Player Features and Ideas Discussion

They are trying to address the symptom and not the cause, because people hate direct ship nerfs (see the fighters changes thread).

It has to happen regardless.

As stated above really...

Agree changes are required and sad to lose the Ishtar as a very capable and disposable ratter however changing sentries is not the answer as this will effect more than the Ishtar.

I am guessing when sentries where be conceived the idea was for a powerful drone for a bigger class of vessel. If so, just increase bandwidth to 50 and increase battleships which are designed for drones such as the Domi, Rattlesnake, Sin. By drop the power of sentries you are indirectly reducing these battleships effectiveness which already have the bomb threat that the Ishtar/T3 doesn’t.

More simple solution is to restrict sentries to BS class or reduced the Ishtar bandwidth.

That being said one change to sentries that can be made is to make more of a sniper (low damage high range) and brawler (high damage, close range) classes. This divide is currently too close.

However I feel the ‘solution’ to this ‘problem’ is not neffing sentries.

I am honestly hoping you mean on a ship by ship basis. However, it sounds like you just did a query for Ishtar damage, and used that number, and compared it to "battleship" damage, and compared them both.

The immediate issue with that is, I find more Ishtar blobs on any given day, than Battleship blobs.

So, I hope you meant on a ship by ship scenario.



My main issue is tha, now a solo ishtar will fall short compared with any other HAC.

I am NOT against balance, however I am against balance based on blob meta. The true underlying problem with drones as a whole is STILL drone assist. So you limited 5 ships per assistee. Last I checked, most fleets have 2-3 fast tackle ships. It takes away nothing to bring more instalock ceptors, have them kite to hell, and press F1 to engage 25 sentries at once.

The problem is not the hull, it is drone assist.

Good thing...there trackin/optm was too good. While at it you could consider removing some high slots from domi. They were useful back in the days when domi actually used guns. Now it makes them killing weapons at short range. 3 slots would be more than enough.

You want more BS's on field... set Sentry Tracking to their BS Turret equivalent.
[Base Stats]
Gardes and Wardens to 425's. Garde II has base 0.036, Warden II has 0.012; 425mm Rail II is 0.01
Bouncers to 1400's; Bouncer II has 0.19; 1400mm II has 0.009
Curators to Tach's; Curator II has 0.028; Tachs have 0.014

Why take out a BS that tanks like crap after you fill mids/lows for sniping when an Ishtar.
EFT
Ishtard + 2 omni TE II + 2 DDA II =
Tracking: Bouncers = 0.027; Garde = 0.051; Curator = 0.039; Warden = 0.017
DPS: Bouncer = 528; Curator = 553;

Getting Range of BS weapon to about that of Racial Sentry Drone
Apoc + Tach II + 2 TE II + 5 HS II = 576 DPS with Gamma L; Tracking is 0.028
Mael + 1400 II + 2 TE II + 2 Gyro II = 210 DPS with Nuclear L; Tracking is 0.014
Temp + 1400 II + 3 Gyro II + 2 TC II (tracking) = 354 DPS with Tremor L; Tracking however is 0.005
Temp + 1400 II + 3 Gyro II + 2 TC II (tracking) = 221 DPS with Nuke L; Tracking however is 0.019

Things only get better with the Garde II and slightly better for the Warden II.

Ishtards are the only ship where you drop a horde of sentries and scoot ass away to avoid dps. What incentive is there to take out a Domi, Geddon, Apoc, Tempest, Rohk, Megathron (domi and geddon, even tho drone boats, are too slow to burn away) for range when the Ishtar optimal range bonus and the inherently OP sentry tracking are causing inbalance and an entire set of ships to gather dust.

Ishtard
New bonus: Gallente Cruiser bonuses (per skill level):
10% bonus to Light, Medium and Heavy Drone hitpoints and damage
5% bonus to Sentry Drone hitpoints and damage

HAC tracking bonus is the issue... swap it for drone velocity bonus so they get in faster
+5m control range and sentry optimal
10% drone velocity


For too long BS's have been gathering dust since T3's and OP Hac's took their place... Why shouldn't a BS have a better electronics suite and lock minimum of 120km to be less vulnerable to damps, Long range weapons have greater tracking (and less damn PG because fitting them *** tank on armor ships) to overcome TD's, more sensor strength, and faster scan res? You've designed them out of the fight and into just missioning and some WH's. Battleships should be a thing feared, not laughed at.

Please balance Worm and Gila now.

Do you even know how much tracking sentry drones have? I can sit here and list hundreds of battleship fits that have far more tracking with large guns and similar ranges.


Rails always have had abysmal tracking compared to other large turret choices. Terrible comparison.

If you can hit a small ship with sentries without webs or TPs then you could hit that same ship with every large weapon system including missiles because they aren't moving. Other then extremes such as rails sentry tracking is comparably worse then most large weapon systems at various ranges.

Sensible change. Bouncers will remain good.

Time will tell if this is enough or not.

Sentries were fine before the introduction of the drone modules. That's when things went sideways. The introduction of the drone modules created the OP ishtar and the archons after downtime mess. Sometimes when you add one thing (drone modules) then you need to take away another (sentries from non BS hulls) to maintain balance.

It appears that CCP is determined to do everything but balance out the addition of the drone modules. I think a lot of it has to do with effort. Changing the optimal on a given drone requires the coders to change 1 number. Making sentries BS only drones would require coders to actually code.

Quick and easy is not equivalent to best. Come on CCP coders HTFU and actually fix the issue. (Sentry becomes BS only drone).

Then they wouldn't even be able to hit towers, and they'd be entirely useless.

Nice catch