New Features You Would Like to See That Would Have to Be Hard Coded

[ColdSteel]

I'd like to see drones implemented as "stand off" fire and forget planetary weapons (think cruise missiles) that target planets in other systems. This would be a new research area branch.

The drone is designed using the ship designer, is built in a planet weapons facility and, once completed, is targeted and fired from the planet surface. Targeting is done using the "attack" command button. The planet has to be in an system you have a map to and the drone cannot pass through unexplored systems to reach the target. In other words, the entire target path must be known in order to use the weapon. Once fired the drone cannot be controlled or recalled as it makes it's preprogrammed attack run.

At low tech levels:

- The drone would only be able to travel several systems to the target (lower supplies).

- The weapon would damage random facilities on the planet.

- Only one type of warhead and few components are available.

- Movement speed per turn starts at 8 and increases with each tech level, making them harder to intercept and destroy on the way in.

At higher levels:

- Increases in the targeting range (more supplies).

- At higher levels you could pick the target facility on the target planet. At even higher levels you could even target the troops on the planet or the population.

- Also at higher levels you could fit in more components (like scanners, ecm, targeting computers, cloaking and the like).


Maybe a counter, mirror technology that uses another type of drone as an intercept defensive weapon (think patriot missiles) could also be developed.

I've seen a lot of ideas floated for how to do drones in SE4. To me this idea would add quite a bit of fun and strategy to the game as well as introduce another interesting tech branch to research. You could even add in so other defensive measures and tech against these such as planetary shields. You could also scramble fighters to intercept if one is coming in (unless it is cloaked).

Part of the beauty of this idea is that the drone would be essentially just another hull design type and could use a lot of the existing game components. This could make it pretty easy to do.

I'm interested in some other people's thoughts on this idea.

[Crazy_Dog]

I liked your drone concept.
Can put biological warheads on it for example......
If they have jammer /cloaking, you don't know the race that is attacking you....

[Suicide Junkie]

The best defence against those drones would be mines. A few at a warp point, and even cloaking devices are useless.

What about:

Normal ships have vastly larger control areas. Ie. 50% of the ship is livable space, life support, crew quarters, etc.
Even a master computer would take up a good fraction of the ship.

Drones, on the other hand, would have their 10KT computer core, so almost the entire thing is engines & weapons & shields.

Drones would be much more powerful weapons, but would not be able to change orders.

Thus, if you have a target you want to attack, you use drones, but for patrols & complicated actions, only regular ships will do.

The difference between drones and MC ships, would be that the drone follows a simple, linear series of commands (move, move, turn, fire, ram, endProgram), whereas the MC is vastly more complex, and can make decisions and change orders and do tactical combat.

A drone's weapons would be programmed to fire 5 Weeks, 2 days, 1 hour, 15 minutes, and 10 seconds from launch, and continue firing forever at the nearest target.

If a ship intercepted a drone that was not at it's target, the drone would be destroyed without a battle, and the sender could be identified. "We intercepted a drone from the Xi empire. Its orders were to plague our home planet!"

What do you think?

[chewy027]

It would be great if there was no limit to the number of races per game. That way if you want, say 40, in a galaxy of 255 systems there won't be 3 or 4 huge empires but many smaller ones. This would add to the games diplomacy and make for a much more delicate balance of power. Not to mention the fact that all those custom races we download could play at one time. This is a feature that I think everyone would like to see, to at least have the option to have more races.

Chewy027

[capnq]

IMO, you'd have to capture a drone to figure out its exact orders. Scanning its components would give you clues, but you'd have to tap the computer core to find out which system it was on its way to.

------------------
Cap'n Q

[Lastseer]

How do I see drones?

Like a probe. Hull size approximately that of an escort (~150). Can not contain any weapons. Can fit more engines (maybe upto 8). Has a certain level automatic cloaking like mines (or must use stealth armor/Clocaking device). This makes it a fast moving unarmed scout. Best when used with long range scanners or temporal/EM scanners etc.

Go V-ger.

[Suicide Junkie]

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.

--------------------
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).]

[jc173]

Recon and intel data on enemy systems and planet that persists after you leave the area. It's not perfect, but it's better than trying to remember what the heck you saw where. If you've seen a colonly location before either be sending a ship there or through an intel project that map should remember it as a suspected enemy position. Same for more detailed info on facilities and population etc if you happen to scan the planet or orbit it. Should definately apply if someone breaks a partnership and declares war on you. I'd think someone in your empire's intel service would have at least marked down the locations of the other guy's conlonies.

[Jourin]

Barnacle Bill,

I absolutely love your suggustions on diplomacy and treaties. Did you send them to MM? I consider colonizing in my system without my approval an act of war. I know the AI dosen't so my reputation gets hurt. Sometimes I just cheat like become the AI and redirect the colony ship. I really like your idea!

[Urendi Maleldil]

How about MM add a simple text editor, an empire notebook so to speak, with different sections for intel, diplomacy, and other things. MM could have it automatically add entries pertaining to user-defined things like intel projects, and the user could also take notes on whatever they want manually.