I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

But I'm not telling! I want to use it to my advantage in a PBW game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

(hint: it involves tweaking their strategies a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

edit: darn, shields seem to work on drones, they don't add to the drone's hitpoints... makes the enemy's nullspace cannons actually penetrate them! but that wasn't my ENTIRE plan...

edit: PDC's are acting weird against drone shields though... they seem to hit the shields but the drone's shields and hitpoints are unaffected http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

edit: hint 2 comes in the form of a question: what causes a ship or unit to abandon its primary movement strategy and use the secondary strategy?

edit: of course you guys probably already figured out the strategy I'm referring to when Gold was released and rejected it for some reason or another, making me look like an idiot now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ January 20, 2003, 01:33: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Hmmm...

...Geo scurries away to check if he has Ed Kolis as an enemy in any PBW games...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

/me is confused on whether Ed is posting this because he was boosting his post count, or he was trying to make the SE4 community fear him http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , or he wants to start a nonsense thread, or he was just bored. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Drones are UNITS and will not show any damage until they are suddenly destroyed. And shields are just considered part of their hitpoints. It's the same with satellites and fighters.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm, what is the answer to this?

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

I have not used drones yet (or mines). but, if what your wanting to do is have your ships break formation duing tactical combat, click the options button and select clear all orders.

Formations in tactical suck. it is more important for them to stay in formation then to get a good shot off, and god forbid if you move the group leader any other time than Last. it's a fight, but with your own captains.
Leader moves here.
hey, the leader moved, lets position ourselves in formation, it don't matter if we are now in range of the planets supercannons, we are in formation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif
leader moves there
hey, lets move out of our firing range for that enemy ship, but we will be in formation.

I want a new component for my ships. a brig

[ January 20, 2003, 08:35: Message edited by: couslee ]

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm, what is the answer to this?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IIRC, I ship will revert to secondary movement strategy if it cannot achieve it's primary movement strategy, for any reason.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Oh, never mind, I'll tell you my strategy - I just realized it's not so great after all. What I did is designed a drone with a beam weapon and ECM, thinking that the drone's +50 defense plus the ECM's +60 would make the drone nearly impossible to hit... then setting the drone's primary strategy to Optimal Firing Range instead of Ram (yes, it can be done!) and making Ram only the secondary strategy (so why DO the drones eventually ram anyway? they can't lose their beams...) But what I forgot about is Stealth Armor and Scattering Armor - those provide an additional +30 to defense that my ships have but if I try to put them on a drone then I have to sacrifice too many engines and the drone can't keep up with enemy ships... So in the end it only comes out my drones are 20% harder to hit than my ships... which is a little help, but not much...

Still, I wonder about those shields...

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Not to mention PDC gets a bonus to hit and can target drones. But it's a good try. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm, it's almost worth spitting out decoy drones with nothing but junk and engines... though that may not even work if the other drones can be determined to be more dangerous...

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Whwewwwwwwww

(tbontob wipes his brow)

(tbontob reduces the number of times he is looking over his shoulder to see if Ed Kolis is drawing a bead on him with his drones. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

But Ed....

I am a bit unclear what the issue is about the shields? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

All units treat shields as a part of their hit points, not actually as shields.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

High-tech drones with lots of defense bonus and structure can be ... consequential. I have a few uses for drones. ;-)

PvK

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Emissive Armor III makes Drones fairly hard to kill with PDC alone (except with hideous numbers of PDC of course). Yes, even just a single component.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As far as I know emissive armor does not work on units. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Troops can have emissive armor, so hopefully they at least work on some units. Don't know about drones, however.

Since units are just a damange point total, does the brokenness of emissive armor not apply to them?

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That is exactely the point: for SE combat calculation units do not have shields or armor but they just have a total of xx hit points. You can put emissive armor on troops fighters, weapon platforms, sats, drones and they will add to the total damage resistence but the emissive ability will not work as far as I know.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Also as far as I know units don't get racial bonuses. Drones are great for warp point defense though.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Warp point DEFENSE?!? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif You mean like really, really big mines? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif But wouldn't they run out of supply? Or do you put a solar panel on them...

edit: That's IT! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif The solution to the mine balance problem! Implement mines as small drones! Then they have a chance of being shot down! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ January 22, 2003, 20:02: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">but then pdc = minesweeper?

I still want to know if emissive armor works on drones and/or other units

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

edit: That's IT! The solution to the mine balance problem! Implement mines as small drones! Then they have a chance of being shot down!"

Or sats. However the problem here is A. they won't be able to attack cloaked ships any more, and B. you have to have an uncloaked unit in the sector for them to attack. Takes away the "invisible death" aspect..

Phoenix-D

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Oh, just the old saying that "mines are uber-powerful early on but become useless once you research minesweepers"... IMO mines and minsweepers should be separate tech trees too - if the enemy has mines and all you want is to sweep them, you have to research mines of your own, and then it's like "oh why don't I use them too?" so then everybody ends up using mines... except people like me who don't really like mines anyway!

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

What exactly is the "mine balance problem" for you?

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Emmissive armor was fixed in a recent patch. It is no longer broken.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do drones move when they are launched - just have a ship that can launch all the drones? If not then you'd have to put solar panels. If so then at a warp point they are right on top of a fleet before the fleet gets a chance to fire their main weapons. So if you have a combined defense of drones and MS weapons then the PDC can't get them all. One drone can take out a BC or less and severely damage a BB and above.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

"Emmissive armor was fixed in a recent patch. It is no longer broken."

Don't say that too loudly. We don't want another debate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

The damage thing that was broken with it is no longer broken. It lowers damage by its value, as it should.

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">On units also?

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As far as I know: no!
Units do not have armor or shields. They just have a total of hit points/damage resistance.
See this topic:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=006819#000003

[ January 24, 2003, 20:51: Message edited by: Q ]

Re: I finally thought of a use for drones!
 

Thanks for the link. Thats too bad it doesn't work on units.