I mentioned this in the
Termination Sequence thread but wanted to expand on it here.
I use Shepherds and Tempests in my fleet and am frequently annoyed that their paltry drone wings water down the effectiveness of Carrier skills on my true Fighters. I will see I have two Moras and a Drover and think "hey, I have 8 Wings" only to realize that the two Shepherds and Tempest further down in my fleet count as 3 against the soft cap. This means the true fighters in my fleet lose 14% of the skill effectiveness (21% if the carrier has an Officer). I use Shepherds for their salvage gantries and surveying equipment and Tempests are good Frigates. However, their built-in drone wings hurt my Carriers simply by existing.
Problem:Shepherds, Ventures, Tempests and the Remnant Apex all have built-in drone wings. That isn't a problem in and of itself: in fact, I believe it adds some needed variety to ship hulls. However, all of these ships' fighter bays count against the Carrier skill soft cap of 8 when the drones they employ are either vastly inferior to any normal Fighter (Borer Drones), a 0-OP option (Mining Pods), or have a very controversial ship system that sacrifices the drone (Terminators). All are tied to their motherships and can't freely roam. All except Terminators are meant to be distractions or meat shields that are easily replaced. Carrier skills that do affect them are virtually lost on them, yet they water down the bonuses for true Fighters on Carriers.
Why not just remove the wings via Converted Fighter Bays if you don't want them to count against the skills? First and foremost, especially in the case of the Tempest, the built-in drones are a major feature of the hull. Shepherds without their drones have virtually no in-combat use (which was low to begin with!) and Tempests wouldn't even be able to use their ship system. Ventures can get by, sure, but the Mining Pods eat missiles and heavy shots as a form of ablative armor. Second, it costs OP and the benefit is purely logistical. I'm sacrificing in-combat performance for campaign-layer performance all so I don't penalize the Carriers in my fleet. It's counter-intuitive.
In short, I think built-in Drones should be treated differently than bona fide Fighters.
Proposed Solution:Built-in Drone wings do not count against the Carrier skill 8-wing cap nor do they receive any bonuses from those skills.
Second, built-in drone wings always have 100% Replacement Rate or don't have a Replacement Rate at all. Drones simply have a static replacement rate not affected by their losses. For all except the Terminator, they exist to take hits for the mothership. Their offensive capabilities are virtually nil so improved replacement rate increases durability of the mothership, not firepower.
Third, they also would not have the Rearm/Engage toggle option, since they can't operate independently anyway. 0-Roam fighters do kill the 0-flux boost if given Engage orders. This prevents these hulls from even worrying about it.
This could all be communicated through a built-in Hullmod ("Automated Foundry" or some such). This would also explain why Wasps, Mining Drones, Remnant fighters, etc. on other Carriers,
don't have these features but
do benefit from Carrier skills.
Caveat:I could make the case that Terminators should be counted as Fighters. They're much more powerful than Borer Drones or Mining Pods. However, adding the above to Tempests makes Termination Sequence a lot cleaner when replacement rates are static. 20 seconds is long enough as it is but then to have the Replacement Rate drop to like 70% after one drone loss makes replacing the Terminators that much longer.
There's also the argument for Terminators to be treated as built-in drones from internal consistency standpoint: why do the other built-in drone hulls have this property but not Tempests? If a hull is built around on-board drones, you'd think it would account for their manufacture in a purposeful way, hence the Automated Foundry hullmod suggestion. I think it would work for a Tempest as much as a Venture or Shepherd. Meanwhile, true Carriers have to account for any number of Fighter LPCs, not just Drones, so they're not quite as specialized for that unique task. This is all handwave logic, I know, but some internal consistency is good.
