Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Firstly, many thanks to stoicfaux (see post #162) for his spreadsheet for some accurate figures.
That gave me some ranges to perform tests at, because the in game GUI gives no help whatsoever in determining optimal etc.

I've just spent 3 hours on SISI in a Dominix with the new scripted Omnidirectional Tracking Links, doing Drone Hordes and other Drone Anomalies. I did these same anomalies recently with the curent Omnidirectional Tracking Links when testing out the new ESS module.

Well as expected, the Dominix is now a very different ship indeed!

Whereas before, the Dominix did these sites without too much trouble as long as you picked your targets correctly, the Drone Horde was a bit too much now for the new Dominix, because with the large range reduction on the Gardes, it got overwhelmed somewhat by the advancing Drone Battleships and their incoming DPS.

Using the EM curators against the drones (as that is their weakness), I was able to complete the sites, because the Curators have decent range still, but they're only 650 DPS (and that's with 4 Drone Damage Amplifiers) which in comparison to the 800 DPS Thermal Gardes, is a big drop.

Lets just say it was a more tedious affair and not much fun.

It was interesting to see the Curators track better, but to be honest I usually blap frigates well before they're close enough to warp scramble, so that was of marginal use, and with the Dominix being mainly immobile (unless you want to leave your sentries behind), in PVE, the NPC rats tend to be coming straight at you so the loss in optimal range is a big hit compared to a slight gain in tracking which make little difference when the rats traversal is pretty low anyway.

I tried a few different fittings and tactics but there's no getting away from the difference a massive range reduction like that makes

I'd say if your PVP/PVE use of the Dominix was using mainly Garde's for the Thermal damage then start looking for another ship as the reduction in range on the highest DPS drones was very limiting, however, if you find yourself using Bouncers, Curators or Wardens then you might well not be too dismayed at the changes.

I'm off to look for a BP original for Rattlesnake, Dominix and Ishtar dust covers, I feel there's an opportunity to make some ISK.

yeah pretty much runied IMHO.

I didn't want it to be so as this character has millions of skill point in drones, but even with all the relevant Drone skills at V and Gallente Battleship at V, I felt like I was in a BattleCruiser trying to do a level 4 Security Mission.

With no ability to speed tank (sentries) I was actually in structure at one point fighting in the new Garde optimal range, and that was with 3 Omnidirectional Tracking Links scripted for range, whereas the "old" Dominix was capable and fun.

I hope people have more luck with their favourite drone ships

I am somewhat dubious about that Dominix claim. I know you actually tested it on SiSi, but something seems wrong.

Curators have only 81.25% the DPS of Gardes:
* bouncer 87.5%
* curator 81.25%
* warden 75.0%

However, the Alvus Queen has EHP of X versus damage type:
* EM 27,231
* Expl 53,455
* Kin 39,250
* Therm 31,810

Divide the EHP by 800 DPS for Gardes, 700 for Bouncers, 650 for Curators, and 600 for Wardens to get the rough Time to Kill (TTK):
* EM 27,231 / 650 = ~42s
* Expl 53,455 / 700 = ~76s
* Kin 39,250 / 600 = ~65s
* Therm 31,810 / 800 = ~40s
This does NOT take any shield/armor regeneration into account.

42 seconds for EM versus 40 seconds for Thermal is a volley difference (plus shield/armor regen.) In theory, you should have been able to use Curators at long range and Gardes at short/medium range with a minimal loss in TTK (up to ~10% longer-ish.)

If anything, Garde DPS is probably a bit too high for PvE given how many NPCs have thermal as a secondary weakness. Meaning, with the high DPS of Gardes, it normally better to use Gardes on "thermal as a secondary weakness" NPCs instead using a Warden or Curator against the NPC's primary weakness.

For example, for the kinetic weak Guristas Pith Eliminator, the TTKs are:
Curator: 47,058 / 650 = ~72s
Bouncer: 35,306 / 700 = ~50s
Warden: 24,393 / 600 = ~41s
Garde: 28,664 / 800 = ~36s

Gardes (36s) are noticeably better than Wardens (41s).


I can understand why Gardes are getting the biggest nerf (i.e. range nerfed,) but it looks like swapping between Warden/Curators at long range and Gardes at long range shouldn't translate into a huge nerf.

Same here, already taken care of =/

Remember it's not just the range, the tracking has taken a serious hit too. I've used sentries with no tracking bonuses and they're only any use for bigass slow targets at long ranges - to get any sort of range projection, tracking tanks. It's the kind of thing that looks awesome in EFT but blows in the field.

I'm considering that non drone hulls can have issues hitting smaller stuff etc and need to use lights drones and whatnot - but when those lights are out, the big guns keep firing - or they manually mitigate angluar/transversal. Point is - with a static "shoot me, I can't move hull"...one wonders what the point is and why not just hop on the lolrauderfacetank bandwagon

Emphasis mine. Also worth noting that EM-enemies are also weak to thermal secondarily (and bouncers have good range and good dps for expl weak enemies). Us being spoiled by ultra-high dps gardes at insane ranges is mostly a result of the bonuses given to the ishtar/dominix, as well as scope rigs being unpenalized. I don't particularly consider it an effect of omnilinks themselves, but that's the first step they've taken to address what is apparently a problem in CCP's eyes.

So happy that I trained up 90 days worth of skills to enhance my Geddon sentry fun.
Also very happy that my two Rattles will now collect dust.
My Domis, Gilas, Navy Vexor and Ishtar also get slapped.

So awesome that this impacts 50% of all my primary pilot's ships in an un-fun way.

We should be increasing fun, not decreasing it.

Does anyone consider this change FUN? I don't.

If the issue was Gardes at long ranges, why didn't you just drop base range on Gardes? Then it wouldn't have screwed over the Navy Vexor, Ishtar, Gila, etc. with the cap garbage, nor would it have screwed the L5 mission runners (what few of them that did exist).

Why are we not fixing drone assist? Why are OMNI's a priority over infinite drone assist abuse?

Hopefully all drones get a decent balance pass soon, get there HP into balanced in all areas rather than the bulk being in hull, fix heavy drones.

That and the fact that there has been only 1 expansion in this game. Wormhole systems.

Throwing a few objects in a game hardly classifies as an expansion.

And you see them so widely used cause they are so overpowered.