The 1% of EVE that doesn't Blob each other once a month doesn't care about your drone assist issue, as a matter of fact we like and need drone assist.

The 99% of EVE that doesn't Blob each other once a month doesn't care about your drone assist issue, as a matter of fact we like and need drone assist.

Drone assist with Ishtar, Dominix or Prophecy fleets is still incredibly powerful, so it's not just carriers at all.

And since fighters are rubbish, your ideas kind of wreck them. And remove carrier ratting too.

Yeah, better completely remove one of the mechanics that makes drones interesting, just because in certain fleets using a certain drone on a large scale it performs very well. Seems entirely reasonable.

Yeah, better completely remove one of the mechanics that makes drones interesting, just because in certain fleets using a certain drone on a large scale it performs very well. Seems entirely reasonable.

Makes drones interesting for whom? Certainly not the drone ship pilot, or are you talking game of alts? In which case still no.

And I completely disagree that assisting drones is any more of a boring mechanic than just press F1 for missiles, which seems to be what everyone in this thread wants them to be.

If it really does that much, turn it off for sentries. I've never heard of mobile drone assist being an issue and they stagger shots as they get in range unlike the sentries. I won't like it but I'd prefer it to having no assist.

I think we should just turn it off period.

There are reasons to assist besides alpha and not needing to lock targets. Namely, bouncing drones to decloak people and getting drones into fighting range in a slow ship. You don't seem to have anything bad to say about anything that isn't a sentry. Removing things entirely and large unstepped nerfs are why the missiles you love so much are so weak.

I think you make a fair point. Sentries really are at the heart of the drone assist issue, so it makes sense to only change them and not every drone in the game.

There are reasons to assist besides alpha and not needing to lock targets. Namely, bouncing drones to decloak people and getting drones into fighting range in a slow ship. You don't seem to have anything bad to say about anything that isn't a sentry. Removing things entirely and large unstepped nerfs are why the missiles you love so much are so weak.

2. Restrict sentry drones to cruiser (or higher) hulls.

I'm not entirely sure how you address and separate the issues with sentry drones - especially since CCP has made them a focal point of the SoE ships. A starting point might be asking why non-battleship hulls can even field sentry drones in the first place? Another might as be why fighters and fighter-bombers suck compared to sentry drones? If we're going to talk about non-drone assist elimination changes, this would be my short list:

1. Drone assist is limited to the receiving player's skill, ie: max 5 (same as fighters).
2. Restrict sentry drones to cruiser (or higher) hulls.
3. Buff fighters and fighter-bombers with drone skills.

you realy think that one sentry a friggate can launch is such a big issue?
5 light drones usually are more efficient anyway.

I'm not entirely sure how you address and separate the issues with sentry drones - especially since CCP has made them a focal point of the SoE ships. A starting point might be asking why non-battleship hulls can even field sentry drones in the first place? Another might as be why fighters and fighter-bombers suck compared to sentry drones? If we're going to talk about non-drone assist elimination changes, this would be my short list:

1. Drone assist is limited to the receiving player's skill, ie: max 5 (same as fighters).
2. Restrict sentry drones to cruiser (or higher) hulls.
3. Buff fighters and fighter-bombers with drone skills.

TL;DR - Kill Drone Assist.

Aside from the fact that drones now completely out-class every other weapon system with superior tracking, range, damage application and alpha - there's the very real issue of node load, instability and crashes. Drone ships are fine - they're specialized. But drone use shouldn't extend beyond the controlling ship. Drone Assist? That's when your buddy runs out of drones and you abandon some of yours to help replenish his supplyGǪ

Drone Tear Count: 3

He is referring to assigning sentries to frigates and destroyers. If sentries could only be assigned to cruisers and larger it would help a bit.

I really don't get the drone assist tears, sentries are cruiser-sized targets doing t1 damage for t2 training time... a cursory glance at the eve-wiki says tracking on them is pretty rubbish too (compared to BS weapons).

Yes they scale particularly well... but that's about all they have going for them. What am I missing here guys?

I really don't get the drone assist tears, sentries are cruiser-sized targets doing t1 damage for t2 training time... a cursory glance at the eve-wiki says tracking on them is pretty rubbish too (compared to BS weapons).

Yes they scale particularly well... but that's about all they have going for them. What am I missing here guys?

TL;DR - Kill Drone Assist.

Aside from the fact that drones now completely out-class every other weapon system with superior tracking, range, damage application and alpha - there's the very real issue of node load, instability and crashes. Drone ships are fine - they're specialized. But drone use shouldn't extend beyond the controlling ship. Drone Assist? That's when your buddy runs out of drones and you abandon some of yours to help replenish his supplyGǪ

Drone Tear Count: 3

A full fleet of them all hitting the same target at exactly the same time, with none of the variances you get with any other weapon system.

