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Dev Blog: Giving Drones an Assist

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Steph Livingston
Neko's Blanket
#401 - 2014-04-02 14:46:05 UTC
I'm sorry if this question has been posted before, I didn't read all the previous pages but...

Are you changing the requirements for Light and Medium drones from Scout Drone Operation (Drone Avionics) to Combat Drone Operations (Light/Medium Drone Operations) instead?

It makes sense, and that's what it sounds like in the blog, but it doesn't come out and say it so I wanted to double check.
CCP Fozzie
C C P
C C P Alliance
#402 - 2014-04-02 14:46:15 UTC
Sniper Smith wrote:
CCP Fozzie -- I asked this a few pages back, I'll ask again.

Can we look forward to Drone related hardwires ? Drones are the only primary weapon system in Eve without any hardwires. Honestly I don't even need DPS hardwires [though that would be nice].. even MWD/Normal Speed, HP, etc would be awesome.

Can we look forward to more Drone Rigs ? As it stands there are a few universal for speed and such, and then the mining and sentry specific ones. Can we see either some universal damage ones, or some for Light/Medium/Heavy damage, to complement the Sentry one ?

We have the Nav Computer, that boosts MWD speed, and the Rig that boosts normal speed.. any chance we can see a Mid to boost normal speed too ? Some drones, most notably Havies, would REALLY benefit from more speed chasing targets without having to give up a Rig slot.

Lastly, Sisters of Eve are now a Drone wielding force. Shouldn't they also get some of the Drone faction mods ? (probably some laser ones too) .. It only makes sense to keep them in line with the other factions and their selection of mods that are tied to their weapon systems.

If you could address some of this I'd be most thankful.


We're not going to be expanding the modifiers on drones any more than this for one expansion, as we need to make sure that we can keep track of how the changes we're making has affected behavior. All of those are options for the future, however.

Game Designer | Team Five-0

Twitter: @CCP_Fozzie
Twitch chat: ccp_fozzie
Onotole Vassermanov
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#403 - 2014-04-02 14:51:14 UTC
Valterra Craven wrote:
Dump all racial drone skills

Add the following skills

Light Drone Spec
Medium Drone Spec
Heavy Drone Spec
Sentry Drone Spec

I agree.
Or make a speciall skill for each type of Crystall/Missile/Turret damage typeIdea making it damage type based.
Ammzi
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#404 - 2014-04-02 14:52:34 UTC
Drak Fel wrote:
Ammzi wrote:
Why did you make fighter bombers almost unbombable now?
At the moment you can catch them during a small timeframe where they MWD to a target and are clustered up. In the future you will need multiple bomb waves to kill them even there.

When they are at a target they are as unbombable as a battleship.
CCP Rise, pls.


Seriously? You're mad because it will take one guy running several cheap bombers with isboxer more than one bombing run to make a 30 billion plus isk ship defenseless?


Implying it's easy to bomb fighterbombers in that short timeframe they MWD considering just 10 seconds is spent on bomb travel. And more than one run won't cut it, because they'll just be repped up now. There's only 10 fighter bombers, so you only have to top up those 10's armor in the 2 min. for the bomb launch timer cycle.

You don't need two runs, you need two waves and that just makes things 10 times as difficult and even if it succeeds only those fighter bombers in the overlap will die and that overlap is much smaller than the current 30 km radius.
And if they don't MWD it'll take 4 overlapping waves which is basically battleship durability.

(generic comment about not being mad, but wondering if Rise considered this, because it doesn't scale properly with bombs.)

Belisa Kyspar
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#405 - 2014-04-02 14:53:54 UTC
Steph Livingston wrote:
I'm sorry if this question has been posted before, I didn't read all the previous pages but...

Are you changing the requirements for Light and Medium drones from Scout Drone Operation (Drone Avionics) to Combat Drone Operations (Light/Medium Drone Operations) instead?

It makes sense, and that's what it sounds like in the blog, but it doesn't come out and say it so I wanted to double check.

If this is the case someone who currently has (say) SDO 5, CDO 3 and can currently field T2 lights/mediums will not be able to after the patch, correct?
Nira Meru
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#406 - 2014-04-02 14:55:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Nira Meru
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Good morning everyone.

