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Yosef Autaal
Circle of Huskarl Minmatar Republic
66
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Posted - 2013.03.25 13:41:00 -
[1] - Quote
My ideas for drones consist of the following: ( if you have ideas for other drone types please post below)
1: Drone control Unit a low or high power slot on Dropsuits with high cpu/pg needs - this module would grant access to command drones under your control (explained later). DCU stats-
- Bandwidth (to determine which drones are available to use- I am unsure if should be limited to using only one drone at a time or allow multiple drone control)
- Range (to determine how far from controller drones remain in active state)
Variants of DCU change in range and bandwidth (example an advance DCU might have higher Bandwidth but lower range)
2:Drones as an equipment slot - drones are then deployed same manner as uplink and hives (thrown in front of player) they then activate after a short pause and default to hoving around the player who deployed the drone.
Basic Drone Types
- Attack (medium sized, damage support) -
- Defence (large sized, support in from of RR or buffering shields depending on subtype)
- Assist (small drones, assists player in various aspects depending on subtype)
SubTypes: Attack- Defence-
- Armour Remote Repping
- Shield Buffering
Assist-
- Scanning
- Hacking
- target painting
Default Drone Routines Attack - when controller presses trigger with any weapon drone will fire upon the closest valid target controller is aiming at
Defence -
- Remote repper drones: will remote repper controller when controller is not at 100% armour, if controller is using a remote repper on a friendly target the RR drone will remote rep the target with controller. (assisting remote reps is done before repping the controller)
- Shield buffer drones : orbit controller granting a bonus to shield Hp and shield recharge delay
Assist -
- Scanning : scans 360 degree area around controller every few seconds (unable to show cloaking units and will have less strength and range then the active scanner item)
- Hacking : Assists any hacking attempts made by controller
- Target painting : highlights closest vehicle in field of view/aim if using AT weapons ,target painting reduces lock times of swarms/ increases damage of forge guns or assists tracking of forger guns against vehicles painted (increased turn speed aslong as aim is on vehicle)
Drone Orders: To access drone orders open up weapon wheel and press L3 (similar to squad orders but other stick) orders are as follows
- Attack - (only available to attack drones) moves to selected target if in range and engage target once target destoyed will return to controller.
- Defend other - moves to selected friendly target and then uses default routines as long as stays within range of controller
- Defend Area - Moves to selected area and different routines based on type
- Attack : acts like a turret attacking hostile targets in range - Defence : RR drones repair most damaged suit in the area based on % armour remaining, Buffer drones offer a shield bubble of limited strengh which can be used as cover -Assist: scanning drones scan area as normal, Hacking drones assist friendly hacks and make hostile hacks more difficult in the area, Target painters paint closest hostile target in area
- Return - (available only if away from controller) returns to controller and uses default routines
- Standby - deactivates drone freeing up bandwidth
Other information
All drones have same stats as dropsuits- Assist drones being fast moving, low EHP & sig Attack average speed, average EHP &sig Defence drones slow High EHP & sig
Racial variants of drones available determing stats further (shield or armour preference, gallente attack drones higher dps then caldari attack drones, ect)
When a drone is out of the range of the controller for any reason it enters a standby mode, this mode causes the drone to fold up and lay on the ground, while in this mode it is possible for any player with a DCU on the team to reactivate the drone and take control if they currently controlling no other drone, it is also possible to hack the drone of redberries causing drone to be up for reactivation by a friendly DCU using player
If a drone is deployed which causes bandwidth to be exceeded (or if limiting to one drone per controller) the new drone does not activate and remains in standby mode on the ground.
Drones that remain in standby mode to long eventually are removed from battlefield
Limit to number of friendly drones(activated and standby) availble
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Yosef Autaal
Circle of Huskarl Minmatar Republic
66
|
Posted - 2013.03.25 14:50:00 -
[2] - Quote
Drones should be weak fairly easy to take out if you do focus on them the main problem with shooting them will be there size because a attack drone (average size) wont be much begger then a dropsuits head,
shield buffer drone obviously harder to kill once deployed to defend area as it will be similar to the shield generator equipment in development at moment (obvioulsy much weaker versions due to there mobility)
WP Im unsure about possible 10/15wp for kill (5 for assist) should get something from it but not much
SL locking on to them is interesting idea i dont think they should due to there small size though |
Yosef Autaal
Circle of Huskarl Minmatar Republic
70
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Posted - 2013.03.26 13:09:00 -
[3] - Quote
Alan-Ibn-Xuan Al-Alasabe wrote:Let's consider the role of drones.
In EVE the primary role of combat drones is to allow larger ships to engage ships that are too small for their turrets to track. This role doesn't really exist for infantry, they're the smallest thing out there. It might be useful for vehicles, however, and vehicles having drone bays from which a small number of combat drones can be deployed to harass AV troops would be extremely helpful.
Some ships in EVE actually rely on drones as their primary source of DPS, mostly Gallente (although some of the best drone ships are actually Amarrian), and this could make for an interesting capability both for infantry and vehicles. Gallentean troops may rely heavily on drones to engage enemy troops. This could be in the form of mobile combat drones or sentries, which must are unable to move on their own and must be picked up to be moved.
Ships that make little reliance on drones and are confident in their ability to deal with smaller ships may use eWar drones. These can do basically any type of electronic warfare available to ships. As far as I know the only eWar capability not available to drones is warp drive disruption. How useful would it be to be able to deploy a stasis webifier drone on that escaping HAV? How much would a dropship pilot love to have a flight of ECM drones to disrupt missile locks?
