Ai drones. Nuff SaidGäó

Remote drones ought to have functionality that isn't available elsewhere. Just having a spare life to drive around and get kills with before you're destroyed would be pointless. Drones should offer options and tactics that make them a compelling addition to a team, but don't simply overlap with "is a thing that shoots a gun and kills people".



... should not be in the competitive multiplayer portion of Dust, is the end to that sentence.

Remote drones are as far as bots should go in versus multiplayer. Coop? Fine, enemy AI drones or whatever out the ass, that's great. But fighting bots in a PvP environment always sucks.

I half like this idea just because they would be so much fun.

But on the other hand it will just mean people sit back behind the no go zone and spam them for kills and points without risking their K/D...

I could see this, if done well, being amazing, and if done poorly being spammed/abused.

make the WP assists rather than direct kills.

because the people who would do that are just cowards.

Yeah, I saw that, I just could have written more clearly. As I said above, I'm against the idea of drones being things that simply replace other players in terms of functionality. Drones to revive people or drones to shoot an assault rifle or whatever at people would be a very poor addition to the game. Remote controlled drones should have a function that separates them from what players do, and makes them an asset, rather than just an overlap of existing functionality. They should not do things you could (and should) be looking to another player to do.

Incidentally, I am against the turrets having a range at which they auto-engage targets. I assume it's temporary while the commander mode is out and turrets are auto-placed, however.

Your comment re: skill books and stuff was pretty silly. I think you're probably intelligent enough to understand the distinction between a player using a character to fight, and a bot that follows AI coding to fight without any input from players.

Drones in EVE pretty much destroy most of the damn balance to the game, I have been calling for them to be replaced in how they work for damn near 9 years.

The problem simply put is they are a "Force Multiplier" effect that are often difficult to deal with.
Even the non-combat one in Battlefield 3, frankly is a ***** to kill and still has the ability to suicide in to someone for an insta-kill at the cost of the Drone.

Now IF and I really stress IF CCP decide to include drones as a Weapon System (which they will because of the Gallente) then it should be exactly that A WEAPON SYSTEM... not something you simply throw on your damn fit, but a series of Modules that are required to have it pootle about around you auto-targetting anyone who gets close enough.

The range should be on part with that of a shotgun, with an SMG damage output.
They should take up you Main weapon slot. They should also use a Low-Slot (to prevent major Tanking Capabilities for their Range Antenna which is the area they can operate in, with a Mid-Slot for the the Passive Scanning Range they have.

As I said, IF (or more likely when) they become part of DUST... should you choose to use them it definately SHOULD be a choice of a Drone Fitting or using a more customisable setup. Still think even then they might be too OP for the damn game.

Since your main put down for drones is that they take no input to get kills but what if there was a module(sidearm or equipment) that had to be used to get the drone to focus it's fire instead of shooting randomly towards a target

If we simply have to do drones i suggest we go the route similar to the Tactician's drone from killzone 3 all it did was hover in the air and provide support fire as it moved about.

But was fairly easy to take out as long as you were not foolish and stood out in the open.

We could just modify it to for a small missile launcher and machine gun and a on board camera so someone could switch to the drones view and provide surveillance via the weapon swap wheel.

If done right it could be a great asset to a scouting party.

Good suggestion.

I like the idea of drones as long as they are limited and can't be spammed for easy kills.

I think AI drones aka passive drones that follow you are would be fine as stat boosters, like faster shield regeneration within an xx area or other similar stats that can support the team. Like others have said, it should be heavy cpu/pg costs and require some dedicated skills to use and have limited health and function. This feels like a natural expansion to logi skill set as a possible way for a logi to support the team.

As far as remote controlled drones, they should be limited to spying, hacking or maybe scrambler drones to mask team movements. They should definitely have limited stats and range if implemented.

so make them usless? I think not sir.

I am in support of this idea. As has already been pointed out in this thread, Killzone 3 is a perfect example of how to do AI drones well. An alternative could be the MAV from Battlefield 3, which could be remote controlled or AI, and spend its time searching for and lighting up enemies across the battlefield.

the MAV's from BF3 are borderline useless especially with the crossbow's scan tip making the TUGS useless. I would rather have a active scanner built into the UGV variant, and a line of sight for the UAV variants.PLus, there has to be some kind of combat variant, being slower, and having more armor, it could be used to check a area before you move. Just using a spy version would only help stealthy people, and right now, that's very, VERY, VERY hard to do right now.

in my opinion it should be like the MAV off of BF because im pretty sure the drones arent very big

I did actually read on the drones you had posted, and honestly the UVAC sounds a lot like BF3's MAV, because you can "spot" people using the MAV which gives out their locations to your squad. If we're talking about just passive reconnaissance, then the scanning drone could simply pick out enemies the same way they're picked out by aiming at them. But that seems kind of superfluous in my opinion. So I say the drone's scanning should be increased somehow: maybe making every enemy on the drone's screen light up like a christmas tree, perhaps even having an outline of them appearing through walls or other barriers? I think that would make the drone's scanning quite useful, even if there were no armaments for it. And the one piloting the drone could receive a point bonus for every enemy killed that they had highlighted. I think this would make the drone very useful for coordinating things like precision strikes or orbital bombardments.

As for the ground drone, this, I think, could be useful, but the EOD bot in Battlefield is notoriously difficult to control. Aiming a gun with it would be hard. And honestly, the vehicle controls in this game make me a lot less inclined to drive one of them around than I otherwise would be, despite the awesomeness of drones themselves.

In addition to these two types I would also like to submit two more.

The first would be airborne, but much bigger, I think, than the simple scanning drone. I think we should separate the scanning drone from the combat aerial drone, both to avoid the one drone becoming OP and to give drone users a sense of choice, that they can decide which kind of drone they want to use without having to be restricted to only one air type. So this drone would have the same scanning capacity to a regular dropsuit, but would be able to fly around and engage ground targets. It could call down guided rockets, perhaps from the MCC, or use some sort of mounted blaster or mass driver. In my mind I see it as the tactician's drone from Killzone 3, which was controlled by AI, but I think allowing it to be remote-controlled is also viable.

The second kind of drone is a personal-defense type, also featured in Killzone 3 and used by the medic class. The personal defense drone was AI, and followed the medic about, opening fire on any enemies that came within range with a ninigun attached to its underbelly. The drone was very fragile, but was loyal almost to a fault, sticking with the medic while he bled out on the floor. I think this would be a very useful add-on for logi-users, perhaps even dropsuit-specific to them. The drone would follow the logi around, providing a bit of backup and extra firepower in lieu of protective squadmates. Improved versions of the drone could even fix the logi's armor or provide temporary shield hardening, or maybe even inject nanites to its downed master.