Since it's April 2nd I want to go ahead and confirm once and for all that our balance posts and blog yesterday were 100% legit. We had a little fun subverting expectations and making honest announcements on April 1st. Big smile

To answer a couple of questions and issues raised so far:

  • I love you too Dinsdale, never change.
  • We'll be increasing the base mining yield of all mining drones by 33% to compensate for the change to Drone Interfacing. This means that at max skills mining drones will have identical yield to pre-patch and at lower skills they will be improved. Thanks to CSM member Mike Azariah for reminding me.
  • There's currently a display bug that makes the Drone Navigation Computer say that it adds newtons of force. It actually increases drone MWD top speed by a percentage, +30% for T2.
  • Grath if you think this change nerfs the speed at which supercarriers reinforce sov structures, you're doing it wrong.

  • I'm seeing a fair bit of confusion about the details of the Sentry changes. I left the nitty gritty details out of the text section of the blog since they don't lend themselves to easy summaries and the actual numbers were in the spreadsheet, but I'll go over the end results of the changes to T1 and T2 sentries here so people can see the whole picture. These numbers assume max skills:

    • Curator I - +15% tracking, -50% falloff, +18.15% damage
    Warden I - +40% falloff, +12% damage
    Garde I - +50% falloff, +2% damage
    Bouncer I - +60% tracking, -12.5% optimal, +14.3% falloff, +2.86% damage

    Curator II - +15% tracking, -50% falloff, +8.31% damage
    Warden II - +40% falloff, +2.67% damage
    Garde II - +50% falloff, -6.5% damage
    Bouncer II - +60% tracking, -12.5% optimal, +14.3% falloff, -5.71% damage

  • We understand the frustrations expressed by some about how these changes do not address the Drone UI, AI and/or Ewar Drones. These are important issues, but they require a different set of resources to solve and we are not going to hold back meaningful positive changes to wait until we can fix everything at once.

  • We are hearing the feedback from those of you who argue that this change doesn't go far enough to make the Caldari and Amarr drones competitive. It is too soon to announce anything else yet but we're taking this feedback to heart.


So since im maxed skills and your actually not buffing drones but debuffing them can i please get my drone skills reimbursed. i didn't spend 2 months training my drone skills to get my only powerful weapon system to be debuffed so drastically.

Currently i have max sentry drone damage post this there was no reason to get drone interfacing five or sentry drone interfacing to five because federation drones would be nearly as good anyways. conversely your halfing the damage i get from drone interfacing.

Basically what you've done is hide behind the fact that your nerfing gardes and bouncer (the best two pvp drones) and instead claiming because your making shittier drones that take less skills better your throwing the middle finger to ever dedicated sentry pilot in the game.

So if this is generally what you want to do i'd like my skill points reimbursed for sentries as i'd be better off using any other tech 2 gun system with mediocre drone skills.

Also this complete screws the dominix because the tracking increases your giving will make their tracking bonuses not really matter, bouncers will hit battleships whether your flying a dominix or mega or even something like a myrmidon.

So i don't want your pve buff because it screws my pvp toons effectiveness, can i please have my skill points so i can just go get ina hac like every other pilot.

Sincerely, a 1 year player getting screwed by a patch.
Rikard Nomm
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#407 - 2014-04-02 14:57:14 UTC
did i miss it completely, or has there been no mention of what Racial Drone Spec level will be required to use T2 sentries?
will it be Racial Spec IV like the heavies? That seems to make the most sense given they both use the same bandwidth therefore are the same "size" weapon system.

Some confirmation would be neat tho.
Steph Livingston
Neko's Blanket
#408 - 2014-04-02 14:57:56 UTC
Belisa Kyspar wrote:
If this is the case someone who currently has (say) SDO 5, CDO 3 and can currently field T2 lights/mediums will not be able to after the patch, correct?


Which was my concern as well, just not stated so eloquently.
Nira Meru
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#409 - 2014-04-02 14:59:42 UTC
Rikard Nomm wrote:
did i miss it completely, or has there been no mention of what Racial Drone Spec level will be required to use T2 sentries?
will it be Racial Spec IV like the heavies? That seems to make the most sense given they both use the same bandwidth therefore are the same "size" weapon system.

