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[Silas Vitalia]

They have a slave-based culture, where lore consistently claims that there is a severe slave shortage, and in which it is socially inacceptable for certain classes to do manual labor. Sounds like a ripe environment for drone supplementation to me. They're still secondary to slave labor, but without the ability to replenish slave stocks through conquest it's either have the upper classes start doing more manual labor or start building your own mechanical slaves to supplement the organic ones. Latter sounds more likely.

Also, TCMCs, which combine both organic and inorganic servants into one.

Not to mention Amarr having been always established as a culture that favors cybernetic development and augmentation.

Combat drones were invented by the Gallente during the Gallente-Caldari War, no other race had them.  I think the Armageddon class was in service for decades and decades as laser platforms.  It's not to say that the Amarr might not decide refit their entire line of laser attack battleships to be drone specialists in the modern capsuleer era, it's just that this seems out of tune for their most common battleships of the line and their typical MO.

I'm not following with cyber things and ship drones? 

[Samira Kernher]

I consider cybernetics and drones and drones to be about the same area of study. Augmenting an organic creature with machinery or giving organic qualities to machines. Advancing one pairs well with the other, in my mind.

And yes, geddons were used as laser platforms. The new description for them describes it as a recent refitting. And I would imagine they aren't doing that for every geddon, just the most recent ones. All the NPC ones you see, for example, continue to operate as laser platforms--presumably because they haven't been refit. Capsuleer vessels, of course, are the most modern ships of their type, and so are the ones with all the latest advancements in technology and design. Amarr moving towards drone doctrines is a very logical development in the modern theatre, as it allows them to overcome some of their big weaknesses (over reliance on cap, EM/Therm, and slow speed), so it makes perfect sense for them to start doing this on an IC level. And like I said, drones are basically robotic slaves, which fits well with the Amarr theme.

Either way, I still think the Amarr ranks for Sansha ships should give something related to Amarr technology. I like the drone thing because I like to compare drones to slaves and bonuses to ewar drones would be pretty unique, but there's plenty of other options. AB just doesn't seem fitting at all.

[Lyn Farel]

I'm with Silas. We have only grown accustomed to Amarr being the second drone race because they had the arbitrator (and its variants), and then got the sentinel on the same model, and to complete the loop, they got recently the battleship as well. I'm not as much as annoyed by that because of :arbitrator: but when you look at dronebays, except for amarr droneboats, they are the third race after the minmatar.

But seriously, the Amarr navy is far from constituted only by slaves... Only a part of their ships are slave manned, and slaves are certainly not going to be let at important positions in navy ships.

Also, I think it is a fallacy to consider that because there is somehow a shortage of slaves or crew or whatever, that drones have to be used instead. They can perfectly well fire automated turrets instead, which is what the Amarr do well, being the second more "crew light" civilisation after the gallente.

As for the Armageddon having always been a droneboat, I would say that's patently a slippery slope. It is better imo to consider that it went through a complete retrofitting recently by the navy as a modernization program, as it might happen for most ships anyway to explain balance changes every patch.


EDIT : I was also thinking along the lines of new heavy EW direction to sansha ships. Like double/triple ewar with the already good chunk of med slots they have, which would give them some kind of unique flavour of armor tank with racks of EW. Or maybe a mix of EW with anti missile TDs, or ECM bursts bonuses for pure brawling fights ? Silas idea around MJDs is nice too. MJDs + ECM burst combos ? TD bursts ? 

Also, I didnt know that ECM drones became obsolete... ? When I still used to pvp, they were kindof OP and everyone was complaining about them...

[Samira Kernher]

Also, I think it is a fallacy to consider that because there is somehow a shortage of slaves or crew or whatever, that drones have to be used instead. They can perfectly well fire automated turrets instead, which is what the Amarr do well, being the second more "crew light" civilisation after the gallente.

Many, many sources say that the Amarr are having slave shortages, from news articles years ago.

As for the Armageddon having always been a droneboat, I would say that's patently a slippery slope. It is better imo to consider that it went through a complete retrofitting recently by the navy as a modernization program, as it might happen for most ships anyway to explain balance changes every patch.

