Originally by: Joshua Foiritain

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Question; What use is the Dominix if the Megathron with half its drone bay can field 5 heavy drones too?

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Originally by: Joshua Foiritain

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Question; What use is the Dominix if the Megathron with half its drone bay can field 5 heavy drones too?

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Originally by: Trelennen

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Edited by: Trelennen on 31/10/2005 18:53:13
Edited by: Trelennen on 31/10/2005 18:52:35

Originally by: Hinik

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One damage type blah blah blah yeah that sucks big time. halving the drone bay sucks even more... as my main ship atm is my ishtar, if I have to stick thermal drones in it... as well as only have 5 of them... AS WELL as not having any kind of backup or choice about different deployment, that sucks even more.

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Well, your new 5 drones will deal the same damage (if thermal) than your previous 15 drones, and be less vulnerable to smartbombs. And right now you can have 20 heavy drones in your bay and 15 out, which would be 5 spare (eg. only 1/3rd of what you can have out at a time). With these changes, you would have room for 10 drones (drone bay halfed), and then still have 5 spare, but that would be a complete replacement set. And your 5 drones will still do the damage of 10 current ones if not using thermal drones.

So yeah, being restricted to thermal drone damage bonus sucks, as it sucks missile boats to be restricted to one type of damage missile bonus. And you can still decide to use your own medslots for EW to keep your damage drones out. As I see them, EW drones will most likely be more useful for non drone boats, as drone boats will get bonus to drone damage instead of their drone control.

edit:

Originally by: Ithildin

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Bottom line is: drones are pre-weighed as far as damage goes - you do NOT need BONUSES in order to enhance racial differences like you need in missiles where all Cruise Missiles go the same speed, fire as fast, explode as fast, and has the same explosion cloud, where all the difference is merely in damage TYPE.

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Their damage is weighted with their speed and HP. Having non specific damage bonus for drones but not for missiles would then require than those less damaging drones become also less fast and less resistant that those best damaging ones.

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Originally by: Trelennen

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Edited by: Trelennen on 31/10/2005 18:53:13
Edited by: Trelennen on 31/10/2005 18:52:35

Originally by: Hinik

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One damage type blah blah blah yeah that sucks big time. halving the drone bay sucks even more... as my main ship atm is my ishtar, if I have to stick thermal drones in it... as well as only have 5 of them... AS WELL as not having any kind of backup or choice about different deployment, that sucks even more.

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Well, your new 5 drones will deal the same damage (if thermal) than your previous 15 drones, and be less vulnerable to smartbombs. And right now you can have 20 heavy drones in your bay and 15 out, which would be 5 spare (eg. only 1/3rd of what you can have out at a time). With these changes, you would have room for 10 drones (drone bay halfed), and then still have 5 spare, but that would be a complete replacement set. And your 5 drones will still do the damage of 10 current ones if not using thermal drones.

So yeah, being restricted to thermal drone damage bonus sucks, as it sucks missile boats to be restricted to one type of damage missile bonus. And you can still decide to use your own medslots for EW to keep your damage drones out. As I see them, EW drones will most likely be more useful for non drone boats, as drone boats will get bonus to drone damage instead of their drone control.

edit:

Originally by: Ithildin

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Bottom line is: drones are pre-weighed as far as damage goes - you do NOT need BONUSES in order to enhance racial differences like you need in missiles where all Cruise Missiles go the same speed, fire as fast, explode as fast, and has the same explosion cloud, where all the difference is merely in damage TYPE.

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Their damage is weighted with their speed and HP. Having non specific damage bonus for drones but not for missiles would then require than those less damaging drones become also less fast and less resistant that those best damaging ones.

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Originally by: Deadzone

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Edited by: Deadzone on 01/11/2005 19:00:47
I have two main problems here after Tuxford has changed the dmg bonus.

1) Cutting drones bays in half. This kills the specific Gall drone ships.

2) Reducing max number of drones of ANY ship to 5 max! No this is just total BS. Gallante are specific DRONE CARRIERS! This is what they do!! How in the heck can you reduce a ship that had 15 drones max, down to 5 drones, the same as any other ship can have??? This is just wrong Tuxford!

Domi's could fly 15 drones, max. 5 more than any other ship given skills. And now you want to cut them down to the same as any other ship?? No man. No. You have to give the NEW Domi the same ability to field MORE drones than any other ship because that is what that ship does. It's a drone carrier specifically made to field more drones than any other ship.

Currently, the Dom can field 1.5x more drones than other BS. This ratio needs to be kept. So instead of fielding only 5 drones, it should be able to field 8 drones(rounded up). This will be able to keep the ratio and the role the Domi has as a DRONE ship, not just the same as every other ship.(and well, the Gall HAC and any other Gall drone ship that has a drone control ability).

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Originally by: Deadzone

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Edited by: Deadzone on 01/11/2005 19:00:47
I have two main problems here after Tuxford has changed the dmg bonus.

1) Cutting drones bays in half. This kills the specific Gall drone ships.

2) Reducing max number of drones of ANY ship to 5 max! No this is just total BS. Gallante are specific DRONE CARRIERS! This is what they do!! How in the heck can you reduce a ship that had 15 drones max, down to 5 drones, the same as any other ship can have??? This is just wrong Tuxford!

Domi's could fly 15 drones, max. 5 more than any other ship given skills. And now you want to cut them down to the same as any other ship?? No man. No. You have to give the NEW Domi the same ability to field MORE drones than any other ship because that is what that ship does. It's a drone carrier specifically made to field more drones than any other ship.

