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An explanation for why it's okay to give drone ships fewer slots
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Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2015-02-02 18:44:14 UTC
I often see CCP trying to balance drone ships in all sorts of ways: a bit less powergrid, move a high slot to mid/low, reduce their mobility, reduce their turret/launcher hardpoints, etc. etc. But one standing issue I see is that they maintain the same number of slots as their non-drone ship brethren. Consider this: the drone bay space and drone bandwidth offers a drone ship the same thing that costs other ships high slots, turret or launcher hardpoints, powergrid, and CPU.

Lets do a little theorycrafting here, with the Zealot. I am selecting this ship because it's pretty well balanced and has no drone bay. I intend to demonstrate that it can be just as effective with quite a bit fewer slots total. To start with, and this is just for demonstration purposes, we'll completely swap out the turrets for drones, give it a 125m3 drone bay and 125mb/s bandwidth. Now it can field 5 large drones. What we take off in exchange is all 5 of the high slots and turret hardpoints, so the ship has no high slots at all. Furthermore, we take off the CPU and powergrid that would be used up by 5 t2 heavy pulse lasers (everything done at max skills), this takes its base powergrid from 1180 to 431.2 (we'll go with 430) and its base CPU from 340 to 200. Then we'll swap out its weapon bonuses for relevant drone bonuses. So to summarize, here's what we're left with:

Drone Zealot
3 mid slots, 7 low slots
125mb/s bandwidth, 125m3 drone bay
430 MW powergrid, 200 tf CPU

Amarr Cruiser skill bonus per level:
+7.5% drone control range
+5% drone rate of fire

Heavy Assault Ships skill per level:
+10% sentry drone optimal range
+10% drone damage and hit points

Role Bonus:
50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty

I removed the capacitor bonus entirely, since drones don't use capacitor. I am adding nothing in replacement as the lack of the capacitor use and lack of the capacitor bonus is already superior than having both. Lasers have good damage projection at the cost of high capacitor use, but drones have good damage projection without that cost. Now to replicate the effect of having an increase to optimal range, I had to spread it out over two bonuses: sentry drone optimal range and drone control range.

So lets compare its power with the actual Zealot. Right off the bat, we see that our new Zealot has significantly higher DPS with large drones, and with much better range, but quite a bit less tracking. To get similar tracking, it could field medium drones and have similar or slightly less DPS, but with far better range still. It has only enough drone space for 5 larges and so it is unable to carry both options into combat and swap on the field, but neither can the Zealot. In fact the Zealot doesn't even have the option to fit large turrets at all. The penalty in being stuck with limited drones is that they can be shot down individually, while to permanently shut off the laser Zealot's attack capacity you have to destroy the ship. Also, drones have flight time to reach target, and have to actually move to a new target. So:
1.) drone zealot has more range
2.) drone zealot has more weapon type versatility
A.) drones take time to move, turrets are instant
B.) laser zealot can't have its guns shot off

Now howabout fitting capacity? The drone zealot has much less powergrid and CPU, right about the same as what the laser zealot has after fitting its guns. The real penalties I see here are twofold: the drone zealot does not have the option to remove guns and use an alternative module in the high slots, and it won't gain as large a bonus from the use of capacitor or CPU upgrades/implants. So for the fits in which neither is needed, it really is on par with the laser zealot.
C.) drone zealot has no option to swap guns for utility
D.) drone zealot gains less powergrid/CPU from percentage-based bonuses

So we've got a list of things the drone zealot does better, and a list of things it does worse than the laser zealot. Now I want to apply some minor buffs to our drone zealot and finally compare them with the benefits that the Ishtar has compared to our stripped drone zealot. To help mitigate the penalties of the drone zealot without putting it too far above the laser zealot, we can give the drone zealot one high slot with no weapon hardpoints. It's only one and the laser zealot could go for more, but it's not likely to select a fit using three or fewer guns. What's more, our drone zealot can use this utility high slot without any penalty on drone use. It just doesn't get powergrid and CPU back like the laser zealot does from removing a gun. Now we should increase our drone zealot's CPU and powergrid a bit to make up for what it can't obtain through upgrade modules or implants. It has 36.44% of the laser zealot's powergrid and 58.82% of laser zealot's CPU. I'll thus give it ~63.56% of the powergrid and ~41.18% of the CPU that the laser zealot would obtain from fitting a single tech 2 lowslot upgrade module of either type. That'll be 177MW * 0.6356 = ~112.5 and 34tf * 0.4118 = ~14. Now the laser zealot could use more upgrades than that, or it could use a set of weapons with lower costs, but these are marginal uses that aren't so common. More common is fitting heavy beam lasers which actually cost a bit more CPU and a lot more powergrid. So the drone zealot gets less potential powergrid and CPU, but it gets the bonus amount for free without even fitting the upgrades. It breaks even with laser zealot when fitting a t2 coprocessor and reactor control, has less than laser zealot with more upgrades, but has more left over than laser zealot with fewer or no upgrades.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2015-02-02 18:44:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Reaver Glitterstim
So lets take another look at what we have so far:

