Drones

[Ruatha]

ok for the converter, how about troop pods, that shouldn't really work as it could be a suicide mission for the troops.
Does it work?

[capnq]

Do drones use 200 supplies/turn, or 200+fuel/turn?

200 + fuel.

[Skulky]

Wait, troops for planet capture or for ship capture?

IIRC you can't put units on units (duh). but how would boarding parties be suicide? They would close to minimum range (assuming drone is smart enough not to ram) and then jump overboard to try and capture the enemy, however, they could prolly be defeated easily.

[Ruatha]

Suicide becourse the drone can't go home (if it's launched from a planet) as it can only be given an attack order, not move order (Sucess or death).
If it doesn't catch up to the ship it should capture it will run out of fuel and they will die a miserable death in cold lonely space far from all their loved ones crying in the darkness, confined in the small drone (unless they have solar panels, or could you put a quantum reactor on a drone too?)

So a drone with a ship capture troop pod and a quantum reactor and a massive shield depleter, does that fit into a large drone (you've got to have some engines and a computer core to i guess...)
The ship capture troop pod isn't a unit, so that ought to work, right.

It should be nice to be able to make planet invading drones, see them come pouring out of the warp holes falling to the surface spewing out troops massacring everyting in their way. Making the population die a miserable death in cold lonely places among all their loved ones crying in the darkness, running wildly across the open plains (Got a bit carried away in this post I think)

[von_toaster]

Too bad for the Plague Bombs on drones. Ah well, I'll keep using plague bearing escorts with max ECM then.

[dogscoff]

Rather than remove the possibility of having plague bombs on drones, I'd rather some kind of defensive counter-measure was made: Some kind of weapons platform mount or counter-drone or something that would give a planet a good chance of repelling the attack.

Oh and troops/ boarding parties on drones would also be cool, but they should have limited range (using supplies maybe?). Imagine having a drone-launcher baseship sitting out of the planet's range spewing waves and waves of troop-drop-drones.

Another cool thing (that we'll never see implemented=-) would be if you could use (cloaked?) drones to deposit intel operatives on enemy planets...

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Rather than remove the possibility of having plague bombs on drones, I'd rather some kind of defensive counter-measure was made: Some kind of weapons platform mount or counter-drone or something that would give a planet a good chance of repelling the attack.

Something like a weapon that (maybe - just ideas here):

• is only available for weapon platforms
• only targets drones
• is counted as PDC (?)
• has mount options available, similar to regular direct-fire weapon mounts
• does enough damage per round to significantly damage drones

I haven't looked to see how moddable those items are, nor have I come up with appropriate size/damage figures (supply use is irrelevant, since I'd prefer to limit to weapon platform use).

[Krsqk]

You can restrict them to WPs and set to only target drones. I don't know if the PDC auto-fire routine would work with weapons not set to target seekers (I know it doesn't for ship-targeting weapons). The mounts are no problem, except for us stupid humans who forget to look for mounts.

[von_toaster]

A couple of sats with PDCs and combat sensors should do the trick. Quite frankly I stand by my evilness and I think we should be able to put plague bombs on drones.
To counter-act, put a base with a medical bay on it. And by the way, why can't we put medical bays on Weapon Platforms (or anyway, why isn't there a facility that can be like a medical bay?)

[Hotfoot]

Originally posted by von_toaster:
(or anyway, why isn't there a facility that can be like a medical bay?)

There is, but only in the Organic tech tree, IIRC