Why are freight drones so limited?

Bill67 · Post by **Bill67** » Tue, 5. Oct 10, 21:52

Ive been playing TC for awhile now, mainly goofing off doing plot missions, and just taking my sweet time.

But now I have raked in some cash and gotten my factions up to where I can buy m7+ ships and so started looking into the freight drones since these ships are limited to docking areas. What I find is a nice piece of equipment that is basically useless due to its limited ability.

The fact that ships the size of m7+ dont have the means to dock even a frieght drone is beyond me, but apparently if a ship doesnt have a hanger the frieght drone is pretty much useless as a resupply vehicle. Doing a return home command on these will cause them to flake out because their is no hanger to dock at.

Unless I am missing some trick I really dont see a use for these drones except for TL or Carriers or the few m7's that have hangers. But why all these huge ships dont have a shuttle option is beyond me.

Other than the massive firepower that can be unleashed I've found not having that much fun with capital ships as would have thought and falling back on my smaller vessels for crusing the galaxy.

Twest09 · Post by **Twest09** » Tue, 5. Oct 10, 22:17

I guess you either have not unlocked the Hub yet, or you haven't bought any EQ docks that are supplied by CLS2 freighters. You can easily add any ware to an EQ dock or the Hub, and then outfit and resupply your Capital and Frigate class ships there.

I actually have a Hub in one of my games that has an Equipment Dock between every gate set giving me more than enough storage and outfitting capability for any fleet. So... I guess you just haven't figured out your own way of using the ships and keeping them supplied.

Another option is to have some CLS2 pilots that are set to resupply your ships from a central sector that you have set your majority of resources up in, just set the option to have them standby until they are given a supply request signal.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 5. Oct 10, 22:18

You can always pick up the drones in the usual way--e.g. just run over them; any cargo they're carrying will be transferred to your hold.

Post by **Nanook** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 00:19

But he's right about the lack of hangars on a lot of capital ships. IMO, ALL capital ships should have space for docking at least one fighter-class ship, if not something larger. But unfortunately, it'll never happen in TC short of third-party mods.

Twest09 · Post by **Twest09** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 00:31

Nanook wrote:But he's right about the lack of hangars on a lot of capital ships. IMO, ALL capital ships should have space for docking at least one fighter-class ship, if not something larger. But unfortunately, it'll never happen in TC short of third-party mods.

I agree, but I will go a bit further. I think all Capital class ships should be able to dock at least one M6/TS/TP class ship.

Laden Swallow · Post by **Laden Swallow** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 01:08

Slightly off topic but, can freight drones use jump drive? (Even if they would lose them on docking with a player owned ship.) I know they can equip for instance ore collectors and special command software and start collecting rocks, and I don't see any reason why they couldn't use jump drives (might have to use 'auto-jump' to get the desired effects).

Reason I ask is I just had the perverse thought of using a freight drone to carry say 200 fighter drones, 400 energy cells and just jump to a sector and unload all fighter drones and maybe then jump back. All essentially powered by a complex that could churn (both of these) these out in a jump drive sector (HoL, LH or QH).

Side thoughts then said how about using them to dump 100 squash/other mines then arm them at/near a large enemy target or a couple of laser towers each.

Essentially thinking of the freight drone as a glorified APC for your most basic 'infantry' unit (compared to say a massive aircraft carrier for fighter planes) in real time strategy games.

Derkylos · Post by **Derkylos** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 01:09

Twest09 wrote:
I agree, but I will go a bit further. I think all Capital class ships should be able to dock at least one M6/TS/TP class ship.

If they could do that, freight drones would be obsolete

In principle, I think the concept of the freight drone is a good one, but it trips up where it can't dock to around 50% of the ships it's intended to be compatible with...

Catra · Post by **Catra** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 01:19

transporter device says hi and would like to remind everyone that it exists.

Derkylos · Post by **Derkylos** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 01:23

Catra wrote:transporter device says hi and would like to remind everyone that it exists.

Can't carry a transporter device and another ship to transport to in an M2... (ie: freight drones are "cleaner" than a TS and a transporter device)

Paladin-Solo · Post by **Paladin-Solo** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 04:01

The thing that confuses me the most about freight drones is that they will only auto load/unload if the station is your own.

For instance if you want to buy energy cells for your shrike with freight drones, you have to tell it to buy the ware, then tell it to come back, then empty it, then pick it up. While if the station was your own you can tell it how many cells you want and it'll send out the correct number of drones then they'll return automatically.

Luckily the Bonus pack offered a work around for all this with CLS pilots, i now have a dedicated TS that loads up on energy cells and just sit by waiting for my capitals to drop below 1000 cells and then he goes and fills them back up to 2k.

Bill67 · Post by **Bill67** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 04:31

Twest09 wrote:I guess you either have not unlocked the Hub yet, or you haven't bought any EQ docks that are supplied by CLS2 freighters. You can easily add any ware to an EQ dock or the Hub, and then outfit and resupply your Capital and Frigate class ships there.

