[TC] Freight Drones and Disruptor missiles

[Nyax]

I'm currently working for two rather unreasonable employers. Specifically Mala-mi who's needing ludicrous quantities of resources in order to jury rig the hub into life (anyone leaving Argon prime via the south gate is in for a hell of a surprise these days ) and the OTAS corporation.

Mala-mi has lead me to discover problems with freight drones. I have a Boron thresher, which i gave 4 freight drones thinking it would enable me to keep it topped up with jump drive fuel (since there's very few places it can dock to buy energy.)

Well my first disappointment was that it seems freight drones do not allow your big ships to trade with AI stations. A shame, and a missed opportunity i feel. Secondly and more seriously, although i can command a freight drone to go and get energy from one of MY complexes i can't seem to see any way of getting the drone to go back aboard the Thresher. Does this mean that freight drones are basically just for one shot use like fighter drones? (and if so what clot though THAT was a good idea?)



Secondly my other unreasonable employer is OTAS. They keep on sending me out to get them missile shipments and they keep on asking me for ever increasing numbers of disrupter missiles. This is a problem since nowhere i've found makes them, nowhere i've found sells them, and nowhere appears to sell a factory to allow you to make them themselves. which means my only option seems to be to collect them from the wreckage of destroyed pirate ships. Unfortunately these missiles are dropped so infrequently that in the time it took for me to round up the 9 distrupter missiles they asked for in the last mission i was able to go up a combat rank (Now a crusader) and collect the 400 computer components and 500 microchips needed for the first Hub Gate reallignment.

Now they want another 19 of the damn things. So has anyone spotted any disrupter missile fabs out on their travels?

[shdwdrgn]

I haven't used freight drones myself but from what I have heard they only go back into your ship automatically if it has a docking bay for ships. Otherwise you have to tell them to stop and then pick them up like normal freight.

As for the disrupter missles, there is no place to buy them (unless someone mods it). You can only get them from the spoils of war.

You do have a third option. Just take the mission and then abort it. You will take a small faction hit atleast you can hope that your next mission will be different.

[Carlo the Curious]

Try clearing Xenon sectors - that's where I get most of my disruptors from.

Yaki hardly ever seem to drop them, somewhat oddly.

[Nyax]

The missile situation is very odd generally. Take the Hammerhead, the Terran heavy assault missile.

It can be equipped by virtually every argon, Boron, Teladi, Xenon, split and Paranid ship. And yet not a single terran ship can mount it.

Who the hell makes a missile that your own ships can't use but everyone else's can?

I haven't used freight drones myself but from what I have heard they only go back into your ship automatically if it has a docking bay for ships. Otherwise you have to tell them to stop and then pick them up like normal freight.

THAT is quite spectacularly stupid. If your ship has docking bays then you have almost no need for a freight drone, you can use regular ships for almost everything. It's the big ships that Don't have docking bays that really need them, and they are the ships it doesn't work properly with?

Lunacy.

[cantthinkofaname]

You should be able to give your drones Buy Ware and Sell Ware orders after you've ejected them and set their freight.

[devir]

once launched, Freight drones act as any other M5 ship would. What I do is launch freight drones and close out all those annoying windows for each one.

Then I wait till they dock at the station they're told to go.

Once docked I command them through the "r" key status menu for my sector. i have them all trade what they need and once done:

I issue the command for all docked ships in that station to "Return Home" in the navigation command menu.

It works really well although the drones are quite cumbersome to use.

I prefer to have a TS class ship simply dock where I need it to, fill with e-Cells and other goods i'd need and trade with that ship at a shipyard or military base.

[pjknibbs]

The Return Home option on Freight Drones is definitely a bit flaky in-sector--tends to get stuck on final approach, even in ships with empty hangars. Can't say I've ever tried it OOS to see what it does then. As for why you'd use one, try finding another ship that can carry 800 units of XL wares that can dock at your ship, even if you DO have a hangar bay!

Oh, and don't forget that X3TC has a lot of options available for remote freight transfer as long as one of the ships in question has a transporter device--again, not something I've tried OOS, but it's worth a try to see if you can jump in a supply freighter and transfer e-cells off it.

[Fall Guy]

The Return Home option on Freight Drones is definitely a bit flaky in-sector--tends to get stuck on final approach, even in ships with empty hangars. Can't say I've ever tried it OOS to see what it does then. As for why you'd use one, try finding another ship that can carry 800 units of XL wares that can dock at your ship, even if you DO have a hangar bay!

Oh, and don't forget that X3TC has a lot of options available for remote freight transfer as long as one of the ships in question has a transporter device--again, not something I've tried OOS, but it's worth a try to see if you can jump in a supply freighter and transfer e-cells off it.

The remote transfer works OOS. I usually get one ship to follow the other then press "i" go to advanced and wait for the transfer text to turn white works perfectly.