Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The GILA as far as I understand it, has always, as a pirate ship, been a synthesis of the very best its two parent navies could offer. For the GILA this mean drone warfare was primary. I am great with the changes to Drones themselves, but you're talking about neutering the Gil into a bad imitator of a Gallente destroyer level hull. Why should I have burned so much time to get into the ultra rare Gila -- harnessing the best of a Missile and Drone tradition to suddenly be losing vast amounts of Drone capability.

Here :: have a new bonus structure -- lose 1/2 your weapon systems in a heartbeat w/the removal of all missile bonuses... then on top of it dump a flat 50% bonus that applies to just medium drones -- and utterly wreck its capability with its now "primary" weapon system by gutting the drone bay and its capacity so brutally. If I am to specialize in just medium drones, then you bloody well ought to at least leave us the drone bay size so we can have our different flghts of various drones... after all, this is out _primary_weapon_system and as such, being able to configure our "ammo", ie. drones in this case, is absolutely paramount.

This reall and truly needs a serious rethink. Lastly -- If I wantd to just fly a drone boat w/o my missiles, I'd never have reached beyond my gallente hulls.

Regards.

SA

Sure let me clarify now that I've calmed down :)

GILA Impact analysis ------------------------------------


BOUNUS CHANGES::

Gallente Cruiser Bonus:

10% bonus to kinetic and thermal missile damage

versus a 10% drone damage and hitpoints for all drone types


Role Bonus:

500% bonus to medium drone damage and hitpoints

versus 50% bonus to Light Missile and Rocket max velocity giving us extended range

SLOT Changes:

Drones (bandwidth / bay): 20(-105) / 100(-300)

so -- we lose 105m3 of bandwidth and now have the ability to launch only an un-bonused flight of lights, or a super beefy flight of mediums. No more heavies or sentries, and no more geckos

we also lose 300m3 of logistics space for our drones overall. we now have room for just (2) flights of medium drones on our bays.... versus the massed wings I have available to me now.

We are going from a robust, hugely versatile Drone Sniper, to something that is, indeed more focused, but a mere shadow of what it was. Hope that helps clarify.

SA

Math isnt the issue. I'm not sure how you use your Drones and Drone bays,but I maintain flights of each type of medium drones,a salvage flight, a heavy contingent for tougher foes, and EWAR flights as well/. I worked my ass off for my Gila and Rattler. They are my favorite types of ships rugged Missile + Drone boats -- this set of changes limits my options in Drones and even with regards to missiles (see above). DPS balancing is all dandy, but if it sacrifices the flexibilty and to me the key nature of my favorite vessels IMO its not really a good set of changes.

Just think about it... With this change I'll get (5) flights of condensed extra-powered medium drones which will equal the DPS of my old medium flights on a flight per flight basis, but I will become severely ilmited in my application of drones across various environments and sitations.

Simple as that.

SA

This argument again.

Refuting paragraph 1: The Gila was primarily a drone carrier that ignored it's onboard missiles because it's missiles were practically unbonused, and almost did not meaningfully contribute to it's DPS output. Calling the new Gila a "bad imitator of a Gallente destroyer level hull" shows that you do not fully understand what the changes actually imply. Furthermore, if it was the "best of a Missile and Drone tradition", why did so many people tell me to just forgo using missiles entirely and slap on a bunch of energy neutralizers/NOS? Hm? Sounds like the missile part wasn't worth using. Whereas now, a significant chunk of your very reasonable DPS comes out of missiles, making it truly the "best of a Missile and Drone tradition". (Addendum: the 500% damage bonus to mediums as far as I can tell is to make sure that DPS is on par with what you can get out of the Gila now. With heavy drones. Which are slow. Mediums are not. They will be getting even faster, and I think also better tracking.)

You also claim (wrongfully) that Guristas ships have drones as their "primary" weapon system. Ever notice in ISIS how it says that Gurista ships "combine missiles and drones"? Hm. It's almost like they don't favour one over the other, and instead use both in a fashion that, after launch, may actually be quite valid- as it's precisely what a variety of other acceptable ships do, only Guristas utilize extremely powerful drones.