Drone Zealot
1 high slot, 3 mid slots, 7 low slots
125mb/s bandwidth, 125m3 drone bay
545 MW powergrid, 215 tf CPU

Amarr Cruiser skill bonus per level:
+7.5% drone control range
+5% drone rate of fire

Heavy Assault Ships skill per level:
+10% sentry drone optimal range
+10% drone damage and hit points

Role Bonus:
50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty


And lets review the bonuses and penalties, adjusted for what we have now:
bonuses
1.) drone zealot has more range
2.) drone zealot has more weapon type versatility
3.) drone zealot has a bit more leftover powergrid and CPU after fitting the guns, without upgrades

penalties
A.) drones take time to move, turrets are instant
B.) laser zealot can't have its guns shot off
C.) drone zealot has no option to swap guns for utility
D.) drone zealot gains less powergrid/CPU from percentage-based bonuses
C.) drone zealot has less fitting versatility overall, but is still competent over most uses

It looks reasonably well balanced to me. The major issue I would have is that Zealots are best used in skirmishes. While drones also work in skirmish battles, they can be tricky to work with when you are trying to warp back and forth a lot. So the drone zealot's uses would definitely need some reviewing, and people would have to adapt to the changes. But with its inability to fill the shoes of the laser zealot comes new abilities the laser zealot never had.

Now lets compare our drone zealot with the Ishtar, to give a sense to the staggering difference between the two, and help illustrate what I think is wrong with CCP's design philosophy when it comes to drone ships. What the Ishtar has more of is bolded, what it has less of is underlined.

Ishtar
Total mid/low slot count: 10 (matches with zealot)
4 high slots, 4 turret hardpoints (+3 highs, +4 turrets over drone zealot)
125mb/s drone bandwidth, 375m3 drone bay (+250m3 drone bay over drone zealot)
780MW powergrid, 340tf CPU (+235MW and +125tf more than drone zealot)

Gallente Cruiser skill bonus per level:
+7.5% heavy drone max velocity and tracking speed
+10% drone damage and hit points

Heavy Assault Ships skill per level:
+5km drone operation range
+5% sentry drone optimal range and tracking speed

Role Bonus:
50% reduction in MicroWarpdrive signature radius penalty
* ishtar sentries are about equal to drone zealot minus the rate of fire bonus, they sacrifice some optimal range for tracking
* ishtar heavy drones have tracking instead of rate of fire, and also bonus flight speed
* ishtar scout drones lack the rate of fire bonus and have nothing in exchange to make it up

So what I see here is that the Ishtar's pure drone power is about a match for the Drone Zealot IFF it is using heavy drones. Its skill bonuses are a bit weaker when using other drone types. But compare that with its having three more high slots, a full rack of turret hardpoints (Ishtar's total DPS is far greater than Zealot's), and a lot more powergrid and CPU. I end this post in saying that it is my strong belief that regardless of any balance issues that may or may not exist between drones and turrets, the Ishtar is unbalanced compared to the Zealot and other HACS in the following way:

The Ishtar has far too much fitting flexibility and weapon power.