I actually have a Hub in one of my games that has an Equipment Dock between every gate set giving me more than enough storage and outfitting capability for any fleet. So... I guess you just haven't figured out your own way of using the ships and keeping them supplied.

Another option is to have some CLS2 pilots that are set to resupply your ships from a central sector that you have set your majority of resources up in, just set the option to have them standby until they are given a supply request signal.

Yeah I havent made my way to that part yet and I understand what your saying, but my point is why have freight drones at all if everything done to capital sized ships is done thru 3rd party script adopted by egosoft for its convenience? I know there are other ways to resupply and also equipment docks as supply points. But my main point I would say is the usefulness of the freight drone for one, and restricted ability of capitol ships as another.

I just finished a mission in a khaak sector, and warp into queens harbor, now yeah if I want to spend the credits on a equipment dock I can go there and refuel, but if not, even tho I am parked next to a solar power plant, I have to call my CLS. supply ship to come give me fuel, instead of sending a frieght drone to grab some fuel and come back to me...

Also while it might be impractical, and offtopic a bit, since I am piloting this huge ship with plenty of cargo space, I find it funny I cant do a passenger/freight haul mission unless I swap ships. Granted I couldnt do this with frieght drones, but if they had 1 hanger spot, I could adapt a personal shuttle for this stuff.

I just find it odd they didnt make the frieght drone more useful, heck as cheap as they are, I would use them alot, but I just cant see a use for them as opposed to resupply software/CLS on a TS.

Catra · Post by **Catra** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 04:50

Derkylos wrote:
Catra wrote:transporter device says hi and would like to remind everyone that it exists.
Can't carry a transporter device and another ship to transport to in an M2... (ie: freight drones are "cleaner" than a TS and a transporter device)

er....
what?

Shock223 · Post by **Shock223** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 05:33

Twest09 wrote:I guess you either have not unlocked the Hub yet, or you haven't bought any EQ docks that are supplied by CLS2 freighters. You can easily add any ware to an EQ dock or the Hub, and then outfit and resupply your Capital and Frigate class ships there.

i use EQ docks, i have had too many bad encounters trying to tell autopilot to undock from the hub and having the ship blow up.

Bill67 · Post by **Bill67** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 05:59

Catra wrote:
Derkylos wrote:
Catra wrote:transporter device says hi and would like to remind everyone that it exists.
Can't carry a transporter device and another ship to transport to in an M2... (ie: freight drones are "cleaner" than a TS and a transporter device)
er....
what?

Its not my post but I think he means you can haul FD's in a m2 for trading but cant carry transporter equipped ships for resupplying. Kind of my point tho is those type of ships rely on 3rd party supply and cant utilize the drones effectively.

Every ship in my property has a transporter and yeah it is invaluable to swap frieght between ships but you cant use them to remote trade with a station for this you need a ship to still dock. With most capitals besides carriers or the m7s that have hangers, you do need a transporter device for anything to supply them due to lack of hangers on m2,7's...

Nyax · Post by **Nyax** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 07:00

Freight drones are another classic X example of a really good idea utterly ruined by rubbish implementation. The guys at Egosoft either have no common sense or more likely they have more ideas then they have time to implement properly, and are also of the opinion that it's better to implement a feature badly, then not implement it at all. I'm not sure i agre with that logic...

Anyhoo Here's How this kind of thing should work in my opinion-

You fly to within a couple of km of the ship/ station you want to trade/ exchange goods with.

You then either go to the freight exchange menu or the stations trade/ barter menu and select the purchases/ freight movements you want to do exactly as you would if you were docked (although the option is only available if you have fright drones or a transporter aboard)

As you do this your ship will automatically come to a full and complete stop and begin sending freight drones to and from your ship and the target, completing the requested transactions. (docking automatically at both ends irrespective of docking bays. They're freight drones, they should be flying in and out of the cargo bay door anyway.)

If it's available your ship will use the transporter device to complete the trade instead of freight drones.

Once the transaction is complete your freight drones will return to your ship (again entering the cargobay automatically irresective of docking slots) and you can move off again.

There. Simple. Seamless and easy and much superior to the overcomplicated mess we have at the moment.

Choublanc · Post by **Choublanc** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 11:03

In X2 it was possible to dock fighters inside a M2 (4 of them iirc).

I never understood why this was nerfed in X3.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Wed, 6. Oct 10, 14:08

The number you could dock varied according to which M2 you had, and no, I don't understand why that was removed either--although I think removing the ability to dock at least one TS class ship in a TL is more baffling, personally!

Fulgrymm · Post by **Fulgrymm** » Thu, 7. Oct 10, 04:39

You could do that in earlier games?! Good god that would have been a handy feature to have.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Why are freight drones so limited?

Why are freight drones so limited?