Frontier- A Case for Persistant Drones
- Thread starter Frenotx
- Start date
Until now I didn't care, but I guess you have a point. However remember that we don't really know how they will be implemented. Consumed could mean that you can't use the drone again on your current trip, but it becomes available again after you unload the cargo at the next station/manually once walking around ships is implemented. Or has this been ruled out by devs specifically?
The only reason I'd like persistent drones is because I'd like these guys on my ship:
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especially when the first-person expansion comes out
Let's hope you get all yours home. That other guy was irresponsible.
Personally i'm totally ok with the "balance" reasons behind it... however i think that the concept requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.
I would have prefered another reason to have a single use and in the need to go to a starport to "reactivate" the drones instead of the concept of drones designed to retrieve something and be discarded in the space...
It's been said that they are lost because the items they collect take its slot...
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Don't know about anyone else but I barely scoop at all so persistent drones wouldn't make a noticeable difference to my use of the mechanic.
I would err on the the side of making them persistent but reasonably to very expensive (as in proper capital cost items differing in class and grade) subject to wear and tear needing fuel and/or other consumables/upkeep. This would also encourage judicious use of them and be much more of a drama to lose one.
Exactly,
and i won't even start calculating how many drones an anaconda has to load up for ONE mining run,
apart from the inaccessability of the refinery system...
One shot drones?
No thanks, i'd rather load up my ship with biowaste.
Absolutely. I would love to have a personal pet drone with a nice paintjob. I also prefer the whole "pet drone" idea very much over the ammunition type one-shot drones. I think Frontier really misses a great opportunity here to add an extra layer of gameplay here.
Deleted member 38366
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Improving the mining profession with drone access would first require an
automation of the refinery and its bins.
Without having bins mapped to certain ressources, automatically including fragments
of the selected ressource into a bin and ejecting the rest
you will have a lot of micromanagement problems with drones
scooping an area for you.
What will happen if a drone scoops up a fragment and your refinery buggs or the bins are full?
A manual, time costly workaround, without 100% chance of success to have the proper metal/mineral in
the designated bin.
Why is there the persistent assumption that the drones are 1 shot? No one apart from the rumour mill started that. As I said above, FD has already stated that a drone can collect more than one item before it expires. What we need is the information on how long is a drones life (1, 5, 10, 30 minutes), how much it can collect (1 item at a time or maybe multiples before returning), how many can I equip (5, 10, 50).
I am more interested to know if a drone can be shot down. Think of the satisfaction of getting interdicted by some player pirate who demands you drop your cargo, he launches his drone and you pop them before flying off.
I am more interested to know if a drone can be shot down. Think of the satisfaction of getting interdicted by some player pirate who demands you drop your cargo, he launches his drone and you pop them before flying off.
This implies that once it collects what it's after, it's gone.
See above. Shall we inform Michael that he's been demoted to 'Rumour Mill' now?
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Deleted member 38366
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The OP makes a good case. I want to see how non persistence drones work first. Also got a feeling non persistent drones may be in there to prevent exploits.
From the graphics it look like the drones will be size of a cargo module so having them persistent would cause the problem of permanently limiting cargo space in a craft.
I'm looking forward to see how drones will be integrated into exploration in the future.
From the graphics it look like the drones will be size of a cargo module so having them persistent would cause the problem of permanently limiting cargo space in a craft.
I'm looking forward to see how drones will be integrated into exploration in the future.
I get very attached to my ships ...
When I lose one, even though the recreation is IDENTICAL, I still feel that it's not MY ship. Mad really.
That leads me on to the only April Fool I fell for this year. A Commander who will remain nameless other than 'Warthog' and I were discussing this very point in person on April 1st.
He looked me in the eye and claimed that any replacement ships are now ones that other players have traded in for other ships and therefore your insurance ship might come with damage.
I fell for it for far too long and then offered my curses ...
I was tired ...
Really ...
Oh whatever.
When I lose one, even though the recreation is IDENTICAL, I still feel that it's not MY ship. Mad really.