Remove three turret hardpoints and two high slots, and put its CPU and powergrid in-between what it has currently and the drone zealot I suggested, and that's a very strong nerf that yet leaves it at the very least quite competent and at most still overpowered. And don't forget the big point here: all of the drone ships across EVE are the same way. It's the same imbalance every time: too much powergrid and CPU, too many high slots or it has low/mid slots added to make up for lost high slots. And worst of all, they usually have enough weapon hardpoints for their turret or launcher DPS to easily outperform a normal ship's drone power.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Tex Raynor
Guardians of Asceticism
#3 - 2015-02-02 21:20:22 UTC
Agreed, but do not nerf my PVP/PVE boat. Everyone should instead train into Ishtars.
Victoria Ramsay
Doomheim
#4 - 2015-02-02 21:26:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Victoria Ramsay
Can we plz not make drone zealots >_> but yes you're right, the ishtar is too flexible.

However I don't think that's an issue of the ishtar itself as much as it's an issue of sentries - allows the ishtar to switch engagement ranges on a dime and reach out as far as lasers or as short as autocannons.
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#5 - 2015-02-02 22:01:01 UTC
The standard drone ship is actually -1 slot compared.
Anhenka
The New Federation
Sigma Grindset
#6 - 2015-02-02 22:19:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Anhenka
I love how you selectively cherry pick things and set up examples and pull stats out of thin air, while pretending that there are no downsides at all to drones, and no upsides to the zealot. As the saying goes, "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

I mean, you invent out of thin air a ship that doesn't exist, then compare it to a ship that does, and act as if the massive difference between them signifies anything whatsoever. Your "Drone zealot" Zealot there has a single flight of disposable, destructible weapons with no way to reload, not enough powergrid to even fit a MWD and 1600 plate, not enough CPU to fit any tank worth mentioning.

Zealot does considerable less damage than an Ishtar, it's very true. It's also true that a skirmish linked armor AB beam zealot (the most common form for large groups), has a signature radius of less than 1/15th that of a MWDing Ishtar with the MWD on, and 1/3 the sig radius of one without it on, allowing it to do very well against all missile doctrines, BS gun doctrines, and be highly resistant to bombers. It also can easily project moderate damage out to 100+ Km, or swap to far higher damage crystals at closer range. Unfortunately, sig radius tanking is largely ineffective against sentries, who have decent tracking, are typically deployed at long range, and a small gun resolution.

But let's make something clear: Zealot is a very good ship.

Pretending that Ishtars with turret slots makes them powerful? I don't actually remember seeing or flying any Ishtar that fitted any turrets other than to whore on kills with. Do you? And the ones that do fit them are the closer in fighting setups that not many people are offended by.

And let's all pretend that having your drones be able to be wiped out by direct fire, smartbombs, or bombs is not weakness, nor is being forced to go home after losing your drones, or being forced to warp away from your drones.

Do sentries and Ishtars need to be scaled back a bit? Yes. Should it be done using a nuke and an electric chainsaw as you propose? No.

The F&I equivalent of yellow journalism at its finest. Just a straw man argument out of nowhere by negatively comparing cherry picked stats of a ships that doesn't even exist (because you invented it) to the cherry picked aspects of a ship you think its horribly OP, and then propose splitting the difference as a reasonable compromise. How sad.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2015-02-02 22:54:33 UTC
Anhenka wrote:
Your "Drone zealot" Zealot there has a single flight of disposable, destructible weapons with no way to reload, not enough powergrid to even fit a MWD and 1600 plate, not enough CPU to fit any tank worth mentioning.

It fits those better than stock Zealot does. In fact it matches just about any commonly-used Zealot fit better than a Zealot.

And drones are not nearly as lackluster as you imply. They're one of the easiest ways to get DPS on target, and there's not really a lot of fights in which drones get killed. The #1 way people lose drones is warping off without them.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Anhenka
The New Federation
Sigma Grindset
#8 - 2015-02-02 23:07:02 UTC
Reaver Glitterstim wrote:
Anhenka wrote:
Your "Drone zealot" Zealot there has a single flight of disposable, destructible weapons with no way to reload, not enough powergrid to even fit a MWD and 1600 plate, not enough CPU to fit any tank worth mentioning.

It fits those better than stock Zealot does. In fact it matches just about any commonly-used Zealot fit better than a Zealot.

And drones are not nearly as lackluster as you imply. They're one of the easiest ways to get DPS on target, and there's not really a lot of fights in which drones get killed. The #1 way people lose drones is warping off without them.

Today I had a fight in lowsec. We came in against Ishtars, they dropped drones, we warped on top of the drones and our firewalls cleaned out those drones in 30 seconds or less of smartbombing. Poof. Gone.

