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Cost of Excavator Drones

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Svodola Darkfury
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2016-10-22 21:45:08 UTC
I've done some preliminary checking into the cost based on the Blueprint currently on SISI.

The cost for 5 drones is currently 923 million based on Jita prices.

The breakdown is below (which is ugly formatting, due to no table). This seems unreasonably expensive for something with 2700 raw health. I understand that the draw rate is similar to an exhumer, but a full set of fighters runs about 270 mil and that's for 27 individual units. If you're going to keep the cost this high, they need to be a lot tougher. Realistically, I don't think they should have this much T2/random crap in them for production.

DRONES: PER DRONE? TOTAL: COST Per Unit? TOTAL COST:
Elite Drone AI 50 250 1048994 262248500
Drone Synaptic Relay Wiring 600 3000 11900 35700000
Drone Capillary Fluid 350 1750 53994 94489500
Drone Cerebral Fragment 125 625 90000 56250000
Drone Tactical Limb 125 625 83000 51875000
Drone Epidermal Shielding Chunk 150 750 40000 30000000
Drone Coronary unit 75 375 371000 139125000
Morphite 200 1000 9244 9244000
R.A.M.- Robotics 15 75 290 21750
Modulated Strip Miner II 1 5 3820000 19100000
Mining Laser Upgrade II 10 50 700000 35000000
Ion Thruster 20 100 38400 3840000
Magnetometric Sensor Cluster 45 225 27150 6108750
Photon Microprocessor 500 2500 43850 109625000
Crystalline Carbonide Armor Plate 500 2500 10250 25625000
Fusion Reactor Unit 15 75 118700 8902500
Oscillator Capacitor Unit 120 600 44970 26982000
Pulse Shield Emitter 45 225 40000 9000000

TOTAL: 923,137,000

Director of Frozen Corpse Industries.
Arronicus
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2 - 2016-10-23 03:16:56 UTC
I'm okay with the cost, it's heavily inflated right now and will come down gradually over time, but dont forget, there's also the cost of the bpcs to produce them, which could tack on anywhere near as much as another 500m or something, depending on how ccp sets the bpcs.

The hp is a serious problem though, considering with what ease rats may be able to pop your drones if you glance away from the computer for even a couple seconds. Never has it been so easy before to lose 200m+ at a time to rats.
TigerXtrm
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#3 - 2016-10-23 13:14:10 UTC
If they're gonna have the cost of an exhumer they should have the tank of an exhumer. Simple as that, really. Putting 200m ISK drones on the field that go *poof* as soon as someone sneezes at them is kind of ridiculous.

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Arronicus
State War Academy
Caldari State
#4 - 2016-10-24 11:38:56 UTC
TigerXtrm wrote:
If they're gonna have the cost of an exhumer they should have the tank of an exhumer. Simple as that, really. Putting 200m ISK drones on the field that go *poof* as soon as someone sneezes at them is kind of ridiculous.


For anyone wondering, excavators have 4500 EHP, 0 resists, 200m sig radius with all skills level 5. They will die VERY quickly to rats if you aren't paying attention for a moment.

"Boo hoo wah wah, my fighters get headshotted sometimes"

Losing 1 excavator is the equivelant of losing 10-20 fighters in 1 go.
Amak Boma
Dragon Factory
xX SERENITY Xx
#5 - 2016-10-24 11:58:00 UTC
yes you see 5 mackinaws and 5 skiffs with 1b in drones per exhumer just bring 2 - 3 smartbobm battleships gank the drones to cause 10b damage onstead to try and destroy the exhumer ships just kill these expensive drones
CCP Fozzie
C C P
C C P Alliance
#6 - 2016-10-24 13:38:27 UTC
The HP point is a good one. The lack of resistances was just because of an oversight on the first pass on our part, but at the same time as correcting the resists (they'll have the resists of a T1 ship plus a 20% resist bonus) we're also tweaking the base HP values up a fair bit.

The build cost is currently a bit skewed by people buying out all the materials in Jita, but we'll definitely keep an eye on them and potentially adjust drop rates as needed.

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TigerXtrm
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#7 - 2016-10-24 15:00:48 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
The HP point is a good one. The lack of resistances was just because of an oversight on the first pass on our part, but at the same time as correcting the resists (they'll have the resists of a T1 ship plus a 20% resist bonus) we're also tweaking the base HP values up a fair bit.

The build cost is currently a bit skewed by people buying out all the materials in Jita, but we'll definitely keep an eye on them and potentially adjust drop rates as needed.


