Strategy talk: How to use drones

[Atrocities]

I have never used drones but say for one game, and they all were shot down by the planets defenses. I had to move the ship into orbit near the planet to launch them. What is the range of a Drone when launched from a base? Can a drone be launched from a base to a planet in another system?

[Baron Munchausen]

Drones have the same range no matter where they are launched from. It depends on their design, including the amount of supplies they carry and the supply usage of their engines or other components. Also, drones have a 'default' supply usage setting in SETTINGS.TXT -- I guess you could set this to 0 if you don't want drones to have a default supply usage.

[ July 30, 2002, 23:50: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[jimbob]

So, do ya remember space man spiff (Calvin and Hobbes)?? I remember also reading a science fiction story about a plant like race that would send out space seeds that could land on other planets and start up whole colonies... and then there's the MycopLast (fungal) organisms from MOO (MOO2??)

Anyhoo, I'm wondering if you could put a small colony component on a drone and fire it off as if it were a spore pod of some sort... make it a racial trait. The spore pods would let you make colonies easily, but with very few colonists (perhaps 1M max).

Is it possible ? or are colony components ship only?

[ July 31, 2002, 00:33: Message edited by: jimbob ]

[Phoenix-D]

Colony components do not work on anything but ships and bases; the colonize button doesn't light up. Even bases don't really work, they need a movement point to colonize and by default they can't *have* any MP.

Phoenix-D

[capnq]

I'm wondering if you could put a small colony component on a drone and fire it off as if it were a spore pod of some sort... make it a racial trait.

You could mod a small Colony Pod component that only carried 1M colonists and a drone-sized ship hull that it barely fits into. You'd have to voluntarily not put the component on any larger hulls, or somehow design it so that normal colony components were more cost-effective on larger hulls.

[Baron Munchausen]

There is a setting for colony components to have a 'default' population like the SE III colony components did. It works, too. So you could get around the cargo problem. But even if you put a colony component on a drone, it cannot use the 'colonize' order so it will be useless.

[Phoenix-D]

"You could mod a small Colony Pod component that only carried 1M colonists and a drone-sized ship hull that it barely fits into"

You can do this. However Baron is right; the colony component will not function. (tested in Gold 1.67)

Phoenix-D