Ships & Modules

I've seen a lot of complaints about drones - especially Ishtars - and it seems everyone's primary complaint is that small ships are hitting far too hard above their weight class. Some others also complain that drones are too versatile... but I think that's more fair considering travel time and the fact they can't be overheated.

Is there any reason bandwidth can't be rebalanced across the board? This could effectively cap each droneboat's ability to smash larger targets while not affecting their efficacy against smaller/same sized ships at all.

Imagine this approach (primarily for Gallente ships):

• T1 ships have enough bandwidth for drones of their weight class
• Faction ships have 20% more bandwidth than T1 ships
• T2 ships have 40% more bandwidth than T1 ships.

So, for instance:

• A Tristan has 25 mb/s
• An Astero has 30 mb/s
• An Ishkur has 35 mb/s

Also:

• A Vexor has 50 mb/s
• A Vexor Navy Issue has 60 mb/s
• An Ishtar has 70 mb/s

Battleships and up would have 125 mb/s, though higher tech ships could potentially field 3 Geckos due to having 165 mb/s bandwidth! Battlecruisers are tricky, though could possibly be given a base 75 mb/s (with 90 for faction and 105 for higher tech).

Frigates could easily field lights, but T2s could field some (not a lot) of mediums. Cruisers could easily field mediums, but only a very limited number of heavies/sentries. Etc etc.

Obviously there would have to be a lot of additional tweaks to go along with this.

There's also the crazy option of nerfing bandwidth then adding in BANDWIDTH MODULES that increase bandwidth. Not sure what slot these would fall into, but could only be equipped on the appropriate weight class:

• Small Drone Bandwidth Amplifier: Increases drone bandwidth by 5 mb/s.
• Medium Drone Bandwidth Amplifier: Increases drone bandwidth by 10 mb/s.
• Large Drone Bandwidth Amplifier: Increases drone bandwidth by 15 mb/s.

Now an Ishtar could field more heavies/sentries, but at the expense of other modules. This could also lend itself to interesting fits, especially for ships that use drones as secondary systems.

Oops! (I don't know how to delete or move the thread)

drone bandwidth was the way of limiting ships drone capabilities, Vexors used to field 5 ogres, use mwd and orbit with neut and vamps

Drones are primary weapon in some ships, dont try to get a nerf on that. Dominix was always a drone boat, dont try to make it useless.

Also Ishtar is one ship and you posted for only this ship and then you generalize to nerf every single drone boat.

Just dont!

Sorry yes, this is a bit closer to what I meant.

To make drones effective as a weapon type on the ships that are specifically drone boats you must sacrifice low/high slots to do so.

Drones without drone damage mods do crap DPS.

Also, drones are a weapon that are able to be destroyed. Fighting an Ishtar? Kill his drones. Fighting a Dominix? You guessed it, kill his drones. Fighting an Armageddon? Oh my, you guessed it, kill his drones.

Drone boats without drones = useless.

I agree that certain drone/ship combinations need to be looked at (Sentry/Ishtar and Sentry/Carrier come to mind), but I think that a blanket change like you're proposing is far too much to address those limited combinations. Let's not break everything trying to fix a few issues.

No op

No

Venturing slightly off-topic here, but their tracking is only part of the issue. (For those that don't know, sentries have a signature resolution of 400m, which is on par with battleship guns, but much better tracking than battleship guns.) When large groups of ships, especially carriers, order their sentry drones to assist a single ship, that ship is capable of generating a "perfect volley". The alpha strike of every single drone assisting it gets applied at the time time. This makes it much easier to volley ships off of the field in the presence of logistic support. The same number of ships applying damage independently wouldn't be perfectly synchronized so it's less effective, and this doesn't apply to any other drones because of the travel times involved.

Overall, the problem in the current metagame with Ishtars and carriers isn't the hulls per se, it's the fact that such a large number of sentry drones can be made to effectively function as a single weapon.

There are a couple of things to consider here IMHO:

First is the reduced slots which "drone boats" have, coupled with the perception of high pressure on those slots already in most current fittings (perhaps this is part of the problem - the Meta suggests that, to make Garde IIs viable, you need a minimum of two Omnis (not to mention DDAs and so forth)).
Does the proposed reduction "return" those slots?
Does it put them where they're needed? or do we fill up a Dominix's lowslots with drone mods and give it an extra high?

Second is the previous experience with drone mods - when Drone Control Units were first on Sisi they had high fitting requirements but they were not limited to capital ships, of course Dominix pilots loaded up...
Bandwidth boosting modules might prove very difficult to balance - too much of a boost and they become a mandatory module (and may distinctly unbalance ships which have relatively low bandwidth at present), too little and they're never used.

Third are questions such as what happens if you fit this module to a ship which already has bandwidth equal to its bay? and how does it operate with Guristas ships? (If you boost a Worm to a full flight of lights which are equivalent to about 15 unbonused drones (as I recall) or a Ratttler to running three Geckos).

In general, giving choices to the players is a good thing for marketting but a nightmare for balancing...
There are balance issues at present of course - but I don't think this is the way to solve them.



Given the right set-up and circumstances this was possible before Carriers existed, let alone before Slowcats. That is not to suggest that Slowcat fleet doctrines are balanced, desirable...etc - just that the statement is an oversimplification of the situation.