Turn Reef drones into real units?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

They should have an option like Future Wars that lets the reef command the drones, like a special attack order (other than disarm missiles).

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 Anir 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 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.

Invulnerable is not ZK way. But having a shield or cloak for them would be nice indeed.