They dropped more drones, we repeated the process. 2 flights gone in the first 5 minutes of a 35% tdid fight. In lowsec.

A while back I was in an Ishtar fleet that went out to Immensea to defend a station timer. Fight started, we dropped drones, bombers decloaked, bombed our drones and kill them all with one wave.

Me warped off, repositioned, deployed drones, and had them promptly bombed off the field again in under 30 seconds.

We warped off, came back in at another angle, deployed drones, and the enemy ships primaried our last flight of sentries.

We then had to run away and hide in a station for a few hours until the enemy finished mopping up our allies, pushed the station into second reinforcement timer and went home. Because we couldn't fight. Because all our drones were dead. Yeah.

TLDR: Drones die easy. So very easily.

P.S The greater the amount of base fitting stats, the greater the usable amount gained by fitting modules or implants. A +3% PG implant in a zealot without the grid typically allocated to guns gives far less fitting capability to use than a zealot with the guns and grid along with said +3% implant. So no, since it's going to have to fit a fitting mod or implant anyway, the flat removal makes it much harder to fit, since it loses the additional % increases from typical fittings mods * gun PG/CPU requirements.

Got any more "facts" you feel like laying out?
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2015-02-03 00:14:27 UTC
Area damage attacks are drone ships' major weakness. Most ships don't use area damage. Anyone using it against you is weak to turret ships. A big part of this is just knowing what you're up against and being the better planner.

It takes a lot of fitting bonuses before my drone zealot comes in significantly behind a regular zealot, and by then you've dedicated so many slots to fitting enhancements that you don't have enough left over to use the powergrid and CPU you have. Of course, some small buffs could easily cover any lackings you see in this area, and still be a far cry from what the Ishtar has.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Anhenka
The New Federation
Sigma Grindset
#10 - 2015-02-03 00:36:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Anhenka
Reaver Glitterstim wrote:
Area damage attacks are drone ships' major weakness. Most ships don't use area damage. Anyone using it against you is weak to turret ships. A big part of this is just knowing what you're up against and being the better planner.

It takes a lot of fitting bonuses before my drone zealot comes in significantly behind a regular zealot, and by then you've dedicated so many slots to fitting enhancements that you don't have enough left over to use the powergrid and CPU you have. Of course, some small buffs could easily cover any lackings you see in this area, and still be a far cry from what the Ishtar has.

You don't need "most ships" to carry AOE damage. We got rid of at least 2/3 of the Ishtars drones today using two only BC hulls with medium smartbombs. Out of a fleet of 130.

In the Immensea fight, it was less than a side fleet of less than a dozen bombers that wrecked all three flights of drones of a 200 man Ishtar fleet.

AOE weapons hard counter Ishtars incredibly hard. Is this very hard for you to understand? PvP is not a homogenized gloop of entire fleets running around with one type of ships. Our fleet today, while primarily Tengu's, also included Scimis/scythes, RML Caracals, Lasesis, Hughins, smartbombing Vultures, combat scanners, and interceptors. Those two vultures took out two out of three waves of the enemy drones before dying.

In a fight with fleet of 150 Ishtars/support vs a fleet with 130 Ishtars/support + 20 bombers, the 150 ishtars are likely to be defanged by the small bomber wing within 5 minutes of the fight starting.

As to your "balanced" zealot, with one flight of drones and no replacements, it is trash, and would continue to be trash even if you gave it an additional 50% damage bonus, or 100%. If all it takes to defang an entire fleet is one wave of bombs, or a single disco Rohk, then it's completely trash. Even manually free firing on enemy drones would work great since each drone destroyed drops enemy DPS by 20% per drone.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2015-02-03 10:14:31 UTC
You yourself already pointed out that having backup drones doesn't help much when your enemy will just bomb them again. Is that a weakness in the design I suggested? Sounds to me like it's too easy to hit drone ships overall, from the way you present it. All that extra powergrid isn't doing anything to save the Ishtars unless they're shooting at you with turrets, and they're certainly not competent at using only turrets.

So I don't see your point. If drones die so easily, how does that invalidate my point? My drone Zealot still works great when the drones aren't being bombed, and the overpowered Ishtar still dies horribly when they are.

