Running on from a few ideas in the "Nerf drone dps and make them cheaper" thread.

Proposal:
Instead of drones "exploding" when shields are reduced to zero, drones become"damaged" (similar to bases), but still able to be scooped.

The Engineer then must use a "Drone Repair Module" or similar item, requiring one of the original drone and maybe some other commods/credits.

Reasons:
-Low level players have a tough time with Engineer (losing a high percentage of networth when drones are killed - something Jeff indicated he hated about the gear glue system, risk of massive gear loss).

- Losses on death is out-of-line with players of similar level and power.
(a Fleet Commander or Shield Monkey has to simply repair slaves now, no gg. A Engineer is the only person who risks their dps being destroyed.)

- Engineer is designed as a "support" class, with drone mastery a sub-skill. In my opinion, drones need to be made weaker and cost less so more supportive tactics are adopted by todays Engineers. (i.e. no more soloing Rhino, etc.)



example:
[Drone Name] Repair Module
Uses: 10
Repairs a Damaged [Drone Name] to 100%.

Built from a [Drone Name] Repair Module Blueprint
Cost to build: 1 x [Drone Name]

This way, the Engineer can suffer the same repair costs as a player of similar ability (with a reduce to drone power compensating the decrease in cost/risk).



tl;dr
Drones get damaged instead of exploding, and can be repaired for a percentage of the cost. Drones can get a % nerf to reflect the new value of the drones.

NOTE: assuming the current ship repair system (that replaced gg) is going to be fixed and proceeding as planned.

If gear can be repaired with parts or credits, then drones should as well. The part about balancing drones based on their DPS is a bad idea. If you wanna change the DPS of drones, you will also lower the HPS of drones, and therefore weaken the overall balance.

You need to learn the difference between HPS and sustainable HPS before you make comments like that Time Warp.

Better. I agree that they should not have the sustainable HPS of a Shield Monkey, but an Armada Charge putting out some 10-15k HPS with the Rhino Restructuranter I don't see anything wrong with. The HPS they get with Armada Wands isn't that amazing.

The main advantage the Shield Monkey has is the ability to sustain the 10k+ HPS, while the Armada Charge Drones can keep a sustainable HPS which is maybe 20-30% of that.

drones should not be repairable on the move with parts

Exactly.



Agreed, I would expect the "Repair Module" to be locked to base use only.

This doesn't solve one of the main issues with the current system:

If an engineer gets killed even once while pvp'ing, he's potentially worthless until he goes and repairs his drones.

Maybe drone scraps could drop? Allowing drones to be repaired on-the-fly, but only up to a certain effectiveness (like 75%). And by base use only, I mean AI or User base, so it's similar to the current repair system.

I'm trying to consider start-game thru to end-game engi with this repair system.

This is my opinion as well, it's an open sandbox game so everyone should be able to do everything (to an extent), but certain classes should allow for clear superiority in certain areas (i.e. ShM and healing).

Let's tweak it a bit. How about we make two types of drone repair modules. One that is a factory type for bases, and one that is a mobile factory. The mobile factory will have a way heavier cost than the non-mobile one.



I don't feel that these arguments have any say in this topic, nor in this game in general.



This was one of the ideas I built on in my reply to topbuzz' comment. Locking them to bases only doesn't seem fair since it is possible to repair gear on the move.



Now, here is an interesting one. There is a lot lacking to this argument. I will try to picture it by describing my own behavior on my Engineer some time ago while fighting pantalones in a PvB attack: After realizing that my drones could not to sufficient damage to the defenders, I chose to deploy 6 mobile grem box drones, and turn my focus away from healing and DPSing, and focus solely on tractoring and energizing - so called supportive play - in the squad I was a part of. All of my drones, and I had to redeploy new ones, but even when I ran out of drones, I did not feel useless in the fight.




The moment a class is able to outperform what is meant to be the strongest aspect of another class, then something is wrong. I must admit that I can see things like this happening to the Seer class, produced by the Sniper class, but it will surely be something to discuss in another thread. But as far as Engineer healing goes, you won't get close to what a Shield Monkey can do. So even comparing the healing ability (not the sustainable HPS!) that an Engineer can do, to what a Shield Monkey can do, is pretty pointless.