Theory Crafting - E-war Drones

Communications Center General Discussion
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E-war Drone rebalance/Revamp

  • Diminishing returns are not effected by E-war Drones
  • Increased health with lower resist profile
  • T2 have racial specific T2 reist profile - on par with AF
  • Rework of E-war ships to benefit effectiveness/range of ewar drones
  • Added New Ewar Drone type - Sentry Ewar drones
  • All Sentry E-war Drone variants will have -50% HP and effectiveness, but 2000% added range
  • All E-war drones can be assigned like regular drones and attack the assigned pilots target

Rework of E-war Drones

SW-#00 Webbifier Drones

  • Base range increased by 100%
  • Activation proximity increased by 200%
  • Web strength decreased by 10% across all platforms
  • Base HP increased 33%
  • Decrease speed by 12.5%
  • Navy Faction variant added - +100% Base HP, +75% Web Range
  • Pirate Faction variant added - +75% HP, +75% Web Strength (Requires Min/Gal drone spec 5)
  • T2 variant added - +25% Base HP, T2 resistance profile, +12.5% Web Range/Strength

TP-#00 Target Painting Drones

  • Base range increased by 100%
  • Activation proximity increased by 200%
  • Signature Radius Modifier reduced 25%
  • Base HP increased 33%
  • Decrease speed by 10%
  • Navy Faction variant added - +100% New Base HP, +100% Range Target Painter
  • Pirate Faction variant added - +75% New Base HP, 100% Target Painter strength (Requires Min/Gal drone spec 5)
  • T2 variant added - +25% Base HP, T2 resistance profile, 50% range/strength Target Painter

SD-#00 Sensor Dampening Drones

  • Base Range increased by 100%
  • Activation proximity increased by 100%
  • Sensor strength decreased by 50% current value
  • Targeting range decreased by 50% current value
  • Base HP increased by 12.5%
  • Navy Faction Variant added - +100% New Base HP, +70% Range of Sensor Dampener
  • Pirate Faction Variant added - +50% New Base HP, +75% Strength of Sensor Dampeners (Requires Gal/Min drone spec 5)
  • T2 variant added - +25% base HP, T2 resistance profile, +25% Sensor Dampener strength/range

EC-#00 ECM Drones

  • Base Range increased by 50%
  • Activation proximity increased by 150%
  • Jam strength increase by 200%
  • Base speed reduced by 10%
  • Base HP increased by 50%
  • -50% reduction in cycle time of ECM jams
  • Navy Faction Variant added - +100% New Base HP, +50% Range of ECM
  • Pirate Faction Variant added - +50% New Base HP, +75% Strength of ECM (Requires Cal/Gal drone spec 5)
  • T2 variant added - +25% base HP, T2 resistance profile, +37.5% ECM strength/range

TD-#00 Tracking Disruption Drones - REWORKED
WD-#00 Weapon Disruption Drones

  • Base Range increased by 100%
  • Activation proximity increased by 150%
  • Base speed reduced by 10%
  • Base HP increased by 100%
  • Navy Faction Variant added - +100% New Base HP, +100% Strength of Weapon Disruption
  • Pirate Faction Variant added - +50% New Base HP, +150% Range of Weapon Disruptor (Requires Amarr/Caldari drone spec 5)
  • T2 variant added - +25% base HP, T2 resistance profile, +50% Weapon disruption strength/range

EV-#00 Energy Neutralization Drone

  • Base Range increased by 200%
  • Activation proximity increased by 200%
  • Neutralization Amount increased by 12.7%
  • Base HP increased by 50%
  • Base Speed increased by 25%
  • Navy Faction Variant added - +100% New Base HP, +50% Range of Neutralizer
  • Pirate Faction Variant added - +50% New Base HP, +75% strength of Neutralizer (Requires Gal/Min drone spec 5)
  • T2 variant added - +25% base HP, T2 resistance profile, +12.5% Sensor Dampener strength/range

This change is a massive bolster to the HP and effectiveness of each of the E-war drones. Helping them to survive combat, and give them some breathing room for activation, while being viable as a use in and during combat for utility purposes. The ability to assign them gives them more play for use inside the current game setup.

Eliminating them from the diminishing returns system allows them to still be viable, but not better than 1 mod unless multiple ships dumped on a single target. 15% web from 5 Warrior SW-300s doesn’t seem like much, but if you have 20 that’s 60% web from drones, flat. And with being able to assign, your drone bunny can be of major use to the fleet directing what goes where.

