Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The reason for Ishtar online are the full complement of BS sized weaponry on a cruiser hull. The sensible way to nerf that would be to make the cruiser either unable to use those "oversized" weapons or make sure it can not use the maximum number.

Reducing the bandwidth of the Ishtar and VNI to 100 would be the best method imo because if you nerf the sentries as it is currently planned the meta will just shift to using more tracking links/enhancers on the Ishtar fleets and Ishtar online will remain the core problem would not be addressed at all.

A 20% damage nerf (on sentries) however would only affect the main culprits of the current meta. To exclude heavy drones you could grant the Ishtar a special bonus -20% bandwidth usage for heavy drones for example now it could still field 5 heavies, the bandwidth for heavy drones in general would not be touched and it would receive a 20% damage nerf on sentries.

You could apply a similar fix to the VNI if needed.

I like many of your posts but this one is just wrong.

Fleet level PvP over strategic assets is ruthlessly Darwinian. Fleets are condensed, battered, reassessed until only the very best remain, unfortunately for too long that has resulted in three choices: Ishtars, severely outblobbing or a massive overspend to questionable effectiveness. Given finite resources (pilots and isk) it's obvious where people go.

It's not as simple as 'devoting one or two people to deal with it'.

Let me give it some perspective - ishtars commanded (this was a nerf or two ago) so much firepower that double plated domis were being alpha'd off field at 100km away. Every 4 seconds, a domi exploded.

Return fire was less effective because of the targets speed and sig.

Believe me, the Ishtar issue was never laziness in the part of players, it was the best winning move 95% of the time. We hate ishtars, hate flying them and hate fighting them - however that takes a back seat to winning the war.

The problems remain: too much tank, range, application, speed, too low sig, too easy to fit and too much damage.

The thing is, they're not dealing with the hulls. The current approach STILL leaves today's 'best' option the 'best' tomorrow whilst hurting a bunch of other hills needlessly.

I'm not going to go into a full-on rant again, but sentries do not belong in the game. They combine most if not all of the best advantages with none of the disadvantages of other weapon systems. The few disadvantages they have, the clever playerbase managed to turn into other strengths. Forget DPS, their numerous upsides are not mitigated by any in-game mechanic, hence why they need to be removed completely.

Normal drones are balanced enough because their ability to be destroyed is real. Their travel time is real. They have real disadvantages. But sentries are just the go-to thing for way too many scenarios.

That said I don't agree with this nerf because it just doesn't make much sense (mainly because the battleships that field these weapons as primaries need their due as well). If you want to bring sentries in-line, you're going to have to change how they work. Sentries are a unique drone system, as such, they need special rules to keep them balanced that other drones do not have to contend with.

My idea for this is capacitor. Each time a sentry drone fires, it takes cap from the trigger ship just like a turret. To throw a quick number to the wind and get the discussion rolling, let's say 30 cap per sentry. NO skill to decrease it, NO module to mitigate it.

That means they have to divide their energy between running their active tank, their prop mod, and their primary weapon system just like every other ship in the game. And that means they can be capped out. And if they assign too many sentries to a small ship that doesn't have the cap to handle it, it caps itself out. Alpha doctrines suddenly need a bigger ship to handle the cap requirements, and probably a sensor booster buddy to help them lock. Balance.

Ishtars will have a much bigger problem fielding and wielding sentries compared to the drone BS's that use them. They CAN still do it, but they'll have to devote a lot of resources to maintain their cap. Possibly use armor tanking instead of shield and devote a mid or two to cap regen or booster.

It's either that or remove sentry drones completely until the devs can figure out another way to balance them. But it's too much DPS at too far a range with too many EWAR immunities and no cap and no ammo and....well you get the idea.

If you want to fix sentries, fix 'em. Don't beat around the bush, just get it done and over with.

I wonder if we can remove drone control range bonus from Ishtar and change it to armour repair bonus
small change I think

No the real issue is the Ishtar and my evidence is this entire thread. Even the fellow advocating removing sentry drones completely is really just ranting against the Ishtar.

