ammo drones

[Zoom_VI]

Shield recharge would be viable if it actually gave you a meaningful amount of shields, but as it is now its only doing a couple hundred shield points every 3 seconds. Every single weapon once fully upgraded is doing more than 1k shield dps. Simply put shield recharge doesn't do enough to justify it, particularly since the life-expectancy of the drone in a combat situation isn't that long at all.

 

Right now the only use I see for shield recharge is for a bomber using large reactor to use the heal drone as a personal DcD, which defeats the purpose of a utility drone in the first place.

[Armonddd]

I have said my posts are my opinion. I have not resorted to bullying. Your most recent post is more thoughtful, but some of your posts are just ignorant and punkish.

 

lol, ad hominem

 

Scout pod pilots seem to want bombers to give them their pods back. Yet, they upgrade their pods to do 30% extra damage whilst depleting twice as fast. Do they bother to run the numbers and see that their potential damage at full load out for pods just went from 115% (choosing plasma pods) to 65% of potential damage? No, they instead decide their pods are depleting too fast and want bombers to refill them.

 

I'll assume you mean cluster missiles instead of rocket pods.

 

Double volley gets kills. Plasma warheads do not. More damage in a shorter period of time means more burst, and burst is what gets kills. Further, because of the massive damage blasters do compared to shield and hull strength. many targets die before the plasma dot expires. As if that wasn't enough, double volley is bugged so that each missile requires a separate lock break. There's really no good reason at this point in the game to run plasma warheads.

 

If you want to talk about how scouts should play, please learn how they work first.

 

The argument that healing drones should not be used in combat is absurd. That some people feel that they should optimally be put on the outskirts of a fight rather than in the thick of things is silly. There are tactical reasons for placing the drones in or outside combat zones. Neither choice is the best choice in all circumstances.

 

Your last statement is quite right. Shield regeneration works in certain circumstances -- it's just a shame that those circumstances are exceedingly rare and require the bomber to put himself at a lot of risk. See my previous post.

 

The point of a bomber is to be a support class, and the point of choosing repair drone instead of overcharged shields is to support your team. When most of the team benefits more from ammo regen than shield regen (because the majority of pilots fly scouts and strikes), there's not really a point to shield regen.

 

Stating that the lifespan of a healing drone is 10 seconds in combat is a stat plucked from the air. There is no basis for it other than supposition.

 

By thin air you mean empirical evidence? I never see them last longer than that, because they're high priority targets for anyone who knows what they do.

 

Of course, if your experience is different, that's fine. Maybe on your server drones aren't picked off as quickly. More power to you, in that case... but I find it hard to believe that most players are so bad as to let repair drones live long enough to be important in combat.

[DroidDreamer]

For most matches, the shield repair upgrade is better. Proper placement out of LOS and gunship targeting coupled with DPS drones and other protection can keep the repair drone going for a long while. In TDM where ever kill and not dying counts, being able to repair up is very important for the bomber and other ships. In battles around a node in Domination, the shield repair helps a lot if properly places and defended.

 

By contrast, the ammo upgrade has less utility when you consider that MOST players die a few times a match. Even before 2.6, in matches with my Sting (with the double missile volley upgrade), I rarely ran out of ammo even with zero deaths usually because I was the only one guarding the node. Unless the bomber pilot is running with some über elite premade partner that chews through missiles and never dies, the shield repair is a better upgrade in my opinion and based on my observations.