I just don't understand why a cruiser class has bonuses to battleship weapons. Heavy drones and sentries are battleship class weapons, and unless you are flying a t3 battlecruiser or battleship you shouldn't have bonuses to battleship weapons.

I'd even say being able to have 5 sentries/heavies up at a time is overkill. Removing bonuses and only allowing 3 or 4 sentries to be active via bandwidth makes the most sense to me.

Holy crap. Did you seriously just post that? Unfitted weapon stats absolutely relevant. If the weapons within a group are not comparable (comparable means having some variation within a general performance range, not identical in performance), then exactly how do you balance them? Put widely disparate bonuses or even penalties on every ship in the game to compensate?

The unfit weapon stats are exactly where CCP should start with balancing. Then they can correct any obvious and glaringly bad bonuses on the hulls that have them. Charts like the above indicate disparities in performance (poor balance) between systems in the same category; this case medium weapons + Rapid Lights.

Sentry drones have better applied dps to a medium target under worst conditions than every other weapon system by a large margin from 28km all the way out to as far as you can get them to engage.

I've suggested multiple ways to fix this. Here is another way; nerf the damage on Gardes, Curators, and Bouncers so that they apply the same dps as Wardens to the same target at their engagement ranges. They'll be comparable to the short-range weapons at long range, better than the long-range weapons at long range, and worse than short range weapons at short range.

tbh, even that might not be enough.

edit: The only thing you said that I agree with is that Rapid Lights (ie light missiles) have too much range. The front-loaded dps is ok.

Why should a Gallente ship get a bonus to using Amarr drones?

Limit the Ishtar drone damage bonuses to thermal damage and call it a day.

I was in sentry drone fleets long before the HAC rebalance. The changes that brought on mass sentry use just amped up an already powerful fleet design. The issue is, and will remain, the ability to put out battleship firepower and range from a mobile and resilient platform.

The HAC will remain resilient and mobile, what it needs to lose is the area control provided by mass sentry. Simply nerfing the fire power is a brutish rebalance, what should be introduced is a hard counter. Maybe a battleship or capital class module which jams drones or reduces the control range of drones within an area. Create a way to force the HACs to defend the area by risking their ships. The counter to sentries should come with some weakness so the RPS chain is maintained -- preferably a chain that climbs the ship-class ladder.

Reducing the power of a ship is never a fun solution. Players want to feel like their ship or fleet is amazing. Creating a solid Rock, Paper, Scissors chain allows people to fly powerful ships, have absolutely lopsided victories, but never give the impression of total imbalance because if the proper counter was used the fight would have gone dramaticalky different.

They aren't battleship class weapons. They are drones.

Holy crap, did you just post that nonsense? Do you not realize that unbonused, unfitted weapons do not exist on TQ? All the weapons you compare are fitted on appropriate ships in reality, and what is relevant is how the weapons are balanced between these ships.

Do yourself a favour and compare those weapons fitted on ships in EFT graphs and you realize how big of a fool you just made yourself.

They aren't battleship class weapons. They are drones.

But they are. Heavy and Sentry drones are designed as anti-BS drones for use by ships like the Dominix. While you can use them on smaller ships, you can only use a very limited number.

Frigate Drone boat bandwidth is 25 - allowing 5 light drones (1 sentry/heavy)
See: Tristan, Dragoon, Algos

Cruiser/BC Drone boats have bandwidths of 50 - allowing 5 medium drones (2 sentry/heavy)
See: Vexor, Curse, Pilgrim, Harbinger, Prophecy, etc.

BS Drone boats have a bandwidth of 125 - allowing 5 sentry or heavy drones
See: Dominix, Armageddon

There are some minor exceptions, like the Prophecy having 75, and the Algos having 35.. but the most gross exception is the Ishtar which has 125, more than the Battlecruiser done ships, the same as a Battleship drone boat. Except it's not a BS and has a tiny sig radius and can MWD all over the place, Making it deal equal damage as a Dominix without having to worry about having a tank as it can fly away, and is much harder to hit in the first place because it's a cruiser.

