Drones
 

I'm in a few games I am using Drones as well as others. I'm starting to think they are too powerful in relation to their cost.

Overpowered:
1. Reduced maint cost.
2. Cheap to build.
3. High defense bonus.
4. Use any weapon
5. Restricted on what weapons can target them.

In my opinion you could take 30 Drones versus 30 Ships and the drones would win. A lot of the problem lies in that a drone can carry any weapon a ship can carry with targeting restrictions other than the weapon's limits. While a ship can carry the same weapons as a Drone, but certain ship weapons cannot target the drone. For example if you have a fleet of Missle armed ships you will be in a big hurt if you run accross missle armed Drones as the drones can shoot you, but you can't shoot them.

Many will say that Point Defense is needed, but against a Missle armed Drone your Point Defense must defend against incoming missles AND fire at the Drones. The Point Defense becomes overwhelmed.

Others will say you need fighters to counter Drones, but Drones can mount anti-fighter weapons. I can take a Drone with a Proton Beam that can move faster than fighters and stay at max range killing off the fighters without any return fire.

I can take a stack of 50 Drones with Plasma missles and kill about aything that crosses my Path whether its Battleships or Frigates. My ships longest range weapon is the Anti-Proton Beam at roughly 100 parsecs. The Drone's Plasma missles reach out over 200 parsecs. Set the Drones to Max weapon ranges and watch them kill 500 Battle ships as the Battleships Plasma's can't target the Drones and the Battleship's Protons can't get in range.

Possible Fixes?
1. Let all weapons target Drones?
2. Limit Drones to Warheads only?
3. Increase Drone requirements (Other Technology dependencies)?
4. Better Drone specific point defenses for ships, platforms, etc?
5. Increase Drone Maint costs to limit their numbers?

I lean towards the easy fix of making any weapon able to target Drones, so at least the ships can match weapon ranges with them. This also creates the Dynamic that the Drones would need point Defense to be effective and not be able to mount as many weapons.


(Posting this here and main SEV site)

Re: Drones
 

I (hopefully) addressed most of the Drone concerns in the Balance Mod by allowing seeker weapons to target them, increasing the size and cost of the Drone Computer Core, and a pending unit maintenance bump in the next update. It had been quite an effective tactic to use seeker-wielding Drones in the mod - but it wasn't quite as lopsided as stock.

Re: Drones
 

Its probably my speed advantage making it seem broken.

Re: Drones
 

Note the changes were accidentally left out of the v1.09 PBW patch, so Drones are still quite effective in those games. If I was your opponent, I might try kamikaze fighters assuming you're using mainly twin seeker Drones with light protection.

A second option is overload on point defense so that Drones run out of ordnance and small fighter groups can clean them up.

Re: Drones
 

Or you could introduce a melody and then it would be less of a drone.

Re: Drones
 

They can't touch my speed. As in they can't get close enough to use Point Defense or fire a Direct fire weapon at me unless i'm breaching a warp point.

Re: Drones
 

I've tried mounting missiles on drones in other games and found they don't work. The drones just retreat if they have anything other than warheads. In our case, after all you are speaking of what I just did, I think devnull did something in his mod.

Re: Drones
 

Ah drones are fun romulus http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Missiles are a tricky issue. I this is a perfect place where the tech tree can get a bit more complicated. I see gaining the ability to target drones (and effectiveness) based on either sensors or computer technology. (or something else).

Ordinance storage is just too much on a drone when it comes to missiles. When I think of a missile drone, I think of only a few shots.