Using fighter drones in droves

Da-V-Man · Post by **Da-V-Man** » Sun, 20. Jun 10, 06:34

The idea is to get a ship with a large cargobay (eg 2000+) and load it with fighter drones. When an enemy attacks, you release all of them. How would this tactic work against enemies? Would it crash TC?

Kor'ah · Post by **Kor'ah** » Sun, 20. Jun 10, 06:57

Your PC may not see the humor in 2000+ of the things when used IS, but shouldn't crash. OSS it shouldn't effect things too badly and it's always been effective. Not the most pratical thing to do but funny nonetheless.

Now something alot more usefull is ~40 Mk2 drones on something like a shrike that has a free docking slip. These things can really work over some stuff while the shrike stays out of the fight or goes after something even bigger. I got lucky in my current game with 2 advanced drone fabs near argon prime, so I can have 40 of these evil things every 6 hours.

Catra · Post by **Catra** » Sun, 20. Jun 10, 08:19

i completed OFF with an atmo lifter filled with keris drones. had to release the buggers in batches as releasing em all at once crashed the comp hard.

chinookmike · Post by **chinookmike** » Sun, 20. Jun 10, 14:01

Those Keris drones
can be hard to get....
Aint got no place
to build them yet

But some day soon
I'll use them too....
until that day..
I'll use Drone 2's

chinookmike

Berserkenstein · Post by **Berserkenstein** » Sun, 20. Jun 10, 16:03

I see you are skilled at verse,
and I for one enjoy a rhyme,
and I know of some that are quite sublime
But it seems to be a curse...
to the many who are quite adverse
and to them it is a crime
or perhaps a waste of time
and would prefer you be more terse.
or at least not in the X universe...

IceFire909 · Post by **IceFire909** » Sun, 20. Jun 10, 16:15

With Apricots Beaming script (CBeam) I was stealing the drones that the AI used from MARS and it also converted them to Drone 2's.

Didn't work on Xenon Drones though, but when they were attacking freighters...

efernal · Post by **efernal** » Sun, 20. Jun 10, 16:25

Not sure how this will in TC, But in R they had the problem of crashing into each other when released. Just release them in small numbers and be fast at issuing commands.

Another Idea is to have the Freighter sitting on the other side of gate OOS. Release as many as you want. Nothing like seeing 10,000 drones flying through a gate!

cobra mk2 · Post by **cobra mk2** » Mon, 21. Jun 10, 14:46

I did a FF mission last night when i popped into KS 931 with my tiger and let loose 50 mk2 drones. I took care of the 4 corvettes and the drones done very well against all the khaak fighters. There must of been at least 50 fighters and they were totally wiped out and i still had most of my mk2's left.

Unfortunatly they ran out of power before i could pick them back up but there is plenty more where they came from.

bbenham · Post by **bbenham** » Mon, 21. Jun 10, 17:18

That sounds fun. Nub question here.. How do you pick them up after the fight is over? Run them over one by one, or is there a command? (or script).

Thanks

palenaka · Post by **palenaka** » Mon, 21. Jun 10, 17:43

bbenham wrote:That sounds fun. Nub question here.. How do you pick them up after the fight is over? Run them over one by one, or is there a command? (or script).

Thanks

yeah you have to run over them to collect them before they run out of juice

Paranoid66 · Post by **Paranoid66** » Tue, 22. Jun 10, 11:13

Inability to be auto collected is a serious flaw in the X-Drones design.

The argument for not changing this seems to be 'if they were easily collectable they would be too powerful' however I still think it is a shame. After all they do get killed in combat they are not exactly immortal.

Of course, I am not talking about dropping or collecting hundreds or thousands instantly - it should take some time to launch and dock drones. Why do they not launch more like missiles?

Treating drones like ware crates is a bit odd dropping them in this way is what allows players to release thousands of drones all in one instant - how would that ever work - no wonder some crash into each other.

