Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Putting my personal feelings aside as an RS owner and PvE'er, I still don't quite see the draw of an ECM pirate vessel. Does it become the ultimate small-medium gang blue baller? If so is that really a good thing? If not, why use it over a more agile Caldari recon or, if really desired in a BS package, a scorpion?

Maybe it's just my hatred of ECM talking.

My thinking here originates in the idea that when a pirate ship appears on field (yes, in a skirmish), the tide should turn in favour of the pirate-bringer.

An ECM-strength-bonus rattlesnake would present a real problem to opponents in the same way that a bhaalgorn or vindicator presents a real problem. It would be able to shut down 4 attackers (say) while bringing (say) 1000dps of hurt and (say) 150k EHP. This would make it absolutely strategically valuable to an outnumbered but better equipped force. Remeber that the scorpion's ecm bonus is for range, not strength. This is far less useful in any by the most contrived fight.

You can do the same with a falcon of course, except that it cannot bring any hurt and it is *extremely* vulnerable to sentry drones.

Therefore, the ECM rattlesnake would be an excellent asset in PVP... as it should be. Pirates are not carebears by nature.



The rattlesnake never did compete directly by the post 2013 domi. It competes directly with the navy dominix, by which in many ways it is outperformed.

Ak, ok. I hadn't realized you meant the N-Domi, and yes, that does provide somewhat of an issue still. At the same time the price difference isn't as great and there is greater distinction now (though to questionable effect). Overall though, making that comparison I can see how one would find the proposed lacking.

That being said I'm still not sold on the idea of what it should be able to do as you proposed. I won't go on too much about it besides to say that a Bhaal would be hard pressed to have the same offensive, defensive and utility presence on the field of battle if not finding it impossible, the Vindi lagging well behind, and the Mach and NM need not even apply. It also seems to turn any situation with one into either an ECM arms race or retreat scenario, which doesn't make much of a dynamic battlefield.

Maybe if toned down considerably.

There is a great deal of hysteria about ECM. It's certainly a force multiplier in small skirmishes, but it's in no way a game-changer. I like the idea of the ECM drone bonus rather than the ECM module strength bonus. That makes sense.

Perhaps a bonus also to ECM burst? You can only fit one of those on the ship anyway, and it would encourage the ship into brawls.

But for god's sake, the drone bay needs to be restored to 400m3 and proper drones please. The idea of drones becoming massively strong just because they are mounted in a given hull is just ridiculous.

Imagine the design conversation at the guristas shipyards:

scientist: sir! we've discovered a way to make our drones hit harder and survive longer!
admiral: well done! With 5 new superdrones I will crush our enemies!
scientist: well, there's a small catch...
admiral: go on...
scientist: we had to rip out 60% of the drone bays and drone control computers so you'll only be able to fly 2 of them
admiral: someone execute this idiot for wasting my time! When you've done that, strap his family members to these new idiot drones.

I think it has 4 hull bonuses and 2 role bonuses.

That would require every other pirate ship to be rebalanced with such as well.

Could role then into 3, I wrote it out separately so the changes were more easily seen.
And if you really want to split hairs - still only has 19 fitting slots and no specialized bonus - web, neut. Is still slower than an AB fit NM at lvl 5 and has a sig radius the size of a carrier.
The extra bonus could be a "thing" for Snake, where now it really doesn't have 1.
If it really bothers you - remove the 4% shield bonus

Not all Pirate ships are the same now - some have 20 slots some have 19. Some have bonus to a Pvp role, some REALLY DON'T.
The "drone boats get 1 less slot" doesn't really apply here - NM, Bhaal, aren't drone boats.

I hope that satisfies your need to have everything the same?
In a place where, not everything is the same.

I really want to say something like "Flexibility, boo hoo!", because that complaint has been used so often and so incorrectly in this thread that it has lost all meaning (what most of them have really meant is "overpowered", by the way), but instead I will say this.

Have you actually *thought* about the repercussions of having ECM super drones with that kind of EHP on the field? I'm honestly surprised they even gave it to sentries, considering that you basically can't bomb them anymore.

The super drone bonus is quite clearly intended to ignore logi and ewar drones. That's the sacrifice for having two dps bonused weapon systems(something that no other line of ships has). It's a tradeoff.

For the people who don't like that, there are still other droneboats. I honestly cannot imagine what role you would rely on something as expensive as a pirate battleship to do with logi or ewar drones that you can't just do with a Vexor.

It seems to me that you are happier to engage in ad-hominem style debate while attempting to deny doing so.

Perhaps this is because my concerns are so vapid and assinine that it is beneath you to engage in a fruitful discussion about the rattlesnake?