Some confirmation would be neat tho.


Sentries require no racial now i don't know why the would in the future, sentry drone interfacing skill is pretty high level skill to need.
Drak Fel
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#410 - 2014-04-02 15:02:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Drak Fel
Ammzi wrote:
Drak Fel wrote:
Ammzi wrote:
Why did you make fighter bombers almost unbombable now?
At the moment you can catch them during a small timeframe where they MWD to a target and are clustered up. In the future you will need multiple bomb waves to kill them even there.

When they are at a target they are as unbombable as a battleship.
CCP Rise, pls.


Seriously? You're mad because it will take one guy running several cheap bombers with isboxer more than one bombing run to make a 30 billion plus isk ship defenseless?


Implying it's easy to bomb fighterbombers in that short timeframe they MWD considering just 10 seconds is spent on bomb travel. And more than one run won't cut it, because they'll just be repped up now. There's only 10 fighter bombers, so you only have to top up those 10's armor in the 2 min. for the bomb launch timer cycle.

You don't need two runs, you need two waves and that just makes things 10 times as difficult and even if it succeeds only those fighter bombers in the overlap will die and that overlap is much smaller than the current 30 km radius.
And if they don't MWD it'll take 4 overlapping waves which is basically battleship durability.

(generic comment about not being mad, but wondering if Rise considered this, because it doesn't scale properly with bombs.)



It should take multiple waves. Do you know how frustrating it is to save up 30 billion isk for what is supposed to be one of the most powerful ships in the game just to have some guy with isboxer, or a handful of guys, come along in several 25 million isk ships, drop a few bombs and leave you with no way to apply any DPS whatsoever?
seth Hendar
I love you miners
#411 - 2014-04-02 15:08:23 UTC
Drak Fel wrote:
Ammzi wrote:
Drak Fel wrote:
Ammzi wrote:
Why did you make fighter bombers almost unbombable now?
At the moment you can catch them during a small timeframe where they MWD to a target and are clustered up. In the future you will need multiple bomb waves to kill them even there.

When they are at a target they are as unbombable as a battleship.
CCP Rise, pls.


Seriously? You're mad because it will take one guy running several cheap bombers with isboxer more than one bombing run to make a 30 billion plus isk ship defenseless?


Implying it's easy to bomb fighterbombers in that short timeframe they MWD considering just 10 seconds is spent on bomb travel. And more than one run won't cut it, because they'll just be repped up now. There's only 10 fighter bombers, so you only have to top up those 10's armor in the 2 min. for the bomb launch timer cycle.

You don't need two runs, you need two waves and that just makes things 10 times as difficult and even if it succeeds only those fighter bombers in the overlap will die and that overlap is much smaller than the current 30 km radius.
And if they don't MWD it'll take 4 overlapping waves which is basically battleship durability.

(generic comment about not being mad, but wondering if Rise considered this, because it doesn't scale properly with bombs.)



It should take multiple waves. Do you know how frustrating it is to save up 30-35 billion isk for what is supposed to be one of the most powerful ships in the game just to have some guy with isboxer, or a handful of guys, come along in several 25 million isk ships, drop a few bombs and leave you with no way to apply any DPS whatsoever?

htfu.

it is the same feeling than being blaped flying a 3-4B macha / vindi by a isboxer kevin boxing 10 nados, yet the only answer we have, from both CCP and plaers, is HTFU, so HTFU, why should it be different in this case? because you fly a giant carrier? you don't even loose the thing in your described scenario!
Onotole Vassermanov
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#412 - 2014-04-02 15:13:13 UTC
As i said before.
Totally disappointed by last and coming drone fixes.
Why drone boat have to learn a lot of mad interfasing/sharpshooter/shikness/size/racial/control range/amount skills ONLY for side weapon that can be killed, lost and do not perform as good as a turret/missile platform both PVP or PVE usage.
Basic gunnery skills affect ALL type of turrets and trained once give benefit to ALL kind of turrets.

