So, what then is the usefulness of the race that specializes in Drones, and is supposed use them as a secondary weapon?
....
A drone sniper while sounding cool, is completely useless using anything but sentry drones.

Griffin: +5 dronebay and bandwidth
Maulus: Changed bonus to damp cap use, +2 pg
Vigil: +5 dronebay and bandwidth, +1 pg, +1.5 km lockrange, +10 velocity, -2 signature radius

The OP has been updated with these changes.

Having lower drone bandwidth but larger bays is a racial trait of Amarr droneships. See the Sentinel or Arbitrator for similar layouts.

I don't get the hate TP's get..

People do realize that Sig is a part of the tracking equation right? It does not just help big stuff hit small stuff..

Things like lock time issues (or tracking) are rather secondary benefits, all things considered. A ship fitted with RSBs can apply benefits directly to friendly ships throughout an entire fight. A ship with TPs must first lock a target and then apply a TP (which might miss), and then the remaining ships must lock and target that one. That's one step too many in the midst of a fight; it has no direct support or disruptive power. It is purely "supplementary", but not in a way that makes it substantially threatening.

I hear there is this rebalancing effort. Hopefully it can buck this trend and make Gallente ships more versatile ;-)

We also want to make TPs more usable in more situations, but that will primarily involve changes to the rest of the environment as opposed to changes to the TP module itself.

If I were a betting man I'd say the tracking formula is on the operating table.

Having lower drone bandwidth but larger bays is a racial trait of Amarr droneships. See the Sentinel or Arbitrator for similar layouts.

I think you missed the tormentor with this philosophy. It only has 10/10.

I had originally tested the +50% bonus and found that as long as you don't fit any navigation computers on top of the bonus the drones responded quite well against most targets. Going back and retesting with shuttles and pods found that the problem still existed for the really small hitboxes.

So as I posted above we're dropping the drone speed bonus and replacing it with a cap use bonus for damps.

I still really like the concept of a drone "sniper" and feel it would have good synergy with damps, but for now we'll have to shelve the idea.

Tormentor isn't considered a true Amarr droneboat, it's a gunboat that also has a significant dronebay as a secondary weapon, like the Armageddon.

And yes I know this can get somewhat complicated, but in the end the main goals are always balance and interesting gameplay. The racial traits are useful guidelines to help towards those goals.

Understood but your racial guidelines for Amarr drone boats are consistent across the board (i.e. 3:1 ratio). For Gallente you have the Vexor at 1.33, the Eos, Ishkur, and Myrmidon at 2, the Dominix, Ishtar, and Utu at 3, and the Dominix Navy Issue and Sin at 3.2 (seems to be the case for T2 and faction drone boats except for the Ishtar).

My pattern recognition implant is malfunctioning and I can not discern a guideline for any race other than Amarr. Can you please state the drone boat guidelines for each of the races. I'm looking forward to the complicated equation for Gallente ;-)

It's simply what would be balanced for the ship itself. Generally the Gallente extra dronebay improves as the the ships get larger and more advanced but that's not in stone.
I can say for instance that I'm going to be introducing an entirely new ratio for that list before the end of the week. Sorry in advance.

Should I start drinking now to drown my sorrows? Maybe poor one out for Gallente ?-)

Oh I really like the ship, but it doesn't fit any established bandwidth/dronebay ratio that's all.

It's simply what would be balanced for the ship itself. Generally the Gallente extra dronebay improves as the the ships get larger and more advanced but that's not in stone.
I can say for instance that I'm going to be introducing an entirely new ratio for that list before the end of the week. Sorry in advance.

The issue with TPs are particularly with rapiers huginns and lokis, webs reach out to the ranges you want to shoot (in general). Painters have half the power of webs (so they do very nice things for missiles and large guns), but in most situations if you have a dedicated minmatar ewar boat, webs are more useful in the range you want to fight.

Its not that they are weak, but its that they do the same things as webs (dps wise) and just have silly range. Introduce that highslot TP module, and I am sure everyone will be using painters

Except they don't quite do the same thing as webs. The thing about reducing transversal velocity (webs) is that it gets reduced for both you and your opponent, giving you both an edge in dps (assuming you're both using turrets.) Target painters give you an accuracy boost /without/ also giving that boost to your opponent.

They still could use a bit of a boost, though.

Thats only true if you are both orbiting each other and have identical tracking. In the case of say, a dual prop SFI webbed by a frigate, the SFI is going to be heating its ab away from the frigate in an attempt to drop transversal as much as possible, and the web is going to make this less effective.

Balance is fine and dandy, but consider the logistics of flying a drone(ish) ship where you essentially have one set of drones. Because currently you get 1.5 sets.

If anything happens, anything at all, and you lose that one flight, you are done. Finito. Go back to base and restock. You are out of the fleet, you are out of the gang. By the time you go back, reload, and fly back, the gang will have moved on and you'll spend 40 mins playing catch-up. I know because I've done it.

And it can be anything. The drones, which have unbuffed HP by the way, die ludicrously easy. Direct fire, other drones (perhaps from a ship where drones are only a small percentage of overall DPS), smartbombs, what have you. Heck, I could be forced to warp out without having time for the drones to slowly work their way back. In any of these scenarios that's the end of the roam for me. I gotta pack up and go home and get some new drones, or hope to god there's some for sale somewhere in a nearby system. Which doesn't really work during a roam in hostile space in FW as I can't dock in enemy stations anyhow.

See the issue?

Balance is good and all, but remember that real, non-insane people are going to try to use this boat at some point. Maybe. And this kind of stuff will drive them bananas. And this is just icing, on top of an otherwise giant drone cake (poor UI, bad AI, destructible, can't overheat for more damage/faster travel/more range, slowest damage projection of any weapon system, etc., etc).