Player Features and Ideas Discussion

*EDIT* Revision to split with an active high slot module that fits with ranged theme for highs and a passive low which will use the original suggested module.


Suggestion - New Modules, Micro Maintenance Drone Swarm and Drone Maintenance Bay


High slot module - Micro Maintenance Drone Swarm

Active module, all (too powerful, limit to 5?) friendly drones, not engaged in combat, while orbiting your ship have an increased shield regeneration rate and have damage to armor and hull repaired over time. Maximum one module of this type can be equipped on a single ship.

Tier 1
- requires 1 MW of power and 25tf of CPU.
- 75 energy, 5 second duration.
- 20 HP shield regeneration for orbiting drones.
- 15 HP armor repair for orbiting drones.
- 6 HP hull repair for orbiting drones.
- requires Repair Drone Operation I

Tier 2
- requires 1 MW of power and 25tf of CPU.
- 85 energy, 5 second duration.
- 25 HP shield regeneration for orbiting drones.
- 20 HP armor repair for orbiting drones.
- 8 HP hull repair for orbiting drones.
- requires Repair Drone Operation V


The active module only works for drones orbiting your ship and while out of combat.Micro drones effect should not be able to be active against drones that are flagged as in combat. This would work a lot like a remote shield / armor / hull repair all in one, but only active against friendly drones. It fits the high slot theme better than the Maintenance Bay due to having a ranged, albeit a very limited one, effect, while with the two different module options players will have the choice of how they can manage their drones. The Micro Drones also offer a new form of logistics as a dedicated drone repair platform in a fleet where damaged drones can be sent to orbit the player who has one equipped to be repaired.


Low slot module - Drone Maintenance Bay

Passive module that enhances your ships own drone bay. Drones within your drone bay have an increased shield regeneration rate and have damage to armor and hull repaired over time while docked. Maximum one module of this type can be equipped on a single ship.

Tier 1
- requires 25 MW of power and 20tf of CPU.
- 10 HP / 5 seconds shield regeneration for docked drones.
- 10 HP / 5 seconds armor repair for docked drones.
- 5 HP / 5 seconds hull repair for docked drones.
- requires Repair Drone Operation I

Tier 2
- requires 30 MW of power and 20tf of CPU.
- 13 HP / 5 seconds shield regeneration for docked drones.
- 13 HP / 5 seconds armor repair for docked drones.
- 6 HP / 5 seconds hull repair for docked drones.
- requires Repair Drone Operation V


The numbers chosen represent a module that can be used as an option in most drone capable craft. The regeneration rates have been deliberately chosen so as to be lower than those provided from a single dedicated light logistic drone, when applied to a single target (I may be being too mean, but I didn't think the bay should be as good as even a single light, let alone a medium drone). When applied to multiple targets, even for example an entire wing of drones, they are still lower than the equivalent output of a single heavy logistic drone for a given repair type. A maximum of one module per ship allows for drone boats that use either heavy or super drones to have the option of a second module to boost bay output to compensate for their drones much higher HP totals.

The Drone Maintenance Bay has the advantage over logistic drones in that it can repair entire wings of drones at once, but the numbers mean it will not enable the rapid turn around of damaged wings to flight ready status too rapidly, therefore it will most likely be of benefit to PvE rather than PvP. For many situations, particularly rapid redeployments the use of logistic drones or remote armor and hull repairers will be a much faster and better option to return drones to the fight. For the mission PvE / DED pilot, however, a Drone Maintenance Bay may be a preferred option, particularly given it will assist with rotating drone wings.

Would this be an active or passive module?

Making this a high slot module doesn't make much sense, tho. Why you might ask?

High slot modules are about projected effects. Guns and neuts - obvious. REMOTE reps? Drone control RANGE upgrades? Well, ECM mods are an exception, being allocated to mediums. If fitted on a high slot, this will be the new mandatory module and reason the people cry their Rattlesnake is nerfed. It provides less of a meaningful choice to make.

The module you're describing would make sense in one of 2 positions:

Low slot - trade some of your damage for sustainability. Makes perfect sense.

Rig - well, if its not jury rigging to add such functions to a ship? Drones need more interesting rigs anyway.

Along similar lines I wouldn't mind seeing a Drone Maint Bay deployable. Maybe with same repair rates and stats, that only repairs drone in 5km that are NOT in combat.

So you can use your module, to repair during combat at the expense of a high (or suggested low) slot. Or you can wait till after combat, risking your drone or reducing your DPS in exchange for not having to use a slot.

Perhaps it could work as a high slot if it was a cloud of micro drones and only worked on drones that were in orbit rather than in the drone bay?

So to revise the suggestion there could be two types of modules, an active high slot and a passive mid. I will edit the original post based on this idea.

Just the drones have to be, so you could set them to passive and to orbit you mid-fight for a repair.

"Out of combat" doesn't really have meaning in EVE.

However, "not currently engaging a target" does, for drones at least. Simply having the drones orbiting you, or within X km and in an "Idle" state, would work. If you want it to also be based on the parent ship not engaging or being engaged by something, it rather defeats the point, but that could be easily done by "no hostile action received or taken in the last X seconds".

I think it would be nice if it was possible to click on docked damaged drone and repair it with nanite paste, like any other weapon or module in game.

TLDR: It will be very difficult for CCP to balance the repping amount between something OP in a few cases and totally useless the rest of the time. Additionally, the drone interface is so fiddly that adding more complexity would require a rewrite of this interface, not least to show damage on drones that are docked. -1

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I'd say that in at least 70% of all PvP fights, drones are not engaged. Thus these new modules will have no effect. Of the remainder of the time, in many cases it isn't feasible to recover the drones while in combat. Sentries for example can't often be recovered until after the engagement is over. Other more mobile drones may have such a distance to travel that pulling them back to save them isn't worth the loss of DPS during the travel time - leaving them to die squeezes the last DPS out of them and then it only takes a replacement drone (if you have them) half the time to get back on target.

When it is feasible to pull your drones it all boils down to how fast they can be repaired against how long the tank of the ship can hold. In short will it be possible for a ship to tank incoming damage while housing and repping their drones? If it is possible for a ship to continually recycle their drones while repping incoming damage, then this becomes way OP.

Consider the examples of a solo, triple local rep Myrmidon or the Guristas pirate ships (Gila, Worm and Rattlesnake) with their massive boost to drone hitpoints.

If they can't rep them fast enough, then again it is useless. Good only for out of combat or PvE situations when other options such as a remote armor rep, an armor maintenance drone, mobile depot or simply docking, would work better.