the rattlesnake won't have a sentry bonus and a heavy bonus .. it will be heavies only along with its missile damage bonus

Because it would be a unique modifier and it would only apply to medium ewar drones like the rest of the cruiser's drone bonuses. Are there any other ships in the game that give a bonus to ewar and combat utility drones? Besides ECM drones, do the ewar and combat utility drones ever get used? I think the TP drones get used sometimes. Stacking effects really make the other drones worthless. And here, you have a ship that could actually use those type of drones effectively without the usual stack penalties.

cos its clear in the OP they don't want guristas using sentries and overlapping with gallente droneboats.. plus if they were going to use sentries they would have allowed the gila too use them .... they are brawlers now like they were always supposed to be.

I love how most everyone here has completely glossed over talking about the ninja'd 25% damage buff the phantasm is getting. It didn't drop any guns. Love it love it. <3

They rolled the 5% damage per level bonus where the AB is now on top of the original 100% dmg bonus, and added 25% more damage on top of that without removing any guns for free without any offset. It's a buff.

Actually, what is proposed directly changes that. When your medium drones have the speed of lights and the EHP of your main ship, they become viable in PvE.

Le Sigh

It's still hard for me to believe that after more than a year people don't know how to drone in PVE. And the new Gila will have "super drones" with more EHP (because of the gila changes) and more speed (because of the drone changes).

I never really understood that thing about drones and EWAR. It came up with the worm update too.

When Curtis Le May first saw the original iteration for the XB-70 Valkyrie bomber, he exclaimed "This is not an airplane, its a three ship formation!".

And this is exactly what you get with the new Gila. You have 7.5 launchers, and 2 drones that each have the DPS and the buffer of an assault frigate++.

I don't know about you, I really love having 10 assault frigates in my drone bay.

Add some logi to your TPing. DPS from ship + Logi + EWAR. I've lost a hand full of Ogre IIs from my Gila and Domi doing this semi afk. NPCs HATE logi. My current Gila EATS Gone Berserk , Buzz Kill and other missions where npcs spawn close reducing travel time.

So now instead of "Ishtar for everyhting" it would be "Ishtar for some things, but Gila is an option for others".

And with the Gila I have it following the OGRES, and since FoF missiles hit the nearest thing, the webbing frig tends to die, quickly (5% missile radius hardwiring helps though).

No one is saying sentries aren't good, but the overly orthodox and uncreative nature of many PVErs keep them from seeing how things can work if you try.

The Gila has room for more medium drones

Everything that powerful needs a weakness IMO. And which faillings of Drone AI are you talking about specifically?

The problem is the ishtar, meaning less use of the current Gila. It becomes the "Domi vs Rattlesnake" just with cruisers, unless you need a bunch of passive shield tank, why use a 'Sanke for pve when a Domi can get almost as much dps with just drones (and more with guns) for 1/4th the cost.

The ishtar isn't that expensive, but after a pilot can fly an ishtar, there just isn't much need for the Gila which is why you see Ishtars doing PVE stuff in Guristas space rather than the actual Gurista's Cruiser. With the kin/therm bonus, extra launcher and bonused to hell hammerheads that are better against small targets close in the Gila actually has something of an edge over the ishtar for the 1st time i can remember.

I'm not kidding, I'm going to fly that sucker till the armor shakes off in Serp/guristas pve..

The derp factor of drone AI is understandable, but the whole damage reduction via drone popping is a little off.

As we argued in the Worm thread, having less drones with more EHP means that your enemy will be less able to remove damage from the field. Even accounting for the extra targeting time (which favors 5 drones), until you are able to kill one of the 6x boosted ones you get 100% damage thrown against you. Also, the higher EHP gives you the opportunity to exchange drones on the fly in a close range PvP enviroment, thus keeping the pressure on without having your drones popped.

This is also why the EWAR argument is not that important. If the enemy has to web one of your drones to kill it then that web is off your ship, instantly giving you the "weather gauge" in the engagement.

Also, have in mind that you have another 8 drones like that in your bay, ready for launching.

Gila pilots, if you are worried about losing your drones due to them taking ages to get back to you. Try sitting up close to your target and brawling ;) - you're not going to lose drones this way unless you're in idiot or in a fight you were never going to win anyway.

Really good at one rather than 2nd best at a few things? That's an improvement then. There are now situations where this ship is the best, rather than every situation basically being "should have used an ishtar or Rattlesnake"

Really think this needs to hit Sisi nice and soon so everyone can go try them.

Which is why they make these thigns called Drone nav comps, which I use on my Domi (not the gila).

And how can I be the wrost PVEr in the game when several of you have demonstrated that you either don't know how to keep arrgo off drones or don't want to take the effort to do so lol?
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Absolutly no one. I am a pve player, I am addressing the ridiculas notion that the new Gila is somehow going to suck at pve because it no long has the sentry crutch people have been relying on since the NPC AI change instead of learning how to actually play. A Gila PVPr can address the pvp concerns if they wish.

Even if so, the thing will actually be more fun to fly. I use mine as a mobile heavy drone brawler already, this is just making it that much better. And how much flexibility does a ship that doesn't get much current use need?

And do crap / no damage at that range. An inty would be a better, faster and cheaper no damage solution in this scenario.

nice straw man argument. the point range bonus would be awesome for the whole angel line as it would go naturally with kiting tactics. the problem with the current point ranges (except faction) is that they are not scaling well with kiters, the sweet spot is at the limit of point range and you can easily lose the target with such an extremly narrow range for errors.

Edit: also what good the warp speed bonus will bring? the need for an all Cynabal fleet in order to use that speed bonus in roams?

The words are English, but beyond that, I don't even...

^ This, I thought they were getting rid of half-way dronebays.

Awesome bonus for the rattlesnake drones. Bonus for missiles? What's the point?