Someone's tiericide of the ishtar didn't go right and CCP was warned when the changes were announced. Typical CCP they ignored the warnings and pushed on with the release (past examples supers titans etc). Now instead of fixing the broken hull CCP does it's typical thing and tries to nerf the hull's chosen weapon to the point that other hulls using the same weapon system become semi worthless. Then later on CCP will get around to nerfing the actual ishtar at a later time. Much like the tengu and many other nerfs we've seen over the last decade.

Also omni tracking enhancers and the rest of the massive expansion of options for drones. Personally, I think that if you pulled a nerf to omni tracking modules such that they are 50% as effective, drones would be closer to properly balanced, as the issue if a combination of excess projection and high DPS.

that is the key tipping point

Well having used a variety of ships and doctrines running vanguards over the last +3 years I'd like to share some of my experiences of turrets vs drone boats.

First off I'd like to note that the incursion community I commonly see James in is Warp To Me and they don't allow drone damaged based boats. They do allow some drone boats but they have to rely on turrets for most of the dps output. WTM's reasoning is that turreted ships apply superior DPS in a superior manner (according to them and James). James personally argued against me bringing a drone DPS heavy boat because drones were inferior dps. So I am quite amused to see James is here declaring that drone dps suddenly now has an "excess of projection and high dps".

Second off I've ran two battleships in my fleet that had tracking based bonuses (nightmare and dominix). Since gardes are supposed to be the short ranged drone it's not fair to compare it to tachyons. So lets do a quick comparison of a garde II equipped VG domi vs a mega pulse laser equiped NM.



All skills V with no implants 4x dda vs 4x heat sink

Megapulsemare with imperial multifrequency and 2x TC tracking scripts = .095 tracking 971 dps (1116 overheat)
conflag is .067 tracking 1083 dps (1246 overheat)

Dominix with garde IIs and 2x tracking scripts hits .081 tracking 748 dps



At range

scorchmare with 2x tc tracking and 1x optimal = .071 tracking with 50.7 km optimal 774 dps (890 Overheat)

Domi with garde Iis and 2x tracking with 1x optimal = .081 tracking with 47.4 km optimal 748 dps


What is interesting is once you add in implants the drone boat sees NO improvement in dps while the turreted ship sees massive improvements in DPS.


Suddenly up close numbers for the Nightmare changes to .101 tracking with 1095 dps (1259 overheat)

conflag becomes .071 at 1222 dps (1405 overheat)

At ranged values for the scorchmare changes to .076 tracking with 873 dps (1004 overheat)

Now if you compare garde II capability on a non tracking/range bonused hull then things go south quickly for drones.


What do we see here? When comparing drone boat vs turret boat in a semi apples to apples comparison we see that drones themselves aren't terribly out of whack. Lagging behind in both dps, range and tracking ability before you even add in the effects of implants. And that's when using one of two drone hulls that have tracking/optimal bonuses. Use any other drone boat and you'll see drones fail even more. Once these changes are in effect the garde IIs will be vastly inferior in all areas.

It's quite clear the real issue is the ishtar and it's usage of a battleship weapon system while having a small cruiser signature, a massive tank, and easy fitting capabilities. I believe I said this was going to be an issue in the original thread where the ishtar was being discussed during it's tiericide.


I'm too lazy to go through and do the math for the other sentry drones.



EDIT : The changes have no effect on my current setup as I have an excess of alpha at range as is.

So, how do you counter massed ishtars, with no more than 150% the cost?

They might be - I lean towards probably not - but with the state of certain hulls it isn't possible to tell for sure. My biggest problem with the drone ships as a whole is that the fittings are far too generous.

For example sitting large long range guns on any other battleship pretty much takes all the grid and/or needs fitting mods. Drone ships can stick in long range drones and have 100% of grid left for tank/neuts.

There are so many ways to correct this - but we'll need to wait on CCP looking at it.