So, Enclave Starships

[Marmu23]

 I absolutely adore the drones, and use them in most games. Their only problems are they will sit on top of the enclaves unless i give the enclaves a free roaming order, and they will join the control group of the enclave when built. What I propose to make them hassle free would be to put drones on FRD on creation, and not put them in the control group of the enclaves. Those 2 things would significantly reduce the annoyance of using them.

 Also it would be super nice if unlocking turrets mk2 wasn't needed to get drones mk1.

[Vyndicu]

One of the biggest reason why I don't use enclave is because the drones is limited by their self-decay that all neinzul drones has. I don't like that those drones upon spawn don't start in FRD mode and seek out targets of opportunities.

If I put enclave starship in FRD mode and also build fleetships. Then both will start in FRD mode and if you are in a system that you should not have FRD on. Then it is a hassle to micro to have drone start in FRD AND other stuff to not start in FRD while in hostile territory not to mention .

We already pay a hefty energy cost (All mk 1 up to mk 4 total cap cost 180k which is equal to four matter converter with 20k left over) and it doesn't make sense to pay more energy to micro more for enclave drones that has such limit uses. Don't get me wrong they can be useful if done right. But with so many superweapon enabled in my prefer playstyle enclave drones are having a hard time screaming "pick me and use me".

[keith.lamothe]

1. not sure if even possible, but if it can be made that unlocking mk x enclave automatically unlocks drones of mk x-1 in addition to the usual method of turrets that can work. or, drop turrets altogether, and make drones just part of the enclave. if this was done, then k costs could conceivably be the same.

That sounds like a lot of firepower to be handing out for 0/2000/2000 K

brae enclaes would help too.

I think your phone's trying to speak latin now.  At least, I hope that's what that is.

But with so many superweapon enabled in my prefer playstyle enclave drones are having a hard time screaming "pick me and use me".

If you have multiple superweapons on (or even one, if it's FS or possibly Golems) then I think it makes perfect sense to ignore several base game units, this one included.  Though it may have some use even there, depending on player personality and the situation.

[chemical_art]

keith, if we were following the 4 and 5 split, then you could make the drones (mk-1) unlocked, so you would need a ii to unlock mk i's.

if it was needed so that the k costs for the 5 were turned into 0 / 2000 / 3000 / 4000 / 5000, would that work?  so there would be no drones for free, and no 5 drones

[Vyndicu]

If you have multiple superweapons on (or even one, if it's FS or possibly Golems) then I think it makes perfect sense to ignore several base game units, this one included.  Though it may have some use even there, depending on player personality and the situation.

For hilarity I decide to sent two mk 1 enclaves with all 4 drones unlocked against 42 neinzul hybrids. When I was trying to kite the enclave starship guess what happened? All of the drone was ALSO trying to kite from the hybrids which didn't help much... To keep enclave starship in FRD mode it would have to stand still and die a fiery death. So right now I think they are only useful against a stationary target and have backup to support them in case AI threat fleet decide to take a peekaboo.

I think the biggest thing would help with microing enclave starship a lot is allow you to have two set of orders. One for drones either on FRD like how roaming neinzul drones work now and one for "normal" fleetship and enclave itself. I am not sure if that is possible within AI war. If not then change enclave drones to ALWAYS start in FRD mode or have a toggle for it in CTRLS menu.

[keith.lamothe]

Not sure I'd actually want to do this, but it seems possible: any interest in making the enclave drones follow the pattern of the champion drones, where you build the bay module on the ship and it just automatically produces the drones (in frd) when enemies are present?  That way drone production would be in-parallel with normal fleet ship production (and with each other, for that matter).

[chemical_art]

Not sure I'd actually want to do this, but it seems possible: any interest in making the enclave drones follow the pattern of the champion drones, where you build the bay module on the ship and it just automatically produces the drones (in frd) when enemies are present?  That way drone production would be in-parallel with normal fleet ship production (and with each other, for that matter).

that would be great, it would reduce  micro.

would the production of the drones be influenced by the number unlocked, or would having one produce the total number of drones at the same rate?

[Vyndicu]

Not sure I'd actually want to do this, but it seems possible: any interest in making the enclave drones follow the pattern of the champion drones, where you build the bay module on the ship and it just automatically produces the drones (in frd) when enemies are present?  That way drone production would be in-parallel with normal fleet ship production (and with each other, for that matter).

Oh yeah that would definitely work. No objection from me.

[TechSY730]

Objection from me.

I have already had lots of issues with those champion drones "stumbling around" to get to their FRD target, getting too close to a guard post, and then waking up tons of defenders.

[Vyndicu]

Objection from me.

I have already had lots of issues with those champion drones "stumbling around" to get to their FRD target, getting too close to a guard post, and then waking up tons of defenders.

If you don't want to wake up sleeping AI ships don't put any modules on the enclave starship. If you want to well you know what to do. It is not mandatory to put modules in.

[keith.lamothe]

would the production of the drones be influenced by the number unlocked, or would having one produce the total number of drones at the same rate?

Production rate would be per-module, and the total "in the air" would not be explicitly capped (only capped implicitly by drone_lifetime/module_cycle_time, and drone_lifetime would probably need adjustment), so having multiple modules of the same kind (whether on the same enclave or across multiple enclaves) would increase the production rate of that type.

That said, that would incentivize "going deep" on one drone type (in tech unlocks) and not reward (as much) a broader set of drone unlocks.

@TechSY730: putting the enclave in stand-down would stop the spawns.  Does that not happen with the champ bays?  I think with the champ bays you can even stand them down individually, though you have to go to close zoom for that and hello micro.


Anyway, I'm thinking a better idea than the modular bays is to to have each enclave just directly produce drones every "cycle" (a specific number of seconds, to be determined), and produce 1 of each eligible type (according to turret unlocks and the enclave's mark) each cycle.  So a mkIV would produce 16 drones every cycle (mkI needler, mkII needler, mkIII needler, mkIV needler, mk I laser, mkII laser, etc) at once if you somehow had all those turret unlocks.  And having more enclaves on the field would increase overall drone production.  Potentially to OP levels but we could tweak as needed.

Again, this would be in parallel to normal fleet ship production (albeit the code won't be terribly happy about that, but it can deal, I'll just switch it over to the abstract-factory logic for the drones rather than normal build points).  The drones would no longer be engie-rushable, though, much as you can't park a cap of engie IIs on a Spire Blade Spawner to flood the universe with blades.

[Faulty Logic]

I'm against the drone bay idea. I like getting rewarded for having all the drones, and like being able to produce them faster if I have engineers along.

[chemical_art]

I like the idea. It rewards getting higher drones because you make a drone each cycle that you are eligible for. Keeping in mind the K costs for each drone is still tied to an individual turret unlock, and the enclave itself costs K to, what you get with is a potentially great strategy that can be built around if you build the K into it.

It would also help to clear out the enclaves getting "stuck" trying to make both drones and regular units. It is hard to really tell the enclaves to prioritize drones over everything else right now, but this method would do it perfectly.

[contingencyplan]

Put me down as a "yes" to the drone rework.

To address TechSY's concern, how difficult would it be to add a keybinding for "power down / disable drone creation," so that the spawner can stay active (e.g., enclaves can produce units, champs can still shoot) but the drone modules stop producing drones?

[Winge]

I like the second idea you mentioned, Keith (automatic drone production, no modules).  That would also answer Faulty's desire for multiple Turret unlocks to be beneficial.  It would also make the Higher Mark Enclaves more desireable.