That affects many more ships than just the Ishtar. Suddenly the Myrmidon, for example, can field a full set of heavies. It would take more work than it seems to balance the drone ships again.

2. adjust hvy drone bandwidth to 20mb

That affects many more ships than just the Ishtar. Suddenly the Myrmidon, for example, can field a full set of heavies. It would take more work than it seems to balance the drone ships again.

I can see how you read that first post and thought that the minor falloff/optimal tweak was the only change that's coming in Scylla and nothing else was being changed.

Emphasis on "you".

Bouncer nerf misses the point. So does the announced Ishtar nerf of reducing the damage bonus.

Tracking is the problem. Sentries are a BS sized weapon systems. They should not be able to track frigates and cruisers at close range.

Correct, they shouldn't, and they don't.

Just make EWAR that hits a ship, affect that ship's drones.

Tracking Disruption
Sensor Dampening
ECM

Why is it that I can EWAR an Ishtar, but that Ishtar continues to provide bonuses to it's drones from it's fitted modules?

At the very least, make it so that certain EWAR affects the bonuses provided by Drone Upgrade modules.

EWAR is an already in-game counter weapon. Instead of nerfing ships and drones, give us the ability to use already in-game tools so that we can counter them ourselves.

Our thoughts: - First, we wanted to establish whether the problem was more about the Ishtar or more about Sentry Drones. The data makes a pretty convincing case that it really is mostly the Ishtar. While several other ships (Dominix, Navy Vexor, Archon, etc.) are making use of sentries, none of them are anywhere near as sentry reliant as the Ishtar and none of them are coming close to the overall damage that Ishtars represent on TQ

After deciding to just make a change to Ishtars, we considered what approach would be the most elegant. Options included changes to the bonuses, changes to base attributes (moving a mid slot was one example here), or possibly screwing around with sentry drone bandwidth use and adjusting other ships as needed. Eventually we settled on the bonuses, even though it means having the only drone damage bonus below 10% per level in the game.

Tracking is the problem, not optimal.

Rise and Fozzie, killing off 0.0 by one poorly thought out balance change, one after another.

Bouncer nerf misses the point. So does the announced Ishtar nerf of reducing the damage bonus.

Tracking is the problem. Sentries are a BS sized weapon systems. They should not be able to track frigates and cruisers at close range. Sub-BS hulls should not get tracking bonuses to them. With their native high tracking, PLUS the tracking bonus on many ship hulls, sentry drones can apply their BS sized DPS to medium sized or smaller ships, and do it without need for webs or target painters. This should not be possible.

Drones already offer the flexibility of being able to swap weapon class at will. No other weapon system can do this; it's part of their design and their key advantage. By carrying a stock of Light drones in their hold, even a BS can engage frigate sized targets. However, by changing your weapon class, you also change your DPS class. A Dominix using Light Drones is doing a fraction of it's DPS potential; this is a worthwhile tradeoff to hit small targets that would be able to speed tank you otherwise. Sentries don't need to make that tradeoff; that's why they are OP. Putting tracking bonuses on drone boats was a mistake that should never have been made; it sabotages the entire design philosophy of drones.

Without the tracking bonuses, sentries are no more powerful then equivalent BS guns. This is how it should be. Be able to down-class at will to engage a smaller target is already a huge advantage.

As stated above really...

Agree changes are required and sad to lose the Ishtar as a very capable and disposable ratter however changing sentries is not the answer as this will effect more than the Ishtar.

I am guessing when sentries where be conceived the idea was for a powerful drone for a bigger class of vessel. If so, just increase bandwidth to 50 and increase battleships which are designed for drones such as the Domi, Rattlesnake, Sin. By drop the power of sentries you are indirectly reducing these battleships effectiveness which already have the bomb threat that the Ishtar/T3 doesnGÇÖt.

More simple solution is to restrict sentries to BS class or reduced the Ishtar bandwidth.

That being said one change to sentries that can be made is to make more of a sniper (low damage high range) and brawler (high damage, close range) classes. This divide is currently too close.

However I feel the GÇÿsolutionGÇÖ to this GÇÿproblemGÇÖ is not neffing sentries.

That being said one change to sentries that can be made is to make more of a sniper (low damage high range) and brawler (high damage, close range) classes. This divide is currently too close.

Sentries were fine before the introduction of the drone modules. That's when things went sideways. The introduction of the drone modules created the OP ishtar and the archons after downtime mess.

if it were me I'd do something like -40% or -50% optimal and falloff reduction on all sentry drones, or just remove them.

The change removes 5km of base optimal for T1 Bouncers (6km for T2 and Navy) and adds the same value to falloff.