Player Features and Ideas Discussion

well there's a phrase that says "if you cannot with them, join them"......

with the current iteration of the worm, we get a ship that has two powerfull drones that act as basically two wingmans, if this feature extendes over to the Gila and the Rattlesnake, why not extend it to the other drone boats?

im sorry if the idea doesnt seems attractive for the other drone users, i too like to have my small flotilla but as many people points, the current state of the server cannot handle so many entities in large battles, and the community cannot control itself so there needs to be a reduction of the number of drones in the scene.

joining that its the lack of development in the drone department, where the only advances have been new modules and a set of salvaging drones, along with integrated drones.

so basically taking in account the change that as many people supports, will make gurista ships use less drones for more power. i came with the following propositions:


1. give real racial traits to the drones:

in order to make drones more unique, each racial drone will have its own set of bonuses and will scale with the racial drone synchronization skill per lvl:

-Amarr drones get 4% bonus to armor resistances and a role bonus to laser damage
-Gallente drones get 7,5% bonus to armor repair amount and a role bonus to hybrid damage
-Caldari drones get 4% bonus to shield resistances and a role bonus to missile damage
-Minmatar drones get 7,5% bonus to shield boost amount and a role bonus to projectile damage

note that this is applied to normal T1 drones, T2 drones, navy, EWAR and integrated/augmented drones would have their own bonuses too...

after hearing this you will wonder, why put weapon bonuses and tanking bonuses to drones? its absurd, well

2. make drones as customizable as posible :

Drones will be able to be fitted and will use the same interface as the spaceship, the layout of drones is to be decided, but i guess it will be something like this

-lights: 1/2-1/1-2
-meds: 1/3-2/2-3
-heavies: 1/5-3/3-5
-sentries: 1/5-3/3-5
-fighters: 3/8-6/6-8
-fighter bombers: 5/8-6/6-8

feel free to discuss that, one thing to take in account is that for all of them, drones dont have a rig slot, the number of slots for mids and lows depends on the drone's race (amarr/gallente with less mids, minmatar and caldari with less lows)
T1 drones are limited to one highslot and a single weapon moun, T2 drones get 2 highslots and +1 weapon mount along with T2 resists, navy drones get the same aditional slots as T2 but no aditional weapon, dont require so much skill and dont have T2 resists but better tank than T2, EWAR/CWAR and Logi drones get 3 highslots but no aditional weapons, augmented/improved drones get 3 highslots and 2 weapon mounts but remain with T1 resists and normal drone tank....that could be a start...

aditional to that, fighters get more highslots, the normal fighters has 3 highs with 3 weapon mounts, while the fighter bomber gets 2 aditional utility slots, or in that case +1 extra weapon, depends in what people think they should have TBH

now, about modules, well there are two possible ways to achieve this:

A. Drones get their own type of modules:

the modules will be of class DS, DM and DL, which means Drone Light, Drone Medium and Drone Large, DL modules are used by Heavies, Sentries and Fighters/Fighter Bombers

there would be salvagers, mining lasers, EWAR modules, webifiers, cap and cap warfare modules, prop modules, tank modules, logi modules and weapon modules.

the modules will be scale to the drone own attributes, so dont expect a light drone giving the punth of a frigate at least for now. there needs to be a balance...

B: Drones can use spaceship modules:

this is a more crazy idea, basically drones would be able to use the same modules than players, the difference is that there will be restrictions:

-modules limited by their size (no light drones with medium shield extenders or 10mn ABs for example)
-no scanning modules
-no warp jamming
-no warp stabs
-no strip mining modules
-no gas, no ice harvesters
-no weapon upgrades
-etc.......

basically the drones would get limited to the modules mentioned in option A...

now that drones are customizable we come to the issue, but thats basically making players use 2 or more ships at the same time. the answer is, yes and no, drones wont have the same performance as another player ship, never should they..

but the discussion will scalate to the bonuses of drone mods used by ships, these modules stay, because drones wont have more damage bonuses than their role bonus, drones wont get weapon upgrade bonuses, nor prop bonuses nor rigs, all of that is complemented by the droneboat via Damage Amplifiers, Omnis, Link Augmentors and Navigation Computers. while drones will have their own modules and will be bonused they will still be subpar in power to enemy spaceships...

still there's a discussion, but then what's the point in having more than one?

3. global reduction in bandwidth (?):

this is more of a discussion here, the idea is to make drones customizable by the player, much way as spaceships. i wouldnt like the idea of nerfin the bandwidth of all the ships in the game, specially droneboats, i'll let that to discuss in this thread......