Baddieus · Post by **Baddieus** » Tue, 22. Jun 10, 14:10

I have not yet used drones in 2.6-2.7, but I do remember in prevoius games I was able to order my drones to dock at my ship when the battle was over and they would do so if I was in a ship with a hangar bay available. Once docked they would auto-transfer back to the hold and the hangar bay would be clear again.

Is this method no longer available?

killakanz · Post by **killakanz** » Tue, 22. Jun 10, 17:01

Baddieus wrote:I have not yet used drones in 2.6-2.7, but I do remember in prevoius games I was able to order my drones to dock at my ship when the battle was over and they would do so if I was in a ship with a hangar bay available. Once docked they would auto-transfer back to the hold and the hangar bay would be clear again.

Is this method no longer available?

Yeah, last time I tried that in X3R it worked, but I haven't used them for a long time either...

efernal · Post by **efernal** » Tue, 22. Jun 10, 17:01

Baddieus wrote:I have not yet used drones in 2.6-2.7, but I do remember in prevoius games I was able to order my drones to dock at my ship when the battle was over and they would do so if I was in a ship with a hangar bay available. Once docked they would auto-transfer back to the hold and the hangar bay would be clear again.

Is this method no longer available?

I herd here somewhere that it was. I guess a quick spin in a TM will give us an answer.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Tue, 22. Jun 10, 17:40

Paranoid66 wrote:The argument for not changing this seems to be 'if they were easily collectable they would be too powerful' however I still think it is a shame. After all they do get killed in combat they are not exactly immortal.

About 50 Mk2 drones have the firewpower of an M2 and drones are terribly hard to hit compared to ships.

All scripts that improve "drone stuff" quickly show that drones - especially the Mk2 - are too powerful if "used right".
You can build a complex for them and pump out infinite amounts of ready-to-use fighters. If they can be used en masse and easily, they completely dominate the game.

efernal wrote:I herd here somewhere that it was. I guess a quick spin in a TM will give us an answer.

The vanilla follow/protect script always auto-docks the escort if possible.
That's why story NPCs sometimes dock with YOUR carrier when they are "following" you. =)

cobra mk2 · Post by **cobra mk2** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 01:13

About 50 Mk2 drones have the firewpower of an M2 and drones are terribly hard to hit compared to ships.

Yeah they are very effective when used 'en masse' and often overlooked by players, each mk2 has 2 PAC's onboard and they are very hard to hit.They also seem to stick together like a big swarm of vicious killer bees. I recommend you's should all build your own mk2 drone factory and try 'em out.

Just keep a TS parked in the factory and each time it maxes out at 20 drones load them onto your TS, you'll soon have tons of 'em.

Bobucles · Post by **Bobucles** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 02:01

Even if the drone II had 1 PAC they'd still be great, as PACs have over 4 times the power of IREs.

Taniniver · Post by **Taniniver** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 10:47

How does the game treat kills made by combat drones? Do they count towards your fight rank if your ship released them, or do they not increase it, like when you have one of your AI controlled ships kill an enemy?

This could be very handy for having combat ability but keeping my fight rank low if I don't get credit for the kills!

Logain Abler · Post by **Logain Abler** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 15:21

Taniniver wrote:How does the game treat kills made by combat drones? Do they count towards your fight rank if your ship released them, or do they not increase it, like when you have one of your AI controlled ships kill an enemy?

This could be very handy for having combat ability but keeping my fight rank low if I don't get credit for the kills!

I don't think it does, maybe if their launched from the player ship? I've never noticed an increase in Combat Rank with my SSDN mod and it's destroyed thousands of ships.

LA

cobra mk2 · Post by **cobra mk2** » Wed, 23. Jun 10, 15:27

How does the game treat kills made by combat drones? Do they count towards your fight rank if your ship released them, or do they not increase it, like when you have one of your AI controlled ships kill an enemy?

i assumed they did contribute towards your fight rank but if it's true what you say about your AI controlled ships then they probably don't

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Using fighter drones in droves

Using fighter drones in droves