I think it would be cool if we added a drone boat to the T2 battleship line of marauders.
I was thinking it could have a flat 25%-50% increase to drone damage/hit points as a role bonus and be able to control +1 drone per level of marauder, and bonuses to support drone efficiency. It would be similar to the old school carrier days
Or it would be a +5 bonus to drone control with activation of bastion. bastion could also give bonuses to drone speed/tracking/range increase in scan resolution ect, you know drone related skills.
OR what if it was able to control 1 squadron of fighters or support fighters, so players can experience carrier mechanics outside of capitals and low sec. being able to control the support squads would allow for some wicked pvp fleet gang play
This would be really interesting as I feel they would be strong in pvp as you could add support drones into the mix while keeping damage fairly high as well, splitting up combat drones and utility drones 50/50 or 70/30 whatever you feel like doing. Thoughts, opinions?
Also what do yall think of adding a low slot drone capacity module? something like t1 adds 50m3 t2 adds 75m3 and faction could add 125m3 using 1 powergridand 10-20 cpu(Im imagining it would need cpu to power robot arms to move the drones around or something)
Saying that something would be interesting isn’t a very good justification for an idea. I mean, lots of things are interesting (including some of the truly bad ideas I’ve seen), but that doesn’t mean that it will improve the game.
So, if you want to sell your idea, think about how it will influence gameplay and balance. Does it address any problems or balance issues? Does it result in fun and engaging gameplay? Can it be abused or cheesed? And so on.
Anyway, powerful drone boats might give some people pause, as they would effectively be a buff to multiboxers, afk gameplay, and botters (which is very big deal, as that can affect inflation, the prices of plex and MPTC’s, and even player retention). Now, I’m not saying that that alone is enough of a reason to shoot down your idea, but it is definitely something to consider.
It would give the players a sub capital carrier option, the marauder is already a mini dreadnought with the introduction of bastion so why not a mini carrier?
I do like the whole Light/Mini Carrier giving players a test bed before having to jump in to a Capital ship seems quite a good move.
I have all so floated this before as the whole Light carrier would be more flexable than the Capital version and not lock you in to playing in a gang/fleet. The problem is why i do think there is a need for a sub cap carrier few people seem to agree.
I think people are just scared it will be a ship that would become a Botters/Boxers dream but i fail to see how its any difference when there able to just use Rattlesnake/Doms and assign drones.
Since we have Mini Dreads it would make sense to have a Mini Carrier and could be balanced by giving it a fairly weak tank for been able to use 1-2 light fighter squads. It could quite easy be balanced by having a Battlecruiser like tank after all Carriers in real life are not front line ships so could make the case for Light Carriers not to be as well. It would still be slow and clunky to balance it out but i do not see it been to powerful as long as the tank is not Marauder levels and the DPS is fairly reasonable say 1500.
As to Max the orca is an industrial drone ship you can fit it as a drone boat but can do the same but faster and cheaper in a Domi/Rattle.
Because the only real differences between drones and fighters are that Fighters deal more damage, have more HP, and have more options/perks. All at the cost of having more difficultly hitting smaller targets.
Literally, that is it.
It is almost exactly the same paradigm between light drones, medium drones, and heavy drones.
I do not buy the idea that people need to have access to fighters in sub-capitals to know how to use fighters in capitals.
They. Are. Drones.
They function just like drones.
They are simply better in every way except for tracking small targets up close (which can be worked around with various modules and micromanagement shenanigans).
It is like the difference between a Heavy Neutron Blaster (for a battleship) and a Triple Neutron Blaster (for a dreadnought).
The mechanics don’t change between the classes. The latter simply hits harder and is worse at hitting smaller stuff.
With some exceptions; even battleships are quite inflexible in terms of the whole “don’t have to rely on a gang/fleet” thing.
We don’t.
Marauders may have “Bastion Mode” that increases their tanking abilities, but they do not have the raw damage-dealing ability (both in and out of siege mode) nor the buffer of an actual dreadnought (which gives it better survivability all around) or a jump drive.
This is why, when given a choice, people will field a dread over a Marauder. The latter is simply better with the sole major caveat that it don’t have any point defense… which is functionally pointless for the Marauder in most situations as no sane person is going to take on either ship unless they are buying time for others to come.
The few things a Marauder has over a Dread are:
It can MicroJumpdrive.
Bastion mode has a 1 minute cycle compared to Siege Mode’s 5 minutes cycle.
It can align and warp faster (which, admittedly, is a big deal in some situations)
But Fluffers… if Dreds are better than Marauders why have Marauders at all?
That is a good question. Marauders have existed well before any meaningful balancing efforts were made to the game. This makes them legacy items, so they can’t simply be deleted.
Right now Marauders exist in an unfortunate spot of not being cost-effective (even by Tech 2-price standards) for most scenarios while also being effective enough that they can’t do amazing things in very specific circumstances.
The reason there is not too much wailing about this (aside from the occasional min/max PvEer and PvPer) is because there is a cost-effective alternative to Marauders (see: Dreadnoughts).
Until the DEVs can resolve this and find an actual niche where Marauders can exist in a reasonable state I wholeheartedly oppose any pseudo-capital ship like them.