Clear all drone SP, and make it possible to choose for each one would it be usable or not to train drones, or probably use this point for other weapon systems.
Drones was totally unusable 2009 and now it goes to be "SP killers" without benefit. Still any gunnery platform suffering from ammo-usage will be more valuable "per SP"
Drak Fel
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#413 - 2014-04-02 15:13:15 UTC
seth Hendar wrote:
Drak Fel wrote:
Ammzi wrote:
Drak Fel wrote:
Ammzi wrote:
Why did you make fighter bombers almost unbombable now?
At the moment you can catch them during a small timeframe where they MWD to a target and are clustered up. In the future you will need multiple bomb waves to kill them even there.

When they are at a target they are as unbombable as a battleship.
CCP Rise, pls.


Seriously? You're mad because it will take one guy running several cheap bombers with isboxer more than one bombing run to make a 30 billion plus isk ship defenseless?


Implying it's easy to bomb fighterbombers in that short timeframe they MWD considering just 10 seconds is spent on bomb travel. And more than one run won't cut it, because they'll just be repped up now. There's only 10 fighter bombers, so you only have to top up those 10's armor in the 2 min. for the bomb launch timer cycle.

You don't need two runs, you need two waves and that just makes things 10 times as difficult and even if it succeeds only those fighter bombers in the overlap will die and that overlap is much smaller than the current 30 km radius.
And if they don't MWD it'll take 4 overlapping waves which is basically battleship durability.

(generic comment about not being mad, but wondering if Rise considered this, because it doesn't scale properly with bombs.)



It should take multiple waves. Do you know how frustrating it is to save up 30-35 billion isk for what is supposed to be one of the most powerful ships in the game just to have some guy with isboxer, or a handful of guys, come along in several 25 million isk ships, drop a few bombs and leave you with no way to apply any DPS whatsoever?

htfu.

it is the same feeling than being blaped flying a 3-4B macha / vindi by a isboxer kevin boxing 10 nados, yet the only answer we have, from both CCP and plaers, is HTFU, so HTFU, why should it be different in this case? because you fly a giant carrier? you don't even loose the thing in your described scenario!


I'm not saying it should be impossible, but requiring more than one wave of bombs to do it seems reasonable.
Cheekything
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#414 - 2014-04-02 15:14:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Cheekything
I love the ideas as always you CCP devs seem to know the score.

FB and Fighter (oh god yes), however I'm not sure if I misread but wont Supercarriers be able to field 15 fighter/bomber with the advanced drone interfacing giving them a buff over their current damage output.

Also would you ever consider removing the damage type from drones in favour of straight up role based drones using a cross based system over the current linear line as the current system will always lead to favourites, DPS and Speed.

Such as:
For Regular drones/Fighers

........EHP
...........|
DPS ----- Tracking
...........|
.......Speed

For Sentries

........EHP
...........|
DPS ----- Range
...........|
.....Tracking

I think this might lead to much more diversity in drone use overall
Rikard Nomm
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#415 - 2014-04-02 15:14:29 UTC
Nira Meru wrote:
Rikard Nomm wrote:
did i miss it completely, or has there been no mention of what Racial Drone Spec level will be required to use T2 sentries?
will it be Racial Spec IV like the heavies? That seems to make the most sense given they both use the same bandwidth therefore are the same "size" weapon system.

Some confirmation would be neat tho.


Sentries require no racial now i don't know why the would in the future, sentry drone interfacing skill is pretty high level skill to need.


quoted from dev blog, see text i put in bold:

Quote:
For quality levels, Tech Two sentry drones are currently massive upgrades over their Tech One equivalents since range, tracking and damage are all such important attributes for sentries. We will be keeping the 20% bonuses to hitpoints, tracking, optimal, and falloff that Tech Two enjoys over Tech One; but instead of the current 20% increase in damage over T1, we will be increasing the base damage multiplier of Tech One sentries and limiting the Tech Two advantage to the 2% per level gained from the racial Drone Specialization skills that will now be required to use T2 sentries.
Ammzi
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#416 - 2014-04-02 15:14:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Ammzi
Drak Fel wrote:


It should take multiple waves. Do you know how frustrating it is to save up 30 billion isk for what is supposed to be one of the most powerful ships in the game just to have some guy with isboxer, or a handful of guys, come along in several 25 million isk ships, drop a few bombs and leave you with no way to apply any DPS whatsoever?


