Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As a former drone user I can confirm that I do not like the bonuses on many of the recently rebalanced droneships that exclude certain types of drones, except where unavoidable like mobility bonuses obviously not working with sentries. I am particularly unhappy with the ship that gives mutually exclusive bonuses-- velocity only to heavies, tracking only to sentries. That ship is powerful and useful, but that bonus setup shortchanges it in a bad way to precedent. Multiple bonuses to "drones" that cannot be used together do not make for a full set of bonuses within ship class.

In the case of the Rattlesnake this is less of an issue. I happen to disagree that the ship would be useless if the drone bonus were attached to Gallente where it belongs, but thats fine, at least mechanically. I dislike that the ship apparently wont have smaller drones bonused as well. A single role bonus of a flat 50% to small and medium would cover the issue.

However, it seems the focus of versatility has shifted to the launchers. Pilots concerned with frigate control can fit light launchers practically for free in a battleships fitting resources and absolutely murder any frigate that comes near with those bonused undersized launchers. Rapid Lights I like less due to reload, but are probably just as bad.

The issues with sentry tracking are not as bad as some would have you believe. Target painters are not the most effective things, but they benefit both missiles and drones. The ship actually has an impressive array of options for configuring between maximum DPS and application. While its certainly not something I am excited to rely on, mobile depots may be something the devs are counting on to supply that extra versitilty that seems to be being taken by switching these application options to launchers

I still feel that the main problem with this current setup is that the superdrone bonus is not enough to overcome the drawback of increased vunerability to ewar effects. Arguments of getting a single drone webbed are silly on a ship that will likely be using sentries, but that same argument has merit when applied to ECM, Tracking Disruption, or Sensor Dampening.

Try two missile rigs and, since this is a pirate ship, maybe use a T2 for one of them.

I agree.
The only really good thing about having 2 drones is you can remote rep your sentries and they can take a beating.
Still waiting for the SiSi tests, but I think using heavy drones will force people to use drone navigation computer(s), even with the changes taken into account.

Roden shipyard always had missile bonuses for quite some time (not anymore though), but i can see the gallente bonus related to missiles, it fits especially with 'Rabbit' mentality to kill Caldari with missiles and drones.

Rather than a bonus to all sizes of launcher, i'd rather get a bonus to only big ones, and get the old bonus to light /medium drones. I can adapt I guess but that means refitting more often than before.

The only other battleship with drone and gun bonuses I can think of is the navy dominix.
Can anyone share a couple of good/recent fits for it please ?


Edit: so much posting... you might want to address other player concern with less hate.

To be clear... I like the superdrone in concept, and feel it is balanced with improved damage at the cost of increased vunerability to ewar.

I simply dislike how this has been applied to the battleship. There is no increased dps with it at this level, leaving it weak IMO given the increased vunerabilities. If we were getting 10+ effective drones rather than 7.5 I would have few misgivings.

The idea of dropping the versatility of drones and making them more comparable in perforformance to revular ships guns is a fine thing... But the superdrone needs to be powerful indeed to overcome the downside of being destructible. On the frigate level this is fine because the drone is nearly as hard to kill as the ship itself...and the superdrones out dps any other frigate drone platform despite being only 8 effective drones. The Gila is in a similar position...personally I dont feel that medium drones underperform so much below lights in application that the lack of a light drone bonus is a serious issue. A bonus to get lights up to 7.5 or even 8 in space would not be out of place, but it does not cripple the ship. I do feel that mediums are fragile enough compared to what easily hits them that they may need reevaluation in the near future, however.

So I think they should strengthen the superdrone bonus to be greater dps than other BS drone platforms to make up for the increased vunerability inherant to having fewer drones, and perhaps the rest can be ironed out in a more comprehensive drone review... But at no point do I think this is a poor idea for tbe shipline.

Left at the same DPS level, the superdrone bonus does more harm than good. They will be simple to negate with some ewar, drones are far from immune to those effects they are just not normally worth the attention being only a small part of a larger package. The only real benefit is a bit more resilience to damage, and with npc aggro the ewar that npcs apply will be an order of magnitude more of a problem.

Drones have somewhat less DPS potential than other weapon systems, but in general that is made up by their resistance to ewar effects due to being several smaller parts. They also carry the penalties of being destructable and ships designed for them lose a slot. On the Rattlesnake you lose most of the resistance to ewar in exchange for a minor boost to survivability, which is just frankly not enough. It makes almost no difference to heavies who will still get webbed and killed with their bloated signitures, and sentries wont see enough boost to keep out long enough to make a difference. With the loss of the bonus to smaller drone types you also lose a healthy chunk of the application edge drones usually enjoy.

The superdrone bonus needs raised to similar performance gains of the smaller hull sizes. The Worm enjoys 1.5 DPS of any other frigate platform, and the Gila nearly doubles the DPS of any other medium drone platform to make up for the drawbacks of the superdrone concept. Breaking even for a minor survivability boost is not enough unless they want to add a bonus to make them immune to ewar effects.

Drones are immune to everything but webs. Try it out for yourself. use some cheap tech 1 drones and a cruise launcher. Shoot 1 missile. Now TP the drone. Shoot it again with 1 missile.
get 30km from some wrecks, use a tech 1 garde to try and shoot it. Now apply a bunch of TD to reduce optimal. Try to shoot it again with that 1 garde.

ECM does work, however.

The problem of webbing a heavy drone isn't significant either. You're only likely to use heavies against a nearby tackled or very slow target, and the delay in damage application produced by webbing the incoming drone is generally minimal.

It'd be a lot more serious if you have range-bonused webs or a target at range, but in those cases you should be using sentries.

Better off jamming the battleship.

There is one Pirate Faction Battleship missing from this list: the Nestor. Forget the Covert Ops cloak, laser, scanning and RR bonuses - I think we should just turn it into a dedicated drone platform.

Gallente Battleship Bonus: 20% bonus to Sentry Drone hit points and damage
Amarr Battleship Bonus: 4% bonus to all armor resistances
Role Bonus: 50% bonus to Sentry Drone optimal range and tracking speed