Capnq:
As I see it the drones would be hardcoded to fly to X and do Y.
Any ship that happens upon it would be able to capture it without difficulty unless the drone's orders were to attack that ship/fleet.
ie.
quote:
Order: fly to sector 3:
Velocity insufficient -> full power to engines.
...
Velocity insufficient -> full power to engines.
...
- by Drone # 51972
a la infinite loop, since another ship has grabbed it and is holding it in one spot
IMO, Drones are supposed to be dumb, and can't handle unexpected situations.
The only reason why it might not be captured & analysed is if it had a self destruct device. This would not destroy the capturing ship, since they have all the time in the world to scan the inside and decide not to board, but fire on and destroy it.
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I would allow any parts that a ship/fighter can have (depending on its size), and make it an "is that your final answer?" order system. A series of orders should be possible, such as "attack sector 1, attack sector 2, attack sector 3, repeat" Also, only one order would be done per turn. This prevents you from ordering an attack every sector along the way to prevent interception. If you did order an attack every sector, the drone would end up only moving 1 square per turn and the path could be mined, or a fleet gathered.
Arbitrarily limiting it to a scout role is not a good idea IMO. An attack design would have to get past mines, ships, sats and fighters sent to intercept it.
Flexibility is key to SE4, and should not be abandoned.
[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 13 March 2001).]