That leads me on to the only April Fool I fell for this year. A Commander who will remain nameless other than 'Warthog' and I were discussing this very point in person on April 1st.
He looked me in the eye and claimed that any replacement ships are now ones that other players have traded in for other ships and therefore your insurance ship might come with damage.
I fell for it for far too long and then offered my curses ...
I was tired ...
Really ...
Oh whatever.
This implies that once it collects what it's after, it's gone.
See above. Shall we inform Michael that he's been demoted to 'Rumour Mill' now?
I missed this comment from Michael but it would appear to contradict his original post which states
Collection drones will be added and will prove useful for pirates needing to gather cargo in a hurry and also to improve mining efficiency. Players will also be able to transfer fuel using the fuel transfer drones so players can act as buddy tankers for each other.
The collection drones have two modes of operation. The first is a targeted mode where you select something to collect and fire the drone which then collects the cargo or mining chunk and returns it to the ship – make sure that your cargo door is open! This will consume the drone. There’s also an area collection mode so when fired without a target the drone will collect what it can within a radius before it expires.
In the drones area collection mode he states that it will collection what it can implying more than 1 item.
I think the long and short of it is we will need to wait and see how they work!
While i can't currently get my head around, how persistent drones could be more exploitable than disposable ones, i think you might be right.
One thing they certainly will want to prevent is afk mining.
If that's part of their reasoning for disposable drones though, i do not know.
We'll have to wait for the actual implementation.
This drone injects chickens into your ship. That one dispenses soda. Oh, and that one collects rocks and cargo, but it seems ridiculous and useless.
On one side I'm really happy that drones will make it into the game sooner rather than later, but on the other side I muss confess I would have liked to see them implemented in a persistent manner like the OP and other commanders have explained.
That's what I would like to see.
If the consumable nature of the drone is being implemented so that players will have to make a decision when to use a drone and when not to, then they could add a fuel mechanic instead. Each drone can only fly for this amount of time, and they can only be refueled at a station because <insert technobabble here>. Basically the number of drones "uses" available would still be limited to the amount of fuel those drones carry.
This way drones could be balanced using two factors, their refuel cost and their initial cost. Players would have to decide how many drones they want to carry at one time, and how much cargo space they sacrifice to do so. Players would have to take into consideration the initial cost of a drone when abandoning them voluntarily, etc.
That's what I would like to see.
If the consumable nature of the drone is being implemented so that players will have to make a decision when to use a drone and when not to, then they could add a fuel mechanic instead. Each drone can only fly for this amount of time, and they can only be refueled at a station because <insert technobabble here>. Basically the number of drones "uses" available would still be limited to the amount of fuel those drones carry.
This way drones could be balanced using two factors, their refuel cost and their initial cost. Players would have to decide how many drones they want to carry at one time, and how much cargo space they sacrifice to do so. Players would have to take into consideration the initial cost of a drone when abandoning them voluntarily, etc.
if they just had it to where when the drone needed fuel/power you had to either manually recall them or manually dispatch them or both afk mining wouldn't be an issue.
the only way I can conceive afk mining is slowly moving through a belt with the lasers always going. But then you could get jumped by pirates or run into a rock, and in asteroid clusters the rocks themselves have a finite amount of fragments. After that you would have to deal with a circa 1920's refinery manually loading the bins.
There already seems to be enough stop gaps to preventing afk mining besides disposable drones.
If they have a high collection rate before they go offline I can meet them in the middle. But there is a lot more they can do with persistant drones that would go far in making the game less a mile wide and an inch deep. Customization, variation, and vanity skins for those attached to their drones to name a couple examples. Where as with disposable drones that's it, a one dimensional mechanic.
That's not the point of this thread. I'm not saying frontier's current plan is a bad one, nor am I saying that they SHOULD make drones persistent. I'm just attempting to point out a less-than-obvious advantage that a persistent drone system has over a consumable one. Perhaps they've already considered this a decided their current implementation plan is worth the loss. Fine. It's also possible though that they haven't considered this point, and may want to tweak their plan with it now in mind.