What is the pricepoint you're aiming for for these drones?

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FearlessLittleToaster
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2016-10-24 16:25:44 UTC  |  Edited by: FearlessLittleToaster
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Useful, informative answers.


Has there been any change to their movement speed? Last I saw it was 100 m/s, which has a major impact on their survivability and a huge one on their utility as miners. I'm looking at setting up a major Rorq based mining operation post-November and the low speed remains the real elephant in the room.
erdrickjr
Perkone
Caldari State
#9 - 2016-10-24 19:13:00 UTC
well I was just on on my other account and looks like the speed is 230m/s. Which if you look at mining drone 2 are 600....
TigerXtrm
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#10 - 2016-10-24 19:18:44 UTC
FearlessLittleToaster wrote:
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Useful, informative answers.


Has there been any change to their movement speed? Last I saw it was 100 m/s, which has a major impact on their survivability and a huge one on their utility as miners. I'm looking at setting up a major Rorq based mining operation post-November and the low speed remains the real elephant in the room.


Current base speed is 200m/s. With skills and the industrial core it will be a bit higher. Around 280m/s if I'm not mistaken.

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FearlessLittleToaster
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2016-10-24 19:24:22 UTC
TigerXtrm wrote:
Current base speed is 200m/s. With skills and the industrial core it will be a bit higher. Around 280m/s if I'm not mistaken.


Thank you. Appears I was out of date.
Svodola Darkfury
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2016-10-30 23:04:06 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
The HP point is a good one. The lack of resistances was just because of an oversight on the first pass on our part, but at the same time as correcting the resists (they'll have the resists of a T1 ship plus a 20% resist bonus) we're also tweaking the base HP values up a fair bit.

The build cost is currently a bit skewed by people buying out all the materials in Jita, but we'll definitely keep an eye on them and potentially adjust drop rates as needed.



Thanks Fozzie. Appreciate the response. Like I said, improvements in survivability go a long ways for the viability of the cost.

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lanyaie
Nocturnal Romance
Cynosural Field Theory.
#13 - 2016-11-14 10:52:09 UTC
Back to this Topic....the current cost of these drones is 500m each, surely that's not their intended cost? And if it is, is this supposed to be a drone that is hard to achieve? With elite drone AI now being a stable 4M since buys have caught up, the price doesn't seem like it'll drop unless something is changed.

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Suchers
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#14 - 2016-11-18 09:08:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Suchers
The price is absolute nonsence at the time. But even with Elite Drone AI at 3-4 mio isk its too much.

I wanted to build some drones yesterday, but i withdraw with cost of 750 mio each. If i look at the market now, the price of Elite Drone is increased again. Yesterday it was 11mio, now 13,5mio, which leads to drone cost of 850mio+. The price is calculated without bpc. If you had luck and calulate only 1200 Isk/lp ( normal value over time for most lp stores) it cost 300 mio, what lead to another 60mio per drone. Actual silly bpc prices are around 1.5billion and so on.

That is realy working as intended?

What is the estimated price which CCP see as good?

T1 Fighters 15mio each
Excavator Drones 100mio, 200mio, 500mio?
Cptcarter
State War Academy
Caldari State
#15 - 2016-11-18 23:04:25 UTC
1. Why would you put the Elite Drone AI as part of the material and 50 of them to boot when they only drone in NPC drone space and that drop rate is low to begin with. There are other regions most of the eve pop are in that have no access to these drone AI which begs to ask... Why o Why, because of these drone AI's it has double the price of the Capital Mining drones, which for 1B a pop i am sure you did not want them to cost that much. And those prices will stay that high for awhile because of the rarity of this item and the region for which they drop.

2. So you want a Rorq out in a belt, with 5 of these drones stuck for 5mins at a time all while WH grps are going to farm the hell out of Lvl 5 indexes for Indy. risking over 5B worth of assets just to receive boost will drop and the price of ore will increase over time.

3. So now most mining grps are either using there rorqs with very little benefit to mining with the large risk of getting ganked. Mark my word I will come back to this post and laugh when indy slowly dwindles down to very small grps and prices sky rocket and you will be to late to fix it.
Petrified
Old and Petrified Syndication
#16 - 2016-11-19 01:46:42 UTC
Always keep in mind that the initial cost of newly introduced items will always be on the high side. Look at it after a month of being out and available.

That said: The number of Elite drone AI does seem on the high side.

