Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What if the drones had a decimated warp scramble strength, so that they had to have multiples of these drones on a target in order to have any effect at all?

I only suggested stats about disrutpion effect at 24km and scram effect at 9km. I do agree that such drone should replace a lot of DPS, and be somewhat slow like heavy drones are.

I do not believe the random chance like ECM is a good system, but a decimal interdiction value instead of integer for one drone can be a good way to force at least two drones to connect to the target for the effect to apply.

It is well know that a kitter can easily handle a disruption point as it does not affect their speed in any way. They are the faster ones, and control the ranges when they need it.

An interdiction drone, as I described them in my OP, would force kitting fleet to change tjheir orbit and lessen their grip on the brawler ships these drones are intended to help. Kitters have to address the new menace on the threat of being scrammed. This is fundamentaly why I suggested in the first place that these drones should disrupt at 24km and scram at 9km. The kitters must prevent them to reach them, and they have their speed and can change targets to do so before the drones are in the deadly range for them. As everyone knows a scrammed kitter is, most of the time, a dead kitter.

Such drones introduce a new parameter to the fight, a mobile kitter's threat taking the shortest possible path to their target, while the ship launching them regain some autonomy of maneuvering while the kitters have to respond to the new threat.

A tackle Ogre with 1 warp disrupt strength, a short activation range, and slow movement speed isn't really unbalanced. Yes, it does offer the chance for a single Vexor to put out 5 points, but they need a lot of time to get to their targets. It's nothing like having 5 actual warp disruptors with 20km range and instant application as soon as you lock target.

Not a terrible idea. Would be a good use for the drone bay for a lot of ships where you can't afford a midslot for a long point or scrambler, but have a utility drone bay and no drone bonus. Would certainly change the meta for ship fitting a bit.

They'll definitely need to be balanced in terms of warp core strength and chance to warp disrupt. One difficulty I see is that almost all of the other EWAR drones are stacking penalized - for example webbing drones. Only ECM and Neut drones are not. Whether you are warp scrambled or not is an absolute value, same as whether you are jammed or not (and can target).

So if an individual warp disruption drone gave 1/3 warp core disruption (it takes 3 drones to warp disrupt unless you have warp core stabilizers), this would mean you could carry 1 flight capable of warp disruption but would synergize if others in your group had them as well and put them on the same target. This would make it somewhat useful for solo work, but easy to shake off since they only have to destroy half your drones to get out.

I hope that CCP looks at the effectiveness and use of all of the Electronic Warfare Drones, because other than ECM drones, the others don't see a lot of usage. They are also fairly unbalanced because of the aforementioned stacking penalties. Good discussion on this here.

Could be nice to have a few options:

1.) Gecko warp disruptor drone with decent range or good speed, single drone that does the job effectively
2.) Ogre warp disruptor drone with low speed and short range, yes some ships can launch 5 but they're tough to get into range so not overpowered
3.) Hammerhead warp disruptor drone in which you need all 5 to get 100% chance of 1 point strength on target, uses all drone slots but moves faster than Gecko, each drone offers 20% success chance, multiple drones from one ship against one target compounds into one effect with higher chance of success
- a.) can beat Gecko because moves faster, dominates Gecko for long range use
- b.) Gecko dominates for short range use because it has a decent activation range, also some ships can launch more than one Gecko, and finally Hammerheads are much more vulnerable to smartbombs
4.) Hobgoblin warp disruptor drone with 12% success chance (60% with all 5), faster moving than Hammerhead and takes less bandwidth/bay, but lower success rate and more vulnerable to smartbombs

Different mechanism at work. The examples you listed are all a result of drone bay/bandwidth limitations. The OP is proposing a drone that specifically is limited to battlecruisers only, even though larger ships would otherwise have the capacity to use them.



Also, another -1 to warp disruption drones. Other forms of EWar works relatively well with drones because you can scale them up or down, and typically a flight of EWar drones is not as effective as modules mounted on a ship, especially not on a bonused hull. With what the OP is proposing, a flight of warp disruption drones would be as effective, or more effective, than modules on the ship. The only way to do this and maintain parity with other EWar drones would be for warp disruption drones to have fractions of a point, so that you'd need more than one to successfully tackle. That seems like a rather arbitrary and confusing change to make, which is why I can't support this.

Nice idea :-)

Need some works to be viable but nice !!