EVE General Discussion

I'll probably get flamed for this, but to me it seems Combat Drone Operation is now being removed from the game although no SP reimbursement as in the case of learning skills.

I refer to this devblog - http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/giving-drones-an-assist/

Originally it stated that combat drone operation will be converted into light drone and medium drone operation skills, and scout drone skill will be converted into drone avionics. That made sense and seemed to be fair.

A later statement by Fozzie stated that now only the scout drone operation is required and its current level will be transposed onto the three new skills.

So now to me it seems Combat Drone Operation has no further use and is effectively being removed from the game when the summer changes hit.

Like I say I'll probably get flamed for this, but any chance of a response from CCP Fozzie? It seems the Devblog thread has now been unstickied and no longer being read by the Devs.

Thanks.

Illustrates examples of where CDO will have no value after skills are transitioned - https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4571435#post4571435

Quote from Fozzie detailing the new skill transition arrangement.

I second this.

Edit: No I don't.

Does anybody care?

As Fozzie stated, scout drone or combat drone (whichever is higher) dictates the new skill levels.

You're not getting any SP reimbursed because you will be given the same abilities through the new skills that replace CDO (and which are worth more SP).

Both the blog and the subsequent dev posts make this fairly clear.

because the "same abilities" weren't in the form of skills.

Yes I am sure some people do care. It equates to 512,000 SP, which isn't a lot for veterens with 100mil plus, but for newer players it isn't insignificant.

I'm more thinking on a matter of principle though, if a skill is removed from the game then it should be reimbursed.

After this change, the combat drone skill will serve no purpose as scout drone operation will fulfil all the roles which were filled by combat drone operation previously.

Yeah but they reimbursed in that case due to the fact that even new players would be gaining the same effect without ever having to train it.

Since we actually invested time into it, they were nice enough to toss the SP back our way.

…which makes it almost completely unlike this case, where only those who have trained the skills retain their abilities.

With learning skills, a trainable ability was removed — the SP that went into getting that ability was reimbursed.
With the drone skills, the trainable ability is being shifted to new skills — the SP that went into that ability is shifted to the new skills and increased.

Actually is more like when they split destroyer and bc skills.

…apart from in almost every detail, since that was a removal of skills and a hand-out of bonuses to everyone, whereas this is a replacement of skills, where only those who have trained anything retains their abilities.

So no. Like JC says, it's more like the BC/Destroyer split: old skills out, new skills in, old abilities transformed into new ones.