Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Agreed, would love to get some feedback from CCP Devs re: Drones.

I never had an original idea in my life - which is a good thing.


(it's also a bad thing, since it's said that an idle mind is the devil's workshop, and I got a while freaking factory).

I definitely believe that a feature like that for drones would be expansion worthy. Certainly put EVE back on top. Selling the scripts on market probably wouldn't work, but it'd certainly spawn its own website similar to Battleclinic for Drone Scripts.

This new AI has completely killed one of my guy's PvE. Was using Arbitrator to probe and do profession sites, and also clear out up to 4/10 and equivalent combat sites. This is totally impossible now. Even if I do get NPC aggo, which seems more difficult now btw, a mixed blessing, as soon as drones are out they all immediately switch to drones and start shooting them. So now it's lock NPC, release drones, attack NPC, recall drones, let them sit for a while for shields to regenerate, lock next NPC, rinse repeat. There is no other way. There is no way to protect drones. If a drone gets webbed, you can just forget about it, it's gonna die. That's with very good drone skills and T2 drones of course.

So, grats CCP. If people are still doing PvE with drone boats and only minor inconveniences, I don't know how they're doing it, but I am searching the forums to see if people are.

I also imagine the long standing practice of bringing newbros to level 4 missions and such to help them make money and be friendly is pretty much dead as well. Nothing like getting on grid in your brand new destroyer and getting 20 rats targeting you instantly to introduce you to the game.

From what i understand (though i may be wrong), Sleepers use a modular AI that works off a priority system. Simple solution: Give that AI to Drones as well and allow us to define the priorities, then redo the UI to be functional. In essence, something similar to the Gambit system of Final Fantasy XII, which was excellent for managing multiple units.

Also, do something about the massive delay between Drones being ordered to do something and Drones actually doing it. And make Heavy Drones not completely useless in PvE.

I hope you don't mind, but I stopped reading your post after you said this. I'm sure your post was good, but I'm not going to bother because of your lack of hyperbole.

Moving from General Discussion to Features & Ideas Discussion.

The problems with the new AI and drones are fairly simple.


They want drones to be used up similar to the way ammo is used up, but the drone system does not support that.

A full flight of drones easily costs as much as an equivalent weapon system and there is very limited space for 'reloads' making the fact that they now get shot out of space with regularity even with the pilot being ocd about watching them much more than simply annoying. Using drones now is kind of like having your weapons randomly overheat only without the benefits... sometimes they just burn out in a few seconds and are worthless until you get back to the station.

I am in favor of drones, and any other ships entering the mission space, being viable targets for the rats, and that the silly stupid ai of one target till death has been done away with. However, if we are going to introduce aggro mechanics to EVE, we need to introduce the whole concept---meaning ways to manage aggro. It is currently somewhere between exceedingly difficult to impossible to bring a fleet of mixed sized ships into a level 4 mission unless everyone is a very skilled pilot and in T2 ships with multiple Logi pilots. Eventually something other than a battleship gathers the aggro of the whole room and pops like a soap bubble. I'm not really seeing the 'size appropriate' splitting of aggro happening. This is true of drones as well as pilots in smaller ships.

To fix the drones needs a overhaul of the entire system, or else a massive reduction in the signature of drones so that they can't be reliably hit by anything under frigate size. They need to be altered such that they support the 'drones are ammo' paradigm, or else changed so that they are as viable in combat as other ships. I'd tend to change them so that you install a Drone System in your ship which used up 'ammo' in the form of spare parts---when activated the system lauches it's drone, when the drone returned it is repaired using parts, when the drone is destroyed another is built using the parts (taking some time, a minute or 2). This way you keep the dynamic of drones, but don't cripple a drone boat until it returns to station.

For added fun give us some modules or make it a feature of the Drone System that parts are made from metal scraps and maybe cheap salvage components.

Again. Because I think that in order to make drones a comparable weapon system to the other ones it would be neccessary to make them easy to use, making them a combination of modules and the drones theirselfes. Maybe something like this:

• get rid of the obsolete "return and orbit"
• combine launch and attack/repair/mine/salvage into one single command
• add drone repair to ships
• keep a ships drone bandwith
• remove drone bay (exchange with modules)
• exchange Drones with so called "Drone Swarms" (more information on that further down this post)
• exchange Fighters and Fighter Bombers with "Fighter Squadrons" and "Fighter Bomber Squadrons"
• every Swarm consists of 100 Drones/ Fighters/ Bomber Fighters

• Give drones/swarms an actual module(capacitor booster like) "Swarm Control Unit" f.e. (small, medium, heavy) / "Flight Command Unit" (Fighters, Bombers)


• every module can be loaded with up to five Drone Swarms/Fighter Squadron/ Bomber Fighter Squadron
• only five swarms can be active at a time (either through a single module or spread over installed modules)
• amount of swarms launched from one module will act as a single unit (and can therefore just be attacked as one)
• drones might be listed in the overview as "Hobgoblin Swarm", "Vespa II Swarm" etc.
• no overheat option (in regard of the drone damage amplifier)
• keep module overheat damage visualization as an indicator for swarms getting damage (reducing the number of drones accordingly)
----balancing would be needed but swarms could still be lost due to damage AND would be prevented from being the all mighty weapon system (downside: no micromanagent of single drones)
----swarms have shield/ armor/ hull. the deeper the damage hits, the faster the number of drones will be reduced

• lost swarms can only be reloaded when all remaining swarms of a module have returned to the ship (not sure about this)
• damaged swarms can be repaired (in ship) in order to reduce the rate of losing drones but their numbers can not be refilled through repair of any kind.
• swarms can still be repaired in space in order to reduce loss rate of drones(in regard to remote hull/ armor/ shield repairer)
• swarms can be repaired when returned to ship plus while being loaded into the module (repair over time, like shield repair of drones right now)
• lost drones of a swarm can only be brought to full numbers when "joined" with other "reduced" swarms of the same kind.
• swarm damage would be directly connected to the amount of drones in a swarm (decimating a swarm would lead to reduced damage)

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This is just a very rough idea of what I could imagine how the system might work. Reducing the actual drones in space to a single unit, a swarm, instead of five individuals could also save a lot of server recources lowering lag during big fleet fights. Of course depending on what CCP is capable of making out of it. But in order to make them look like a swarm there would be needed a visual overhaul that shows real swarms of drones. (Just fair when looking at the already overhauled weapon systems) This would also lead to a more plausible look and feel of drones regarding the size of them in comparison to the ships.

Regarding the Swarms:
Because they would now have numbers up to 100 or maybe 200 per module this might change peoples minds about drones being their babies and instead leading them to look at drones more like ammo and therefore making them less worried when losing them.

So please, it's just an idea and rough picture. Maybe someone of you might have constructive additions to this because as I know myself I most likely have missed some details.

Something that I have been thinking about is to finish put the drone groups for all sizes.

Scout Drone Role: Light drones used to engage targets from afar, using high speeds to evade enemy attacks.
Velocity: Excellent
Tracking: Excellent
Damage: Poor
HP: Poor

Heavy Drone Role: Heavy drones used to engage targets at close range, being equipped with superior weapons and sturdy defences, these drones will be able to take down almost any opponent.
Velocity: Poor
Tracking: Poor
Damage: Excellent
HP: Average

Sentry Drone Role: Stationary drone capable of accurately damaging opponents at extreme distances.
Velocity: Immobile
Tracking: Average
Damage: Average
HP: Excellent

Each of these drones would get a small, medium and large variant.