OP mentioned logistics drones. One of the interesting things about EVE's logi drones is that you can't use them to repair yourself. I don't know if that's intended, or simply a limitation of EVE's drone UI, but that's where we are. It could certainly be very helpful to assist your remote repair, or allow you to do emergency spot repairs on an ally you can't get to.
To make it possible to deal with an opponent's drones, they would have to be at least fairly large (about half a meter in diameter, maybe?) and move no faster than an assault suit at a sprint. I would keep their damage fairly toned down, too.
But as awesome an addition as they seem on paper, how usable would they be? We have to consider the limitations of our controllers (Damn you, PS3 exclusivity!) and what they actually allow for.
For infantry the obvious thing would seem to be an equipment slot item which has a certain amount of space for drones, and a certain limitation on the amount of drones they can deploy concurrently. Switching to this equipment item allows you to lock on to a target. Continue holding to launch a drone. If balance allows for multiple drones to be deployed at once, continue holding to deploy more. You can then switch back to your firearm and return to the fight normally.
An interesting alternative would be to use a weapons slot, rather than an equipment slot, at least for combat drones. This would also allow for different drone sizes and powers, with small drones, probably eWar types, going in the sidearm slot all the way up to heavy (AV?) drones in heavy weapon slots.
Now with vehicles my gut tells me that drones shouldn't be active modules like they are with infantry, but rather an integral part of the vehicle like they are in EVE. This complicates things, because it means they can't work the same way they do for infantry. We could, perhaps, use the right arrow button, similar to the OMS menu, allowing selection of what grouping of drones to deploy. This leaves the pilot with little to no way to control whom the drones target. Having a special reserved spot on the active mod radial menu is an alternative, but a bit clunky.
One interesting idea (though I do not necessarily advocate it) would be to make drones replace small turret slots, so that the pilot can have passengers control drones by remote.
The limitations of controller i believe will not be to much of an issue as i said in OP the control of drones will be just simply deployment and then commands similar to how squad commands are issued (weapon wheel then R3 for squad commands/L3 would be Drone Commands.
I did think of drones replacing weapon slots but I felt this wasnt in spirit of drones as they are in eve, yes it is true combat drones on some ships are the primary dps but all ships that focus on drones can still use turrets aswell, this is because drones first role is to assist its controller in what ever action they undertake, thus why i put attack drones in equipment slot so they assist the controller in various forms but are not the only form of attack (a drone specialist can still only equip a pistol and focus on using drones for combat of course)
You do have a point with RR drones only repping others and in hindsight believe that probably should be how it stays the RR drones shoudnt be used for a solo suit to run off on there own using the drone to rep them up but instead for a suit to use the drone to assist them assisting other.
Drones on vehicles is something I would like to see but currently I do not have an solid ideas on how this could be implemented so reserving a post on my ideas on those till they are fully formed but my general thought is they should be similar to dropsuit drones but on larger size (no direct control and there to assist the user and not replace the controllers main forms of attack)
one thing i am certain of is at no point should a duster have direct control of any drone via remote, |
Yosef Autaal
Circle of Huskarl Minmatar Republic
70
|
Posted - 2013.03.26 14:03:00 -
[4] - Quote
Faerghail Verticorda wrote:While I really like the idea of drones I'm not sure it would be good addition to existing dropsuits, due to them then having to be bad enough to make NOT using them a viable option. On the other hand I'd really love to see them implemented through a new type of dropsuit (maybe even the commander one) or some kind of vehicle (i.e. a drone hive) with which you could actively control more than one for the price of not being able to do anything else while controlling them.
I would like to see a Suit that focuses on drones but restricting access to drones seems wrong to me.
Do to the equipment slot of drones and DCU low/high slot you wont see every single suit using them as means you loose soom functionality.
but a way to combat this further to stop everyone and there son using them is to restrict the attack clones to advance dcu units (only suits with enough bandwidth to use them) with a cpu cost and damage output of drone(drones would cost cpu and powergrid aswell to place in equipment slots) so that having a single damage mod is better in most cases and that at most to get most dps a suit will have damage mods and DCU but having both would be a real strain on CPU which results in no tank as cpu upgrades needed to support.
Obviously with having The DCU and drones both taking up cpu there is risk that they will hog so much cpu they become useless but im hopefull it can be balanced to make it a good option.
Back to your idea of a suit that focuses on drones this suit would have a cpu reduction cost to DCU's and the ability to fit multiple DCUs and for each DCU the suit can control an additional Drone, but only one drone can be assigned to a suit at a time.
example : Controller has 3 DCU fit and 2 types of drones in equipment slots(possibly to have special drone slot that only drones can be fit into to stop the drone suits become sudo logis withlots of equipment slots)
attack drone (1st drone slot)is used this then auto assigns to the controller Controller then sets the drone to defend other using command wheel on a squad member controller then bring out another attack drone which auto assigns to controller again. controller then brings out an assist drone (2nd drone slot) but due to 2nd attack drone being assigned to controller the assist drone does not activate and remains in standby mode. controller then assigns 2nd attack controller to another squad member using defend other order controller then moves to assist drone (in standby mode on floor) and reactivates it the drone the auto assigns to the controller.
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Yosef Autaal
Circle of Huskarl Minmatar Republic
73
|
Posted - 2013.03.26 17:26:00 -
[5] - Quote
Halador Osiris wrote:When I think of drones I imagine a hilarious scenario where a full squad assigns their drones to assist one guy (probably a heavy w/ HMG) and then every time a bullet so much as clips an enemy, they've got 5-10 drones bearing down on them instantly.
This is why i said in earlier post that only one drone can be set to each suit to stop this crazy stuff.
because i imagined it as well and it scared me :P
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