Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Build a cargo ship with a stealth armor and some Drone Launchers. Fill it up with Drones loaded with anti-planet warheads.

Cloak, and proceed to any habited system of your choice. Launch Drones against system, and COMPLETELY WIPE IT OUT IN ONE TURN.

Go back home, replenish Drones as nescisary and repeat until EVERYTHING IS DEAD.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Uh oh... cue Wile E. theme! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

How is that a cheat?

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Yes, but how many drones can you fit in an escort hull anyway.... Oh wait a minute, wrong thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

This isn't a cheat at all.

Probably a waste of typeing to point out the obvious flaws in this strategy. Mines on the warp points will stop your stealth drone launchers before they can launch. Mines on the planets will stop the drones.

Even without mines, any defenses capable of stopping a standard ship attack will stop your drones as well. Point defense on sats or wepons platforms will be particularly effective.

Geoschmo

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

I can see how this would appear 'wrong' but I think it's not appropriate to call it a cheat. Maybe it would be better to call it a balance problem. Being able to fire a single weapon at a planet and destroy it would seem to be unfair. A colony on a planet represents vast amounts of population and infrastructure spread over a great deal of territory. Blowing all of it up at once when it may not all be on the same continent would seem to require a doomsday sort of weapon that should be more expensive to develop and build, and more difficult to use. This is related to the problems we have discussed before about how easy it is to slag a planet from space with standard weapons.

[ 29 March 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]</p>

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Yea, One of my small planets got slagged by a single drone.
I had one PD and 3 other weapon platforms. Engine Damage, shield depleters, but not enough raw fire power. Drones have a speed of 3 without engines.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

I think to help level the playing field, we need a sat/weapon platform only weapon that is reasearched in tandem with PD and is 2-3x as effective and can only be used against drones. This way the advantage will again lie with the defenders and make it harder to wipe out your enemy with drones.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

I'd say it's already pretty hard to wipe out your opponent with drones, if he's not caught off guard. Given the scenario that the attacker has got access to a system with several relatively unprotected planets, a group of escorts can do the same thing as a drone carrier, and isn't used up in the process. Just like with escorts, mines and/or weapon platforms, bases, or even satellites, can block the attack.

At least from the few games I've seen them used in, it didn't seem like PD really needed to be made tougher on drones. I saw PD wasting drones pretty easily. If you lost a colony with a couple of WP's on it to one drone, and one of the WP's was a PD WP, then I expect either it was an expensive high-tech drone or a low-tech PD WP, or both.

PvK

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Yeah, drones are useless. Now, if you could give them the "move to" order, then they might have a few uses. Or, if they could turn into satellites (or maybe just stop in one spot and act like a satellite), then maybe they could be used as remotely deployable satellites, so that you could set them up at warp points or other planets without having to use satellite launching ships.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

I wouldn't say they're "useless", but the satellite mode is a cool idea, I think.

I think the main efficient uses of drones are as surprise weapons (can be hidden from human opponents in ways that ships can't), and as relatively maintenance-free build-up arsenals. Depending on your enemies' technology and designs, I think they can be effective in several situations.

Another use is in concert with fighters and missiles - drones can soak up a lot of PD and weapon fire, making the other systems more effective.

They are quite expensive, but I think that helps keep them from becoming too powerful.

PvK

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

so people are using drones. I think their too expensive for what they do.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Geoshmo and others point out that a mine field will wipe out your drones. Anyone considered using (cheapest possible) drones purposefully as "minesweepers?" Probably not cost-effective but, since colonies can build them without shipyards, you may be able to field lots of them quickly enough to overwhelm even a maxed-out minefield.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Drones will be a lot more expensive than the mines they would detonate - the engines are one of the most expensive parts. It might be a little more effective if you piled armor on the drones, but still it'd be pretty wasteful. I tend to think minesweeping components should be allowed on drones, but that would require programming work that might better be directed elsewhere.

PvK

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Just add solar panels to turn them into sats.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

That doesn't do what I was suggesting. You'd still have to use a ship to move them to different planets or to warp points.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Not if they still have an engine. Stick one engine and enough solar panels to overcome their natural supply usage.

Problem is, unless you're in a binary or trinary system, it's not viable.

"I tend to think minesweeping components should be allowed on drones, but that would require programming work that might better be directed elsewhere."

Why code work?

"Vehicle Type := Ship\Base"

That's from the minesweeper entry in components.txt. Change it to allow drones, and it might work. Don't have time to test it right now myself.

Phoenix-D

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

The satellite suggestion was that they should be able to deploy themselves - i.e., it needs move-to.

The minesweeper thing I assumed would need programming to make the sweeper components actually do anything, but I haven't tested it either.

PvK

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Not if they still have an engine. Stick one engine and enough solar panels to overcome their natural supply usage.