However, please i beg you, allow yourself the luxury of educating a mere donkey-brained player such as myself.

Join me in a thought experiment for a moment. Let's suppose that all pirate ships ought to be in their own way equally desirable. Note that I have not said that they should be equal, or even equally powerful. Merely equally desirable. i.e. over a large number of conflicts one ought to be able to conceive a plan where each of them would fulfill a useful role better than all others, and indeed all other 'lesser' battleships.

Surely this ought to be the reason for aspiring to own an expensive, rare and powerful pirate ship?

I think we can all see the usefulness of the vindicator, bhaalgorn and machariel - these successes are well recorded.

As I have said, the nightmare may or may not be useful - time will tell as I, with my humble intelligence, do not presume to have modelled all uses of it in practice.

For me the rattlesnake is easier, it seems to me to have less rare and equally desirable peers. It seems to me to fall short of expressing the essence of a pirate ship.

Now it may be that I am in error. Please enlighten me as to why, for example, I (or you) will want to select a rattlesnake over a vindicator, or even a Navy Dominix for example?

As for your assertions about me being 'butthurt' (my, my you do seem to have something of a fixation on my derriere), I am not 'butthurt', or raging, or about to quit. I am merely once again, sadly disappointed.

For me the lore is a part of why I play the game. It's important to me as it gives context to my efforts to perform well. The more the designers trample on the lore, the less enjoyable my game is.

Is my view and concern not as important as, say, yours?

Since you did not see fit to address any of my questions, I will ask you again, this time more simply:

"Please give me an example of when I ought to prefer bringing a new rattlesnake to a fight than, say, a navy dominix?"

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you did not mean that a rattlesnake is "for basically the opposite thing" as a vindicator. A vindicator is for slowing down ships and dealing lots of damage to them. Surely a rattlesnake is not for doing the opposite, i.e. speeding ships up and healing them?

Did I miss some new logistics feature of the rattlesnake that would redeem it?

On the contrary, I have thought about it.

My arguments fome from a couple of key assumptions:

1: Drones as a weapon are balanced seperately from their impact on a given hull, just like all other weapon systems.

This means that the idea of a ship laujching light drones regardless of its size is an intended and balanced function of the system, and the reduction or loss of that ability is a loss in the balance of the system as a whole.

2: The use of Logistics and Combat Utility drones are an intended use of drones as a whole, and that each type should be viable and valuable.

This means the loss or reduction of this ability reduces the overall balance of drones as a whole. If the point of the Gurista superdrone bonus is to focus drones on hull class appropriate drone combat, then that should include combat utility drones, which are supposed to be used in combat.

It also points to the need for balance of the combat utility drones. I do not consider ECM to be unbalanced, though I can think of some changes I would make to it (Passive targeters keeping their bonus slots locked, warp tackle not working while ECM is active). Neither do I consider the other ewar used by combat utility drones any more or less balanced in comparison, thiugh the combat utility drones themselves need a lot of love. If ECM drones are a problem *that* should be addressed, not the use of the entire class of drones as a whole.

3: The universal drone bonus given to every other drone focused ship in the game other than Gallente frigates is balanced for the system as a whole.

This means that on a ship where that bonus is circumvented, yet the price in mod slot is paid then the ship should be properly compensated for the reduction of the use of its drone system. Given the way the Superdrone concept was applied to the lighter hulls, CCP seems to agree, and have set the compensation at a 60% increase in performance. The loss in flexibility is partly handled by the launcher bonus, but the nature of missles does not allow for on the fly adjustments the way drones do, so while less compensation in the superdrone bonus might be appropriate, breakijg even still isnt balanced.

This happens at the frigate level too, where the Universal drone bonus excludes dps but keeps the HP bonus and includes tracking instead. The Superdrone bonus on the Worm is hardly a bonus at all for total HP in space, but DPS went up 60%. The Worm also loses less flexibility than the heavier hulls, as it could never have mounted heavier missile systems anyway. It losses less, yet gains more in the superdrone concept.... Clearly the Rattlesnakes bonus needs adjusting to bring it in line.

It seems that the general consensus is that the damage of 8 large drones should be the cap allowable to the system, at least in this case where a second weapon system can come into play at near full strength of both. If so, then the HP bonus should be applied at the full 60% level the other Superdrones get, to properly compensate the losses in flexibility and added vunerability to disruption.

I am fine with it not including combat utility, but its just one more thing the superdrone bonus is costing the ship without compensation due to the improperly applied bonus because some people think drones are stronger than they are due to the contrived uses lately pulled off by an alliance that enjoys ruining the game for others.