drones riles !! plus some bug in strategies.

Baron Munchausen · #1 December 16th, 2003, 12:34 AM

Well, yes, AI targetting is stupid and will launch all available drones at the smallest attack. This is quite a problem for the viability of the AI since drones cannot be recovered. Some sort of targetting routine needs to be tweaked to tell the AI not to treat drones like fighters.

Pablo · #2 December 16th, 2003, 09:45 AM

I remember coming across something like "number of drones launched per ship". Maybe that would help?

se5a · #3 December 16th, 2003, 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:
Originally posted by se5a:

quote:
Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Isn't the entire goal of the Drone hull to fire its weapons once and then ram the target? It seems like a much bigger exploit to me to be able to use them in a non-ramming capacity.

if that were the case then other wepons would not be availible to put on drones.
Umm... if that were the case, they would be allowed, as they would get to shoot once before the ramming... which is exactly what I said. Warheads can not shoot at all.

oooohhhh! I see what your saying now!

Fyron · #4 December 16th, 2003, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pablo:
I remember coming across something like "number of drones launched per ship". Maybe that would help?

Nope. The bug is that that is ignored, and all drones get launched. The default setting is not 1000 or something.

Patroklos · #5 December 16th, 2003, 06:42 PM

I recently started using drones seriously and have had nothing but good results. Will have to try some of the configurations and see how much more effective these weapons become.

Fyron · #6 December 16th, 2003, 07:02 PM

Drones are good against AI because the AI is stupid and can be defeated by nearly anything, used properly. But against other humans in a pitched war, drones are only useful (as a primary tactic) if you had a long period of peace in which to build up large stockpiles. Otherwise, it is too costly to amass the number of drones quickly that you need to be able to take out a good sized fleet. And even if you manage it, the drones are all used up, leaving you open to the next big fleet, which with most players is not going to be far behind.

Baron Munchausen · #7 December 16th, 2003, 07:45 PM

Well, certainly drones are expensive to use as a primary weapon system. I don't know of anyone who recommends them as a primary method of attack/defense for your empire. They are disposable, after all. They are just one more option in your toolkit.

What do you do if you spot an unauthorized colonizer sneaking into your claimed territory but all available ships are currently busy standing off some other enemy fleet? Sending some ship off to chase it down could be time consuming if it has a head start. A drone is very fast so it will catch up sooner and it doesn't cost any maintenance to have a few lying around for 'emergencies' like that, while keeping extra ships in every single system to catch stragglers or 'accidental' invaders (from 'anomaly' events or whatnot) does cost a lot of extra maintenance.

A few anti-planet drones will also let you mop-up new 'unauthorized' colonies that you run across without risking a ship on the possibility of early weapon platforms or mines.

They are also very useful as part of a 'combined arms' combat strategy. Fighters tend to get ripped up by PDC if you send them in alone against a human opponent's ships. As do missiles. Obviously PDC will be more effective if the enemy can tune his designs and strategies to deal with either in particular. The whole suite of fighters, seekers, and drones is quite a handful and makes it much more difficult to design ships and strategies to wipe them all out.

A little modding of the game provides drones with all sorts of special uses (like the 'plague drones' I've wanted to be able to use for so long) that make them even more flexible.