Kellaen
Gallente Teeth Of The Hydra
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Posted - 2007.02.01 01:21:00 -
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A few things need to be taken care of, then I agree with some threads pointing out that upon scooping there should be a re-deploy cooldown, akin to a turret / launcher reloading.
Major problems right now in my mind:
The client updating delay must be removed: -Scooping 5 drones and having them resort into the expanded drone bay listing = 3-5 seconds of game freezing lag. Deploying is a bit less but also the same client freeze situation.
Hotkey ability for engage target: -All missiles, offensive modules and turrets have the ability to be hotkeyd, why not this 'weapon / utility' system?
A fix to drone attack AI: -Drones will no longer time out after 20 seconds of an engage target command without firing and randomly lock and attack other targets.
Drones have been the neglected child weapon / utility system of eve (hopefully as the dev hiring starts, this will change). Many seem to forget the fact that these are considered MAIN weapon systems of Gallente and Amarr drone ships, while quick to offer nerfs. Others also overlook the fact that a drone focused ship is pretty much limited to combat drones only, as anything else severely gimps their operation due to the damage bonuses.
EW and logistics drones were a great idea on the drawing board, and they do have moments when they are useful. Day to day PVE they are good, offer non-drone boats the option to add some more damage or free up some slots with 'mobile' based utility replication. Again as mentioned above, I feel the exclusion of bonuses to EW and logistics drones via ship levels is something that limits their potential use. As a Vexor, Myrmidon or Dominix pilot, using anything other then attack drones is a very large dent in your operational prowess. The masters of drones have little to no use for their non-combat pets, that is wrong.
In PVP I haven't seen much use of EW drones, and even fewer instances of logistic drone use. Perhalps due to the nature that no single EW drone gains any type of power bonus through skills, they are a waste of drone bay space compared to tech2 combat mediums or larges. Logistics drones require a friendly pre-target along with a manual activation via menu click. This is cumbersome, not practical during fast paced firefights and frankly more trouble then they are remotely worth (pun) in a world pvp setting with pre-fire locks the norm.(I don't count pre-arranged tournaments as day to day pvp).
An extension of the E.warfare drone skill could be created, allowing some bonuses to the utility drones. Advanced drone dampening, neutralizing, webbing, target painting, ecm, etc. These won't be outrageous increases, perhalps 5-10% per level to effectiveness, make them rank 4 or 5. If needed, put a requirement of drone interfacing to 5, discourage a cheap fast SP burn for return that so many are able to do right now. The increases would be relative, allow those whom are heavily drone focused some variety other then 3 ships. The drones themselves should not eclipse modules, but 5 heavy XXXX drones should easily beat 1 module in power overall. As well, where are the light and medium webber drones?
There should be more modules to affect drones, be it a damage / rof mod, EW effectiveness mod or a armor/shield boost or duration reduction. Make drones akin to turrets and missiles, they already have large downsides of needing to maneuver into combat and are destroyable.
The sum of things in EVE today is that EW and logistics drones are far overlooked, are given no operational bonuses outside of repair ammounts and make no discression between a 500k SP drone user and a 5 million SP drone user.
This makes no sense.
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