Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There can be a gentleman's agreement not to fit DLAs with the same cancerous Ishtar fleets - it can develop naturally.

The issue at hand is Battleship weaponry on a cruiser hull.

Still doesn't rectify the fact that the Zealot or the Eagle can't do 450 DPS at 130 km.

The Eagles were actually employed in fleet warfare, just like the Zealots. Tengu is the latest iteration of that.

September, 2013 - Odyssey 1.1 Never Forget.

P.S. What's a Muninn? ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

More distribution towards other HACs can be achieved by fixing the Ishtar, because this is not funny - http://i.imgur.com/afJycoE.png?1

Data from Pre-Scylla via Rise's blog. An alternate version can be found in my signature, and the original elsewhere - it hides the truth.

Uhh, you know full well that Apocs are a BS, they are supposed to **** on cruisers. It's frigates they are supposed to struggle with...

This problem will continue until something resembling the following is implemented or until sentries are nerfed to the point where sentries return to being useless.

Ishtar's need to:
1) Have their bandwidth reduced to 75
2) Role bonus changed such that their drone damage and health is increased by 66%
3) Cruiser per level bonuses effect Drone max velocity and tracking, and hybrid weapon tracking
4) HAC per level bonuses effect Drone optimal range and hybrid weapon optimal range
5) Drone bay reduced to 200 (2 flights of heavies/sentries and 1 flight of mediums under new stats)

Sentries need:
1) ~20km control range to prevent over use of this battleship level sniping platform in kiting doctrines

Dominix (and only Dominix) would then need:
1) Role bonus of 500% increase to sentry drone control range


Ishtar pilots can now chose between a kite/brawl set up with blasters/rails and mobile drones -or- a full sniping fit with sentries and rails.
Those that went through and mathed it already would also see that this is a damage increase when using any light or medium drone over the current Ishtar.
This would be a buff to the base stats of a brawling Ishtar, while nerfing the current shoot-you-at-100 while kiting fits we currently see.
The control range on sentries is seriously something that should have been implemented with their launch as a stationary weapons platform. The ability to kite players into their optimal in a fast cruiser hull is why they became a problem in the first place. This is simply needed to bring the use of such a platform in line with other slow/long range platforms.

Ran the math on this
My Ishtar puts out (rounded down)

500 DPS with Curators alone an additional 150-200 with blasters
So i lose 15.50 DPS off this change for a total of 484.5DPS with JUST my curators
I lose 13% of my tracking as well.

The problem here is my fit has room to neutralize those changes either through rigging or additional mods to maintain the same stats I am now after a very quick refit and a little bit of ISK investment.

Yes sentry drones are a bit crazy now, but if we nerf them we hurt other ships too. We nerf the hulls to hard, nobody flys it and people move on to the next flavor in line which then gets nerfed too.

Perhaps what we should be doing is taking the time to bring the other hulls UP to compare with the Ishtar ( for example ) rather than trying to bring down a bunch of hulls all at once.

We use Bouncers in our ratting C4 doctrine with Cruise Typhoons as they can project damage plenty fine. might have to switch to Wardens. /wrists I suppose

+1 for nerfing tracking n these things finally

Went out to nullsec in a Garmur, tackled two ratting ishtars who were using Curator II's. I was kiting them at 30km @ 4.4km/s and they were hitting me just fine.

The problem is NOT the drones, although the tracking nerfs above will certainly help, it is the doctrines. And you know what maketh the doctrines people are using? That's right, the drone tracking modules and damage modules and control range modules you put in the game.

Adjust them a bit as well. Because if you can't even kite a sentry ishtar at 25km in the game's most ridiculous frigate, something's a bit stupid.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to grab the actual numbers. I was running numbers on paper so had a few numbers off actually with my math. I would agree with your suggestion of increasing the drone bay to 225, I was honestly thinking 2 flights plus back up. But you make a very good point of why 3 flights should be allowed. As for your second point, I can see the problem here. I could have sworn they reached out further, so maybe a larger optimal range bonus in in order.

I also agree it does do a number on the train time to get to perfect operation. However, the increased training should pay off in spades for those who can fly it optimally, while not being overbearingly so as medium weapon systems are not horribly long train times.



As for the control range currently you are 100% correct, control range is currently decided by the drone's base range+skills to decide how far out from you/your drones is to it's intended target you can issue orders to attack. I effectually want that aspect removed from sentries such that sentries have a set targeting range (their optimal+falloff) and their control range be based on possibly the sentry skill itself, something along the lines of 4km per level. Numbers of course being debatable.

And to reiterate, this doesn't effect their current functionality in the slightest to ECM/damps since to issue the attack command the pilot must still have the target lock, all that changes is their leash range to the sentries.

Since CCP is so convinced that the sentries are the problem and not the Ishtar, this has me wondering.

What other sentry platform is overpowered?
The Dominix? The reason we use it is because it requires far fewer fitting skills than virtually any other battleship doctrine. You want to fix that hull, you reduce its CPU and PG.
The Eos? MAYBE. It's pretty balanced though, mostly due to the fact that it has much higher training requirements than the Ishtar, and its much more limited mobility in comparison. If you nerf the Ishtar this might emerge as the next favored ship, but it probably wouldn't.
The Armageddon? Nah, it's just fine. If anything it could use a bit of a boost.
The Nestor? No, that ship is a joke. Sentries don't really make it any better.
The Rattlesnake? It's a pretty powerful ship, but it's pretty on par with the rest of the pirate battleships. If anything it needs a bit of a boost.
The Stratios? Pretty balanced. It sees less PVP use than other pirate cruisers, but it has a decent amount of exploration utility.
The Vexor/VNI? Powerful as far as T1 or Navy faction cruisers go, but still fairly balanced. As a gank boat the Vexor sees some utility, but otherwise its use is pretty even with other cruisers.
Carriers? You can nerf sentries into the ground, it really isn't going to make much of a difference to how much these get used.

The only problem is the Ishtar. The only nerf that needs to happen is to the Ishtar. Sentries themselves are fine.

I remember days when there were no sentry drones in fleet warfare and those days were pretty good.