I would love to see drone assist go away.

i see no differance between drone assist and those ISBoxxer people. nerf/remove drone assist? SURE! but only if ISboxxer gets blammed too

The 99% of EVE that doesn't Blob each other once a month doesn't care about your drone assist issue, as a matter of fact we like and need drone assist.

get rid of ISBoxxer and itll lower the amount of sentry drone assisters

The mechanic of dron assist is overpowered. The only ships that should be capable of assigning drones to another player are carriers.

I'm not entirely sure how you address and separate the issues with sentry drones - especially since CCP has made them a focal point of the SoE ships. A starting point might be asking why non-battleship hulls can even field sentry drones in the first place? Another might as be why fighters and fighter-bombers suck compared to sentry drones? If we're going to talk about non-drone assist elimination changes, this would be my short list:

1. Drone assist is limited to the receiving player's skill, ie: max 5 (same as fighters).
2. Restrict sentry drones to cruiser (or higher) hulls.
3. Buff fighters and fighter-bombers with drone skills.

That does nothing to the current use of sentry carrier blobs (which is by and large what people are complaining about). The matter that really needs to be discussed is whether or not the ability to assign drones to a single controller has merit, and whether or not its merits are more valuable then its drawbacks.

On one hand, I rather like the ability for a fleet to coordinate drones through one or more players to increase the efficiency of drone use. On the other hand, the ability to alpha targets with no deviation definitely puts drones above average in regards to fleet combat. Mechanic wise it is clearly superior in many scenarios to more traditional alpha fleets. These points mean that drone assist provides some good use in terms of fleet control, but only does so by being an inherently overpowered mechanic.

All in all I feel like drone assist is a patchwork solution for bad UI. I think that if CCP did their rework of the drone UI and provided more tools for control and THEN removed drone assist the people who hate drone assist would be happy, and the people who use drone assist wouldn't be as inclined to complain since they would be gaining a platform by which they could more adequately keep track of and control their drones (which would, presumably, allow for their continued use in fleet warfare as an active weapon system).

TL;DR Remove drone assist, but fix the drone UI when you do it.

Fixed it for you.

Fixed it for you both.

The 99% of EVE that doesn't Blob each other once a month doesn't care about your drone assist issue, as a matter of fact we like and need drone assist.

the majority of eve playerscharacters dont do pvp.

At the end of the day, if drone assist went away would any of that really change? The alpha of sentries may not be delivered with perfect volley like it does now but with everyone following primary calls it really wouldn't be much different from the old arty fleets?

Archons can't lock to the ranges their drones are shooting that

They're not ewar immune like some trigger ships

They lock slower than some of the other trigger ships used

Not having to worry about boosting your sensor res or target range is pretty sweet, you only need one ship to do that.

so this was the sleeping giant that rose after the tear bucket was filled with tears about missles till they got nerfed into the ground? ya know? ill be against this on principal because if we dotn stand up against the whiners of a viable platform itll just end up in a sad and sorry state...like missles.. and to a further extent FOF and defenders.

this person speaks the truth there are people here that'll cry about everything and one day it will reach FOF missiles, not that they'll have been buffed into something that can be used it's just that everything else will have been nerfed into obscurity!!

There is nothing wrong with drone assist it works if they change anything in the drone code they'll break drones back to how they used to be and there isn't a man woman or child that wants that.

For those that don't know how to kill a big cap fleet then don't engage it, if you see a a gang of ishtars running around and you think they're gonna be nano'ed and using sentry drones and you know you'll die horribly then don't engage them. Please all the people don't come to the forums asking them to poke the drone code it's held together with wishes if they poke it then it'll all fall apart and no one can have any drones.

Tell me. How do you suggest fighting a 200 strong spider tanking sentry carrier fleet, with supercapital supremacy, without it ending in either a node crash or a stalemate that lasts until downtime?

Nobody is going to tell you how to beat us, sorry, you'll have to either figure it out on your own or cry for it to get nerfed (of course noting that we're not scared of YOU using carriers on US, mostly because we're well prepared to counter you).

Also to the OP, if you're against signing away control of your ship where drones are concerned, then I assume that you're ok with removing all ways that you can give away control of your ship, most notably through Fleet Warping.

I mean if we're going to be a stickler about things, lets cover all the ways you can turn over control of your ship (keep at range on a moving target, orbiting a moving target, fleet warping, regroup commands) and get rid of all that, if you want to do anything in EVE with your ship YOU should have to do it. Learn to warp at the right time (good luck to those mobbed up stealth bomber fleets and 700 man BS fleets), Learn where to drive to stay with your fleet members and stay in rep range, and learn when to fire your own guns.

please don't tell us that you know how to counter them because you don't.

And please stop comparing fleet movement to drone assists. FC doesn't have control of your guns or missiles.

Can an FC dock or tell your ship to jump? No he can't, that would be silly, so why can he tell your ship where to go or warp it, those are all navigational things that should be left up to the pilot, not the fleet commander.

No, he can't control your guns or missiles, nor should he be able to control that or any other aspect of your ship.

