Ninja Drones

[geoschmo]

I was thinking about drones and why they suck so badly and I had an epiphany. Drones are Ninjas!

Ninjas are sneaky, fast, and seem like they should be really tough. They train for years learning their skills (expensive to build), but then it's all wasted because they get killed on their first mission. A large group of Ninjas will always get beat up in a fight even when they have the other guy outnumbered because they don't attack the good guy all at once. They come at him one at a time and get picked off.

Drones are the Ninjas of the SE4 universe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[tesco samoa]

Drones can kill anything they want! Drones cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These drones are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this drone who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the drone killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a drone totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.



And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



If you don't believe that Drones have REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.



Drones are sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants. I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. These guys are totally awesome and that's a fact. Drones are fast, smooth, cool, strong, powerful, and sweet. I can't wait to start yoga next year. I love Drones with all of my body (including my pee pee). <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

[narf poit chez BOOM]

psychotherapy, Tesco?

[PvK]

LOL!

[Sinapus]

Hm. I *have* been toying with creating mounts for drone equipment and weapons so they're smaller than normal and then reducing the hullsize of the drones, but can't decide what to do with damage inflicted/range/damage capacity/etc.

[Saber Cherry]

What is a drone, exactly? My SEIV:Gold is on the way. Are they like strategic missiles, or disposable, zero-maintenance ships, or sattelites that can move only in the tactical map, or what?

[Ed Kolis]

The first two guesses are right on the mark http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Just watch out for their supply storage... unlike ships and like fighters, they constantly drain supplies each turn and disappear when their supplies run out!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

'satelite's that can move only on the tactical map' could be modded.

[ October 16, 2003, 19:18: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Cyrien]

I've been thinking of working on a mod that turns drones into missiles. Work only in combat with no strategic movement allowing for the customization of missiles with various changes etc. Also allows for missile ammunition seperate from supplies. Only problem is the fire rate gets locked in to at least 1 per turn but only for as long as ammo Lasts.

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
'satelite's that can move only on the tactical map' could be modded.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't know about that. I tried adding combat movement onto a satelite hull a while back and it did absolutely nothing. It just stayed there.

Didn't try it on a satelite component though. Shouldn't make a difference but it might.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

no, have a drone engine that only provides tactical movement.

[Cyrien]

Actually... I'm not worried about the AI. If I do this it will be as part of a mod I have been working on for abit now designed for PBW to get as much outa the game as possible for humans without worrying about AI limitations.

And yes I have decided to allow strategic movement for some of them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif REAL capital ship missiles as it where. Also after working with it for abit, I have decided I really like the possibilities. MIRV warheads could be possible with multiple small components with a fire rate of 30 large supply consumption that get fired as seekers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Could do an energy beam missile that closes in uses up lots of supplies and fires a beam weapon.

Shielded missiles, armored missiles, ecm missiles. Alot of the things that many people have wanted that can't be done with normal seekers become possible. In addition if you have multi-rack launchers that can launch several missiles per combat turn ala drone launching tech then you can have a few massive salvos in the start that can overwhelm even unmodded PDC and then close in with beam weapons once the missile supply is used up. Any future combats until you resupply the missiles would be with just the beams.

And of course standard missiles of this sort would be ramming, thus ignoring shields adding a whole new level of depth. I am really warming upto this idea now. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I love the potential it has.

[Ed Kolis]

I like it too, but didn't someone try this a while back and it totally screwed up? Not just the micromanagement of building missiles for all your ships (hey, if we can do it for fighters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ), but something else I just can't place my finger on...

[PvK]

The main issue that comes to mind is that drone launchers fire all their drones in combat at full speed, so you can get your enemy to launch all their drone ammo by attacking with a single unit. You end up having to be careful, and store some reserves in ships that have no launchers, etc.

AI is a lot of work, but if someone were interested, I think it might be possible to get the AI to build multiple types of drones. I'd do it using bogus ability labels and then the hard part - getting it to design and build more than one model of drone - I'm not sure if the unit construction file responds to requests for specific unit classes or not (works for ships - not sure for units).

PvK

[Loser]

hmmm... can't recollect launched drones, can you?

And then there's the drones stored on a planet. All of them will launch in the first round that the planet is attacked. Then what do you do, send them after some random target?

[Cyrien]

So far the biggest problem I see is the planet. The AI would no doubt be a big problem and if someone else wants to take that on they can feel free. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But my MOD will be for use by humans against humans so I'm not going to worry about what the AI can and can't do. Once I get what I want down then maybe I will try and get some AI work on it done.

[Loser]

Originally posted by Cyrien:
I've been thinking of working on a mod that turns drones into missiles. Work only in combat with no strategic movement allowing for the customization of missiles with various changes etc. Also allows for missile ammunition seperate from supplies. Only problem is the fire rate gets locked in to at least 1 per turn but only for as long as ammo Lasts.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a nice concept, but why limit them to combat movement only?

Give them engines that provide combat movement, and much more expensive engines that provide strategic movement.

The only problem I see for this is that the AI will only use one type of engine for all cases...

[Sinapus]

Wasn't there supposed to be a fix in the Last patch that let you set a limit on the number of drones per target that could be launched?