Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Throw a few Gecko's in the Drone Bay and you have a nice short to mid range Brawler

AB Cruiser would be fairly easy prey to RHML, Navy Missile combo (with bonus to reload time) - Even webbed the gecko is still going as fast if not faster than most AB Cruisers (60% web slows it to around 1,200m/s with new drone mechanics) and as drones take shortest route to target it will be constantly heading straight at you, not trying to orbit until it is in range.
In Web / Scram range, Snake would have the advantage.

Everyone is bitching about their PvE ships.

However, the less is more effective drone thing is kinda huge when you can only assist 50 drones at a time.

Guys & Gals

I get it, sometimes we just want to say everything that we are thinking. This may work with that special guy or girl when you confess your feelings, however, this does not do well in a forum setting. Please refrain from trolling, or ranting. Most of you know personal attacks are prohibited. Keep on topic so the post can live on.

I was kinda hoping the drone bonuses would be applied to every ship.
i.e
Worm bonuses stay as is
Gila keeps current bonus + Worm bonus (still limited to 2 drones)
RS gets same bonuses + Gila + Worm (still uses 2 drones)

This would have made the Guristas line far more attractive and versatile. I don't understand why it's okay for Vindicator to be OP 'because it's a pirate ship', yet RS, the worst of the bunch, seems more like it's getting a nerf.

When the new Worm was announced, I was pretty excited about Guristas changes, but now it seems Worm is the only one that's going to be useful.

Glad I decided to train Ishtar instead of RS.

And no damage application bonuses, so in reality, you're doing no damage at all unless you fit the ship to optimise one weapon system, which brings us back to the days of split weapons system problems. To be honest, I'd happily lose a damage bonus to one of the weapons systems if it meant it could get an application bonus instead.

It's reasonably dangerous 1 on 1, but it's by no means a ship to strike terror into the heart of an opposing fleet.

Compare that with the appearance of say, a bhaalgorn which can only manage 1000dps (when fitted with guns at all) and 150k ehp but comes with capacitor-melting neutralisers. Once your hardeners have been turned off and you can't operate your scram, the bhaal holds all the cards.

The rattlesnake remains about as desirable as a navy domi. That is to say, not very.

That is such a shame, the superdrone concept held promise, The worm, just nice, the Gila, mediums will be excellent, less overall power, but the gains in mobility are a game changer, little concerned at damage application against small targets especially as ALL missiles lose range bonus, (unless you have forgotten HAMs and Heavies were also bonused CCPRise?) but medium superdrones will probably still work well, probably.

Now the rattlesnake, superdrones are just not scaling, we seem to get the downsides without the benefits, any individual point can be argued into oblivion, but the point is not to have a ship that does nothing more than give forum ammunition to trolls.

Stopping the superdrone size at medium would have merit, gila type medium superdrones on the rattlesnake with four or five of them to take account of ship size.

Gecko drones? Very nice but one massive heavy drone without the support of an effective smaller drone option sort of sucks.

Single or Double gecko option with 4/5 medium Gila Class superdrones, would work quite well, not great for frig killing, but with Gila class Valkyries, one would hit often enough with High Raw DPS, that most would die quickly enough, probably

Now sentries, they are now only an "if you hate missiles "option, If you go for missiles as your primary weapon system the PVE passive recharge tank option, that suits it so well, goes by the board, your drone control range is shot to hell, so gardes and new curators are really the only truly effective option, one may as well use heavies, if they were any good, so if sentries are causing this ship not to have the other options, then drop sentries, they are suboptimal now.

Trying to fit this offering, for balanced sentries and missiles, just don't, that way lies disappointment.

Medium superdrones and missiles however, could work quite well, with players balancing damage mods according to their skills and play-styles.

In short a great opportunity here, will it be missed?

If things do not get changed before SiSi, it certainly would not be so completely rebalanced once it hits there. Only the probably but unproven in combat points should be being tested, not the whole ship. Particularly as it is so spectacularly unbalanced and simultaneously underwhelming.

Suicide fit, Max OMG Paper DPS notwithstanding.

So get it right, and get it right now.

Or it will wait for 3 more years for it's next chance.

Please.

Bringing it back on topic, I like the Motie idea, sentries are just not working here, I fully understand the wish to keep people happy by retaining sentries, but it does seem that to do so rather critical compromises are being made.
There is no need to remove them as such, keep what he has done if it keeps the peace, and give the ship Gila type medium superdrones, same bonuses, with the 50Mbps bandwidth. Then people will choose to use those and not the sentries or heavies (which are just not working anyway) DLA ceases to be an issue, unbonused lights become largely meaningless as an issue as the mediums will still make at least some grazing hits. All issues resolved and the ship is then consistent with the story, and desireable.
Normal fitting consequences and compromises then apply.

So highly recommended.

The Rattlesnake is desirable in what it does, much less so with these changes. It only needed a bit more DPS, really. Personally, I don't like the super drone idea, not on these ships. One of the most appealing things about the Rattlesnake was its 400m3 drone bay and versatility. I don't understand why it had to be nerfed so severely to gain some DPS. Even its primary damage source has been swapped around. The bonused drones are a life saver when you are being jammed.

Many people underestimate the benefits of he missile velocity bonus as well. It is rare for a ship to have range on its torpedos it and does indeed increase DPS significantly when sniping from afar with cruise missiles. Not 50% more, of course, but these bonuses need necessarily be one or the other. Perhaps the RS just needed another low/mid/high slot instead to give its dual-dps systems more umph.

The nerfs seem greater than the buffs on this already least popular pirate faction battleship.