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Tystoo
Space Cake Inc.
#17 - 2016-11-19 10:09:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Tystoo
Cptcarter wrote:
1. Why would you put the Elite Drone AI as part of the material and 50 of them to boot when they only drone in NPC drone space and that drop rate is low to begin with. There are other regions most of the eve pop are in that have no access to these drone AI which begs to ask... Why o Why, because of these drone AI's it has double the price of the Capital Mining drones, which for 1B a pop i am sure you did not want them to cost that much. And those prices will stay that high for awhile because of the rarity of this item and the region for which they drop.


The mother drone in rouge Rogue Drone Harassment level 4 mission drops 1 Elite Drone AI, so you might try your luck getting some in mission hubs.

I thought the 3 battleship sized drones in the second pocket dropped them too but they do not drop them any more.
Baki Yuku
Doomheim
#18 - 2016-11-19 11:35:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Baki Yuku
Honstly the build materials are okay and so is the price once the market settles down these drone will be around 350-450mil which is more then fair given how much they mine if your rorqual is fit for it. The real issue if there is any is that these drones seriosuly need more base space 100 m/s and 200 m/s for ice and ore drones respectivly is way way to slow. Making them look great on paper with huge amounts of m³ mined but then backdoor nerfing them by setting their move speed to rediciously low is kind of a ****** move. Especially when you concider the cost of them they cost twice as much as a hulk or skiff even after the price settles down to where it should be.

I'm not saying they should do 1700m/s they did on SISI but 200 m/s? Really at least make it 400 m/s which would translate to ~1k m/s if people fit for max speed by giving up tank. That would mean mining an astroid 10km away from you means 20 seconds travel time. compared to 45 seconds now if you fit for max speed. I don't think that is asking to much. It is even worse for ice mining drones as they only have 100 m/s base speed.

So either increase the base speed of the drones or allow bust links to apply to them which would have the same effect as it would offset bad travel time by cutting down mining cycle time. I'm fine with either one of these but I'd prefer the speed buff base losing drones to a roaming with arty ships due to slow travel time of your drones really does suck.
COMMANDER KATMAN
State War Academy
Caldari State
#19 - 2016-11-26 22:10:23 UTC
Baki Yuku wrote:
Honstly the build materials are okay and so is the price once the market settles down these drone will be around 350-450mil which is more then fair given how much they mine if your rorqual is fit for it. The real issue if there is any is that these drones seriosuly need more base space 100 m/s and 200 m/s for ice and ore drones respectivly is way way to slow. Making them look great on paper with huge amounts of m³ mined but then backdoor nerfing them by setting their move speed to rediciously low is kind of a ****** move. Especially when you concider the cost of them they cost twice as much as a hulk or skiff even after the price settles down to where it should be.

I'm not saying they should do 1700m/s they did on SISI but 200 m/s? Really at least make it 400 m/s which would translate to ~1k m/s if people fit for max speed by giving up tank. That would mean mining an astroid 10km away from you means 20 seconds travel time. compared to 45 seconds now if you fit for max speed. I don't think that is asking to much. It is even worse for ice mining drones as they only have 100 m/s base speed.

So either increase the base speed of the drones or allow bust links to apply to them which would have the same effect as it would offset bad travel time by cutting down mining cycle time. I'm fine with either one of these but I'd prefer the speed buff base losing drones to a roaming with arty ships due to slow travel time of your drones really does suck.


First off the 'Excavator' Drone's will never cost as low as 400m... the bpc alone has a hard cap on price due to it costing 80,000 Ore LP + 60m per 5 run print, then all the build mats needed to build.

I think when CCP somehow gives us more access to Elite Drone Ai the price might settle around 1b per drone but these things are just to good and to much needed to make them to be any cheaper. (Idea Elite ai's should be seeded in the ore lp store for 5-10m in cost)

Now, after much testing yes the drones need a speed buff... I think a base of 350m/s on the ore drones and maybe 275m/s on the ice should get them to where they need to be, and put them close to 1km/s with a few drone navs, at the cost mid slots on the rorq.

as for boosts working with the drones, I think this will push them in to insane OP levels, boosts always have been for *ships* only...

Maybe give us 1 new charge that gives a bonus to all mining drones within range but 10% cycle & amount at max levels for balance

I would also like to see a full set of new Mining implants to match all the changes Eve has had to mining, also a set that boosts the mining drones in different ways would be nice.


Thanks.

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Svodola Darkfury
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#20 - 2016-11-29 01:51:35 UTC
Glad to see some responses for folks that are actually using the drones. I'm kicking myself for not buying them when the mats were a 250mil each :p

Director of Frozen Corpse Industries.