I like to see some actual numbers behind the supposed OP-ness of the Tackler’s Drones from someone that isn’t primarily an interceptor pilot.
Does anyone actually get killed by these drone poopers? Do you just sit and take the shots from am unmoving and relatively fragile drone? I mean, micro-locators seem to have more HP than a sentry drone.
Where are the objective numbers? What percentage of Tacklers have drones? What % of damage/kills do they contribute compared to other options? How about the average efficiency score of regular drone poopers? If they’re so OP why not just run it yourself since it’s apparently so effective?
What about tactics? Why not when the mob of these supposed drone poopers are off being cloaked between drone cooldowns you focus on the rest of the team that is clearly outnumbered because half of the team are these drone poopers? Because if it’s just one, you eat the 1 drone shot and destroy the drones. Bam. Problem solved. Or catch the Tackler between cloaks and bam. Drones go poof with the Tackler.
Drone damage is fine, if you get killed by one, it’s because you let it take 5 potshots at you or you’re an inty and the drone is doing it’s job as advertised. And nobody actually gets hit by the Heavy Drone so that’s on you if you do.
Drones kill inty in 3 shots. And that’s without the tackler slowing you down and shooting at you at the same time. I don’t run one now, but I tried. It’s not my kind of fun, I love the dogfight and fastpaced action. Hell, I even brawl with guard and lrf under cloak…
The only tactics that works is to stay away from the drone, waiting for a 2km + range weapon to take them away. That’s why I fly my “long range” plasma gun ecm, and it’s not the new ecm module that will change this… It will just push pilots further away form recon, wich is a shame coz I love flying this ship. Drones don’t have less HP than microlocator, it’s just that they are larger, then easier to hit. But it take around 5 sec to take one down, and you need to evade its overly precise fire. That’s a whole time you are not a threat to the enemy team and exposed to their fire.
The point is : drones ingineer + tackler drones make flying recon and cov ops a pain in the xxxx. when you add pulsar and drestructor from guard, you just remove 2 ships class from the game. Yes you still could chase lone enemy pilot, but have a good time with it on a frigball. And why bother when a tackler can do the job better than you? Higher range of fire, higher speed, autoaim, reducing enemy speed.
That will make drones useless. It took a lot of time until the drone was buffed enough to be useful. If you want to remove something, remove cruise engine. Tackler drones are fine.
I have to agree… I HATE tackler drones with a passion… Only match by guard’s destructor on objectives map. But, this targetting suggestion doesn’t seem good and will make them useless.
On the other hand, NO, tackler’s drones are not fine as they are now. And it’s even worse when paired with crafted attack drones. Maybe just increasing the spread of weapons or reducing the damage or rate of fire by a bit (something like 20 % at max) will make them balanced. Heck, even if you need to increase durability, I don’t mind, just reduce the absurb damage they deal.
Energy autonomy is another way to balance it : increase the energy cost to maintain drones or make the chameleon module drain a small amount of ernergy in order to limit the combined used of module. At least it would encourage engy to use energy module for teamplay or reduce the overall effectivness of tackler, making them more dependant on energy regen passive modules.
Or even, don’t touch the drones, but reduce the effectivness of cruise engine / limit attack drones to frigate only (so usable by lrf / guard only). And btw, as I talk about limitation, limit doomsday missile to figthers and frigates only. Then, maybe, will start to avoid OP combos that ruins the fun. Drone, by itself, is not a real threat. It’s the absurb combination with all the other tools of the tacklers that make them deadly.
Everyone focus on the drone, but the cruise engine is really a huge part of the problem. It’s way too powerfull in it’s current iteration. By giving this huge mobility boost to fighter, you remove a specificity of interceptors, and even more favor fighters, coz interceptors can’t even run away from them now.