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Turn Reef drones into real units?

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10 months ago
Drones kinda just suck so why don't we just throw the idea into the bin and just let us control them like normal units. Drones don't really work in zk and I rather them just be a cheap buildable unit for reef and remove commander drones entirely. Drone carriers suck so there's no real point in keeping them alive. What are ya'lls thoughts?
+1 / -0

10 months ago
Nah delete reef and bring back surfboard
+3 / -0
TheFlyingFortress
10 months ago
What is the cost of the drones reef produces?

But yeah, commander drones are just annoying in my opinion.
At least Reef drones should have a longer range to make it actually a unit which can be used for proper pushes.
+0 / -0
10 months ago
quote:
Drones kinda just suck
That's a bit generic. They suck as in can't capture efficiently? They die to fast? Can't control them?

I have specced a game with Reefs and looked fun (not sure how efficient) - capturing some lone units without air support could have an impact.

Commanders drones can be annoying for cloaked stuff - not sure if this is included in the "they suck" assessment.
+2 / -0
chaplol
Controllability is definitely drones' main problem IMO. It's actually pretty easy to control reef drones with a force-attack. Its specific problems are more apparent with commanders, where force-firing... shoots the commander's weapon AND sends the drones off. When you don't have line of sight the drones will happy go that direction.... but the commander will walk through hellfire to catch up with those drones. Drone-attack distance is also dictated by weapon range... which is a strange touch. So the easiest way I found to control those drones is to dig the commander then give it all of its range upgrades.

Point being that this weird middle-state of it-works-but-only-if-you-shoot-ur-pewpew feels like a pretty strong reflection that drones could use a touchup.
+0 / -0
10 months ago
I never thought of using a drone for comm, but they were annoying sometimes for de-cloak purposes. Considering Quant's rule (from my pov) comm drones could be just made better to un-cloak stuff (ex: have 2, that go around comm at a large distance, to still around a perfectly timed skuttle to pass through) and remove all the fire mechanics.
+1 / -0
10 months ago
If you ask me, turning drones into actual units would be nice to remove the finicky nature of them currently. Being that they're not controllable in a direct way or even target-able by other units directly by the player.

Give them a build limit, freedom to go anywhere, and a energy cost alongside build time of some form to balance.

I feel especially if Reef is to remain the way it is with a ability as powerful as capturing. Being able to specifically select and target the drones is gonna be important.
+0 / -0
10 months ago
Also, to add to my previous comment I forgot to address previously mentioned issue else where 'well if i have reef drones all die from the same reef when I have two, then I'm spending longer to recover/rebuild due to building slots' Reef currently has four slots... so that issue can be resolved by having a max of 4 for Reef, and a limit to Com's having 1.

This avoids the concern of having say a max of 8 from Reefs, meaning I never wanna send in 8 from the same Reef, since with four slots. You'll take twice as long as sending four from the two of em instead.
+0 / -0

10 months ago
A potentially not-obvious option is that giving a drone parent (like a commander) a target (default hotkey T) acts as an order to the drones. So you can move commander drones around without giving the commander a direct attack order. A little finesse I implemented back in... good grief, 2016? I can feel my hair going grey.
+1 / -0


10 months ago
Drones sort of suck, but I don't think they suck enough to remove and I haven't heard a good replacement. Drones are supposed to follow the set target command as well as attack commands. Is that working well enough?
+1 / -0
TheFlyingFortress
10 months ago
They should have an option like Future Wars that lets the reef command the drones, like a special attack order (other than disarm missiles).
+0 / -0
EDIT: Drones are free, if you ignore the cost of the carrier. ;-)
+0 / -0
I have been trying out reef in games, the disarm is very very nice. When paired with the drones it makes a lethal combo!



One problem I noticed was when throwing reef with drones around it was the reef would hit the drones and damage them.
Also throwing reef with 2 likho onboard is really weird to watch.

The "keep upright" or whatever makes it spaz about like crazy when it goes upside down and stop moving in mid air. Which reduces the throw range by about half.



Another thing that would be nice is a toggle on the reef itself to disallow planes to land on it. I had a game where I made reef and LUrankAdminAnir was constantly complaining about their planes landing on the reef and getting shot at. So a way to stop planes landing on it when you are in dangerous areas would be good.
+1 / -0
10 months ago
If reef drones became real units... why not just turn Reef into a floating air factory instead?

It could have a subset of units from both airplane and gunship facs (sort of like how Athena can make some ground units but not all of them)

+1 / -0

10 months ago
+1 to reef rearm pads being a toggle. In fact, it could have 2 modes:
- pure support mode (rearm pads + maybe even AoE jammer/shield to keep rearming planes safe from artemis)
- pure assault mode (no rearm pads but builds drones, maybe even some armor a-la solar panels (with rearm pads flipping over or closing up somehow to indicate state change, combat regen +50 hp/s) - idea being you could actually throw it with a bunch of sirens into assault operation for close-in air support and to soak up damage.

Disarm missiles could be available in support mode only - such that it would be forced to switch modes to fire them. Or you need a second reef behind.
+0 / -0

10 months ago
What would be really neat is if the landing pads made units invulnerable.
If that was the case then Reef would be an asset for air players, instead of a liability.
+0 / -0

10 months ago
Invulnerable is not ZK way. But having a shield or cloak for them would be nice indeed.
+1 / -0