No one said it's always been one. The updated description says it's a modern retrofit.

[Samira Kernher]

Also, I didnt know that ECM drones became obsolete... ? When I still used to pvp, they were kindof OP and everyone was complaining about them...

ECM drones are okay, when they work. The other ewar drones are not. The latter are what I was thinking would be neat to get bonused. Web drones, td drones, neut drones, damp drones, etc.

[Lyn Farel]

Also, I think it is a fallacy to consider that because there is somehow a shortage of slaves or crew or whatever, that drones have to be used instead. They can perfectly well fire automated turrets instead, which is what the Amarr do well, being the second more "crew light" civilisation after the gallente.

Many, many sources say that the Amarr are having slave shortages, from news articles years ago.

Yes I never said otherwise...

As for the Armageddon having always been a droneboat, I would say that's patently a slippery slope. It is better imo to consider that it went through a complete retrofitting recently by the navy as a modernization program, as it might happen for most ships anyway to explain balance changes every patch.

No one said it's always been one. The updated description says it's a modern retrofit.

I was speaking to Silas.

[Silas Vitalia]

Sansha boats with something like shield HP bonus and huge bonus to all EWAR drones sounds very cool to me.  Make them pure utility-type ships; expensive but very nasty to have on field?

It would open up a whole new range of gameplay because right now you never see things like neut drones or web drones or very much use of the other ones.

It would let the players come up with the best ewar drone usages with a blanket bonus on the ship line

[DeadRow]

It would open up a whole new range of gameplay because right now you never see things like neut drones or web drones or very much use of the other ones.

That'd be great. But they'd have to fix EW drones (and EW in general) for that to be effective. EW drones are pretty shit, even EC drones have limited use these days due to the new skills and the ECCM implants. Web, damp, tracking disruption drones all suffer heavily due to stacking penalties being applied to them.

If we're talking about fitting in with traditional lore-fitting changes. They should change Sansha back to armour, I miss the thought of flying an all Centi/True Sansha ship. But civilisations change and adapt. The Cartel has always had a bug in it's bonnet for Nation (there was a live event when I was in Coreli where Cartel dreads were being staged for an invasion into Nation space, World's Collide mission pits Nation and Cartel against each other iirc). Perhaps the new changes reflect the need to be able to deal with fast moving ships that has typically given them the biggest threat?

Doctrines change, gotta look to the future 

[Silas Vitalia]

I was thinking the sansha bonuses would be stacked to specifically make ewar drones useful, but yea

[Desiderya]

Regarding the Armageddon:
It might either be a refit, or it's a capsuleer-version-thing, and the ship of the line remains the navy geddon?

[Morwen Lagann]

Regarding the Armageddon:
It might either be a refit, or it's a capsuleer-version-thing, and the ship of the line remains the navy geddon?

This seems likely for the actual Navy. I wouldn't be surprised if the refit player geddons are being treated like a prototype or trial run, though.

If we make good use of them, why wouldn't the Navy take the design back and apply it to a number of their own ships?

[kalaratiri]

Cruor gets a nice little change that may finally make it not terrible.

Hey guys

Getting caught up on some feedback here finally and working on the Cruor a bit as a result.

What I'd really like to do is get the Cruor into a place where it can keep the Blood bonus layout and still be powerful enough to see battle. The request that's been made several times for an extra low makes a lot of sense but I really didn't think it could afford to give up a high (1 turret? only 1 utility high?) or a mid (web bonus) so I was a bit stuck and then I realized there's no reason it can't have 11 slots, so that's what I'm going to do.

We're also going to up the base PG from 50 to 57 and the base CPU from 140 to 150. Finally, to pay a little back for these improvements we're taking one drone away (from 10m3 to 5m3).

Hopefully all in all this gives enough flexibility in fitting to let you take advantage of the slightly divergent bonuses and that lets us keep the faction line in tact and leave the Cruor as a very unique ship in the frigate class rather than forcing it to compete directly with the Sentinel.

Let me know what you think.

OP updated with new stats.