Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I wouldn't necessarily assume sentries are included. I suspect the bonus will be to heavy drones only.

The new worm can only use 2 drones................... very "unfun" changes ahead.

I am not sure. I seem to recall that CCP mentioned that the same (i.e. the Worm drone boni) may not be used for the Gila and Rattler. At any rate, IF they were, I think 2 bonused sentries / heavies at 300% are not really a significant enough increase, 2 at 350, on the other hand would. This would close the power gap between the other pirate BS quite nicely IMHO.

oh god, this 300% drone power thing is just awful. it is a new gimmick that is unsupportable in any kind of narrative. 5 drones is fine thank you.

I like drones because I play on an old laptop and sometimes the controls are not as responsive as they should be, especially if there is a dust particle anywhere in the solar system.

I got away from drones after the AI change. I tried, really hard, to make that work but found that despite rumors to the contrary that I could run 2 remote reps, a tp, web and scram and still not keep light or medium drones alive past 15k. When the AI decides to eat them, they will be eaten no matter how often you pull them in and try to regain aggro.

It turns out that Worm drones will have roughly the same HP as the Worm itself, which still opens the door for some tactical considerations not previously available, on both sides. Unless they do something to make drones more resilient to ewar you can expect to see lots of it put on the drones.... I am frankly terrified of the thought of one of these drones and a tracking disruptor. It also makes some classic PvE ideas of RR on drones more sensible.

If the bonus stays as is, a sentry will have something like 2/3 to 3/4 the raw hp of its battleship. I did some very quick math and got a little more than 17k HP on a Warden, almost 6k of it in shields.

Which part would be ridiculous? The part that already happened where AI eats drones as it's favorite snack despite laughable rumors that ewar and RR can influence agro? Or the part where the sentries would have near battleship HP?

Honestly, for the trade off of increased vulnerability to ewar I think the massive HP are appropriate. It's not like sentries are hard to hit, though they don't die instantly as is the same way lights and mediums do. Also, while the HP may rival that of a battleship, the resists certainly don't. The Superdrones of the Worm will be a serious contender even compared to a tanked Worm, the same on the Rattlesnake will not be true unless the bonus is much larger or they *finally* add T2 resists to the T2 drones. Supersentries will be good in PvE, I don't think they will fare nearly so well in PvP.

The main thing to consider here is will Ewar be persistant when you pull a drone into the bay. If I can shake an ECM cycle by recall and redeploy that reduces the problem a little, but could still be an issue because drones won't fire unless you lock and command them to, you fire on someone, or they start a new attack on you. When ECM'd drones often become useless these days because they have to be recalled so often, and when redeployed they just sit and stare at the world until you die.

Mornin!


Guristas: This has probably been the hardest faction to figure out. The Rattlesnake and Gila both have their uses but are both overshadowed in many ways by the new Ishtar and Dominix. We wanted Guristas to keep a drone theme but to move in a new and unique direction rather than trying to compete directly with other popular drone ships. As the Worm shows below, we are looking at giving each Guristas ship a bandwidth that allows for only two drones, but a large damage and hitpoint bonus to those drones, leading to very high overall drone damage and toughness. Additionally, the former missile velocity bonus will change to kinetic and thermal missile damage, giving Guristas even more punch. I understand that you will need specifics on the other two Guristas ships to make final opinions on the theme, but for now just look at the Worm and let us know if it seems fun and we'll go from there.

WORM

Gallente Frigate Bonus:
10% bonus to kinetic and thermal missile damage (was 5m3 Drone Bay Capacity per level)

Caldari Frigate Bonus:
4% bonus to all shield resistances

Role Bonus:
300% bonus to light combat drone damage and hitpoints (was 50% bonus to Rocket and Light Missile velocity)


Slot layout: 3H, 4M, 3L; 0 turrets, 2 launchers
Fittings: 40 PWG(+5), 180 CPU(+20)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 830(+33) / 500(-82) / 620(-3)
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 380(+30) / 212000 (-22375) / 1.79 (+.29)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 320(+33) / 3.8(+.31) / 965000 / 5.17s(+.42)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 10(-15) / 25
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 30km / 650 / 5
Sensor strength: 15
Signature radius: 40