Edit:
In the same way that weapons are restricted via powergrid requirements, so too are drones restricted via their bandwidth. You may be able to fit 1 or 2 battleship guns on a smaller ship, but that would be silly.. the same thing goes for drones. Bandwidth and drone bay capacity limit the number of drones you have available and the number you can actually use. Cruisers should only have a bandwidth designed for medium drones, though sentry drones could be used if you wanted to - in a very limited manner.

425mm Railgun II: 400m signature resolution, optimal 57.6km, falloff 24km (81.6), tracking .01 rad/s.
Tachyon Beam Laser II: 400m signature resolution, optimal 52.8km, falloff 20km (72.8), tracking .014rad/s.
1400mm Howitzer Artillery II: 400m signature radius, optimal 48km, falloff 35km (83), tracking .009 rad/s.

Bouncer II: 400m signature resolution, optimal 36km, falloff 54km (90km), tracking .019 rad/s.

Definitely not a BS-class weapon.

edit: Also don't mind the best-in-class range and tracking.

Yes. This.

Or

Remove Sentries from the Ishtar completely.

CCP vOv

That wouldn't solve the overiding problem that Sentries are still by far the best fleet weapon in the game.

Subcap drone boats shouldn't be a thing. Drone subcaps dominate many classes besides the HAC department. I'd prefer to see all drone bonuses removed from subcaps.

Drones were actually originally intended to be supplemental weaponry, not a primary weapon system. Rebalance the EWAR drones so the ships with large drones bandwidth / drone bays can use drones in a supplemental role.

One of the most blatant things that I see in respect to the Ishtar compared to the other HACs is the fact that the Ishtar has way too many bonuses.

The same drone/sentry Optimal range and Tracking double bonus is also present on the Dominix --- In a situation where sentries/drones are a fully functioning primary weapons system that is unacceptable. WTB Apocalypse with Tracking+Optimal and a 10% Damage bonus.

Remove the Optimal range part of the double bonus, and maybe combine Sentry 5% Tracking with Heavy Tracking 7.5% into one.

On the Dominix, however, all the bonuses as they are make sense as sentries are a BS weapon. Or so I've been told time and time again.

Is the Dominix a brawling ship? A fleet ship? All of the above? Best spaceship?

I'd love to get a 10% damage per level bonus on the Apocalypse. Oh, and make it so that all of the bonuses apply to Small, Medium and Large energy turrets.

Ishtars Online

Or remove the Optimal/Tracking bonus, then you have a Geddon without Neutralizer Bonus.

Besides, if you added 10% damage bonus to the Apoc, you'd get easily above 1k DPS. That sure is balanced. On the other hand, without the 10% damage bonus to drones on the Domi, you'd barely scratch 400 DPS with high DPS drones.

Let's see,

7.5% bonus to Heavy Drone max velocity and tracking speed - That's two
10% bonus to Light, Medium, and Heavy Drone hit points and damage, 5% bonus to Sentry Drone hit points and damage - That's number 3.

Heavy Assault Cruisers bonuses (per skill level):

5000m bonus to Drone operation range - Four
5% bonus to Sentry Drone optimal range *and* tracking speed - Five & Six

Alright, we can count the Trackings as one. So 5 (five) in total.

Don't forget that this CRUISER hull can instantly switch between Tachyon Beam Laser / 425mm range & damage, and Neutron Blaster Cannons whenever it feels like it. Albeit only two times, if abandoning sentries is required.

Throwing them all into one pot is tailoring the data to favor your argument, not objectively looking at what the data actually does.

Forget Ishtar for a second, look at the double Tracking + Optimal bonus on the Domi along with the damage bonus to all drone types.

the nerf hasn't changed anything.

Go back to 1 and start again

This thread is about the Ishtar, not the Dominix.

the nerf hasn't changed anything.

Go back to 1 and start again

They are the Ying and Yang of the sentry problem.

Going by history, seeing as no one wants a moderate solution, the nerf bat will decimate both of these ships in the end.

Then you can nerf a bit the sentries.. and boost a bit the dominix base bonus. Voil+í... you balance battleships a bit, you nerfed ishtars and carriers.. and you have not moved the dominix.