Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I think the difficulty is that damage scales at the rate of HP and that much damage is likely over the top.

*Snip* Removed off topic part of the post. ISD Ezwal.

I'd fly it.

So, I was thinking more about what the Rattlesnake is becoming after this patch (split weapon ship, about equal drones/missiles). I'm not really sure this is what the game needs at this point.

We're getting a missile pirate faction in Kronos. If you ignore the fact that 8.75 launchers on the BS is the most you can get (so paper DPS is somewhat capped compared to other systems), missiles are in a decent place for BS progression. Lots of options available, including three different missile/drone platforms (typhoon, typhoon fleet, and rattlesnake).

But if we look at drones as a primary weapon system (rather than half of a split system), the options aren't very good. You've got the Dominix...and that's basically it. There are no BS platforms that give you more than 7.5 effective drones, and besides the Domi there are no BS platforms that give you the optimal/tracking bonus (which equates directly to a damage bonus since it allows you to use shorter range, higher damage drones). Particularly for sentries, the only thing better than a domi is an ishtar, which (as a cruiser) can't fit nearly as strong of a tank against non-kin/therm rats as the domi. Plus, the Ishtar doesn't share any ship command skills with the Domi, so they're basically separate paths and not an upgrade path.

Basically, there's no clear upgrade path for drone pilots past the Dominix, if you don't count getting into split weapons and actually losing capability on your drones. Also not counting carriers...just talking about subcaps.

I'd really like to see the Rattlesnake become the "pirate drone BS" that you can upgrade into after the Dominix. Take away the missile bonus entirely, and give the tracking /optimal bonus from the Domi. Then, increase the effective drones to 10 or so. Either keep the fifth (unbonused) launcher, or leave it off.

Net effect is that you get a powerful, tanky drone platform with a good secondary weapon system (although unbonused). The ship becomes very useful for drone pilots as the pinnacle of BS drone platforms (who lack a marauder). Pilots won't *need* to be good in split weapons in order to effectively use the ship, although it would help. And, the ship won't do any more damage than these proposed changes, it's just that the split would be 75% drone 25% missile instead of the proposed 50/50.

Thoughts?

Just use the same explanation that is used for the existence of navy ships and marauders that are a upgrade over a t1 bs.

Rattler as a exclusively drone ship, that is gone imo, at best we can hope for drone faction ships 3 years from now.

They've been trying to reduce the number of drones deployed (and have been doing so) for years. The Domi used to deploy 15 drones. Drone interfacing used to give extra drones in space, rather than a damage bonus, and the Domi's current damage bonus used to be a 1 extra drone per level of Gallente battleship.

Besides, what you are asking for is a mini-carrier. Outside of high-sec, why not use a carrier? A carrier is only slightly more expensive than a pirate BS & has much more EHP & utility.

Sentry drone max dps is 800, amarr laser boat at that range can do 1100dps (or 800 out to 170km).

Battleships are fundamentally different from carriers, though. They don't attract attention the way carriers do, and you don't need a second account to move around in one.

Plus, as you said, highsec. Also wormholes.

Drones are already one of the (if not the) most skill intensive weapon systems, and Kronos is just making that worse. Adding capital skills on top of that just to get an upgrade from a T1 BS seems a little excessive.

You can have a well-fit rattler for under a bil. Good luck doing that with a carrier.

I still fundamentally dislike the 'super drone' concept (absurdly large ship bonuses), principally because it takes what was ultimately a bad, though at the time necessary, band-aid solution to server problems (reducing number of drones on drone ships, giving them up to 50% drone damage/HP's) from years ago, and slaps another layer of ‘bolt-on’ to it.

It doesn't make any logical sense from an in-game perspective – What? So, If I scope an abandoned drone from in space, and re-launch it, it does nearly 4x the damage and has 4x more shield/armour/Hull than before?....

The release of the Gecko show's another way you guys could have gone about it - adding more powerful, larger drones that will only fit on the dedicated drone ships. As an example; giving the Rattlesnake a 150m^3 bandwidth with a big bay and no drone bonuses - hey presto, with three Gecko’s (add them to the Guristas’ LP store) it’s doing roughly the same as 5 bonused heavies, but you've now got a spare bonus to play around with, and we get new content as you add new and interesting drone varieties (cripes, even the mystical ‘Vampire’ could actually make an appearance someday…)

Unless of course you have some glorious re-working of the drone mechanics, from the code up, waiting in the wings and this is all 'temporary'….

Well, there are 150 pages discussing why.

You want a simple Precis?

Drone subsystem has been altered which does not take account of the complexities, advantages, and disadvantages of drone mechanics.

The balance and application has been changed, but is balanced, if different, on the Cruiser and frigate, it fails miserably to achieve those goals on the Rattlesnake.

I do not think there is anything in there for a troll to selectively quote.

Other than that if you are interested, have a read back, but you will probably need a shower afterwards to feel clean.

Well if all the rattlesnake has to do, is apply it's mighty DPS without any consideration as to how, then that of course would be correct.
Unfortunately, things are a little more complex than that.