powerful is that since it is just a drone and the drone AI isn't all that smart, you cannot make a single fighter or bomber that can do everything. It is going to run with everything on the whole time it is deployed and has a target so you have to load it out cap stable.

This would enable customization of your fighters and bombers and allow you to niche them how ever you would like, specializing them for specific roles. Tacklers, Ewar, Capwar, and DPS. It would be up to the pilot to mix and match his deployment to the demands of his current situation. The drone capacity of the carriers would be the limiting factor on just how flexible a single pilot's custom drone fleet would be.

As an aside to this, but applicable to all drones as a feature I think makes a lot of sense, expand the prefernces in the drone AI menu to allow you to set assign a priority level to targets based on ship size/class. In essense, a configurable list telling the drones in advance what you want them to autoattack first when they go on a rampage. For instance, if I'm doing missions or anoms in my Amarr BS I want my drones to have the following Priority Settings and attack the ships in this order: 1: Frigates 2: Cruisers 3: Battleships 4: Structures. Basically, I want them to prioritize on the things that have the best chance of getting under my guns and giving me a headache. But instead of blanket requesting that drones default to this behavior, let the pilot pick his own poison.


This option, I think, adds a layer of complexity and strategy that currently doesn't exist for carrier pilots. It also is a small give back to super carrier pilots who are getting racked with the nerf-bat.

If that's all you got out of my post, then okay sure, that is what I said, I want to make the winter expansion, the whole thing pointless, sure. That's what I'm trying to get at, and you caught me!



I can tell you're not much better at understanding what CCG says than you are at understanding what I say so I won't take it personally. The "point" of the Winter Expansion is many fold and cannot be distilled down to simply stating the WHOLE winter expansion is to balance super carriers.

Now, the logic behind the nerfing of super carriers as stated by CCG was because no one ship should be able to do to take on all other ships. That's also why they are taking drone bays off of the Dreads. This is faulty logic because, by the same logic any Battleship size drone boat should not be able to field drones that can engage frigates at all, or even be a threat to most cruisers. I.E., take away Light and Medium drones from Domi's etc., and nerf the Sentry Drones extensively. Since that's not happening, then their originally stated reason doesn't hold up. Nerfing the super carriers is a lazy knee jerk reaction done in place of doing something worthwhile like increasing the functionality of already existing ships, like making Dreads viable and worthwhile for doing something other than shooting structures.




I guess if you use your carrier for ratting then all non DPS drones would be pointless. My carrier don't rat, it's for war.



1) It's not over powered. Players take out fighter drones all the time and the role would still be viable in engaged combat. In a fleet fight a carrier pilot isn't going to micro his drones and take out/engage frigates. The frigates still have a viable role in fleet combat support and this just gives them another thing that they can do. Additionally, are drones not already frigate sized, so essentially are you not already throwing a 'frigate swarm' at people?

2) Nobody would ever field customizable T2 fighter drones to fill niche roles in combat ? I disagree. In the 0.0 warfare I've been a part of I don't see a lot of hero carriers running around alone dishing out death and destruction. Usually they seem to come in groups. This tendency for grouping would seem to lend itself to a predetermined setup in functionality and combat responsibilities, or strategy if you will.



Now, I don't fly a super carrier, which goes to demonstrate this isn't an attempt to ZOMGZ undo the coming nerf, but the information I have states:

The maximum amount of drones a Mothership can control is:
5 (Drones lvl 5) + 15 (Carrier lvl 5 (+3 per level)) + 5 (5 Drone Control Units fitted)
Total: 25 Drones.

I'm not sure where you're getting 30 from. If they can in fact field 30, enlighten me.

Overall what this proposition does is adds a layer of complexity and functionality to already existing mechanic, expanding the roll of fighter sized drones to mimic what is already in place for normal drones, i.e., the ewar, nos and stasis drones. Somehow, beyond all logic, those drones managed to be implemented and not eradicate the functionality of frigates. Thus, it's silly to imply that doing this to the larger drones would magically create the effect.

I think this is important because the super carriers will lose this already present functionality when they lose the ability to field all drones smaller than fighters.

The number of T2 drones any single player can field at a time is easy controllable by increasing the required bandwidth of these drones. You can also tweak it so that configuring them or loading them out uses up preset configuration points like Rigs currently do in a way that the more of a configuration load you place on them then the more bandwidth that T2 fighter will require.

I really didn't come up with this to make it about the super carrier nerf. Like I stated earlier, I don't even fly a mothership, and the carrier I do fly isn't getting nerfed, and can still fly all those normal drones that somehow made the super carrier over powered.

Capital ships and even just the tier 1 carriers are a huge time sink for eve players. Time sinks are what a company like CCP should be interested in cultivating and encouraging. I'm not talking just about the pilot who has to spend the time developing the skills to fly them and use them to their potential, but also about everything that went into making that carrier. It's easy to forget that some person actually built it. Someone gathered the ore needed. Refined it down to its base mineral components. Purchased all of the capital module BPOs, researched them up to effeciency, built all of the individual components, and then in turn, compiled them into the Capital Ship, which in turn required another BPO, which took months to research up.

Beyond that you have an entire market eco system centered around not just building these things but arming them and fitting them. Now, just to move them from one system to another you need some kind of support. Even if it's just a Cynosural Array, it is still support. Effort has gone into it. Time.

This is why I don't quite get the rabblerabble about these being solopwnships. They can't even move out of a solar system on their own. Maybe it's me, maybe solo means something else these days.

Anywho,

Yes, the previous poster has grasped the concept of the idea. This allows for something that has been lacking in this ship class, versatility. At it's core the idea really is nothing more than simply expanding the previous standards of expansion CCP has already shown, just to an area that hasn't been touched upon yet. As a carrier pilot this would put you in a position to sit down and really think about the composition of the craft in your drone bay and really develop new and more interesting ways to use them to blow stuff up.