Originally by: Bartholomeus Crane

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The problem isn't with Caldari I-Win buttons, it is, instead, with the broken implementation of drones and with their coming extra vulnerability in Kali. I hope we can keep Caldari bashing out of this thread.

Drones are the only weapon system that can be permanently disabled in a fight. No turret or missile has this disadvantage.

This is made worse by the fact that the main advantage of drones, the ability to retreat them from the fight, is buggily implemented, making taking advantage of this a dangerous proposal.

Furthermore, a buggy implementation of the way T2 BPOs are distributed means that the cost of the T2 drones is exorbitatantly high when compared to other weapon system (a T2 Hammerhead costing more then some frigates!), so if a drone is lost, this is quite a financial blow to the user, similar to losing a T2 turret or missile launcher.

With the longer fights in Kali, targeting and popping drones will become a viable strategy. Just check what happened in the long engagement in the last tournament. This wasn't so much the case before because of the short engagement times.

I suggest the following remedies to be implemented before Kali release/HP increase:

• Up the HP of drones proportional to the HP of ships, preferably by the same amount and preferably the shield HP as well (at least some increase);


• Change the signature radius of drones to the ones I specified in an earlier post in this thread (heavy drones with the signature radius of cruisers is ridiculous);


• Have the drones return to cargo-bay using their MWD and revise the flocking algorithm of drones in such a way that they do no longer 'cling' to each-other (having observed this behaviour too many times, I am certain it is a borked flocking algorithm that produces this);


• Reduce the time needed to lock onto your own drones, preferably to zero (this allows a drone user to support its own drones);


• Allow support drones to target the parent vehicle (the idea that a shield support drone can help someone else but not the parent is just plain silly), related: allow me to support gang-members with support drones without getting shot by Concord would also by nice;


• Revise the drone targeting algorithm so that they will all attack the same target, will no long forget targets, and will take into account their own tracking ranges modified by the user's skills (all these a bugs and nothing less, also decreasing DPS by increasing skill does not make any sense); and


• Revise the drone part of the overview in such a way that:
  
  
  
  • It shows at least the armour left of drones in dronebay;
  
  
  • It shows the actual attributes of the drones as affected by skills; and
  
  
  • It is easier to use or allows for more flexibility (can you say hotkeys?).

Most of these remedies are simply bugs that haven't been addressed (for years!) and bork drone specialists and to a certain extend the Gallente race. The drone fix some months ago was a good start but not nearly enough.

Some love for the drones is long overdue.

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