There was a script/mod for X3TC which inserted drones. They were cool and did interesting things. Here I'd like to get a list going of potential drones that we could see in the game and what they'd do as inspiration for ourselves, modders, and Egosoft. These are my ideas off the top of my head, feel free to list yours below and I'll try to integrate them into the list. Please list them in this format:
Category
Drone name (category) - Purpose/function
Then I can move them around so we can have a list by name and other by category
Piracy Drones - Disabling/Boarding
Thruster Drones (Piracy) - think missile that embeds itself into a ship and allows you to take control by putting out more power than the ship if you have many. Ie you can move the ship even if the crew is alive or firing. Can be attached to your ship to make it faster/more maneuverable
Gas Drones (Piracy) - pumps gas in and kills crew or stuns them, depending on gas load out
Boarding pod (Piracy) - does what it says on the tin
Venus Drones (Piracy) - from venus fly trap, catches enemy drones and neutralizes them leaving them abandoned
Slaver Drone (Piracy) - works like a boarding party, but armed with stunning weaponry to capture rather than kill, best used with a gas drone to incapacitate first
Sniper Drone (Piracy) - kills the pilot of a small fighter, leaving it abandoned
Interrupter Drone Piracy) - can disable a highway and force specific types of ships to drop out of the highway
Econ Drones - Business/Making Money
Advert Drone (Econ) - attracts attention to your station, raising the number of visitors
Trade Drone (Econ) - think UTs or STs
Management Drone (Econ) - sees where you have issues in a supply line and takes steps to fix them
Logistics Drones - Handling/Organization/Preparation
Collector Drone (Logistic) - Salvages and collects stuff
Freight Drone (Logistic) - Big cargo capacity used to move stuff
Explorer Drone (Logistic) - Can be used to search for things and lay out satellites
Accelerator Drone (Logistic) - used to set up small highways for use by drones, fighters, and small ships. Lane stays open as long as the drones sustaining are alive
Trade Lane Drone (Logistic) - used to set up regular highways, these are transient still and work as long as the drones are on station
Builder/Welder Drone (Logistic) - builds stations and other things
Overseer Drone (Logistic) - lets you control more drones
Converter Drone (Logistic) - alters other drones for specific missions from their basic template, ie takes Espionage drones and fits them for their mission
Template Drone (Logistic) - generic drone for a specific category of missions that is modular. Altered for the mission by the above drone.
Combat Drones
Torpedo Drones (Combat) - delivers missile attacks
Gun Drone (Combat) - uses guns
Flak Drone (Combat) - can't really move and works by staying in the commanding ship's grav well. Think additional deployable turret for your ship
Point Defense Drone (Combat) - shoots down missiles
ECM Drone (Combat) - Makes it harder for the enemy to target you
Cloaking Drones (Combat) - Reduces your speed drastically but makes you invisible to radar
Ambush Drones (Combat) - Drones that can be set up and then cloak, they are immobile when cloaked, but can decloak to fire
Repair Drones (Combat) - used for repairs to ships
Shield Drones (Combat) - latches on to your ship and augments the shield
Combat tractor drones (Combat)- Used in combat to slow other drones. Could be similar to the collector drone, so it could be dual purpose?
Weapon siphon drones (Combat) - They do not drain weapon energy (that would be overpowered), but lower weapon energy recharge.
Shield siphon drones (Combat) - same as above, but for shields.
Espionage - Information Gathering/Manipulation/Sabotage
Spy Drone (cloaked, moves fast and can scan other ships/stations
Sabotage Drone (Espionage) - cloaked, can introduce explosives/corrosive chemicals into a target
Hacker Drone (Espionage) - cloaked, causes disarray in a station by manipulating data
Infiltrator Drone (Espionage) - cloaked, steals money/resources
Disinformation Drone (Espionage) - Spreads a rumor to make a competitor look worse or better
Sentinel drone (espionage) - detects and uncloaks espionage drones
Drones: Potential Types and Caring/Feeding Information
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The Cuban Nightmare
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Drones: Potential Types and Caring/Feeding Information
Last edited by The Cuban Nightmare on Mon, 3. Oct 11, 18:11, edited 1 time in total.