I think you're jumping a bit off the deepend here. I don't think reducing the worm to 2 powerful drones has anything to do with server load and drone assist mechanics as these are pirate ships and don't see much use in server-stressing battles. I don't think its indicative of any change in direction of drones.

its not much of a difference TBH:

1. drones now can tank directly, you dont need to keep scooping sentries to cargo nor recall them, you can manage their modules and as such they can keep fighting without returning to the ship, unless they get too much damage

2. its more entertaining than just "launch drones, select target, select drones from a tab, right click, engage target", its like a tactical game now, should this drone attack, should this other jam the enemy, should this one other repair the others

3. its an isk investment still, just that you are less propense to loose the drones, you only spend isk in repairs and fitting them, in the long run it could be even more of an isk sink than just loosing them..

4. drone modules open a new part for the market, and it could mean new modules that could enrich the isk potential of the Drone Regions.....(deadspace drone modules for drones!)

well if put in aggresive, but what i want to point is that you would be able to manage each drone like if it was your ship, same interface and all

Yes, but I hardly need aditional Electronic Warfare besides the stuff I already use on my ship because it can take more damage and I would not have to leave it behind when I need to warp out.

Also, you either use sets of specialised Drones or you fail. Using 2 Warrior II + 3 EC-300 is a good idea... said no one ever, for the same reason why you should not mix weapon systems.


And do you realy want to control 5 additional ships with Weapons, Propulsionmod, Tank and E-war? That is like 20-25 additional buttons you have to press, for ... every ... single ... enemy ...

But what if it wasn't five additional drones.
What if it was one or two.
What if Bandwidth became the number of modules you can activate on a drone at once. So you have to choose between activating the repper on a drone, or activating the guns, or activating the shield hardeners vs passive hardeners......
What if overheating a module also costs bandwidth on your drones.
Suddenly you are making value judgements in combat rather than 'Press F'

negh too much complication, bandwidth could define the control range of drones, but then could mean less control range or extreme control range i dont know how would that affect the current system, as for the number of drones, it would have to be moved to other attribute, if not making it an attribute by itself (frigates limited to 1 light drone, destroyers to 2 with the option for a medium, cruisers 3 light drones or 1 light+one medium, etcetera) basically bandwidth would be used for something else while ships had a fixed number of drones to launch.

in the case of drone boats they could have one aditional drone for this, but the concesus would be that practically all ships with a dronebay would suffer a nerf.....

A fully maxed Rattlesnake fielding 5 Ogre II's with 4 DDA II's in its low slots gets:

12*1.6*1.2*2*1.5*1.25*1.1*1.23*1.2*1.1311*1.065*5 = 844.92 DPS

From its drones before factoring in the 4 launchers. Could probably push a little past 1k DPS on a good day.

Meanwhile, a Machariel can push over 1300 DPS(!!) from its 7 turrets with tech2 ammunition BEFORE factoring in the 5 sentries it can theoretically field - in theory, it can push well over 1500 DPS against any webbed foe within 20 km.

And droneboats are "way too powerful"...how...?

No there isn't.

1. yeah it could give problems to the server load, that's why i scrapped the idea
2. their T2 versions are corporation based, this doesnt mean they cant (and should) have a bonus, at least in the tanking department
3. in what form would they have overpowered configurations?, i've already said they wont have weapon upgrades avaliable, nor propulsion bonuses, nor rigs, at its best they would have 1 single weapon mount and 3 mids/lows at maximum depending on the drone (if its armor or shield drone), you wont see a minmatar drone with 2 gyros II and with a warp scrambler attached, at its best the drone would have an autocannon with some diagnostics to cover its micro and a web+invul, if not a shield booster+invul... i planned it that way so people wouldnt give more power the drones, outside of the modules in their own ship (damage is given by DDAs, speed by nav computers, tracking/falloff/optimal by omnis, and extra durability by rigs, the drones will just be aditional weapons, mining lasers, EWAR or just logistics support)......

4. in that case we can just make drones use ship modules, of course with an scaling so they dont have the same output of an spaceship...anda a limity in what they can fit, again, based in point 3....

5. the current system makes drones a need for most ships, specially large ships, given the problem od weapon size vs ship size......if the ship cannot field 5 drones, at least should be able to be locked to a limited number of customizable drones, with a size corresponding to the ship size (light for frigate/destroyer, up to medium with cruisers/BCs, heavies/sentries for BS and capitals, up to fighters/fighters bombers for supers, or whatever.......)