Right now i'm trying to figure out a way to make it so the drone player does not get crrrushed at start. Let me paint a scene for you.

Drone player starts with a single weak unit. He starts to build his base maybe has two or 3 units when BAM flagship hovers over his patch of land and bombards him to death. The drone player has just been flagship rushed out of the game. Anyone have any ideas on how to fix?

I'm also open to any other ideas regarding the drones.

mmm i can think of 3 fixes not perfect though

1) high armor and offense for starting unit, to put it on par with flagships
2) higher armor (Well this would increase survivability its not perfect)
3) allow for cheap stationary offensive weapon perhaps? though this would not stop the cruiser targeting the starting unit and hoping to get outta there before it gets taken down

Good ideas. Let's keep them coming. A few things I had though of were.

A. Drone Squads: Start with a small troop of drones to defend and quickly expand.

B. Drone Hive: A drone flagship base basically.

C. CA/ZK's turboboost thingy to speed up drone expansion at the start.

D.Stealth/Cloak/Burrow Drones so they can hide.

Not really in love with C. It seems too special rulesy. B. seems unoriginal.

I would personally be fond of the squad option. It would also allow for specific "start" units, which could yield AA units to immediately discourage Flagship rushers.

Another thing is that we now know how to kill units after X seconds. Just throwing it out there, but maybe have an adequate anti-air unit spawn from the get-go, and have it die after, say, 5 minutes?

Would have to remember that the solution should not be able to dominate the Flagship in a counter-situation of Drone rushing. A balance of power would of course be optimal.

Considering that other players get a full combat unit to start and the Drone player gets nothing but a weak con, I don't think there's any solution other than giving the Drone player some kind of goodie to start with too. Mabe have it self-D into a pile of space-rocks after a minute or two so the player knows that their little defense is *temporary*, but the space-rocks self-D ensures that they'll keep it close to home.

I like the squad of drones idea... or the potential to do so (starting unit has the option of having it's first command be to spend 100% of starting resources to build a squad of 5 drones... but loses this option if they do something else first)

Having it be a 'spend 100% of resources' options completely negates the point, as the "normal" factions would then still be at a major advantage no matter what they do. Normal factions starting with a combat unit AND resources.

My understanding is that the drones are supposed to be a challenge to play well... providing additional advantages to those who can handle them... and the problem was making it less "random chance has eliminated the possibility of winning because the enemy happened to come across the drone before he has a chance to establish himself"...

now it's "50% chance to fend off the enemy, if applicable, or otherwise you just borked all your resources"

Oh, I was thinking more "less chance of 5 drones being found accidentally by early scouts then one". I was also thinking the cost to produce 5 drones would be about 50% "all your starting resources" so you'd be trading time for resources... maybe making the first 5 units the first drone build cost twice as much but take no time to build.

The Drone hive ship although you think it might be unoriginal i think is a cool idea.

Alternatively having drones able to burrow is also a cool idea.

Perhaps drones could even have a "Stealth" unit that burrows slowly. (as opposed to normal units being stationary when they burrow.

another option is a Crabe like thing from ZK, allow them to burrow or morph into an armored form still able to fire?

A ship just makes me think of this

Which is kind of goofy.

drones hmm.. well to put it in perspective modern weak AI controlled machines can move with at least 100 times the reaction speed of humans (not including the time it takes to maneuver). which makes them really awesome at killing meatbags before the meatbags have time to react.

I don't know the story behind the CT drones, but I imagine they view meat bags as an inferior infestation that needs to be properly disposed of? Makes the most sense to me, so have some kind of systematic hunter-killer system of drones to fit specific roles. AA, Anti-mech, anti-vehicle. Maybe drones like to fire small drones behind the enemy lines to attack vulnerable components?

I like the idea of a flying carrier with attack drones, I think CA/ZK has a sea carrier with attack drones you could maybe use that code?

I needed another tank armor class drone so i came up with this thing. It's sort of goofy. What do you think? Put into play or no? To look at it in game just do
/cheat
/give ktridroneroller

Make the drone player start with 20 or so weak units.

(Adjust number to match balance)

knorke shared his start script with me but it looked way different from mine and I could not figure out how to make it start with multiple units.

It falls under the list of "Thing's I'd like to do but can't make work."

in spring tanks the spawned squad is hardcoded (can not be changed in sidedata.lua) because lazy.

but game_spawn.lua could be pimped up to allow something like:

would that be helpful?
or maybe even multiple different start units, like 1x flagship, 5x bminer, 1x mech cruiser

btw, this:
basically does not happen. drones spread & multiply very fast while the flagship can only be at one place at a time.

Starting Invisibility, that gets moar and moar expensive?

Also faked drones, who cheap, fast built, and battleunable, keep the battleflagship busy- dragging him towards a faked base. Got to find the needle in the haystak there.


Another option is to hide drones in rocks- and as long as they dont get reclaimed, they can dig out once the flagship has gone by, and start tribaltribblestrouble again.

Another idea is, that drone can cling together, forming sort of a faked flagship, hiding among the enemies (suspense guaranted) imagine Players bragging in main.
>> And there i was right beneath his eyes, one shot, and i would have been dead- but no, he went on and on, so i got my second chance.

Fuck this idea is so good, i got to rip it off from here into the journeywar.

Or you create a sort of cheap defensdrone, that is extremely shortlived and slowmoving. Sort of a turretdrone, that expands rapidly, kills a lot, and then dies of.

Same concept, only this time the turret drone is hidden in the ground, and kills like cancer, slowly draining health from the unit it is attached to- for this def cycle has to be wider.

The 'start with more drones' option sounds good, maybe add in a ground-based AA unit? That's the one thing i find lacking in drones, something that walks around among the other drones and protects them from cruisers and bombers and such.