Request/Wish/Lunacy: Drones

[Thomas2052]

Hi all,

Context: I really like the Atlas E - it's pretty, the bridge view is great, and it's one of the few ships left that have the cool connecting corridors that make you feel like you're in an advanced, sci-fi spaceship (the standard Paranid corridor reminds me of a tacky nightclub for some reason ).

For obvious reasons, it's combat potential is lacking - but a drone swarm, along with a docked wing of S and M ships, soon remedies this. Need to garage mod it - potentially 300 Drones, I believe! - and do the calculations for wares to restock (so far, these are creative tests). I liked the drone ship in that recent Star Trek series, if that goes any way to explaining this odd obsession - plus I don't like losing and replacing expensive S ships/pilots (delete as appropriate).

It did get me thinking though - as I need those S/M ships to really finish off bigger targets - is there scope for more drone types to make drone gameplay a thing? It certainly seems to be the way the real world is going. E.g.:

- Kamakazi Drones: Power of torpedos, but on a drone!

- Cluster Drones: Swarm missile, but a drone!

- Scout Drones: Explore, with a drone!

You get the idea. Things... but with drones. Would probably necessitate greater order controls for drones, like for S ships, but given the system is there, should be possible (he says with no knowledge of programming whatsoever).

I also like the Tau in 40k, if that also helps explain this.

Anyway, Cheers.

[Alan Phipps]

"- Kamakazi Drones: Power of torpedos, but on a drone!" We had that for the player ship in X Rebirth with the remotely piloted torpedo/ROV called the Novadrone.

It would probably be unfair in X4 if the player had that facility but NPCs did not.

[mr.WHO]

It's bizzare and schocking to say, but drones is a thing that makes X4 looks like sh*t comparing to not so great X-Rebirth.
I've been nagging for more depth on drones (and deployables like lasertowers) since 1.0.

There is no changes in drone scripting either - it's same crappy "launch 5 drones, wait for them to die, launch 5 more" AI script that we have seen in XR.
We can have an auxilary ship with 100 drones, but AI will never launch them all unless player manually command it to launch all.
This is bizzare, especially that we can see Xenon station using beehive drone swarm when poked - yet nobody else use drones to their full extend.

Last, but not least Egosoft wasted a great opportunity to have Xenon drone carrier that could launch drone swarm.
Ohh, and we totally forget that everybody use the very same drone model - Commonwealth, Xenons, Terran and Borons - everyone use the same copy/paste model.

[chew-ie]

@mr.WHO

A drone wars DLC would indeed be a good idea to correct that... So yeah - full ack on your points. I also was a bit puzzeled that the drone mechanics of X:Rebirth were dumped down / changed so much. Especially as it introduced new problems like combat drones have to use S docks for launch while others use the drone port(s). The S-docks just can't handle the drone + normal ship traffic in extreme situations (example: ships fleeing from combat to stations, station launches all defense drones = blocked docking ports) Even when ignoring those problems it is at the very least yet another missed oppportunity for a "utility surface element" (drone docking port).

[Genoscythe]

Some more balacing and expansion on drones would be nice, but if we are honest it would also possibly invalidate fighters. A good, mass produceable fighter can set you back some 300k-1mil in mid-game. If we can just spam drones that are cheaper, better and can just outswarm any ship there is no point for carriers or S ships. They also do have a painfully small hitbox in-sector and there is no real remedy against them. They serve well as mobile station defense, but all other roles are kinda already filled by fighters or missiles. With the current implementiation of things they might as well be removed.

[THE_TrashMan]

Mass drone warfare would tank performance

I also like the Tau in 40k, if that also helps explain this.

Desire to purge increasing....

[Thomas2052]

I also like the Tau in 40k, if that also helps explain this.

Desire to purge increasing....

My Hydra is called Devilfish.

My carrier fleet is called Kayoun. My Asgard fleet Mont'ka. This auxillary fleet will be called Monat.

I'm just trying to trigger you now.

[sh1pman]

How are combat drones even allowed in X-universe? Isn’t combat-capable AI the very thing that brought so much death and destruction? Why are they not banned?

[Teladi CEO]

How are combat drones even allowed in X-universe? Isn’t combat-capable AI the very thing that brought so much death and destruction? Why are they not banned?

As far as I know it was not combat AI, rather AGI. The artificial intelligence that is banned is the ai that can self program and in doing so evolve.
All ai can be combat ai, the ai in smart missiles is simply told to fly after a ship and increase velocity to hit. So my guess is that it is okay to have combat orientated ai as long as they are simple.

[chew-ie]

I also like the Tau in 40k, if that also helps explain this.

Desire to purge increasing....

My Hydra is called Devilfish.

My carrier fleet is called Kayoun. My Asgard fleet Mont'ka. This auxillary fleet will be called Monat.

Commander Puretide would be proud

---

Further good examples from X:Rebirth - the utility drones were awesome (shield recharge, spying, sabotaging).

If drones get an upgrade we might even be able to - gasp - tell repair drones to stay docked!

[Falcrack]

I would like at least one of the extra seats on larger ships to allow the player to directly control individual drones and turrets.

I would also like more direct control over drones from the map, to tell them to attack specific targets, to manually tell them to dock, to repair specific ships and subsystems, etc.

[THE_TrashMan]

How are combat drones even allowed in X-universe? Isn’t combat-capable AI the very thing that brought so much death and destruction? Why are they not banned?

Because there's a difference between AI and Expert Systems. Read a bit.

[chew-ie]

I would like at least one of the extra seats on larger ships to allow the player to directly control individual drones and turrets.

Good idea - commanding drones was always fun in X:Rebirth. Would be even more fun now that you are not sitting in a small vulnerable vessel like the Skunk.

I would also like more direct control over drones from the map, to tell them to attack specific targets, to manually tell them to dock, to repair specific ships and subsystems, etc.

Mmh... maybe controlling individual drones via map is a bit too much here - but drone swarms (drone groups per type per ship) might work. Otherwise I'd guess the map is getting uncontrollable (both when trying to select a particular drone and in the then massively bloated property list).

[Nerwesta]

It's bizzare and schocking to say, but drones is a thing that makes X4 looks like sh*t comparing to not so great X-Rebirth.
I've been nagging for more depth on drones (and deployables like lasertowers) since 1.0.

There is no changes in drone scripting either - it's same crappy "launch 5 drones, wait for them to die, launch 5 more" AI script that we have seen in XR.
We can have an auxilary ship with 100 drones, but AI will never launch them all unless player manually command it to launch all.
This is bizzare, especially that we can see Xenon station using beehive drone swarm when poked - yet nobody else use drones to their full extend.

Last, but not least Egosoft wasted a great opportunity to have Xenon drone carrier that could launch drone swarm.
Ohh, and we totally forget that everybody use the very same drone model - Commonwealth, Xenons, Terran and Borons - everyone use the same copy/paste model.

On your last point :

To me this make no sense since Xenon are essentially drones you could say, but I agree it lacks a proper Carrier to launch those pesky S fighters. Even an overpowered ( read more powerful than the regular ones ) Auxiliary could do the trick to threathen the world more often Stations are too easy to take down I'm affraid.