Kamikaze Drones

[William Antrim]

Reduce the damage by 50% and make them AOE an area with a tick effect afterwards please. I want them to be useful for something but not the one hit kill they are now. I realise this will prove unpopular with some people but I want to see it be discussed.

[Dropout]

Good idea! /signed

The damage Kami drones do is just insane, and with very little danger for the droner himself.

Kami droners are the only thing I hate more than Wocket Tanks - at least Wocket Tanks are semi easy to kill, unless they hug a zoneline..

[demonssword]

Reduce the damage by 50% and make them AOE an area with a tick effect afterwards please. I want them to be useful for something but not the one hit kill they are now. I realise this will prove unpopular with some people but I want to see it be discussed.

Ok, my discussion on this.

ITS A BIG EXPLOSION!!!! This is not a soaking someone in gasoline then setting fire to them so they slowly burn. Its like a bomb filled with explosives or shrapnel. Equally the amount of damage it does in my opinion is fine. Sure it can take out an APU or SPY. But they don't have much HP or resist pierce, force, fire so of course it will do a lot to them. Also remember how vulnerable the droner itself is, and the time it takes to get to where it needs to be... and of course the limited range that is has compared to other drones making the person using the drone easy to find if you know the normal spots.

So in essence kami drones are fine :P

Now for the criticism on kami drones... what is odd coming from someone who loves kami drones...
The description claims that the slightest knock can cause them to explode... this should be reflected in how they work and people shooting them should have a chance to blow them up prematurely.
The description also claims something along the lines of the way they work is that after launching the heat inside them builds up rapidly till they explode. This heat is building from the point of launching because of the drive engines and such. So really the drone itself should have say a 1min timer from launch till they detonate by themselves.

[Strife]

I'd like to see a damage cap on it. Like it can't do more than 70% of health in damage.

[Doc Holliday]

Ok, my discussion on this.

ITS A BIG EXPLOSION!!!! This is not a soaking someone in gasoline then setting fire to them so they slowly burn. Its like a bomb filled with explosives or shrapnel. Equally the amount of damage it does in my opinion is fine. Sure it can take out an APU or SPY. But they don't have much HP or resist pierce, force, fire so of course it will do a lot to them. Also remember how vulnerable the droner itself is, and the time it takes to get to where it needs to be... and of course the limited range that is has compared to other drones making the person using the drone easy to find if you know the normal spots.

So in essence kami drones are fine :P

Now for the criticism on kami drones... what is odd coming from someone who loves kami drones...
The description claims that the slightest knock can cause them to explode... this should be reflected in how they work and people shooting them should have a chance to blow them up prematurely.
The description also claims something along the lines of the way they work is that after launching the heat inside them builds up rapidly till they explode. This heat is building from the point of launching because of the drive engines and such. So really the drone itself should have say a 1min timer from launch till they detonate by themselves.

I think you missed the point. The proposed changes were to attempt to make them more of a usable tool for levelling/pve and pvp and less of a griefers weapon of choice because they are essentially fire and forget to some classes.

I would also like to see this changed. 50/70% damage in a hit and/or a dot would be intriguing. Great opener in a big fight say vs a big boss mob in pve (mc5 bc/Nightmare et al) and still good for pvp without being the lamer weapon it is now.

[Strife]

being the lamer weapon it is now.

As the leader of a red droner clan...


KOS

[William Antrim]

As the leader of a red droner clan...


KOS

A logical and well reasoned response. haha.

No genuinely I really like the idea of a HP cap for the individual getting hit actually. I think with AOE the drone is going to damage the targets legs severely but with 30% hp he has the choice to attempt to move/heal at least before the next drone comes and try to evade it. At the same time the droner (if he is quick on the draw) has the chance to get off his second shit and achieve the kills he wants to achieve.

I think the 2 ideas together would make for a fair compromise. I do not think that Kami drones will ever be used for PvE to be fair. The mechanics of their use and their weight makes them completely useless unless you want to fight with a boss for 2-3 minutes and then run off to buy more drones. If the drones stacked in a gogu/inventory slot they would be much more useful but when transferred to the player they would need to have a much lower weight. This would enable to player to bring 50 drones instead of 5 or whatever now.

In my mind the only thing Kami drones were designed for originally is pvp. It DOES give the droner a defensive weapon to one hit someone with before he/she hits the stealth and bugs out of the area. However experience has shown me that as usual we find a way to use these features to our advantage in other ways.

[PsiCorps]

I have a red droner - however I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a oneshot drone whilst opwarring.
One thing which makes Kami's a bit shit, is the whole health bouncing bug.

Plenty of times I've been down to 0 hp and the pop back to full after a second.

[Dope]

Aeren't Kami's more or less the only viable way for a Droner to kill another player? Especially one low enough level to not have ions?

Yeah, pls do not nerf the only self defense a non-LE'd pure droner has, thanks.

[Strife]

It's balancing it. The revenge does way too much damage.

[Netphreak]

I have a red droner - however I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a oneshot drone whilst opwarring.
One thing which makes Kami's a bit shit, is the whole health bouncing bug.

Plenty of times I've been down to 0 hp and the pop back to full after a second.

Good point, the health bouncing bug really does cause weird issues with burst damage.

[William Antrim]

Aeren't Kami's more or less the only viable way for a Droner to kill another player? Especially one low enough level to not have ions?

Yeah, pls do not nerf the only self defense a non-LE'd pure droner has, thanks.

This is the brainport. That's what we do here.


For the record I am all in favour of bringing back PN drones to their old school standard. In my mind a PN drone should be doing damage akin to a healing light (as its closest counterpart) but thats for another thread, thanks.

[demonssword]

This is the brainport. That's what we do here.


For the record I am all in favour of bringing back PN drones to their old school standard. In my mind a PN drone should be doing damage akin to a healing light (as its closest counterpart) but thats for another thread, thanks.

Yeah, might be nice if at least 1 drone was useful for PVP that isn't a revenge...
Trouble is people complained the PNs were to powerful in PVE what TBH on the risk/reward scale was true as you could solo MC5 no problems, while now it takes a bit more effort (not much more though) with no risk of losing drone or yourself dying. Trouble was the nurf to the damage they did made them from not great damage in PVP to like a bee sting. Its annoying, but nothing to worry about.

[Dope]

Exactly my issue. A droner player has pretty much zero PvP viability because the weapons we mount are, in most cases, too weak. I understand the idea that this is in "balance" for our being able to fight with little risk to our fleshbodies, but there are precious few places in the world where a (not cheating) droner has any sort of chance against another player that knows the zone.

We either can't fight at all (most often) or we attempt to fight our factional enemies (fair play) and get wasted in an unholy instant because we are weak (best are spies) and have to hide in the zone where our names are showing, tipping off the target that they'd better go to one of the (well known) corners of the zone and waste the droner. There are no drones worth shooting a player with, as none can kill another player as fast as their (name your rare here) can chew up the droner.

Fire once, piss off your target, who then runs to one of two or three hidey holes in the zones and laughs while you die. The *only* recourse a PvP droner has is to drop a kami, pound that enemy, and run like hell. That's not ideal at all, but if the kami was made non-viable, then how would a PvP enable droner be expected to perform? Perhaps if it were viable to PvP with a pistol *and* cap droner on the same character, as then the expectation would be to drop drone and bust out the sidearm, but we know that's not viable either. So, how is this intended to balance the droner class? Seems like it makes them less viable than they already are...

[William Antrim]

You're talking about 3 issues at once there. Of course one change won't fix everything. Come on dude. Think about it. To make droners viable they need lots of other changes. This one is a start.