Refuting paragraph 2: ...Wait, what even are you arguing here? What's this about "the removal of all missile bonuses"? They get a 50% damage bonus, can you read? Yes, that's right- a 50% bonus to thermal and kinetic missile damage. With four launchers. This is actually kind of okay. Keep in mind you still have two drones (with a 500% bonus to damage and durability- yes, FIVE, HUNDRED, PERCENT) on top of that. It's going to be a dangerous brawler. Do you know yet just how the new drones are going to perform? I keep recalling hearing that tracking valkyries are going to make Frigates cry, so there's really no need to worry about losing any sort of capability against things smaller than you if you prepare for it (which is exactly how other cruisers work tbh). Furthermore. A flight of Gila drones is two. They'll take up 20m3 of space. Your drone bay has 100m3 of space. That's four sets of medium drones, and then four lights of whatever you want- salvage, ECM, whatever. You're essentially moaning about issues that don't exist in terms of "lack of drone bay space". And again you claim that Guristas are supposed to be "pure drone ships with support missiles". No, you're describing how they were flown before, and refuse to change for some reason despite the new setup being objectively better in terms of DPS and usability (Again- superdrones. They're going to be really, really tough to kill. You will have shipboard DPS as well instead of relying solely on drones.) It's clear that for once, CCP has an actual role in mind for these ships- adapt, and get an Ishtar or something if you want to cling to "the old ways".

All in all, I think your approach to the Guristas lineup really needs a serious rethink. Perhaps you should stick with Gallente ships for now, as they're not due for a radical overhaul (and improvement) in how they function on a fundamental level any time soon.

The point to the gila is can currently be used for missioning and exploration as you could use sentry drones and do some decent damage. The SOE ships while they can warp cloaked, do not do what the gila can (could).
The changes are not enough to make it useful as a missile boat, and I would really like to know who uses medium drones for missions or even pvp.
Before you all come raging at this, go and take it out on the test server and see how long you medium drones survive in any anom/mission.
When last did you see a PVPer, launch medium drones ?? its lights, heavy or sentry.. CCP is making this awesome ship in to a relic.

welp...gila + gecko's was fun while it lasted. Is there a box to check so I can "grandfather" in my current setup? The new ship design is nice though!

So what do you see now CCP?

Cynabal price just sliding away, another lost opportunity, nerfed into the ground.

Why do CCP do this? One ship is better to some degree, so lets nerf it to crap and make the others way better. Its just plain stupid.

You will be fitting 1 less neut and for general use, there is little need for a cap booster, so I guess it kinda evens out. If you want all neuts 0 nos then you will be completely dependent on Logi for capacitor unless you forgo dual web.

I was crunching some numbers and found that a medium drone is typically worth half the DPS of it's race's heavy drone. If you have 2 drones at 5 times power you essentially have the power equivalent of 5 unbonused heavy drones but in a much faster package that applies damage better. The old damage bonus used with heavy drones essentially gave you 7.5 heavy drones worth of DPS.

So basically you lose 2.5 heavy drones worth of DPS by using heavily bonused medium drones.

They added 1 launcher to the Gila, and if you use the proper damage type you essentially gain 2 more launchers. So you basically gain 3 launchers worth of DPS total.



TL/DR The gila loses 2.5 heavy drones worth of drone DPS and gains 3 launchers worth of DPS when using Kin or Thermal missiles.

All in all this is a net loss of DPS on paper as adding 3 heavy launchers doesn't quite make up for the loss of 2.5 heavy drones worth of DPS.

One could argue that actual DPS could go up as medium drones apply damage better and if you factor travel time into the DPS equation you might gain DPS by spending less time to get in range.
(Ex, 5 seconds travel and 5 seconds attacking versus 2 seconds travel and 8 seconds attacking in the same 10 second window of time)

Launching a Gecko from a Gila would've been cool. Just sayin'.