I do actually, so I'll keep telling you that I know how to counter them. I actually dare you to put them in front of us.




No, he can't control your guns or missiles, nor should he be able to control that or any other aspect of your ship.


Can an FC dock or tell your ship to jump? No he can't, that would be silly, so why can he tell your ship where to go or warp it, those are all navigational things that should be left up to the pilot, not the fleet commander.

So please, you're either mad that you're getting beat by something you can't figure out a way around or aren't willing to commit to beating, or you're 100% for getting rid of giving away any control of your ship.


Which is it?

Well, considering that you guys have complete supercapital supremacy, a CFC boot fleet would not be the same as an N3/PL slowcat fleet at all. As I said, taking into account that you guys have us beat in terms of supers, as we all know, what the hell else is there to do against your slowcats?


And how is navigation the same as weapons in any way? Is the 'warp fleet' button really identical to the 'fire entire fleet's weapons, alpha everything' button sentry doctrines have? :V

I'm assuming from your comments about orbit, keep at range etc that you're just trolling though, so well done.

... because the opponent has the counter doesn't mean that the counter doesn't work, not using the counter to your enemy because he can counter your counter, also does not invalidate a counter, i just means in this particular case your opponent out thought you and planned ahead.

And because here's the core argument for Drone assign: Giving up control of your ships is bad, giving over control of your weapons are bad, its ability to eliminate any human error from the firing process makes it imbalanced.

All of these things are mitigating human error, and allowing one person to control the core actions of a group of ships to avoid error at the pilot level, just like drone assign, so at some point you have to realize you're not just attacking drone assists, you're attacking the current core concepts of EVE fleet combat, and that if you say that one is out of balance, then since they all share the same traits and functions, they're all out of balance.

there is no planning ahead that neads to be done. it's just a matter of bringing bigger toys, but if you can field alot of titans and supers, then well.. it's just end game and there is no counter to that. can't really kill a titan that just doomsdayed a dread and can be repped by 200 archons. all you need to do is just sit with drones assigned and keep reps on supers or titans that have fighter bombers or doomsdays and you're indestructible.



sorry but who said "Giving up control of your ships is bad". stop making things up. It's a topic about drone assist



And again you're mixing fleet mechanics and actions of a fleet member like it's the same. You can't warp to a spot where FC combat scanned enemy, can you? That's why you need FC to have some sort of general tools to make fleet work - like fleet warping and broadcasting. But after that you need to control your ship by yourself. keep distance lock targets (or keep being jammed/dampened).

With drone assists your're even worse tool than goons when everyone was saying that all they do is anchor and press F1 in their drakes. You do nothing.

So, go on and tell me whats broken about Drone Assign, exactly in your words since me summarizing the words of every other complainer in the thread didn't work, in your mind, in your words, whats wrong with Drone Assign.

The whole "supers and titans" bit is in your own head, you'll never beat them with that attitude, thats cowardice

Lets try it like this, you tell me, what about drone assign makes it to strong and broken, what about the actual assignment of drones makes it broken?

Now understand that when you're forming your answer, I'm going to prove that everything you say is wrong with the mechanic I'm going to easily transfer over in words to cover both fleet warping, and fleet anchoring.

Does the FC need tools to do his job? Sure the broadcast system has every tool needed.

Can the fleet warp to a result the FC has probed down? No, but a prober sure can warp there and ten the fleet can easily warp to him.

So, go on and tell me whats broken about Drone Assign, exactly in your words since me summarizing the words of every other complainer in the thread didn't work, in your mind, in your words, whats wrong with Drone Assign.

How about assigning drones to a remote boosted proteus or legion which due to small sig can't really be taken down fast is not broken. .

Or the fact that carriers can rep eachother while ditching out damage of a short range battleship gun .

with super tracking at extreme ranges and can't be jammed, because they don't even have to target anything. you would need to deal with 12 or so separate drones.

I know other pandemic legion members know that it's OP mechanic, because they saw goons or someone with sentry do fleets and probably couldn't take them down, so they upgraded it to extreme with archons.

This complaint is about sig tanking mechanics and how they make you mad, not drone assign

So can remorte rep battleships, this is not a complaint about drone assign, do you hate RR BS too?

I feel bad if you're trying to jam drones, theres so many more effective ways to deal with them.

Sorry, we invented this, feel free to ask around, we didn't need to copy it off of anybody.

it's not sig tanking making me mad, it's bad posters. So let's say you have a aeon that is sitting inside archon blob, with his EWAR immunity and drones assigned. can't counter that.

battleships can be taken down with alpha maels for example. if you want to take down RR archons you need alpha from naglfars. problem is that if you siege them, they are sitting ducks and can't be remote repaired, and are very easy target for super or titans (why you so mad)

I would like to know your counter to that tactic just to laugh how bad you are.

sentry domi fleets with assisted drones were there before your archons. you didn't invent anything. just saying

+1 support
Fix this drone assist