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- - Drones (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=1702)

Has anybody (especially Beta-testers) heard something about drones lately?
I miss them everytime when I would like to know what is on the other side of a warp point without risking a full ship.

Yes, drones are supposed to be added at some future time. Since they are very complicated it depends on when other things are under control. Even MM doesn't know whan this will be, so no one can tell you when drones will appear. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Thank you for this information Baron Munchhausen. I hope it will not be to long till we see them in the game.

Is there any word on what drones will be? It sounds like Q wants small unmanned ships. I favor the "build your own seeker" Version. Any idea which way it will go?

Actually I would like to see something like a fighter that can travel through warp points, but cannot be recovered and would be selfdestroyed after a fixed time. You could use for this drone all available components of the fighters or even new ones like small scanners and cloaking devices. So you might use drones as reconnaissance units or as long distance seekers for attact. Anyway they should be rather cheap as fighter are now. Launching them would be possible from planets and with special components (drone bay) also from ships. That would be my suggestions, but I have no idea what MM plans to do.

Q, you can make those yourself. Just create a new ship class, and copy one of the fighter images and rename it as your new fighter. You will have to create one of these ships for each race file including neutrals. Its really easy to do. Good luck.

Thank you for your suggestion Atrocities, but I'm afraid it will not be that easy. If I create a small ship, I have to use ship components and that makes it even in the most basic design much more expensive than a fighter. And there is no way to create the selfdestruction after a fixed time.

MM may be intending to copy Starfire. In the latest Version of Starfire, they have added something called "drones" which are a special case of what they call "Automated Platforms" (AP). AP divide into "Buoy" and "Drones". Buoys work pretty much like Satellites in SE4, but because of the communication rules in Starfire there are a lot of reasons to build them other than as a non-mobile defense. "Drones" absorb the functions of several other things that were in early editions of Starfire, including "Courier Drones" and a type of missile pod used for warp point assaults. All AP are designed under the same set of rules, though.

The basic Starfire drone has an endurance of 20 tactical turns and is not reusable. There is an enhanced endurance module that lets it move on the strategic scale, but takes up 1/2 the space in the drone hull (still can't rufuel/reuse them). There are three levels of drone tech, each adding a bigger/better hull.

The bottom level can't carry weapons and is really for courier drones. The memory module takes the other half of the hull space left over after the endurance pack is installed. What courier drones are for does not translate very well into SE4. In Starfire, you have to write orders in advance for all your fleets, and they can't do anything different unless they get new orders or encounter unexpected enemy forces themselves. Orders come from a type of headquarters (called a CC, which stands for "Command Complex", as I recall) that is pretty expensive to build, and I think can only be on a planet. So, any time something happens you have to transmit the info to one of those CC's, wait for a certain delay while the staff there drafts new orders, then transmit the new orders to the units affected. "Radio" (or whatever) transmitters have a limited range, and the signal won't go through warp points, so you have to build this network of buoys & bases through your space to relay orders. Courier drones are used to get Messages between ships/fleets operating outside your comm network and the network.

The second level can carry weapons but take severe power (range & damage) and rate of fire hits compared to ship systems. The third level removes some but not all of those disadvantages.

All AP have to operate according to very specific "programs" the player has to designate, and which can only be changed via that order transmission system (ships in combat can do whatever you want, because unlike AP, Captains have brains).

A primary use for drones (aside from courier drones) is to pack them with missiles and send them through a warp point first when you expect the enemy to be defending it. In Starfire, there is a limit to how many ships can come through per tactical turn, which takes into account ship size as well. If you exceed this, you start losing them to "interpenetration", which live crews won't do under most circumstances. Warp point defenders can be set up at optimum range and bLast the ships coming through a few at a time, so the attacker has to have a much bigger fleet than the defender to prevail, and is still sure to take huge loses. You can shove lots of drones through, though (they are small), and they don't care about interpenetration loses. So, you pack them full of missiles and program them to target the types of ships you expect on the other side, and send your fleet through after this "preliminary bombardment" has "softened up" the defenders.

So, based on the Starfire example, my guess would be that "drones" in SE4 will be some sort of short endurance, warp capable, one-use-only, self-propelled satellite.

[This message has been edited by Barnacle Bill (edited 02 February 2001).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Thank you for your suggestion Atrocities, but I'm afraid it will not be that easy. If I create a small ship, I have to use ship components and that makes it even in the most basic design much more expensive than a fighter. And there is no way to create the selfdestruction after a fixed time. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Create a component like the EMC (Emergency Move component)which allows 7 movement but is destroyed on use. make it 10Kt size (and figure out some way to limit it to frigate hulls...hmm). Alternatively cobble together a new hull size smaller than a frigate. Make it dirt cheap and require a 'drone control computer' which can only be mounted on ships with the EMC. and the EMC does not function at all with any other type of engine.
One disposable ship. Add the ability for the drone control computer to act as self destruct device and bingo...
Of course, I don't know if this would actually work in practice.

Interesting ideas jimbob55.
I never saw a possibility to limit a component to ships of a maximum size, only to a minimum size. Where would you specify this? And how do you make the use of one component dependent on the presence of an other component?
I would really like to know, if this is principally possible, but it's definitely not easy at least for my standard.
Last if you have a self destruction device you may use ist, but you are not forced to destroy your drone, if you don't want to. That's certainly a big difference to something that blows up inevitably after a certain time, no matter how much you would like that it just continues for one more turn.

