Hi all, thought I'd share my ideas for handling drone wings. Sorry for possibly poor formatting, writing this on phone...
Idea is to make drone wing a weapon for the carrier, causing space and energy loss similar to building a weapon array. It's not supposed to make carrier unable to fight directly unless they go all out on drones. Carrier could reasonably have, say, 5 drones amounting 1/5 of carrier mass and still have regular shields and a powerful main gun for capital bashing. Not as good as dedicated battlecruiser of same size, but in the same league still.
I think we want independent area denial drones we have now, as well as customisable, soft capped carrier drones that can be controlled and easily managed and repaired. Thus I suggest using Drone controller computer linked with docking modules, with enhancing drone control modules to increase capacity.
Drone Control Computer would be installed in carrier, providing basic wing control capacity. Added bonus: easily add drone wings to toolbar and easy way to handle spare flights to switch into.
Docking modules linked to drone control computer to mark them as drone docks.
Drone control module linked with computer on the carrier to increase controlled drone amount and/or mass. Linked with bobby ai on drone ship to increase drone maximum mass (maybe)
There are few ways to go about limiting drone size and numbers.
1.
Drone controller could have basic amount, like 5 drones (no mass limit)
Control modules could add 1 drone per 200 blocks perhaps, for the carrier.
Bobby ai could handle a drone of 100 mass alone, and each linked cobtrol module on drone could increase maximum mass by 1.
Computer might use power similarly to weapons, based on amount of drones and control modules. Or it might not. Module requirement might be enough to deter huge wings.
2.
computer on the carrier could handle certain mass of drones, such as 500, no limit on drone number
control modules increase mass limit on carrier
Control computer uses power similar to weapons to cripple a ship that has too many drones.
Control modules not necessary on drone because limiting is carrier based, could be still used though.
I mght be forgetting something, but this ought to be a good start
Pros:
Soft capping
easily configurable
allows easy wing deployment and build
allows distinguishing drones from player controlled large ships as drones have inefficient builds due to control modules
Cons:
Might be a bit of a task to make building system note and inform the player about design faults/issues, such as insufficient modules, power drain and so on.
trying to make power drain based on drone amount and mass update real time might get laggy, but then again you could just update it as drones are docked or lost.
having to include control modules in drones isn't intuitive, although it's exucable with antennas and firewalling, extra sensor suites etc.
Edit:
Regarding viability of small ships, I'd love seeing the same power/block ratio in small ships as suggested earlier. I'd also like to see shape matter in more modules... but I understand if that's not desirable.
I'd also be happy with increased efficiency in small thrusters and shield capacitors (not rechargers), or in other words higher effect/block that has diminishing returns to the level we have them now.
Combined with controllable drone restrictions it should not be gamebreaking while making the early game ships and specialised small ships more reasonable.
Idea is to make drone wing a weapon for the carrier, causing space and energy loss similar to building a weapon array. It's not supposed to make carrier unable to fight directly unless they go all out on drones. Carrier could reasonably have, say, 5 drones amounting 1/5 of carrier mass and still have regular shields and a powerful main gun for capital bashing. Not as good as dedicated battlecruiser of same size, but in the same league still.
I think we want independent area denial drones we have now, as well as customisable, soft capped carrier drones that can be controlled and easily managed and repaired. Thus I suggest using Drone controller computer linked with docking modules, with enhancing drone control modules to increase capacity.
Drone Control Computer would be installed in carrier, providing basic wing control capacity. Added bonus: easily add drone wings to toolbar and easy way to handle spare flights to switch into.
Docking modules linked to drone control computer to mark them as drone docks.
Drone control module linked with computer on the carrier to increase controlled drone amount and/or mass. Linked with bobby ai on drone ship to increase drone maximum mass (maybe)
There are few ways to go about limiting drone size and numbers.
1.
Drone controller could have basic amount, like 5 drones (no mass limit)
Control modules could add 1 drone per 200 blocks perhaps, for the carrier.
Bobby ai could handle a drone of 100 mass alone, and each linked cobtrol module on drone could increase maximum mass by 1.
Computer might use power similarly to weapons, based on amount of drones and control modules. Or it might not. Module requirement might be enough to deter huge wings.
2.
computer on the carrier could handle certain mass of drones, such as 500, no limit on drone number
control modules increase mass limit on carrier
Control computer uses power similar to weapons to cripple a ship that has too many drones.
Control modules not necessary on drone because limiting is carrier based, could be still used though.
I mght be forgetting something, but this ought to be a good start
Pros:
Soft capping
easily configurable
allows easy wing deployment and build
allows distinguishing drones from player controlled large ships as drones have inefficient builds due to control modules
Cons:
Might be a bit of a task to make building system note and inform the player about design faults/issues, such as insufficient modules, power drain and so on.
trying to make power drain based on drone amount and mass update real time might get laggy, but then again you could just update it as drones are docked or lost.
having to include control modules in drones isn't intuitive, although it's exucable with antennas and firewalling, extra sensor suites etc.
Edit:
Regarding viability of small ships, I'd love seeing the same power/block ratio in small ships as suggested earlier. I'd also like to see shape matter in more modules... but I understand if that's not desirable.
I'd also be happy with increased efficiency in small thrusters and shield capacitors (not rechargers), or in other words higher effect/block that has diminishing returns to the level we have them now.
Combined with controllable drone restrictions it should not be gamebreaking while making the early game ships and specialised small ships more reasonable.
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