The sentry addition will also add some limited flexibility and play. While not being as powerful, they offer a significant range bolster to areas such as neutralization, webbing, and longer range jams. Giving more flexibility for larger drone bays to operate.

Added HP and resistance profiles allow for longer on field use, which unfortunately is a current downside to the e-war drones at this stage. Poor health pools and limit range, mean anything with a large smartbomb can almost 2 shot an entire swarm of e-war drones. Resistances will play into effect, as will the range increases to possibly keep them out of smartbomb radius.
while it massively over powers these drones, their limited almost non-existent use in general may be saved with this rather powerful booster but it could also be helped with release of a specific ship built around them

Along side these potential update to e-war drones, there would be a release of a new ship type - Electronic Support Craft (ESC)
These would be racial specific, 1 or each main 4 faction race, and starting with Destroyer and Battlecruiser, helping flesh out that mid section, giving more wiggle room, and offering the luxury of a sizeable drone bay.

Destroyer:
Role bonus: Can launch 50m3 Bandwidth of E-war Drones, normal drones are 25m3

Battlecruiser:
Role bonus: Can launcher 125m3 bandwidth of E-war drones, normal drones are 75m3

Each race’s ship would get a boost to the specific e-war drone component they offer:
Destroyer:
Caldari: 10% per level Strength of ECM Drone, 10% per level Shield hit points of E-war drones
Gallente: 10% per level Range of Sensor Dampening Drone, 10% per level Armor hit points of E-war drones
Amarr: 10% per level Strength of Weapon Disruption/Neutralization Drone, 10% per level Range of Weapon Disruption/Neutralization Drone
Minmatar: 10% per level Range of Web/Target Painting Drone, 5% per level Strength of Web/Target painting drones

BattleCruiser:
Caldari: 15% per level Strength of ECM Drone, 12.5% per level Shield hit points of E-war drones
Gallente: 15% per level Range of Sensor Dampening Drone, 12.5% per level Armor hit points of E-war drones
Amarr: 15% per level Strength of Weapon Disruption/Neutralization Drone, 7.5% per level Range of Weapon Disruption/Neutralization Drone
Minmatar: 15% per level Range of Web/Target Painting Drone, 7.5% per level Strength of Web/Target painting drones

While not fully fleshed out possible option moving foward for a change up to hopefully how the e-war drones work and making them a more viable option in combat over just damage drones.

1 Like
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While I don’t think EWAR drones should be without diminishing returns (completely neutering ships with multiple flights of EWAR drones would be too easy), I do agree that diminishing returns often make EWAR drones with their small effects (which are the first to turn into nothing due to stacking penalties) and large number of applications (which cause faster stacking penalties) irrelevant compared to modules.

Your suggestion gave me an idea though:

  • Give EWAR drones their own special (see below) diminishing returns sepate from modules

Rather than the current stacking penalty list:

1st mod: 100.0% effectiveness
2nd mod: ~86.9% effectiveness
3rd mod: ~57.1% effectiveness
4th mod: ~28.3% effectiveness
5th mod: ~10.6% effectiveness
6th mod: ~3.0% effectiveness

it’s rather harsh to have the 5th drone to be only 10% effective if their effect is already very small.

I propose the special EWAR drone stacking penalties are similar to the existing stacking penalties, but slower. For example, by multiplying everything by 2:

1st-2nd drone: 100.0% effectiveness
3rd-4th drone: ~86.9% effectiveness
5th-6th drone: ~57.1% effectiveness
7th-8th drone: ~28.3% effectiveness
9th-10th drone: ~10.6% effectiveness
11th-12th drone: ~3.0% effectiveness

And also decouple ewar drone diminishing returns from module ewar diminishing returns, just like the armor resists from a damage control are on a separate diminishing returns than armor hardeners.

With those two changes EWAR drones might start being useful enough to be used.

2 Likes
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The world is not ready for T2 Ewar drones.

1 Like
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It’s your thread, do as you like.

One point tho, simulations are better than air numbers. Once I simulated how CoC new rule (7th) about pushing roll was beneficial to players and even more if they were above 75%, and posted on forums. On my behalf I did with the best intentions, like an idiot.

Two things happened:
1 - I became persona non grata there, and left. One of the official Chaosium guy posted telling me to gtfo.
2 - People never counter argumented, you cannot argument against reality, unless you are communist.

Good luck, if you have the date and the math, I can help. Or you can always do some ■■■■ python like the rest of internet.

o/

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