Exactly what the title says, why not make a Probing Drone?
Something biggish, like a frieghter, to slowly but consistently lay probes. Slow enough as to not outmatch a group of Hvy Scouts, and consistently enough as to outmatch a group of Hvy Scouts (Less docking, less probes per minute.). It'd be good for big and small games, but preferably bigger maps.
I was thinking it'd either be Gar or Sup tech (as Sup gots teh probes) and cost somewhere between 1500 and 3000.
Thoughts? Opinions?
Probing Drone
Drone AI is rather limited, so I doubt this is possible without a code change.
Any job worth doing with a laser is worth doing with many, many lasers. -Khrima
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
Actually: Dedicated layers: How about a Pulse Drone: Essentially, a drone pulse probe that costs money, and must be deployed as a drone, but has better scan than regular pulse probe? Basically, imagine a Tower Layer that deploys a Tower that doesn't shoot, has a ginormous scan range, and only lasts a few moments.
It will make hunting HTTs/SBs easier, but to keep using it, you'd need to keep flushing money down the drain.
On second thought, that's a terrible idea because it removes the human element form pulse-probing, and makes it less challenging. Having money shouldn't be an adequate compensation for having a bad team, after all. >_>
But still, that's one idea. And maybe it can even be properly balanced by playing around with scan range and lifespan until it isn't a guaranteed "Kill all sbs/htt in sector" button.
It will make hunting HTTs/SBs easier, but to keep using it, you'd need to keep flushing money down the drain.
On second thought, that's a terrible idea because it removes the human element form pulse-probing, and makes it less challenging. Having money shouldn't be an adequate compensation for having a bad team, after all. >_>
But still, that's one idea. And maybe it can even be properly balanced by playing around with scan range and lifespan until it isn't a guaranteed "Kill all sbs/htt in sector" button.
Last edited by Makida on Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Probing should be challenging, it should take up pilots on your team, and it should take time and strategic thought... It should not be easy to dump a hundred probes into a sector and eye everything. Information warfare, hiding from enemy sensors, and taking the enemy by surprise are key points of what makes Allegiance fun... Mass probing should be encouraged in the sense that people should be encouraged to probe, but not in the sense that technology should be created to do it for them or to make probing much easier.
This isn't a magical wand saying, "Let there be probes!", with the result being a sector filled with a 100 probes. This is a drone, slowly flying around laying probes (preferably in a spherecial pattern which is evenly dispersed) which requires itself to redock and refill it's stockpile of probes (after whatever number of probes would be decided on as being balanced for the would be decided on variables of the drone are laid). 1 Hvy scout with a carrier would easily outmatch what I am proposing. Probing would still be challenging (defenseless drone), would still take up strategic thought (money for the drone, deciding where to probe), and would make Allegiance more fun (more options, more objs, balanced) with this addition.
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I think it'd be pretty hard to make it good enough for someone to want to buy it instead of telling a couple of scouts "Go probe X!" for free, and at the same time not so good that it'd be cheese. If it's worth the money, then that's a dis-incentive for getting people to actually go out there and probe. If it's not particularly good when compared to what scouts can achieve, then no-one would spend money on it, when probe scouts are free (especially if you'd need someone to defend the drone, which means you'd still need a pilot on your team taken up *anyway*... I suppose there's a happy middle ground somewhere between these extremes, but it's hard to find.
Also I think probing is just one of those things that's fun for actual people to do. I like it, anyway. STOP TRYING TO REPLACE ME WITH A MACHINE. <cries>
At any rate, if there's no way to program such a drone, it's kind of a moot point, I suppose. >_> I imagine this is just something fundamental in the Allegiance code, and to give drones this ability we'd need someone to go in and basically design an entirely new bunch of drone AI code from scratch, which might be pretty hard.
Edit: Also, placing probes in a spherical pattern isn't necessarily all that useful. The top priority is probing alephs, *then* you can worry about dropping a few probes throughout the sector to catch things sneaking through.
Also I think probing is just one of those things that's fun for actual people to do. I like it, anyway. STOP TRYING TO REPLACE ME WITH A MACHINE. <cries>
At any rate, if there's no way to program such a drone, it's kind of a moot point, I suppose. >_> I imagine this is just something fundamental in the Allegiance code, and to give drones this ability we'd need someone to go in and basically design an entirely new bunch of drone AI code from scratch, which might be pretty hard.
Edit: Also, placing probes in a spherical pattern isn't necessarily all that useful. The top priority is probing alephs, *then* you can worry about dropping a few probes throughout the sector to catch things sneaking through.
Last edited by Makida on Sat Jul 11, 2009 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.