I'm your worst nightmare....
Apocalypse Incorporated; destroying a planet near you!
Apocalypse Incorporated; destroying a planet near you!
Combat tractor drones (combat)- Used in combat to slow other drones. Could be similar to the collector drone, so it could be dual purpose?
Weapon siphon drones (combat) - They do not drain weapon energy (that would be overpowered), but lower weapon energy recharge.
Shield siphon drones (combat) - same as above, but for shields.
Sentinel drone (anti-espionage) - detects and uncloaks espionage drones (otherwise, they would be overpowered
)
Weapon siphon drones (combat) - They do not drain weapon energy (that would be overpowered), but lower weapon energy recharge.
Shield siphon drones (combat) - same as above, but for shields.
Sentinel drone (anti-espionage) - detects and uncloaks espionage drones (otherwise, they would be overpowered
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CharlieChop
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Strip mining drone (econ) as the name implies it mines asteroids for their valuable contents.
Plasma drone (combat): ive read around here that a available product/resource in XR is plasma.... Why not use it? A drone filled to the top with plasma inside would be perfect for kamikaze runs. As it stands plasma could easily melt away any armor battleplate a spaceship could have. Create fluctuations in the energy shields or even overload them. If they were in the game id call them holy lights of impending doom...muahaha.
Plasma drone (combat): ive read around here that a available product/resource in XR is plasma.... Why not use it? A drone filled to the top with plasma inside would be perfect for kamikaze runs. As it stands plasma could easily melt away any armor battleplate a spaceship could have. Create fluctuations in the energy shields or even overload them. If they were in the game id call them holy lights of impending doom...muahaha.
Electronic warfare drones:
Jammer Drone MkI : Jams drones completely in bursts(causing them to shut down or not perform their function, I.E. like a 10 second AoE stun), disadvantage: Will Disable your own drones as well. Very agile and capable of avoiding damage from most weaponry. It has 5 bursts before it needs to be recharged at the player ship. Very strong bursts, with a large AoE. Good for long range combat and delay of enemy drones. Once knocked out your fighters/drones have just enough time to come in and effectively take out any slow moving/stationary drones before they reactivate. Great for gaining tactical superiority on the first initial clash of the fighter screen.
Jammer Drone Mk II: Jams drones completely in bursts, the main difference from the MK I is that it has better recognition software and sensory to precisely jam the specific signal that particular drone is receiving. Sometimes causes random shutdowns of your own drones (if they are also nearby. ~10%), but the tactical advantage is yours. This drone has 15 bursts before it needs to be recharged at the player ship. This drone is less agile and susceptible to more types of weaponry.
This drone features strong focused bursts with a good encounter range (slightly longer then most small fighter/drone craft weapon range) better used for defense due to less agility.
Signal Strength Enhancement Ship modification: A modification to increase signal strength of drones allowing you to shift ship power to increase transmission capability to maintain control of your drones while facing Electronic warfare. Reduces the time drones are put out of commission via jammers the more energy put into signal strength.
After a certain amplification point the drone based jammers will not be effective. This also greatly increases the effective range of your drone signal transmission letting your drones operate at a much larger range.
Other ship based jammers would require higher amounts of energy, and in the end the ship with the biggest reactor/efficient energy use/best transmitter will win the transmission war. This can be an additional "energy drain" strategy to either lure weapons fire away from transmission strength to then knock out an opponents drones with superior Electronic warfare capability, or to cause them to waste their energy on EW and beat them with superior firepower, or speed. So in effect, add a new level of strategy to the game if it isn't already in X rebirth.