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Lloyd Roses
Artificial Memories
#12 - 2015-02-03 11:44:45 UTC
Switching the Eos' 250m³ and the Ishtar's 375m³ drone bay? I'm in with that. They really derped that thing on the Eos.
Mornak
Exotic Dancers Union
#13 - 2015-02-03 12:32:46 UTC
Please differentiate between Ishtar and droneboats in general. The current issue with drones is mostly focused around Ishtars and sentries, not droneboats as such.
You conveniently pick the Ishtar as an example to prove your point. This change might even work for the Ishtar. But this fix would also render the other droneboats useless.

Reaver Glitterstim wrote:
Area damage attacks are drone ships' major weakness. Most ships don't use area damage. Anyone using it against you is weak to turret ships. A big part of this is just knowing what you're up against and being the better planner.


AOE might be the drones weakness in large fleet engagements, in solo or smallscale battles though , a webber and a few turrets are usually enough to make a drone-user retract his drones. Especially if you have no space for replacements(!). As soon as that happens, you cripple the damage-output of the droneboat drastically. Making droneboats useless for small engagements.
Fix the ishtar, balance the sentries. dont f*** up the whole droneboat-balancing.
Making droneboats very bad unless fielded in huge fleets is definitely not the way to go!


Why not make sentries use 50mbit and give BC/BS a bonus that puts it back to 25mbit? ishtars with 2 sentries out should not be OP in any way. Those few unbonused highslots wont make any difference. And if they field normal drones, just bring some smartbombing BSs with you and be done with them.
Rivr Luzade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#14 - 2015-02-03 13:54:52 UTC
I fail to see how the Ishtar has lots of "fitting flexibility". Drone modules take up huge chunks of CPU, leaving very little for tank especially in case of Shield and next to nothing in terms of weapons.
The Ishtar I am sitting in has 2 DDA II, 2DTE II and 2 DLA I. These modules alone use up more than 45% of the available CPU. These are all modules influencing my weapon system. Similar modules on my Eagle, which is only 3 MFS II, amount to 17% of the CPU.
If I add a prop mod, in case of the Ishtar a Meta 10MN MWD, the CPU use increases to 57% and on the Eagle with a 10MN AB II to 21%.
Now I add Tank; Ishtar with 2 lSE II, 1 EM Ward Amp II, 1 Invul II and 1 Meta 4 DCU, the CPU use spikes to 99.6%, leaving 2 CPU open. The Eagle, on the other hand with 2 lSE II, 2 EM Ward Field II, 1 Explosive Def Field II and a DCU II has only 68% of the CPU occupied, with indestructible weapons active, CPU usage increases to 96% CPU usage, leaving a comfortable 23 CPU open for something else or better modules if available.

How is 2 CPU "fitting flexibility"?

UI Improvement Collective

My ridicule, heavy criticism and general pale outlook about your or CCP's ideas is nothing but an encouragement to prove me wrong. Give it a try.
Lady Rift
His Majesty's Privateers
#15 - 2015-02-03 14:00:18 UTC
Rivr Luzade wrote:
I fail to see how the Ishtar has lots of "fitting flexibility". Drone modules take up huge chunks of CPU, leaving very little for tank especially in case of Shield and next to nothing in terms of weapons.
The Ishtar I am sitting in has 2 DDA II, 2DTE II and 2 DLA I. These modules alone use up more than 45% of the available CPU. These are all modules influencing my weapon system. Similar modules on my Eagle, which is only 3 MFS II, amount to 17% of the CPU.
If I add a prop mod, in case of the Ishtar a Meta 10MN MWD, the CPU use increases to 57% and on the Eagle with a 10MN AB II to 21%.
Now I add Tank; Ishtar with 2 lSE II, 1 EM Ward Amp II, 1 Invul II and 1 Meta 4 DCU, the CPU use spikes to 99.6%, leaving 2 CPU open. The Eagle, on the other hand with 2 lSE II, 2 EM Ward Field II, 1 Explosive Def Field II and a DCU II has only 68% of the CPU occupied, with indestructible weapons active, CPU usage increases to 96% CPU usage, leaving a comfortable 23 CPU open for something else or better modules if available.

How is 2 CPU "fitting flexibility"?



maybe don't fit it to be able to use drones at 125km. at 105km drone range you open a high slot and 50 cpu.



