Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello there,

Rogue Drones (RD's) have always been of the most interesting parts of the lore of EVE. They're sentient machines, that build and design themselves, and try to make a living as any other life beings. Despite the fact they are almost anywhere and they even "own" a Region, they're much less present as an outright faction. We can fight them, get faction modules and upgrade our drones with their components, but it would be very interesting to be able to interact more with them, and have more ingame items created by them.

Below there are some ideas I've been come with, although they're completely open to suggestions and polishing.

New models for Integrated and Augmented drones

They're described to be quite different and even unrecognizable from their original designs, yet their models are the same than the originals. New models could better show this, adding Rogue Drone characteristics: armor plates, "eyes", moving limbs... Augmented drones could even use the same models than the Rogue Drones themselves, although I don't know what size are those. Perhaps those RD models could better be used in brand new drones (next idea).

New drones

RD's could drop blueprints that allow the manufacturing of their stuff, using the same materials than those for Integrated/Augmented drones. One of those could be the drones themselves, which would be the same models we fight. Now, what theme could they follow is open for many suggestions. Taking what can be seen ingame, they're larger than usual drones, sport strong armor with nice self-repair abilities and hit both with lasers and missiles, and EWAR too.
Throwing this together, I've personally come up with a theme (but open to suggestions):
- High volume: they're heavier than our current drones (larger ones seem Figther-Bomber sized), limiting how many of them could be brough in the drone bay. I'm looking at the Gecko.
- Low bandwidth: they're far more intelligent than other drones. As a result, they could need little bandwidth for their size. For example, lighter ones would still need 5 MB, despite being much larger than light scout drones. This way they can be fielded in numbers without needing enormous bandwidths or Drone Control Units.
- Multiple damage types/missiles/EWAR: these are some alternatives of their damage dealing method. NPC RD's do Thermal and Explosive damage at the same time, shoot missiles and EWAR too. This way they would be the only drones to deal more than 1 damage type, excepting the Gecko, which is special. An alternative is them shooting missiles (and taking advantages/disadvantages of doing so). Or even applying different types of EWAR while also doing damage.
- Strong armor and shields: hard nuts to crack.

Faction ships

Following this BPC dropping theme, we could also get BPC's for their ships. Since they seem not to build ships but rather themselves, these would not be brand new ships, but "infested" variants of Empire designs. The best example is the infested Dominix we already fight: a ship taken over by drones and modified to act as a commander/home. In this theme, these BPC's would require a certain Empire ship and RD materials, to obtain a (visibly) highly modified and infested variant with new bonuses. All Empires should have one infested version for frigates, cruisers and battleships (better if they're drone boats): for example, Gallente -> Tristan, Vexor, Dominix; Amarr -> Inquisitor, Arbitrator, Armageddon; Caldari -> Kestrel, Blackbird, Scorpion; Minmatar -> Burst, Rupture, Typhoon. Perhaps they could all be the same in terms of stats and bonuses (in a certain class, not between classes) and just change visually.
These new ships could be versatile following the RD theme: either armor or shields, either turrets or missiles and thus have enough slots for that. However, their bonuses could be for drones and EWAR: big drone bays, normal bandwidths (for the new drones described above), damage and hitpoints bonus for drones (and/or speed), EWAR intensity and/or range (RD's seem to use all EWAR types, so these bonuses could be not type-specific, excepting for warp jammers' intensity, which should not be touched). So the theme would be: big and powerful drones, powerful EWAR, versatile tanks and weapons.

Faction structures

I'd like to see RD structures such as POS towers and turrets (and even deployables). Those would be built from their own BPC's as well, obtained from RD Data/Relic sites as other factions'. The models would be those of RD, tentacled structures found on their sites. In case of POS towers, they could follow the theme proposed for ships: powerful EWAR (all types), powerful CPU (if missile silos get changed to better, this would be useful), and powerful drones (in case we see drone hives as POS defensive modules).


Well, these were just some ideas that came to my mind. I'm pretty sure many people here would like to see more of RD's; please post your own ideas, critiques of mine, or just show your support for RD stuff if you like them.

EDIT: I forgot to say now there are precedents to be based on: SoE and Mordus' Legion got faction ships while years ago they were secondary factions; we can get BPC's for Mordus' Legion dropped by NPC's, and the Gecko provides a good example of a big drone.

A bit of a bump, but...

You got a point there however lore-wise there could be ways of avoiding such things... For example, we could say that would be RD tech manufactured by capsuleers, and in that state it lacks the spark that makes them sentient. They would still be as intelligent as they are, but without free-will or thinking... Think about Sansha's Nation True Slaves for comparison.