Strategy talk: How to use drones

thorfrog · #1 July 30th, 2002, 06:01 PM

I was thinking, Drones are more like torpedoes in SEIV. They can be more distructive and are guided. You could basically make space subs with them if you add cloaking to your ship.

thorfrog · #2 July 30th, 2002, 06:18 PM

Ideas for use of drones:

attack subs (w/ cloak)
Ballistic Missile Sub (w/ cloak)
Distroyer
Anti-fighter/drone frigate

Puke · #3 July 30th, 2002, 09:13 PM

keep them in storage ships or bases without launchers, and transfer them to the ships with launchers to that they will not all be wasted in a single combat.

tesco samoa · #4 July 30th, 2002, 09:18 PM

would they be good for planet capture ...

Ed Kolis · #5 July 30th, 2002, 10:33 PM

No, you can't load troops on them - units can't carry cargo.

Atrocities · #6 July 31st, 2002, 12:08 AM

I have never used drones but say for one game, and they all were shot down by the planets defenses. I had to move the ship into orbit near the planet to launch them. What is the range of a Drone when launched from a base? Can a drone be launched from a base to a planet in another system?

Baron Munchausen · #7 July 31st, 2002, 12:49 AM

Drones have the same range no matter where they are launched from. It depends on their design, including the amount of supplies they carry and the supply usage of their engines or other components. Also, drones have a 'default' supply usage setting in SETTINGS.TXT -- I guess you could set this to 0 if you don't want drones to have a default supply usage.

[ July 30, 2002, 23:50: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

jimbob · #8 July 31st, 2002, 01:31 AM

So, do ya remember space man spiff (Calvin and Hobbes)?? I remember also reading a science fiction story about a plant like race that would send out space seeds that could land on other planets and start up whole colonies... and then there's the MycopLast (fungal) organisms from MOO (MOO2??)

Anyhoo, I'm wondering if you could put a small colony component on a drone and fire it off as if it were a spore pod of some sort... make it a racial trait. The spore pods would let you make colonies easily, but with very few colonists (perhaps 1M max).

Is it possible ? or are colony components ship only?

[ July 31, 2002, 00:33: Message edited by: jimbob ]

Phoenix-D · #9 July 31st, 2002, 01:40 AM

Colony components do not work on anything but ships and bases; the colonize button doesn't light up. Even bases don't really work, they need a movement point to colonize and by default they can't *have* any MP.

Phoenix-D

capnq · #10 July 31st, 2002, 10:34 PM

Quote:

I'm wondering if you could put a small colony component on a drone and fire it off as if it were a spore pod of some sort... make it a racial trait.

You could mod a small Colony Pod component that only carried 1M colonists and a drone-sized ship hull that it barely fits into. You'd have to voluntarily not put the component on any larger hulls, or somehow design it so that normal colony components were more cost-effective on larger hulls.