Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I propose i slight adjustment for them to be able to field small drone bay same as Talos is.

I consider this a basic change to increase usability to some extent and don't see any imbalance / downfall of this idea.

Please comment pros and cons if you see any.

This.

I played around with some fits to catch perched ABCs in Low and Null back when blap-and-warp-off ABCs were the flavor of the month and all of them but the Talos are hugely vulnerable to Frigates at close range, to the point that a Bomber can theoretically solo one. The exception is the Talos because those drones give it a decent defense against a frigate or two. The trade off there is it has to fit Hybrids which have a very swing-y trade off between range vs DPS and tracking in the form of Blasters vs Rails.

Yes I don't think it will make huge difference it will just improve their usability a bit I often find my self in taos just because it have drone bay it isn't locked to specific role hard as others.

Just to be clear I am 101% for the option to nerf talos to level of other t3 bc's it lacks nothing and in any way compared to it counterparts it just have drone bay and best reason i can think of for that is "just because".

But in interest of more game play not less where meta atm is and introduction of t3d t2d and changes to all types of frigates I think introducing small drone bay to rest of the lineup is minor but healthy addon to bc3 hulls.

Have talos keep bay, minmatar gets more speed, amarr gets more armor, and naga gets better shield.
Or just more speed across the board so you can stay away from frigates easier.
Something thats squishy shouldnt also be slow.

Honestly they should be able to field some. T3 or attack BCs can of course punch above their weight using larger guns, but that doesn't mean we have to leave them entirely vulnerable to smaller ships. They won't break the game if they can field some and it will help their surviveability in some situations but a single flight of light drones isn't likely to turn the tide of most situations.

They are meant to be glass cannons very vulnerable to small ships.

Get rid of the talos drone bay. Give it a rof bonus.

I personally wouldn't be bothered if the Naga and Nado got 10/15 and the oracle 15/20. Seemed vastly silly to me to start to not give them ANY drone bay.

The Talos only has the best DPS with Blasters, which require it to get very close to its target. Rails have better range, but atrocious tracking, which means the ship needs to keep an enemy at range to be successful. In either the Blasters case or the Rails case the drones give the Talos a little bit of help at covering its weaknesses, with blasters they give damage projection, with rails they give help against small and fast ships.

The other three don't really have the same problems to the same degree.

On the Oracle Pulse Lasers have better range bands than Blasters so they can engage further out, at or past Drone Control range with Scorch. Beam Lasers have instant ammo swapping for range changes and better tracking than Rails.

The Naga and the Tornado both have range bonuses, helping them keep standoff ranges even in a "close range" fight, and the Tornado has the best speed helping it pull range. The Naga also has the same gun DPS as the Talos while having better range, which helps it significantly in terms of viability in the sort of fleets ABCs tend to show up in.

Really I'm not seeing the case for adding drones to these ships. I could maybe see the case for removing them from the Talos though. The ship's almost as fast as the Tornado, and has a good slot layout for webs and other tackle to deal with short range threats, or TCs to extent range on its rails.

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Basically I think what this comes down to is why do these ships need drones? What does it add?

Solo it plugs a significant weakness, but these ships are intended to have that weakness, they're glass cannons using oversized guns. If a Frigate gets on top of you he should be able to eat your lunch unless you've fit to deal with him. As things stand though a single flight of Light Drones, managed correctly, is perfectly capable of driving off or killing most Frigates.

In a Fleet it gives you the option of a pretty good sized ball of Light Drones for anti-frig and anti-Fighter work. Since, again, we're talking about cheaper hulls with BS levels of DPS I'm not really seeing that as justified or needed either.

Clearly OP you have some use-case in mind or you wouldn't be requesting this change, so what do you feel you need drones for and why do these intentionally glass-cannon and niche ships need that buff?

You've made basically no case for why this is a good change though, it's just "why not", and changes need a "why" for what they improve.

As I outlined above the Talos is in a pretty weak position out of the four. Arguably the Naga is even weaker but the combination of a range and damage bonus at least gives it a niche that it can fill.

Also is you look at the stats for the four ships on zKill the Talos is the second lowest performing of the four ships, only beating the Naga in use, so the Tornado and Oracle probably don't need the help a drone bay would give them. The Naga might, but Drones aren't really a Caldari thing and like I said the ship at least has a niche. Unless there's a distinct reason they need the buff better to leave them as-is rather than risk someone finding some abuseable use-case for these things plus drones.

Overall I'm just not seeing, nor have you presented, a case for why these ships should be changed this way beyond "well we need consistency" which isn't the case. There are plenty of ship classes across the game where not every ship has a drone bay or the same size drone bay or... see what I mean?

No one did so far because adding basic anti frig bay/ability doesn't do much look at Talos i don't know what else to say to you.