Anti Missile Drone:
Puts out a cloud of chaff and heat distractions to confuse missiles. If this fails the drone itself will attempt to collide with the missile to neutralize the threat. Advantage? Cheap, simple, small.
Mirage Drone: A drone that is a very strong electromagnetic generator that obscures or distorts the target causing sight based/auto attacks to miss. It does not communicate with the command ship, instead it runs on software alone and can become predictable Would not affect missiles (except for maybe, dumbfires).
This could also knock out radar reception inside this bubble so the pilot would have to rely on his eyes, which will be distorted already.
This drone would land on ships (including the playership) and have stealth technology while having little maneuverability and speed. Quite a bastard of a drone if I do say so myself!
There could be variants of this as well. Imagine instead of a strong EM field you have instead holo projections that tie up player sight, or see one of these sitting in space projecting a large enemy capital ship next to an asteroid!(large signature from gravdar, pretty picture to fool u!)
Great for setting up ambushes and getting ambushed.
Thought id put this out there, the engine might not be able to do this though.
Jammer Drone MkI : Jams drones completely in bursts(causing them to shut down or not perform their function, I.E. like a 10 second AoE stun), disadvantage: Will Disable your own drones as well. Very agile and capable of avoiding damage from most weaponry. It has 5 bursts before it needs to be recharged at the player ship. Very strong bursts, with a large AoE. Good for long range combat and delay of enemy drones. Once knocked out your fighters/drones have just enough time to come in and effectively take out any slow moving/stationary drones before they reactivate. Great for gaining tactical superiority on the first initial clash of the fighter screen.
Jammer Drone Mk II: Jams drones completely in bursts, the main difference from the MK I is that it has better recognition software and sensory to precisely jam the specific signal that particular drone is receiving. Sometimes causes random shutdowns of your own drones (if they are also nearby. ~10%), but the tactical advantage is yours. This drone has 15 bursts before it needs to be recharged at the player ship. This drone is less agile and susceptible to more types of weaponry.
This drone features strong focused bursts with a good encounter range (slightly longer then most small fighter/drone craft weapon range) better used for defense due to less agility.
Signal Strength Enhancement Ship modification: A modification to increase signal strength of drones allowing you to shift ship power to increase transmission capability to maintain control of your drones while facing Electronic warfare. Reduces the time drones are put out of commission via jammers the more energy put into signal strength.
After a certain amplification point the drone based jammers will not be effective. This also greatly increases the effective range of your drone signal transmission letting your drones operate at a much larger range.
Other ship based jammers would require higher amounts of energy, and in the end the ship with the biggest reactor/efficient energy use/best transmitter will win the transmission war. This can be an additional "energy drain" strategy to either lure weapons fire away from transmission strength to then knock out an opponents drones with superior Electronic warfare capability, or to cause them to waste their energy on EW and beat them with superior firepower, or speed. So in effect, add a new level of strategy to the game if it isn't already in X rebirth.
Anti Missile Drone:
Puts out a cloud of chaff and heat distractions to confuse missiles. If this fails the drone itself will attempt to collide with the missile to neutralize the threat. Advantage? Cheap, simple, small.
Mirage Drone: A drone that is a very strong electromagnetic generator that obscures or distorts the target causing sight based/auto attacks to miss. It does not communicate with the command ship, instead it runs on software alone and can become predictable Would not affect missiles (except for maybe, dumbfires).
This could also knock out radar reception inside this bubble so the pilot would have to rely on his eyes, which will be distorted already.
This drone would land on ships (including the playership) and have stealth technology while having little maneuverability and speed. Quite a bastard of a drone if I do say so myself!
There could be variants of this as well. Imagine instead of a strong EM field you have instead holo projections that tie up player sight, or see one of these sitting in space projecting a large enemy capital ship next to an asteroid!(large signature from gravdar, pretty picture to fool u!)
Great for setting up ambushes and getting ambushed.
Thought id put this out there, the engine might not be able to do this though.