I hope they aren't doing something like Starfire. They don't need to. With just a few minor things you could make that type of drone very easily:

Add an ability that allows passage through WPs. Put this ability on an component for fighters with "Destroyed after use" and you get a one-shot drone. With one or two other abilities, you could give them limited life spans.

What I want is to design my own missiles. I don't care if they are actual cargo or you just pick which designs are fired each turn (you are assumed to have unlimited of each design so long as your supplies hold out).

BTW, I never noticed, can you still fire when your ship runs out of supplies?

Point taken.
I'll stop hypothesising all over the place and have done some faffing and this is the best i can think of:

New ship type: One way tripper. A very cheap hull size 100Kt requires Bridge, life support, crew quarters and has max 1 engine.

Probe engine: 70Kt generates 1 move, or can act as emergency pod to produce however many moves you want. I made it 9.

So with these 2 items you can produce a VERY slow ship with no weapons which can do a burst of 9 moves in one turn and become a floating derelict / outpost. It could store 100 supply points + use 10 per move if you like (although it will still move 1 every turn after it's out of supplies...)
I have tested it and it works.

The size of the engine reduces the chances of it being fitted to regular hulls (even for the emergency move allowance) and if you build a battlecruiser with just probe engines and a repair bay, well fine....it's an expensive thing to maintain. You could build a one shot minesweeper with 1 drone engine and a bunch of minesweeping comps...
It would be possible to restrict all but one ship type from having a component, but it would involve editing every shiptype record and adding :
Requirement Drone engine - Cannot have. (haven't tested this bit yet)
I tried mounting engines and emergency supply pods on a satellite, but there is no movement allowed for satellites in the interface. If you look at specific sats it says '4/4 moves' but the move button is disabled. :-(

The other posibility would be to fit a normal size engine to a fighter, I'll try that later just to see if it will allow the fighter to warp. (probably not).

[This message has been edited by jimbob55 (edited 03 February 2001).]

[This message has been edited by jimbob55 (edited 03 February 2001).]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Zanthis:
BTW, I never noticed, can you still fire when your ship runs out of supplies?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes but you will have only one movement and your shield drop.

But (IIRC) these effects (no shields, etc.) don't occur until the current combat ends (if you run out of supplies during a combat).

Speaking of supplies, I have noticed that I don't use supplies when I fire weapons. I thought this was suppose to be the case. Is it a bug or am I misunderstanding this?

Its a widespread bug. Stellar manipulation components also are supposed to use supplies and they don't either. Engines seem to be about the only things that do use supplies at the moment.

Check the supplies used. One time I used Crew Insurrection and ended up w/ a dreadnought with WMGIIIs on board. Since I was too far away to get to any sort of ship that had solar collectors/etc. and get it to my empire, I decided to use it to bLast as much as I could before it ran out.

Essentially, I started with over a 1000 supplies on the ship. After the first battle, I was very low on supplies since I fired the WMGs in that battle and they have a high supply rating. I also didn't move too many sectors to make that attack so it wasn't engine use. Things like depleted uranium cannons and such have very low supply Ratings so maybe it's just not as noticeable?

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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

When I have watched supply usage in combat, I have noticed that firing of weapons is NOT debited when actually in combat but AFTER combat there is a noticable drop in your supply levels. Since it's a bit much to count HOW MANY shots are fired by which weapons I don't know if this drop is perfectly accurate. So, yes weapons do use supplies but as noted you do not "hit the wall" in combat and suddenly start to suffer the effects of running out of supply while in combat. You enter combat 'supplied' or 'unsupplied' and your status doesn't change until after combat.

Stellar Manipulations don't seem to use supplies as documented. Never have as far as I can tell.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 05 February 2001).]

How does the quantum reactor effect the use of supplies in combat? It says it give unlimited supplies for movement but doesn't mention combat. Will you eventually need to resupply?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
When I have watched supply usage in combat, I have noticed that firing of weapons is NOT debited when actually in combat but AFTER combat there is a noticable drop in your supply levels. Since it's a bit much to count HOW MANY shots are fired by which weapons I don't know if this drop is perfectly accurate. So, yes weapons do use supplies but as noted you do not "hit the wall" in combat and suddenly start to suffer the effects of running out of supply while in combat. You enter combat 'supplied' or 'unsupplied' and your status doesn't change until after combat.

Stellar Manipulations don't seem to use supplies as documented. Never have as far as I can tell.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 05 February 2001).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't think you are right here. When I was making a new weapon component, I gave it a high power usage. The ships with full supply at the start of the combat would use all supplies before round 15 and would start crawling on combat map at speed 1. The shields would remain, though.
I have tried this in combat simulator, not in game but I don't think there would be any difference.

It has been a while since I tried to track supply usage in combat. Perhaps it has changed. When I did watch my supply status, it did not change after firing weapons, though. Only after combat did I see the effects.

The description of the Quantum Reactor, if that's what it says, is misleading. My copy of the components file doesn't have that description, but I don't have all of the old copies available. It does in fact give unlimited supplies. No matter how much you use in even a single turn, your supply levels never drop -- not even DURING the turn. So, with a QR you don't even need supply storage.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 06 February 2001).]

A quick test in the simulator reveals you do in fact lose supply for firing weapons. You can fire even at zero supply. However, as soon as you drop to zero supply, your maximum movement in combat drops to 1. It fails to display this properly in the upper right display window until after you move. It correctly displays this if you right-click on the ship.

Note that while your maximum movement is reduced to one, you still have any unused movement to spend for that turn. So, you might be at 4/1 movement upon hitting zero supply.

There is no effect on shields in combat.