EVE General Discussion

I will first say that I haven't played in quite some time, but I've kept my account subbed to keep my skills training.

I have been reading through the new ship updates and noticed Drones are going to play an important role in many of the new ships, as a long time drone user, I find this great. When I started this character I skilled him directly into the Arbitrator, later the Vexor & Myrm and finally the Curse.

I found drone ships like the Vexor & Myrm to be outstanding platforms for low sec piracy away from the blobby areas. These ships allowed for a great range of targets due to their ability to do damage with both guns & drones and the awesome repping power of the Myrm and the Vexor being almost always under estimated.

There was a problem that eventually led me to stop flying these ships in favor of straight-up gun or missile platforms and that was the cost of drones. The Myrm just became ridiculous followed not far behind were the Arbi & Vexor both as T1 cruiser hull would routinely cost upwards of 5 mil isk a load out just to carry a full bay of drones. I think the Myrm was closer to 7 mil at the time.

I just logged in to check the current prices and warriors & hobgoblins were both about 500k each. I didn't bother to check meds or large because for just a set of 5 lights you are looking at 2.5 million which is absurd when you consider drones can be destroyed in combat unlike any other weapon system and are almost a disposable weapon system.

This kind of pricing kills the long term affordability of using these ships over a gun or missile platform ship. It's quite honestly why I stopped flying the Vexor and switched to the Rupture for a solo cruiser. At the time my Vexors were costing me easily 5 million more than my Ruptues and at today's drone prices I can easily tell you that's gone up by a large margin.

CCP, I'm hoping you will look into this and do something that will allows the new drone ships to be cost effective just as I hope they will be combat effective.

ammo isnt cheap.

Drone ships like the Vexor & Myrm for example also carry ammo.

CCP cannot dictate the price charged for drones, but can change the cost of making them. Smaller amounts of moon goo, lower time to invent the T2 BPC, less minerals for the T1 base, and so on.

On the other side, drones are rarely lost in missions, so the high cost there is not relevant. Ive tested the new AI on the test server and its still easy to keep you drones alive. In PvP people like to overheat guns and whatnot, damaging them and running up costs to repair them. You cannot overheat drones.

tl;dr I am poor please make the things I like to use cheaper

You are wrong about the new AI not hammering drones, and you have been told why in several threads.
CCP has stated there is a "defect" in the AI code, which allows 2nd and subsequent releases of drones to be ignored by the AI.
CCP plans on releasing the code with this "defect", and then "fix" this issue at a later date, post Dec 5th.

So yes, drone users will be OK on Dec 4th, but some time down the road, after CCP has put out all the other fires they are introducing in 2 weeks, heavy and light drones will be wiped out as PvE platforms.

Which begs a painfully obvious question: why did CCP waste all that time and manpower fiddling with the AI, if even the new AI is so ludicrously easily circumvented?

I just finished heavy assault ships 5 so my Ishtars have a big enough belly for all the throwaway drones but recalling drones constantly will just be a pain. I'll just get a Machariel sooner or later.

this man knows

Or you could be like those of us who actually pay attention and don't have to use this exploit at all.