El Yatta
Mercenary Forces
   |
Posted - 2009.04.22 20:07:00 -
[1]
Nozh, there really isn't a problem here.
Lets take a thorax, a typical ship caught using medium ECM drones and accused of being overpowered with them as it has a large bay for its ship size (50m3/mbit for a non-dedicated drone cruiser, as much as an Arbitrator, a dedicated drone cruiser).
If said rax chooses to use damage drones, with 5x Hammerhead IIs, it gains just shy of 160 DPS, which is around a THIRD of its 480 dps with electron IIs and 1 mag stab ( a typical setup). If you choose to use a setup with no damage mods its an even greater part of its DPS. Its the equivalent of having a max-skilled blaster Incursus as a wingman.
Conversely, if it chooses to use 5 Vespa EC-600s, it gets 5 individual dice-rolls of 1.5 strength each. By comparison, a max-skilled Griffin has 4 rolls at a whopping 6.3 strength each. There's just no comparison - the damage drones are the equivalent of the relevant t1 frigate, the ECM drones, nowhere near.
Conclusion - to use ECM drones you make an immense sacrifice in DPS, disproportionate to that actual strength of EW you get. This is fair enough, because you gain a new ability that your ship would otherwise be unable to do.
They are also by far the weakest drones, VERY easily dispatched.
The real problem is the lack of usefulness of the other kinds of EW drones. Damps, TD, painter, neut drones need a large boost. If there is an issue with smartbombs being a very poor counter, its an issue with smartbombs, not ECM drones.
Its also worth bearing in mind that the utility and flexibility of ECM drones (and theoretically TD/TP/SD/EV drones) can be used to balance so called "versatile" boats that are actually seriously lacking. The tempest, for example, has suffered a lot in recent years as its advantages - utility mid for ECM, utility highs for nos, have been nerfed. If it could have a huge bay, with a lot of versatility, and keep its bandwidth, then you could use drone versatility as an advantage.
_______________________________________________
Mercenary Forces |