Missiles as units (a.k.a microdrones)

[capnq]

The problem with mounting a ranged weapon on a drone is twofold. First, as others have pointed out it tends to rush in and ram first, so it often doesn't get to fire. Second, in order to do a reasonable amount of damage with that ONE shot it has to be given insane damage levels

One way around this is to put fewer engines on the drone. A drone that isn't faster than the enemy ships will keep firing at them as it tries to close, but not quite catch them to ram.

Using "Least Damaged" as one of the targeting priorities can have interesting results, especially with swarms of drones vs. multiple opponents.

[geoschmo]

I have been thinking more about this idea lately.

Has anyone tried it in a mod yet? Any unexpected suprises? Major roadblocks keeping it from working?

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

HH mod uses it. See that thread for the major issues.

The problems are you can't target the drones manually in tactical (they attack always using their strategy), a lot of drones will actually get in each others way, you can't set a fire rate of below 1 per turn, and they will always outrange any other weapon.

Phoenix-D