Rivr Luzade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#16 - 2015-02-03 14:05:51 UTC
Lady Rift wrote:
maybe don't fit it to be able to use drones at 125km. at 105km drone range you open a high slot and 50 cpu.

Giving up necessary range and especially range that drones use.

But even if so, where is the flexibility? I can now fit 2 small autocannons, or neutralizers. Which I cannot use properly as I cannot stay close to a target or else I am directly inside their effective weapon range with close-range ammo, subject to their ewar like webs and neutralizers, as well as bombs. All lethal things against a ship with a very thin tank compared to other HAC.

UI Improvement Collective

My ridicule, heavy criticism and general pale outlook about your or CCP's ideas is nothing but an encouragement to prove me wrong. Give it a try.
Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#17 - 2015-02-03 18:36:12 UTC
Mornak wrote:
Please differentiate between Ishtar and droneboats in general. The current issue with drones is mostly focused around Ishtars and sentries, not droneboats as such.
You conveniently pick the Ishtar as an example to prove your point. This change might even work for the Ishtar. But this fix would also render the other droneboats useless.
I didn't suggest a fix, I merely demonstrated a point, and I used the Ishtar because it is most similar to the Zealot, which I used for a more important reason (it doesn't have a drone bay). If you want to explore similar comparisons with other ships, try doing a Thorax and a Vexor, but it gets more complicated because the Thorax has a large drone bay and the Vexor has a lot of gun room. There are additional steps in the comparison when making considerations for the ship's drone bay because, if it is balanced properly, it is giving up something to have that.

Mornak wrote:
AOE might be the drones weakness in large fleet engagements, in solo or smallscale battles though , a webber and a few turrets are usually enough to make a drone-user retract his drones.

Have you tried this? It doesn't work very well in practice unless you're in an assault ship. Medium turrets can't track medium drones nearly as well as small turrets can track small drones. Maybe a battlecruiser would be optimal to shoot down large drones, but in either case (battlecruiser vs heavies or assault ship vs lights) the ship in question is getting hit hard while fumbling with these little drones. Now if the drone ship has no backups, then sure, the right ship to shoot drones will probably win. But adding a few backups will quickly make even that strategy not so great. Also, the drone ship has plenty of time to retreat when the web is focused on the drones, so even if it's not going to win in a 1v1 it's not likely to lose, either.



Rivr Luzade wrote:
I fail to see how the Ishtar has lots of "fitting flexibility". Drone modules take up huge chunks of CPU, leaving very little for tank especially in case of Shield and next to nothing in terms of weapons.

Then perhaps the Ishtar has the right amount of CPU, and WAAAAAYYYY too much powergrid? It shouldn't have such an easy time fitting a 1600mm plate I think, given that all other HACs are already under 500MW after fitting their guns, before fitting a prop mod.

Rivr Luzade wrote:
All lethal things against a ship with a very thin tank compared to other HAC.

Ishtar has buffer tank about as good as the next HAC, but other HACs are just usually more maneuverable. I didn't go into hit points and maneuverability but that drone Zealot I came up with has got the mobility while still being able to fit a MWD and 1600mm plate, though not easily. Maybe in some ways the drone Zealot is more powerful just because it's not a sitting duck?

FT Diomedes: "Reaver, sometimes I wonder what you are thinking when you sit down to post."

Frostys Virpio: "We have to give it to him that he does put more effort than the vast majority in his idea but damn does it sometime come out of nowhere."
Phaade
Know-Nothings
Negative Feedback
#18 - 2015-02-04 00:47:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Phaade
Anhenka wrote:
Reaver Glitterstim wrote:
Anhenka wrote:
Your "Drone zealot" Zealot there has a single flight of disposable, destructible weapons with no way to reload, not enough powergrid to even fit a MWD and 1600 plate, not enough CPU to fit any tank worth mentioning.

It fits those better than stock Zealot does. In fact it matches just about any commonly-used Zealot fit better than a Zealot.

And drones are not nearly as lackluster as you imply. They're one of the easiest ways to get DPS on target, and there's not really a lot of fights in which drones get killed. The #1 way people lose drones is warping off without them.

Today I had a fight in lowsec. We came in against Ishtars, they dropped drones, we warped on top of the drones and our firewalls cleaned out those drones in 30 seconds or less of smartbombing. Poof. Gone.