Currently, the Dom can field 1.5x more drones than other BS. This ratio needs to be kept. So instead of fielding only 5 drones, it should be able to field 8 drones(rounded up). This will be able to keep the ratio and the role the Domi has as a DRONE ship, not just the same as every other ship.(and well, the Gall HAC and any other Gall drone ship that has a drone control ability).

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Originally by: Shayla Sh'inlux

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Edited by: Shayla Sh''inlux on 02/11/2005 17:47:28
Edited by: Shayla Sh''inlux on 02/11/2005 17:47:12

Originally by: Jim Raynor

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Originally by: Shayla Sh'inlux

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So the drone carriers will have their +1 drone controlled per level changed to:

-> +10% drone damage per level
-> +10% drone mining yield per level
-> +10% to drone hitpoints

?

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that's one hell of a ship bonus.

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That's why I asked.
I see the +10% damage and +10% hitpoints as a bonus that should be one bonus, but the mining bonus seems odd.

Like the post quoted above, Moros definately shouldn't have it and Dominix shouldn't either. In fact, not giving cruisers it as well, would put Scythe and Osprey more in line with each other as a mining ship.

On the other hand, Apoc being the best Deep Core mining ship and second best mining ship in the game feels kinda odd too, doesn't it?

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Originally by: Clavius XIV

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Edited by: Clavius XIV on 02/11/2005 18:50:25
Edited by: Clavius XIV on 02/11/2005 18:49:03

Originally by: Tiny Carlos

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If you look at Drone Interfacing as a skill now, ignoring what it is beeing changed to balance, it's freakishly overpowered. It had some of this effect before but only on really big drone bays, not for every single droneuser.

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This is actually an excellent point. Its a good thing that the intial proposal is being adjusted to insure that drone specialists in drone ships don't do less damage/mining than before.

However for ships with less than 100m3 dronebay,this represents a significant dps boost.

In the best case, take the Prophecy, which with the current 50m^3 dronebay can currently launch 2 heavies or 5 mediums. A Prophecy pilot with drone interfacing or drones V does exactly the same max dps currently. (could launch 10 lights, but they do less damage than 5 mediums).

With the changes a prophecy pilot can *double*current maximum possible drone dps.

You also see the incongruities with the drone cruisers. Currently to maximize drone cruiser dps, you want to fill the dronebay while using the most medium drones possible.

For my Arbitrator this means 15 medium drones for maximum damage. With the new drone interfacing, the spare drone space won't generally be used for spare drones, but for heavies. As was pointed out in the blog, this is an effective gain of 2 heavy drones. While I fly the Arbitrator 99.99% of the time, and this would benefit me, I still think that this is a bit whacky (althouth with the 4/4/4 nerf I guess I can look at it as compensation without feeling too guilty).

Of course all cruisers with between 50 and 100m3 of drone space are getting an effective damage boost from this, so perhaps on the cruiser level it will all balance out, but theres a lot of subtle complexities just in the damage department, before you even think about the ewar/logistic capabilities.

I'm not sure how to solve this (well other than just leaving things how they are, which would be my preference :p)

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Originally by: Shayla Sh'inlux

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Edited by: Shayla Sh''inlux on 02/11/2005 17:47:28
Edited by: Shayla Sh''inlux on 02/11/2005 17:47:12

Originally by: Jim Raynor

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Originally by: Shayla Sh'inlux

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So the drone carriers will have their +1 drone controlled per level changed to:

-> +10% drone damage per level
-> +10% drone mining yield per level
-> +10% to drone hitpoints

?

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that's one hell of a ship bonus.

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That's why I asked.
I see the +10% damage and +10% hitpoints as a bonus that should be one bonus, but the mining bonus seems odd.

Like the post quoted above, Moros definately shouldn't have it and Dominix shouldn't either. In fact, not giving cruisers it as well, would put Scythe and Osprey more in line with each other as a mining ship.

On the other hand, Apoc being the best Deep Core mining ship and second best mining ship in the game feels kinda odd too, doesn't it?

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Originally by: Clavius XIV

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Edited by: Clavius XIV on 02/11/2005 18:50:25
Edited by: Clavius XIV on 02/11/2005 18:49:03

Originally by: Tiny Carlos

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If you look at Drone Interfacing as a skill now, ignoring what it is beeing changed to balance, it's freakishly overpowered. It had some of this effect before but only on really big drone bays, not for every single droneuser.

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This is actually an excellent point. Its a good thing that the intial proposal is being adjusted to insure that drone specialists in drone ships don't do less damage/mining than before.

However for ships with less than 100m3 dronebay,this represents a significant dps boost.

In the best case, take the Prophecy, which with the current 50m^3 dronebay can currently launch 2 heavies or 5 mediums. A Prophecy pilot with drone interfacing or drones V does exactly the same max dps currently. (could launch 10 lights, but they do less damage than 5 mediums).

With the changes a prophecy pilot can *double*current maximum possible drone dps.

You also see the incongruities with the drone cruisers. Currently to maximize drone cruiser dps, you want to fill the dronebay while using the most medium drones possible.

For my Arbitrator this means 15 medium drones for maximum damage. With the new drone interfacing, the spare drone space won't generally be used for spare drones, but for heavies. As was pointed out in the blog, this is an effective gain of 2 heavy drones. While I fly the Arbitrator 99.99% of the time, and this would benefit me, I still think that this is a bit whacky (althouth with the 4/4/4 nerf I guess I can look at it as compensation without feeling too guilty).

Of course all cruisers with between 50 and 100m3 of drone space are getting an effective damage boost from this, so perhaps on the cruiser level it will all balance out, but theres a lot of subtle complexities just in the damage department, before you even think about the ewar/logistic capabilities.

I'm not sure how to solve this (well other than just leaving things how they are, which would be my preference :p)

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