I might have 99 problems in EVE, but earning isk is not one of them. I'm sorry you feel that way. Here, let's have Rise solve that problem for you.

PS: Isn't that the same arguments freighters use? "It's not fair I spend over 1b on this ship, how come a handful of 10m isk ships can kill me?"
penifSMASH
ElitistOps
Deepwater Hooligans
#417 - 2014-04-02 15:20:34 UTC
Hi Fozzie, a few questions/concerns regarding these changes affecting Supercarriers:

1) An Aeon will be able to replace one or two low slots (usually meant for tank) with DDAs instead. This will allow an Aeon to put out more DPS than a Nyx at the cost of losing some tank. The problem however is that this Aeon will still have the same EHP as a Nyx meaning the Nyx's damage bonus is essentially useless. Nyxes regain the DPS edge over Aeons again if you shove three or four DDAs on it which seems kind of silly. Will you be reworking something -- for example increasing the Nyx damage bonus or increasing base fighter bomber damage - to give back the only thing the Nyx really excelled at.

2) These changes seem to be nudging Supercarrier pilots to use Drone Control Units, since they will now essentially be a 10% bonus to bomber damage. Supercarrier CHAs are really tight right now -- its hard to fit fuel, extra capital mods, and whatever other random junk you happen to carry. Will you be reducing the volume of DCUs? Increasing CHA size? Or perhaps doing something like introducing faction DCUs that have lower volume than the current t1 versions?

3) Will Revenants be re-worked slightly? They are kind of crappy in their current form but they DO have the advantage of 100% drone damage bonus. This makes DCUs very effective -- if you stick five of them on a Revenant you can get 12k DPS. With these changes, the normal supers will now have that same double drone damage bonus thus taking away pretty much the only small advantage the Revenant had over the others. Will you be making a change to Revenants to make them somewhat unique again (besides having faster bombers and looking like a giant space turd)?
Rhes
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#418 - 2014-04-02 15:22:16 UTC
Drak Fel wrote:
It should take multiple waves. Do you know how frustrating it is to save up 30 billion isk for what is supposed to be one of the most powerful ships in the game just to have some guy with isboxer, or a handful of guys, come along in several 25 million isk ships, drop a few bombs and leave you with no way to apply any DPS whatsoever?

Spending the most isk shouldn't mean an automatic win. Why do you guys keep insisting that it should?

EVE is a game about spaceships and there's an enormous amount of work to do on the in-space gameplay before players (or developers) are ready to sacrifice it for a totally new type of gameplay - CCP Rise
penifSMASH
ElitistOps
Deepwater Hooligans
#419 - 2014-04-02 15:22:20 UTC
Ammzi wrote:
Drak Fel wrote:


It should take multiple waves. Do you know how frustrating it is to save up 30 billion isk for what is supposed to be one of the most powerful ships in the game just to have some guy with isboxer, or a handful of guys, come along in several 25 million isk ships, drop a few bombs and leave you with no way to apply any DPS whatsoever?


I might have 99 problems in EVE, but earning isk is not one of them. I'm sorry you feel that way. Here, let's have Rise solve that problem for you.

PS: Isn't that the same arguments freighters use? "It's not fair I spend over 1b on this ship, how come a handful of 10m isk ships can kill me?"


God forbid stealth bombers have to be a little coordinated after the patch in order to completely neuter a trillion isk fleet
Nira Meru
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#420 - 2014-04-02 15:23:26 UTC
Onotole Vassermanov wrote:
As i said before.
Totally disappointed by last and coming drone fixes.
Why drone boat have to learn a lot of mad interfasing/sharpshooter/shikness/size/racial/control range/amount skills ONLY for side weapon that can be killed, lost and do not perform as good as a turret/missile platform both PVP or PVE usage.
Basic gunnery skills affect ALL type of turrets and trained once give benefit to ALL kind of turrets.

Clear all drone SP, and make it possible to choose for each one would it be usable or not to train drones, or probably use this point for other weapon systems.
Drones was totally unusable 2009 and now it goes to be "SP killers" without benefit. Still any gunnery platform suffering from ammo-usage will be more valuable "per SP"


100% agree