They dropped more drones, we repeated the process. 2 flights gone in the first 5 minutes of a 35% tdid fight. In lowsec.

A while back I was in an Ishtar fleet that went out to Immensea to defend a station timer. Fight started, we dropped drones, bombers decloaked, bombed our drones and kill them all with one wave.

Me warped off, repositioned, deployed drones, and had them promptly bombed off the field again in under 30 seconds.

We warped off, came back in at another angle, deployed drones, and the enemy ships primaried our last flight of sentries.

We then had to run away and hide in a station for a few hours until the enemy finished mopping up our allies, pushed the station into second reinforcement timer and went home. Because we couldn't fight. Because all our drones were dead. Yeah.

TLDR: Drones die easy. So very easily.

P.S The greater the amount of base fitting stats, the greater the usable amount gained by fitting modules or implants. A +3% PG implant in a zealot without the grid typically allocated to guns gives far less fitting capability to use than a zealot with the guns and grid along with said +3% implant. So no, since it's going to have to fit a fitting mod or implant anyway, the flat removal makes it much harder to fit, since it loses the additional % increases from typical fittings mods * gun PG/CPU requirements.

Got any more "facts" you feel like laying out?



Your entire post is drivel. You are a known Gayllente fanboy, though.

Drones are almost never killed that easily; they obviously were heavily prepared to deal with an Ishtar fleet.

I'll add that Ishtar drones are even more difficult in smaller fights, in the 10 to 30 range. Or if you just take a fleet out and don't know you're going to run into an Ishtar fleet? Good luck, because you're probably screwed.
Harvey James
The Sengoku Legacy
#19 - 2015-02-04 01:26:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Harvey James
Nevyn Auscent wrote:
The standard drone ship is actually -1 slot compared.


indeed .. i was just wondering the other day perhaps -2 slots would be a stronger drawback and help balance them a little.

VNI.. -1 low slot
vexor.. - 1 high slot and reduce dronebandwidth to 50mb
ishtar.. - remove turrets and -1 midslot reduce dronebay too 250m3, nerf sentries, change 10% damage bonus to 7.5% and remove HP bonus
myrmidon.. remove 2 turrets and -1 midslot (tones down 1kdps shield versions)
Eos.. - remove 1 turret and -1 highslot
Domi.. - remove some turrets and -1 highslot
sin.. -1 highslot and remove hybrid damage bonus

Armageddon.. -1 highslot -1 turret/launcher - reduce drone-bandwidth to 100mb and dronebay too 300m3
Arbitrator.. -1 highslot

gila.. -2 highslots ... switch back to 5 drones with maybe 15% medium drone damage/hp on gal bonus and move 50% missile bonus to role bonus

worm.. -1 highslot and -1 lowslot ..switch back to 5 drones with maybe 15% medium drone damage/hp on gal bonus and move 50% missile bonus to role bonus

rattlesnake... - remove 1 launcher and -1 highslot .. switch back to 5 drones with maybe 10% drone damage/hp on gal bonus and move 25% missile bonus to role bonus, 50% even with 1 less launcher still offers too much dps

T3's need to be versatile so no rigs are necessary ... they should not have OP dps and tank

ABC's should be T2, remove drone assist, separate HAM's and Torps range, -3 HS for droneboats

Nerf web strength, Make the blaster Eagle worth using
Anhenka
The New Federation
Sigma Grindset
#20 - 2015-02-04 01:27:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Anhenka
Phaade wrote:

Your entire post is drivel. You are a known Gayllente fanboy, though.

Drones are almost never killed that easily; they obviously were heavily prepared to deal with an Ishtar fleet.

I'll add that Ishtar drones are even more difficult in smaller fights, in the 10 to 30 range. Or if you just take a fleet out and don't know you're going to run into an Ishtar fleet? Good luck, because you're probably screwed.


Odd, it's almost like most all of my posts on the subject involve supporting moderate nerfs to Ishtars.

There is a significant difference between moderate nerfs and Mr "One flight of drones, no way to reload drones, no drone HP bonus, and let's also remove slots, and half the fitting, and nerf the bonuses" Reaver here.

Call me crazy, but I'd rather the Ishtar doesn't get the hurricane treatment. nerfing an overpowered ship does not mean it needs to be buried alive an concrete poured on top.

P.S: Act like a brat, people will probably think less of any of your posts by default.
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