Problem is, unless you're in a binary or trinary system, it's not viable.

"I tend to think minesweeping components should be allowed on drones, but that would require programming work that might better be directed elsewhere."

Why code work?

"Vehicle Type := Ship\Base"

That's from the minesweeper entry in components.txt. Change it to allow drones, and it might work. Don't have time to test it right now myself.

Phoenix-D<hr></blockquote>

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

I have launched them directly from planets.

Now you do need a target to get them to where ever you want.

The ships will attack nothing(I think) but a drone will not.

The fix would be to allow them to attack nothing.

adding a thought

This is also needed to allow attacks from out of system otherwise a drone is just a fancy fighter. The drone needs to be able to hit things that the empire "knows is there" aka has seen before, but is not currently visible.

[ 01 April 2002: Message edited by: adder_inf ]</p>

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PvK:
Drones will be a lot more expensive than the mines they would detonate - the engines are one of the most expensive parts. It might be a little more effective if you piled armor on the drones, but still it'd be pretty wasteful.
PvK<hr></blockquote>
Well of course the drones would be more expensive than the mines, but you can't detonate mines with mines. And you only need one engine. And you wouldn't want armor. The point is to detonate the mines with the cheapest thing possible that can be built in large quantities quickly. No matter how big and expensive the mine, each mine only takes out one vessel. Yes, the tactic is wasteful compared to minesweeping, but if you don't have minesweepers researched/built/handy, then this tactic might work. It allows you to use your shipyards to make warships instead of minesweepers.

Do you know how the Celts used to break the Roman lines? A bunch of lousy fighters would work themselves into a frenzy and impale themselves on the Roman spears and hang on as long as they could. These would be followed closely by skilled Celt fighters who could then take advantage of the Romans while they were spearless. It was a brutal but effective way to use their numerical superiority to offset the Romans' superiority in training and equipment.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

I've used fighters for this purpose, but unfortunately for that tactic, mines can destroy more than one fighter per mine, if the fighters come in a group. So it's most effective if you can get the fighters in Groups of one, which is slow and tedious. But it is vastly cheaper than using drones. A small fighter with no equipment and just enough engines can be cheaper than a mine. What it's really good for though is not trying to clear dense minefields, but testing locations to see if they are mined... unless the game is set so that fighters don't detonate mines!

Another option is to set drones to not detonate mines, which of course leads to a different set of options... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by dmm:

...A bunch of lousy fighters would work themselves into a frenzy and impale themselves on the Roman spears and hang on as long as they could... <hr></blockquote>

OH NO! You mean they were SPEAR FODDER!!!

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BTW, the fighter - mine field thing sounds clever. But in Simutaneous Turn mode, can you really execute 1 fighter Groups? easily? quickly?


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SPEAR FODDER

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Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Wardad:

BTW, the fighter - mine field thing sounds clever. But in Simutaneous Turn mode, can you really execute 1 fighter Groups? easily? quickly?
<hr></blockquote>

Yes. Not really. Not really.

It's not really quick and easy in turn-based mode either. Several inputs required per mine destroyed... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

I found two main ways to do this in simult. mode. Either build one fighter at a time on planets that you don't need to be building something else, and launch one per turn, or have two things that can store or launch fighter in the same sector, and transfer and launch one per launch location per turn...

So again, it's mainly only good for detecting where the minefields are and aren't.

PvK

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

WarDad you made my day.
that's great material.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Well of course the drones would be more expensive than the mines, but you can't detonate mines with mines. And you only need one engine. And you wouldn't want armor. The point is to detonate the mines with the cheapest thing possible that can be built in large quantities quickly.<hr></blockquote>Actually, the point is to detonate the mines quickly for the smallest expense on your part.

Mine warhead III's cost 100/60 resources per 300 damage. Small mines cost 100/0
If the enemy is using full, large mines, then small, naked drones would be best.
You get a 4:15 advantage in cost (you:them)

If they're using small mines to block the above strategy,
A large drone, with one ion engine (4 MP) costs 400/100 resources. 4:1 disadvantage for you.
Add in OA 3 ($130 organic for 150 Hp).
2 OA3's will take down two small, one-warhead mines, for the same basic cost as before.
Now, you have a 2:1 disadvantage.

Small drones don't save you much.

Re: Drones: Magic Cheat?
 

Good analysis, SJ. So in some circumstances, the mine-detonating drone tactic is actual cost-effective. But I disagree about the main point. Cost of drones vs. mines is only secondary if you can bLast through a maxed-out minefield, suddenly and without warning, that the other player was counting on for defense of his system. Think of the wasted resources and spaceyard time that he put into making mines, making minelayers, picking up the mines, moving to the minefield, laying the mines, etc. Think of the cost-effectiveness of bLasting his exposed colonies into oblivion with your unscathed warfleet (which your shipyards were building instead of mineclearers).