Concept:
With four drone-dominant weathers and one launcher-dominant (Dark), turrets are left out. This is an attempt to create an experience that preserves the overall feel and challenge level of the existing weathers, while providing a turret-dominant choice, thus opening up an entire segment of hulls, but also new and unique builds specific to this content.
Dark sites discourage turrets (and by extension, drones) rather brazenly - the site penalty straight-up says “screw your turrets in particular (and your drones cause they use turrets too)”, and the site bonus makes turret handling and drone effectiveness more tricky as well. Therefore, I am willing to be just as bold to achieve the goal of creating a turret-dominant weather.
Example:
New weather - Magnetic Distortion Field:
New abyssal filaments have begun to appear in data hacking sites around New Eden and Anoikis which lead to previously undiscovered abyssal pockets containing unique weather effects not seen before. These pockets of abyssal deadspace are affected by heavy magnetic distortion fields, increasing the effectiveness of turret* damage by 50%**. However, attracted to these powerful magnetic fields are swarms of malfunctioning armor nanites, which will quickly*** devour all drones and missiles on grid.
*Specifically must exclude drone turrets
**Open to design/balance needs, does not have to be this value precisely. This is the “bonus” component of the weather, and remains static in all tiers and in every instance.
***Being that this is the “penalty” component of the weather, it is rolled and increases in higher tiers. The precise values and nature of these rolls are open to design/balance needs.
Methodology:
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Bonus is a large increase to non-drone turret damage output, penalty is inhospitability to drones and missiles, essentially as if the entire pocket was full of Deviant Automata Suppressor towers - this bonus/penalty combo means there is no resist penalty, and therefore increased EHP.
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Both directly and indirectly discourage drones and launchers by excluding them from the bonus, and targeting them with the penalty.
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Balance turret platforms around dealing with the lack of NPC resist hole resulting in higher EHP NPCs, dealing with the increased NPC damage output, leaning on the player turret damage output bonus, and leaning on the lack of resist penalty on the player.
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Optimal builds for this weather will go heavy on tank since NPC damage increase outstrips the usefulness of lack of a player resist penalty, light on damage since they have a large inherent player damage bonus and not all of it is needed to punch through the increased NPC EHP, and the content tuning should put the balance right around the time-to-kill/E-DPS of Dark weather. I have simulated a number of scenarios in pyfa that result in acceptable tuning for this.
In summary:
CCPlz, ty <3
, but as long as it doesn’t decrease income potential, I would consider new weathers/changing weathers to be a good thing. It would encourage ship diversity, keep things fresh without needed a bunch of dev time, give the theory crafters a new puzzle to solve, and reward those who adapt quickly.