Ships & Modules

And yet, those complaining about sentry drones will miss your point completely just to see something else in the game nerfed. Addressing the mechanics of fleets will resolve a lot issue players have with blobs and coalitions…

So the target has to be within my drone control range even when assigned

Because adding to the computational side of things is a good idea to solve blob specific issues

The solution is already in game in the way fighters are assigned with a hard limit based on assignee's drone skill .. adopt same for combat drones but with a x5 modifier (ie. can direct 25 'foreign' drones at once).

Word of caution though; It will not solve your issue, merely add to drone blobs micromanagement and in time make your problem even worse as overkill is more easily avoided with smaller fire teams .. so instead of the drone blob taking out one ship at a time with a massive damage overflow you'll have 2-3 ships dropping at a time.

Like the poster above you said, you completely missed the point.

There is no problem with drone-assist mechanics.

They have been around since ... forever.

You only see a problem with them now in a specific setting because they have been made popular there for the past two years and you just caught on.

The advantage is not that you can effectively manage focused fire. There are other systems (Artillery) which is far more effective at concerted fire and volley damage. Anyone who is not completely terrible at following commands or solely play in an environment where the environment superseed player action should be able to effectively lay down focused fire as easily or better with turrets than with drones (since assigning still come with a number of mechanical issues, as everything else... nothing is perfect even in spite of you just reaching the conclusion that the grass is greener).

The advantage is keeping your targets off coms and broadcasts, which is a meta-advantage that exist due to the stale environment in which you fight (where you sit still and everyone rely on the commands and actions of one player anyway; so any "grunt boredom" you attribute to drone-assigns equally exist with any other weapon system in that environment). That you push F1 once every 30-60 seconds does not change that fact.

One could even argue that drone-assists are more interactive, since players in those ships tend to manage their drones defensively, create cap chains and help out with the RR-effort while the trigger is firing off their drones. Compared to someone sitting still and pushing F1 nce every 30-60 seconds and waiting for new primaries, they are actually performing more actions in the game with their drones.

The problem is not the drone-assist mechanics, it's the environment in which you play.

Outside of that environment the drone-assist mechanics do not come with the "issues" you propose.

That means they don't "compound on blobbing effects" in the manner you presume.

Your "issues" are mostly not even due to the drone-mechanics, but directly derive from the environment anyway.

If I am not in a large gang under that meta, facing that lag or in that TiDi - your problem does not exist.

If I am not sitting still and trying to slug it out with a larger ship on it's premises - the problem does not exist.

If you want to have more fun, you should support a change to the paradigm of 200+ fleets sitting still on a single grid and slugging it out in 10% TiDi in ships that cost nothing to replace, over starbases that cost nothing to replace.

The win-win situation would be CCP renegging on their current direction and going back to making ingame resources (ISK) and mobility competetive factors again. They used to be just that.

Go back more than 5 years and sitting still to fire didn't use to be as effective, and since moving affected your accuracy both positively and negatively... not only was moving your ship more important, but how you moved your ship used to be directly tied to how effective you were at firing. That was "fun for grunts" and enabled both player action and interaction.

Then people like you came around suggesting single-minded solutions to drummed up "problems" in a stale environment which indeed, compounded and made things worse. You are apart of the problem.

Any change to the sheer power of sitting still in a large group and firing off large immobile guns is also an effective change to sentries (and Dreads and Supers). Suggesting that would have me applaud you - but you are not suggesting that, you are suggesting that the Battleship you sit still in should be better than the Carrier someone else sit still in, right?

I'd have to say that the super powered Tech 1 crusiers are a little bit more of a concern then sentry drones.... It's not like a Domi can drop 15 drones anymore anyway... So stop being bad and l2Counter

I'm in a scimitar and I can't assist with a warden II--right-click menu screenshot

am I missing something? (we can't assist with sentries anymore?)

I'm testing (well, attempting to test) whether I can assist with a drone outside of targeting range, but within control range (with 2 link augs)

targeting range is 74km, aggressor is at 90km, drone control range is 108km. seeing if my sentry will engage aggressor while set to assist.

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wtf i can't assist with regular drones either

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omg. uh, forgot about the fleet requirement

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it works. drones assist beyond targeting range, but within drone control range.

am I correct to assume that by extension, damps do not affect assisted drone range (and drone link augs are all that are needed to provide assisted drone dps, and their control range cannot be damped)

Sentry Boats are the current flavor of the month doctrines. (Yes they were used before i know)

We have already proved multiple ways to counter them:


1. Bomb them. You can kill/cripple most of their fleet.

2. Ewar the **** out of their FCs thus nuetralizing the entire fleets dps.

3. Engaging them with long range weaponary.

4. Drop Blap Dreads on them.

Thats 4 very easy hard counters to the domi/geddon/prophecy/vexor fleets.


Hell we have even killed Boot Carriers(Slow Cats) under reps which in theory should be nearly impossible. You should be cap chaining meaning 2-3 people have you locked. Granted the fleet comp works better with nothing but archons and tanks more.

So no I do not think its completely overpowered to be able to assist 1k sentries. They dont track perfectly.

The problem of assigning your ability to have fun over to an FC (which is the OP's actual problem) is actually encountered when you join a nullsec blob corp/alliance.

Regarding bombing off sentries - this won't work when people figure out how to assign 'recall drones' to F12 nd can do it literally the moment they see a bomb on overview.

The Fat Cat doctrine of FW is a miniaturised version of this; there are counters.

Countering the latest TSB Domi fit with alpha fleets isn't the way. You are fighting against the whole damn idea of the TSB by locking up the domis and trying to alpha them. Much better to go free fire and overwhelm their logis with broadcasts and force them to scatter.

This doctrine would actually be harder to counter with mobile sentry snipers, oldendays style, eg; ishtars with 80km drone control ranges. You can drop your drones spread out, and fly around the place, meaning no one can bomb you and your sentries.

IMHO, the mechanic is fine - its amazing that people would decide that assigning away all interaction is fun. Its a problem with the culture of the game versus game mechanics.

No to anything that allows one player to act on behalf of 250 other players. That is a very broken mechanic and should be taken out of the game. Fleet fights are already boring as it is.

Kill the FC who is commanding all the dornes?