Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Background
So, you are all aware that EVE is ISBoxing Ishtars Online. Ishtars are OP, even CCP Fozzie and CCP Rise admit it, though they seem to have misconceptions about how we got to this situation.

The solution appears to be babysteps reversals off the incremental power creep which resulted in drone assign meta getting out of hand and aligning with alpha and mobility meta to create uber kiting sentry Ishtar fleets everywhere, always.

Be as it may, trimming 20% off drone optimal and tracking (effectively) will trim the Ishtar damage projection a bit and force them closer in to their hapless victims. it will not (despite CCP Rise's conceptions about how vulnerable sentry drones are) actually address the assign meta or the threat that uber kiting Ishtars present, because they will be a wee bit slower but still faster and punchier at 80km than anything else. Still, better a half-baked nerf than a total one, right?

The sentries will still be invulnerable to all practical attempts to knock them out, you cannot ECM them (suddenly you need to jam 6 things) and MWDing around inside their range is just stupid.

The problem with drone assign is that you can ECM or damp the ship owning the set of sentries, and it's a complete waste of time. You can even jam the ship assigning out the sentries and they'll still fire on their target, as drones do. Then they just re-assign to someone else, or resume control, and it's wasted effort.

Solution
What is needed is a module which disrupts the link between a ship and its drones, either via an ECm mechanism to jam, or reduces the drone control range of the afflicted ship.

Proposal
The Target Spectrum Breaker provides an opportunity to address drone assign in general, on a small gang or fleet basis, and drone DPS setups as well.

The proposal is, firstly, to unlock the TSB for use by battlecruisers. It is a fine idea restricting it to BS only (like the MJD was originally) but that only addresses alphafleets. Badly.

Secondly, make it a scripted module, where a script can be loaded to turn it into a targeted ECM module which breaks or dampens out the control range of a ship with its drones.

Example;
Hypothetical 10 Ishtars vs 10 Ravens fight. Right now, a complete cakewalk. If the 10 Ravens have a TSB, they can load a script, and target an Ishtar, and break the control of the Ishtar with its drones. This neutralises the Ishtar's sentry DPS

I'm not supporting either mechanism as being superior; as an ECM module I can already tell there will be more crying "wah ECM sucks y u want more Falcon?" whereas an effect which works to reduce the ship's drone control range has its own issues as well.

What I will say is this.

Firstly, if it works like ECM by breaking the drone control, once the TSB cycle ends, the ishtar pilot can reconnect with the sentries or launch a second set. He will have to do this manually, of course, which takes time. Then he will have to reassign. The advantage of this in large battles is manifold;
Firstly, it allows a gang or fleet to cripple, wash off, or restrict the inbound DPS from a sentry assign doctrine.
Secondly, it is not AOE. To properly Rock Papaer Scissors against an ishtar doctrine, you'll need to sacrifice a midslot, CPU and utility. You will also need to actively use the module to achieve the desired effect, which adds demands to the user beyond 'right click assign'.
Thirdly, this will add a significant amount of work to the ishtar pilots themselves. This is a good thing because properly achieved, sentry assign doctrines are boring gameplay where one character or person controls the DPS of many others, who just become passive participants. With the TSB script on field, you will have to watch for jams and respond.
Fourthly, it is chance based, and would have an optimal and falloff.

If it works like a damp, then it has issues similar to damps. Small numbers of drone boats could find their drone control range damped down to nothing and effectively be reduced to washing drones in and out of their bays to hope for their drones to respond to an attack. However, this would please the crowd who hate ECM in its current form and mechanism.

Finally, the scripted TSB would provide an effective way of neutralising the uber drones currently fielded by Gurista ships. Yes, I went there. Being able to bust the link between a Rattler and its 1100 DPS Ogre IIs is not a bad thing, all things considered.

Let the flaming begin!

Actually, it might be easier to modify Sensor dampers to apply a range limiting effect on drone control just as tracking disruptors were modified to impact missiles.

These are old ideas and suggestion, I believe the script related one was even from me.

If you move away from your Ishtar blindfold you might find those anti drone threads with ease.

And regarding ECM vs Drones and their host, see the other threads, I believe there is even one on this page. I am tired of this crap people having grand ideas and never considering others might have come up with it years ago and not bothering to check them out and arguments for and against them before dumping another thread on us.

To the discussion, basically TSB should break all locks, while you are able to dampen or jam out the host ship again preventing it to reactivate the drones. I haven't tried it, but this should already work.

Another option would be to treat a flight of drones as one entity to jam, damp and disrupt.

Glad you asked, because I had thought they added it, but it turns out they did not.... and I missed that they had not (glad I did not have any builds depending on countering missiles with TD).

... and now I feel stupid.

Still, they could implement a similar system to what they were planning to do against missiles with drones... just with sensor damps so that the effective drone control range is reduced.

The problem seems to be mostly with the assigning of drones.

I'd rather that was further reduced or removed all together.

In a solo-capability, nerfing target range is almost as good as nerfing drone control ranges, as if you can't target something you can't set your drones on it. Drones may target on agressive but they're a bit hit 'n' miss and often don't go for a useful target, or even one they have the tracking or range to even hit.

Don't forget you can shoot drones... I get enough of them shot up and you can't always save them.

Agree with PvE rebalance of EWAR - although this may just be down to the heroic one capsuleer versus 30+ rats scenarios they tend to set up. Some of the amount of EWAR you get on you is ridiculous.

So ISboxing is kewl, but using multiple drones is OP because you can't target em all with one module?

Weird. Do not agree.

Drones still take time to deploy and project damage and are therefore always going to have less direct punch than turrets. Sentries can't move, they can be popped fairly easily.

Working as intended if you ask me.

If Damps lowered drone control range as well I could see that being fair.

It is my impression that one of the explicit strengths of drones was supposed to be that they are not affected by EWAR against the host ship. That being said, I had always assumed that Tracking Disruptors and ECM did actually work on drones and other NPCs (I know that neuting NPCs doesn't really work).

Why bother scripting TSBs? Just make EWAR work properly on drones and other NPC.